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fpazdzin
at February 04,2016
It makes sense that you can purchase nearly anything from the internet these days. It’s so much easier to remain anonymous on the web than it is out in the physical world. I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t that much police resources being allocated to shutting this down since there are still so many people who still use the standard methods of purchasing illegal drugs in person from a dealer on the street. Not everyone is as technologically knowledgeable enough to know that this is even an option so the police force will probably continue to focus more on the street bought drugs than the online bought drugs. Though, I believe that this will eventually become the leading process for making these kinds of purchases as more and more people learn how to do it.
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mcoates1
at March 29,2016
One thing that I never fully understood is how something like this can remain for the most part, untouched. I think that for the most part, it's the fact that the transactions are anonymous and hard to track. The sellers of the product (in this case, illegal products) often have ways of covering up their tracks to prevent from being caught.
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tcmahony
at April 01,2016
Its very interesting that the youtube creator in this video felt more comfortable conducting illicit activities online via Tor vice performing illicit activities in person. Regardless of hows its done it is still illegal. One problem that I feel exists when site like the Silk road on Tor are featured is that they only focus on the drug aspect. These types of websites also sell illegals weapons and even counterfeit passports, Social security cards, etc. Its a much larger problem than drugs. While difficult to handle cases that involved Tor, its must be a high priority for law enforcement of every level. Additionally its not surprising that the youtuber's channel was called Adam vs. the man given his views on being able to buy drugs online.
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BrianDaugette
at April 06,2016
While the video did spend some time with the typical "oh my god they are selling drugs online" angle, I like that it actually addressed some of the related issues about drug use: can people decide what to do with their own bodies? Can the reputation system on Silk Road be used to make drug markets and drug use safer?
But now that Silk Road has been shut down, we won't know if drug use can be made safer. I also like how this video ties in to the cybercrime lecture in module 10 (I think). Frequently when spammers, criminals, or botnets are shut down they just divide up, and go deeper underground, making it that much harder to stop them. We've seen the same thing happen with Silk Road. Now there are multiple drug sales web sites on the dark web, with even stronger security, and are harder to shut down. How much of a win was shutting down the Silk Road, and did it actually make it harder to stop this kind of activity in the future?
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danielm8
at April 10,2016
The video seems to claim that the silk road totally covers up your identity. I feel like some people can definitely be tracked. For example, a buyer of drugs would have to supply his/her address which would allow for the buyer or law enforcement to be able to track down the buyer. It seems the dark net will always be around, but sooner or later, when a certain site gets too popular, there will be a leak somewhere and that site will shut down.
