Hacker News Reader

Comment by jfasi | Hacker News Reader

Given illegal nature of Silk Road 2, I can't help but be suspicious of this explanation of the hack. If someone's sufficiently willing to flaunt laws as to operate a site devoted to selling contraband, what stops them from taking advantage of their position of power and stealing from their users?

View on HN

It's entirely possible to be in support of a free and peaceful drug trade, while at the same time being morally against theft. I don't know why you're lumping the two.

There's a difference between supporting a free and peaceful drug trade and participating in a very-much illegal drug trade. It's possible to be a hemp-wearing, tree-hugging hippie and be pro-death penalty - it also happens to be rare.

the law has very little to do with supporting freedom and peace these days.

That is very true, but there's still an enormous chasm for your average person between being mostly-law-abiding (I'm not counting things like jaywalking or going 5mph over the limit) and participating in drug sales, which could land you life in prison. Hell, I think drug laws are incredibly unjust in the US, and that the government is overstepping its bounds left and right. By no means should you infer from this that I'm not careful of the legality of my actions. I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume that someone participating in a life-in-prison-risking drug enterprise would also be willing to make other illegal/immoral decisions - in fact I think it would be foolish and naive NOT to assume that as a default, despite the fact that it will of course not be true in every case.

Having dealt passingly with a large number of marijuana dealers, I disagree strongly with your assessment.

Do you have any statistics to back this up, or just the naive reasoning "Well, it's a /serious/ crime, so they'd probably commit others, because only bad people commit /serious/ crimes"?

I'm an ex-heroin addict, and you'd be quite surprised. At least here in Australia, that particular "community" is quite anti-violence, at least at the purchasing/dealer level. Move up the ranks and then that will change, however.

Overzealous drug laws make normally-regular people be defined as criminals. As such, they are forced into contact with other criminals. Some of these criminals break moral laws as well as legal ones.

At this stage those two thing (free and peaceful drug trade, and illegal drug trade) are very much the same thing.

Conflating law with ethics. Becoming more prevalent as the number of laws increase.

I can't back it up with science (someone know of any research?), but it sure seems to be a trend when you compare among countries in various stages.

Well, Nuremberg trials and the American revolution show that ethics are above law in many peoples minds at least when convenient. And in many ways, opposite expressions of the notion of Natural Law vs. State. (not Socrates, of course)

Is that the Nueremburg trials that von Braun was prosecuted at? Because the history of that trial showed me that justice is applied at the prosecution's convenience rather than in the cause of justice, even for the most reprehensible.

Nuremberg trials are not a paragon, merely an example where a majority of the people believe that ethics/natural law trumps the laws of the state. This says nothing of its actual conduct.

Yeah, that's "possible". But what about "likely"?

This is willful ignorance.

What drug kingpin would ever be morally against theft? Does the fact that this trade is being done via the internet imply that these groups have all adopted some kind of code of honor? DPR of SR1 put out hits on people.

Parent's suspicion is right on the money.

Because most people feel an ethical obligation to follow the law. (And I'm not saying this as a member of this group). So if you find a person who does not feel compelled to follow the law, they could be an ethical anarchist, or altogether unethical. Purely given how fringe anarchism still is, I don't think it's too unreasonable to guess that the person is in the second category.

I think that's exactly wrong, given the number of people who don't feel compelled to say, follow the rules about when to cross the road, but don't commit theft or murder.

It shows that large classes of people are willing to follow rules that they think are ethical, while ignoring others they regard as immoral or amoral.

It doesn't like a moral argument that's being made, rather a probability. Yes someone can be motivated by libertarian values and enable crime. But what's the likelihood that it's a crook looking for a way to steal?

I don't have a great opinion on this argument, just clarifying it.

Very true, but at the same time, the anonymity prized by many in support of the site or currencies like BTC makes it a easy target for scammers. I'm saying this happened here, but I'm honestly surprised DPR1 had as much money in BTC, and lived in the US. i.e. Build a system, run it as legit until you're storing $100m of other people's money. Then use the anonymity the system provided you disappear with their money to a county where you broke no laws and provides no extradition to the USA. Spend the rest of your life sipping mai-tais on the beach. Anonymity can be the enemy of accountability.

