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Dead drops can’t compete with USPS. They require a court order to open your package and even then can’t charge anyone with possession. All they do is send you a

Dead drops can’t compete with USPS. They require a court order to open your package and even then can’t charge anyone with possession. All they do is send you a “love letter” and people have reported receiving future packages just fine. Millions of people use dark net marketplaces. The war on drugs has fueled their growth and more serious crimes like identity theft have benefited from it.

omeid2 8y ago
The war on drug has to be one of the top contributors and financiers of crime and criminal gangs. Imagine a world where criminal gangs don't have access to the money they make through drugs and a government that doesn't have to spend huge amount of money on drug laws enforcement because drug trafficking would be much less lucrative in the existence of legal access and you get fewer and very cash-strapped drug gangs, and government making money from taxing drugs. Surely such massive savings and earnings can be spent to help problem users and reduce violence, no?
- hiccuphippo 8y ago
  It can't help with getting voters though. At least until new voters come around and old voters get phased out.
- sigmaprimus 8y ago
  The war on drugs is also a big contributor to the LEGAL gangs such as police,distric attornies, defence attorneys, prison officials and worst of all judges. Definitely an industrial economic complex similar to the Military Industrial Complex.
  - omeid2 8y ago
    Don't forget for-profit prisons.
  - cf498 8y ago
    And protects the market of big pharma as well as the tobacco and alcohol industry. There is a reason these are among the top contributes for campaigns against the legalization of illegal drugs.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >The war on drugs is also a big contributor to the LEGAL gangs such as police,distric attornies, defence attorneys, prison officials and worst of all judges. I agree with your sentiment but I find it odd that you think judges are the worst. Of all the people in the system judges are probably the least worst because they don't have as many incentives to do things that are bad for society but good for them personally the way all the other actors do (i.e. they do not directly benefit from the war on drugs).
    - sigmaprimus 8y ago
      Based on your measure of what makes them "most or least worst" you may be correct, but I disagree with the premise that whether or not their motives are virtuous makes a difference. The fact is judges rule over the system and that in itself make them the worst of the bunch, and actually the fact that they have less incentives yet continue to enable such a broken system to hurt people might be the best reason they are the worst.
      - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        They don't have the incentive to ruin people's lives to game their performance metrics (like prosecutors do). They don't have incentive to make much to do over nothing to justify their budget (like cops do). They don't have incentive to keep people in the system as long as possible to milk money from them and the state (like the prison system does). They don't have incentive to perpetuate the war on drugs to sell crap we don't need like tasers (police abuse them) and post-release monitoring (an overpriced joke that plays fast and loose with people's lives). The bad incentive for judges seems to be that most of them have a desire to not rock the boat too much which is pretty benign compared to all the other actors who go out of their way to perpetuate and further the status quo because they materially benefit from it. I find it hard to fault the judges for apathetically presiding over a flawed system when every other group you mentioned is doubling down to further that system.
        sigmaprimus 8y ago
        I would concede that your arguments are all valid, unfortunately if we look at where most judges were employed before becoming judges the majority were the best-worst of the people in "every other group I mentioned". I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one, but I do appreciate your well thought out argument.
  - jfaat 8y ago
    The prison industrial complex is a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_comp...
- mywittyname 8y ago
  There are plenty of illegal activities which can be used by gangs to generate revenue. If certain drugs are decriminalized, they still have theft, fencing, prostitution, sex trafficking, intimidation, computer crimes, etc.
  - cf498 8y ago
    Which are no where near as profitable and a lot easier to prosecute. You cant run a cartel on theft and computer crime.
  - omeid2 8y ago
    That is hardly the case, while criminal cartels tend to commit various crimes, nothing comes close to profitability of drugs as demonstrated by the high profile drug turf wars and involvement of various agencies.
  - _archon_ 8y ago
    All these avenues already exist and are in play. To take away the drug black market is to reduce the total cash potential for organized crime.
mindslight 8y ago
Criminal networks do benefit from a bread-and-butter businesses like drug distribution. These innovations likely wouldn't be taking place at all if altering one's own consciousness with substances hadn't been criminalized - when the law is made to be at odds with society, society adapts to being at odds with the law. But unlike say murder, "identity theft" isn't some serious crime - it's in the same basket as "war on drugs" in that they both attempt to fortify a nonsensical top-down design at odds with the underlying reality. It's arbitrage against a broken authorization paradigm, and will continue as long as banks (et al) choose to just bear the cost rather than actually fix their systems.
