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Saturday, August 5, 2017

Governments waging unwinnable war on darknet

The AlphaBay Shutdown Will Be as Futile as the Drug War Itself - Foundation for Economic Education - Working for a free and prosperous world - Nils Biedermann:

July 27, 2017 - "Recently, two major darknet markets, AlphaBay and Hansa Market, were seized by the FBI, DEA, EUROPOL and European Union member states. AlphaBay was the largest darknet market totaling about 40,000 vendors and 200,000 customers. For comparison, AlphaBay was about ten times bigger than Silk Road, another darknet market seized in 2013.

"Shortly after his arrest, AlphaBay founder Alexandre Cazes killed himself ... while [in] custody.

"On these websites, consumers are able to purchase drugs, weapons or counterfeit products of all kinds ... around 250,000 drug and chemical listings were online by the time of the shutdown (compared to about 100,000 for everything else). A conservative estimate of the total transactions since its creation in 2014 is one billion USD....

"These darknet markets work very much like any ... legal regular online market giving you the freedom to choose from a variety of products. They have a feedback system where a customer can voice his opinion about the drug as well. Vendors try to avoid bad reviews in fear of losing their good reputation, just as Yelp operates for 'above board' businesses....

"While there are a lot of similarities between darknet markets and street markets, there are huge differences as well. Darknet markets do not involve physical contact, confrontation or violence.... While the proliferation of Darknet Markets is unlikely to have an impact on systemic drug crime, the security for the consumer while buying the drug is significantly increased. The direct public feedback system ... rewards vendors and ensures the quality of the drugs. Drugs with high purity and without added substances allow consumers to properly dose the drug, reduce side effects through unwanted substances and therefore enhance security.

"History tells us that simply taking down these sites will not work.... The takedown of AlphaBay will by no means stop internet drug trafficking. It will give room to a lot of smaller sites to appear. The encryption is going to get stronger and better.... The only thing this operation has achieved is a momentary stop....

"In our efforts to reduce the drug supply we have wasted huge amounts of money, disregarded human rights, supported authoritarian structures and promoted violence and corruption. It is time to stop."

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/the-alphabay-shutdown-will-be-as-futile-as-the-drug-war-itself/?utm_medium=push&utm_source=push_notification
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