There is a huge moral difference between the sort of victimless-crime-contraband that is on SR (especially since SR1 at least, not sure about SR2, actively filtered out child porn, weapons, assassinations and all of the other truly scary things that you can potentially sell on an anonymous market), and stealing millions of dollars from people at least a few of whom are dependent on substances and desperately need the money to get them in time.

Also, it hasn't really happened yet, but vigilantes.

> especially since SR1 at least, not sure about SR2, actively filtered out child porn, weapons, assassinations

Except for when they needed those things.

Notice that morality doesn't have to have anything to do with this argument. As a matter of pragmatism, the operator of a Silk Road-type site is almost certain to harbor a conviction that he can do so without getting caught (regardless of whether the authorities have morality on their side).

The same same goes for stealing from your customers: of course you won't get caught, what are your victims going to do? File a police report that the money they gave to a contraband site to presumably purchase contraband was stolen? The same conviction that makes it possible for them to operate Silk Road 2 makes it possible for them to steal from their customers.

I think what he's trying to say that it's far less likely for a libertarian "legalize drugs" type of person to screw a bunch of people over.

Like, when you facilitate selling drugs, there is no victim. Hell, you probably prevented having a victim. When you facilitate selling weapons/assassinations/child porn, there is a victim. The latter type of person would be more likely to victimize his/her customers than the former.

> Like, when you facilitate selling drugs, there is no victim.

Ah, I'm pretty sure only libertarians feel this way...

This does not invalidate my point. Even though it may not be true, many people think that running a drug dealing website is for the betterment of society. It's less likely for the owners to rip its customers off and be the "bad guy".

You'd be wrong. Plenty of people on the left say the same thing.

Hell no!

I'm far from libertarian but the drug laws are a travesty and selling restricted substances is pretty much the definition of a victimless 'crime'.

The myth of the first-hit-is-free, sell-at-the-school-gates 'pusher' is mostly just that, a myth. If you buy drugs you are not a victim. You may have problems and I believe that we should make government assistance available for those that do. However right now the state and its laws criminalise whole swathes of society for no good reason - there is no victim.

> it's far less likely for a libertarian "legalize drugs" type of person to screw a bunch of people over.

Why? Does being libertarian somehow grant a +3 to morality?

please stop with this idle speculation. 'the operator... is almost certain to..."? give me a break. you don't know them and ametur hour psychology isn't going to contribute anything to the discussion.

LOL @ "victimless-crime-contraband." What a joke. Where do you think the majority of drugs come from? Some hippie's backyard? See the world's stop producers of drugs and you'll find violent, broken countries many of whom are run by drug cartels.

I suggest you think a bit harder about the causes and effects of this situation, because you seem to have them reversed.

How we got here is largely irrelevant to the very real fact that the drug trade is impossible to describe as victimless.

That attempt at logic could be applied to any number of otherwise harmeless situations. It doesn't really hold up imo.

It is not impossible. Some guy grows weed in his spare room and sells to his friend. No victim there.

That's certainly not the reality of the cocaine and heroin trade.

Take this one further, and you might ask why it's all run by cartels. We make it profitable for them with prohibition. We give them the resources to wage these wars ourselves. The only reason this violent industry exists is because the government makes it that way with unjust laws. Tax and regulate just like alcohol and it will be run by normal non-violent people. Just like liquor stores. Prohibition has never and will never work.

> between the sort of victimless-crime-contraband that is on SR

Are you really that naive, or was that for the sake of your argument?

There's no way the drugs they sell on SR come all from some dude's dorm room, specially if it's not weed, and if they want it to be a profitable business.

This is also the guy that just talked a bunch of trash about the last Dread Pirate Roberts, and how he was so much better about security. Jinxed yourself, bro.

Granted this was supposedly in the Bitcoin protocol itself, but for real, there's really never any need to stick your neck out to talk about how great your security is...