- selestify 8y ago
  How could identity theft need fixed?
  - wongarsu 8y ago
    "Identity Theft" is a marketing spin on "broken identification". An identity is unique by definition and can't be stolen. But if you use an inadequate identification technique, like my birthday that's on my facebook and everywhere else in combination with my social security number that I have to give out to just about everybody, anyone can aquire those two pieces of information and impersonate me. The ways to fix it are numerous, but most of them would involve a widely used national identity card that's actually designed for identification (as opposed to social security numbers which were never meant to be used like this). Alternatively have the banks pay fines for each instance of "identity theft" they suffer, and watch how they figure out better ways to identify people (probably verifying them in person).
    - franga2000 8y ago
      This is something that has always frustrated me when reading about identity theft in the US. It's a problem that can only be fixed through legislation, yet I haven't heard of any even remotely successful attempts at establishing an official form of identification. Smart cards would be ideal, but even a simple national ID card with a picture would prevent the vast majority of identity theft. I've done some research around social engineering and the no. 1 thing that stopped us from getting into bank accounts etc. was that to do anything remotely dangerous, you had to present your ID card. Even if you got your hands on someone's IBAN, name, address, bday and national ID number - no card, no deal. It's not impossible to get fake IDs, but it's a significant investment to do so, which stops the kind of drive-by identity theft I read about from the states.
tribby 8y ago
> All they do is send you a “love letter” and people have reported receiving future packages just fine. well, that's what the end user sees, but we can't pretend to know what happens behind the scenes from a data perspective, and how that data might be used in the future. > They require a court order to open your package and even then can’t charge anyone with possession. this is not true. only first-class mail (13oz and under) is subject to any fourth amendment protections at all,[1] and your mail can be opened without warrant if it comes from overseas.[2] USPS can also x-ray and use other imaging techniques on whatever they want, they even describe it as a best practice.[3] this isn't to say dead drops are a better idea; there are plenty of reasons not to go that route as well. 1. https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/contactUs/faq.aspx https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/contactUs/faq.aspx 2. https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/114 https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/114 3. https://about.usps.com/securing-the-mail/best-practices.htm https://about.usps.com/securing-the-mail/best-practices.htm
- kuhhk 8y ago
  > 4. Can Postal Inspectors open mail if they feel it may contain something illegal? First-Class letters and parcels are protected against search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, and, as such, cannot be opened without a search warrant. If there is probable cause to believe the contents of a First-Class letter or parcel violate federal law, Postal Inspectors can obtain a search warrant to open the mailpiece. Other classes of mail do not contain private correspondence, and therefore may be opened without a warrant. Whoa, that's news to me. I didn't realize that any class of mail besides First class is considered to not contain private correspondence.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - C1sc0cat 8y ago
    Postal Inspectors have some strange powers (read up about Comstock laws) - also in the UK BT Security (aka SD or IB) inherited quasi legal powers from its days as part of the post office - you did not want to be investigated by them.
AngryData 8y ago
And the only time they even find drugs is when a package busts open and they can see it. Otherwise they have neither the time nor budget to have even a single digit fraction of packages be dog sniffed or xrayed. And how often will they be legal shit they open up and find anyways?
gammateam 8y ago
Dark net marketplaces also compete with clear net marketplaces for benign things Millions of people know this and routinely check them for good deals, the propaganda machine has failed to make them "scary"
- joshstrange 8y ago
  I'm interested, do you have some examples of what kinds of products you are talking about?
  - gammateam 8y ago
    odd goods like you might find in craiglist's for sale section. shared passwords or accounts for streaming websites. books. paintings. collectibles. there are often good deals on any dark net marketplace that pops up. All the way back to Silk Road 1.0. cheaper than listing on ebay.
    - wolco 8y ago
      Without the ebay protections in place it should be cheaper or it would make little sense to use them.
      - gammateam 8y ago
        Multisig escrow is the protection Its just cheaper mate
  - usrusr 8y ago
    Anything that is easy to steal, perhaps?
    - gammateam 8y ago
      And everything else? You can use craigslist over TOR All DNMs offer an expanded audience and borderless payment system that wont freeze your account
PascLeRasc 8y ago
Maybe dropgangs read Paul Graham's "Do things that don't scale" advice.
paulie_a 8y ago
I haven't ordered drugs via USPS but have ordered illegal items. I received a letter from customs basically saying "we are not accusing you of anything, but don't do it again.". I received the new package in a couple weeks and the letter 6 months later. This wasn't even a dark market, just a regular website that takes visa.

omeid2 8y ago

The war on drug has to be one of the top contributors and financiers of crime and criminal gangs. Imagine a world where criminal gangs don't have access to the money they make through drugs and a government that doesn't have to spend huge amount of money on drug laws enforcement because drug trafficking would be much less lucrative in the existence of legal access and you get fewer and very cash-strapped drug gangs, and government making money from taxing drugs. Surely such massive savings and earnings can be spent to help problem users and reduce violence, no?

hiccuphippo 8y ago
It can't help with getting voters though. At least until new voters come around and old voters get phased out.
sigmaprimus 8y ago
The war on drugs is also a big contributor to the LEGAL gangs such as police,distric attornies, defence attorneys, prison officials and worst of all judges. Definitely an industrial economic complex similar to the Military Industrial Complex.
- omeid2 8y ago
  Don't forget for-profit prisons.
- cf498 8y ago
  And protects the market of big pharma as well as the tobacco and alcohol industry. There is a reason these are among the top contributes for campaigns against the legalization of illegal drugs.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >The war on drugs is also a big contributor to the LEGAL gangs such as police,distric attornies, defence attorneys, prison officials and worst of all judges. I agree with your sentiment but I find it odd that you think judges are the worst. Of all the people in the system judges are probably the least worst because they don't have as many incentives to do things that are bad for society but good for them personally the way all the other actors do (i.e. they do not directly benefit from the war on drugs).
  - sigmaprimus 8y ago
    Based on your measure of what makes them "most or least worst" you may be correct, but I disagree with the premise that whether or not their motives are virtuous makes a difference. The fact is judges rule over the system and that in itself make them the worst of the bunch, and actually the fact that they have less incentives yet continue to enable such a broken system to hurt people might be the best reason they are the worst.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      They don't have the incentive to ruin people's lives to game their performance metrics (like prosecutors do). They don't have incentive to make much to do over nothing to justify their budget (like cops do). They don't have incentive to keep people in the system as long as possible to milk money from them and the state (like the prison system does). They don't have incentive to perpetuate the war on drugs to sell crap we don't need like tasers (police abuse them) and post-release monitoring (an overpriced joke that plays fast and loose with people's lives). The bad incentive for judges seems to be that most of them have a desire to not rock the boat too much which is pretty benign compared to all the other actors who go out of their way to perpetuate and further the status quo because they materially benefit from it. I find it hard to fault the judges for apathetically presiding over a flawed system when every other group you mentioned is doubling down to further that system.
      - sigmaprimus 8y ago
        I would concede that your arguments are all valid, unfortunately if we look at where most judges were employed before becoming judges the majority were the best-worst of the people in "every other group I mentioned". I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one, but I do appreciate your well thought out argument.
- jfaat 8y ago
  The prison industrial complex is a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_comp...
mywittyname 8y ago
There are plenty of illegal activities which can be used by gangs to generate revenue. If certain drugs are decriminalized, they still have theft, fencing, prostitution, sex trafficking, intimidation, computer crimes, etc.
- cf498 8y ago
  Which are no where near as profitable and a lot easier to prosecute. You cant run a cartel on theft and computer crime.
- omeid2 8y ago
  That is hardly the case, while criminal cartels tend to commit various crimes, nothing comes close to profitability of drugs as demonstrated by the high profile drug turf wars and involvement of various agencies.
- _archon_ 8y ago
  All these avenues already exist and are in play. To take away the drug black market is to reduce the total cash potential for organized crime.

mindslight 8y ago

Criminal networks do benefit from a bread-and-butter businesses like drug distribution. These innovations likely wouldn't be taking place at all if altering one's own consciousness with substances hadn't been criminalized - when the law is made to be at odds with society, society adapts to being at odds with the law. But unlike say murder, "identity theft" isn't some serious crime - it's in the same basket as "war on drugs" in that they both attempt to fortify a nonsensical top-down design at odds with the underlying reality. It's arbitrage against a broken authorization paradigm, and will continue as long as banks (et al) choose to just bear the cost rather than actually fix their systems.