I think you're confusing Silk Road 2 with Atlantis. They did talk trash and flapped their wings with fancy Youtube commercials etc before they suddenly closed down soon before Silk Road got busted. Silk Road 2 always claimed to be the rightful heir to the original Silk Road, and have their own Dread Pirate Roberts.

This is the interview I was referring to: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/dread-pirate-robe...

A lot of talk for something that just started, and had a massive fail one week after publication.

* this was supposedly in the Bitcoin protocol itself*

Cue a line of BTC-promoting ostriches claiming that the protocol is fan-fucking-tastic and in no need of improvement.

That is roughly what I thought when I saw this. These people are dealing with criminal enterprises. What do they expect?

SR1 was a criminal enterprise as well, and there's no indication DPR was stealing from his users. Trust is at least as valuable in the criminal world as it is in legitimate enterprise, if not more so. A criminal who runs a trustworthy criminal enterprise is likelier to do well in the long run than one who rips off his customers.

  A criminal who runs a trustworthy criminal enterprise is likelier to do well 
  in the long run than one who rips off his customers.

Sure, yet it happens all of the time. Not everyone is logical and forward thinking, and sometimes they just want a big score.

did DPR do well in the long run?

DPR's failure was opsec, not trustworthiness. Dishonest criminals get caught due to poor opsec, too.

SR1 was a criminal enterprise as well, and there's no indication DPR was stealing from his users

That reminds me of arguing along the lines of, I played Russian Roulette before, and I didn't lose. Therefore, I will not lose this time either.

Allegedly, SR2 was setup in ways which made it much, much easier to run off with larger quantities of money than with SR1. Given the circumstances, you could reasonably conclude this would happen.

Running off with the money is probably the smart move. The quicker you can get off the radar with something like this, the better your chance of not ending up in jail. It is entirely possible they are made for life, and with no more incoming transactions, if they haven't left a trail, they can have their cake and eat it too.

You can easily throw that trust away and profit some bitcoins if your face is unknown. In the real world someone would come after you sooner or later. In the world SR1/SR2, Bitcoins and Tor? Only if the NSA has an interest.

But there was indications that DPR was murdering people who got in his way. Hardly an "ethical upcheck" here, and if he didn't steal from his users it was only because he didn't feel it necessary, not because he felt ethically bound for that.

In fact ensuring the ideal of SR paying out fairly would allow his business to grow and therefore his lack of theft could easily be entirely and completely pragmatic without needing a shred of ethics to support it.

I see your point, but stealing from drug dealers is usually a dangerous business.

It's not like he can say "sorry, but it wasn't me. Still friends?". The risks are probably the same, so it's better to be hated AND a thief :-P

i'm assuming if dealers know who he is then dea, atf, or whoever would get to him first.

Given the latest news it is also very likely that the FBI with the help of some other government cyber-crime unit raided Silk Road 2. You will see it only when the thieves will try to sell or exchange the bitcoins.

The FBI won't do, and it will be in the news sooner and later.

The fact that they would be cutting their own revenue stream? I'm not saying its not possible but really this is just speculation. I could just as easily surmise that it was from a government or banks who feel threatened by bitcoin...

With any other business I would agree, but a $90k+ payout would probably be very attractive for someone running a clone of a drug site that got publicly busted just months before. I would imagine these guys have a countdown to when they get arrested ticking in their heads...

until you have proof its all just speculation. there are many possibilities.

No, $90k is peanuts. Ross Ulbricht was making $19k a day on SR1, according to the complaint. Given that SR2, for all its problems and pissed off users, was still the biggest market, $90k is not worth killing it over. The estimates of >4500btc, on the other hand...

How about self-interest? SR2 was not a very big site, and building a much larger business based on being a good operator of an underground market would earn him significantly more money than what he would have made by stealing the funds.

lol and there was gullible little me thinking 'wow the hackers moved fast'

Well, the hackers did move fast, from the Bitcoin discussions I've been following. That's why it's such a good excuse for the SR2 operators: because it's a real hack, it has a surface plausibility.

The sad thing is that not only will people trust people like this, but they'll advocate for them having more power over their lives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program

Reply on news.ycombinator.com