selestify 8y ago
How could identity theft need fixed?
- wongarsu 8y ago
  "Identity Theft" is a marketing spin on "broken identification". An identity is unique by definition and can't be stolen. But if you use an inadequate identification technique, like my birthday that's on my facebook and everywhere else in combination with my social security number that I have to give out to just about everybody, anyone can aquire those two pieces of information and impersonate me. The ways to fix it are numerous, but most of them would involve a widely used national identity card that's actually designed for identification (as opposed to social security numbers which were never meant to be used like this). Alternatively have the banks pay fines for each instance of "identity theft" they suffer, and watch how they figure out better ways to identify people (probably verifying them in person).
  - franga2000 8y ago
    This is something that has always frustrated me when reading about identity theft in the US. It's a problem that can only be fixed through legislation, yet I haven't heard of any even remotely successful attempts at establishing an official form of identification. Smart cards would be ideal, but even a simple national ID card with a picture would prevent the vast majority of identity theft. I've done some research around social engineering and the no. 1 thing that stopped us from getting into bank accounts etc. was that to do anything remotely dangerous, you had to present your ID card. Even if you got your hands on someone's IBAN, name, address, bday and national ID number - no card, no deal. It's not impossible to get fake IDs, but it's a significant investment to do so, which stops the kind of drive-by identity theft I read about from the states.

tribby 8y ago

> All they do is send you a “love letter” and people have reported receiving future packages just fine. well, that's what the end user sees, but we can't pretend to know what happens behind the scenes from a data perspective, and how that data might be used in the future. > They require a court order to open your package and even then can’t charge anyone with possession. this is not true. only first-class mail (13oz and under) is subject to any fourth amendment protections at all,[1] and your mail can be opened without warrant if it comes from overseas.[2] USPS can also x-ray and use other imaging techniques on whatever they want, they even describe it as a best practice.[3] this isn't to say dead drops are a better idea; there are plenty of reasons not to go that route as well. 1. https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/contactUs/faq.aspx https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/contactUs/faq.aspx 2. https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/114 https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/114 3. https://about.usps.com/securing-the-mail/best-practices.htm https://about.usps.com/securing-the-mail/best-practices.htm

kuhhk 8y ago
> 4. Can Postal Inspectors open mail if they feel it may contain something illegal? First-Class letters and parcels are protected against search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, and, as such, cannot be opened without a search warrant. If there is probable cause to believe the contents of a First-Class letter or parcel violate federal law, Postal Inspectors can obtain a search warrant to open the mailpiece. Other classes of mail do not contain private correspondence, and therefore may be opened without a warrant. Whoa, that's news to me. I didn't realize that any class of mail besides First class is considered to not contain private correspondence.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- C1sc0cat 8y ago
  Postal Inspectors have some strange powers (read up about Comstock laws) - also in the UK BT Security (aka SD or IB) inherited quasi legal powers from its days as part of the post office - you did not want to be investigated by them.

AngryData 8y ago

And the only time they even find drugs is when a package busts open and they can see it. Otherwise they have neither the time nor budget to have even a single digit fraction of packages be dog sniffed or xrayed. And how often will they be legal shit they open up and find anyways?

gammateam 8y ago

Dark net marketplaces also compete with clear net marketplaces for benign things Millions of people know this and routinely check them for good deals, the propaganda machine has failed to make them "scary"

joshstrange 8y ago
I'm interested, do you have some examples of what kinds of products you are talking about?
- gammateam 8y ago
  odd goods like you might find in craiglist's for sale section. shared passwords or accounts for streaming websites. books. paintings. collectibles. there are often good deals on any dark net marketplace that pops up. All the way back to Silk Road 1.0. cheaper than listing on ebay.
  - wolco 8y ago
    Without the ebay protections in place it should be cheaper or it would make little sense to use them.
    - gammateam 8y ago
      Multisig escrow is the protection Its just cheaper mate
- usrusr 8y ago
  Anything that is easy to steal, perhaps?
  - gammateam 8y ago
    And everything else? You can use craigslist over TOR All DNMs offer an expanded audience and borderless payment system that wont freeze your account

PascLeRasc 8y ago

Maybe dropgangs read Paul Graham's "Do things that don't scale" advice.

paulie_a 8y ago

I haven't ordered drugs via USPS but have ordered illegal items. I received a letter from customs basically saying "we are not accusing you of anything, but don't do it again.". I received the new package in a couple weeks and the letter 6 months later. This wasn't even a dark market, just a regular website that takes visa.