What if I was to tell you that there was a
huge online trade in illegal drugs and services
happening right now under the noses of the
police. What if I were to tell you that accessing
that black market was as easy as installing
a web browser and what if I were to tell you
that the police are almost powerless to do
anything about it. We spoke to a number of
people who've used this black market and they
told us of their experiences. So, here's Sam's
journey into the darkweb.
The internet, with just a quick search you
can buy almost anything... almost. But what
if you want something a little less legitimate?
Like say, some heroine. Well actually there
is a place for that too but just like in real
life you have to go underground. Welcome to
the darkweb. It's the side of the internet
that you just can't get to through Google
or standard browsers. It can only be accessed
through easy-to-find specialist software which
sends your signal down a maze of routes making
it almost untraceable. It was designed for
political activists and those who didn't want
the government tracking their actions, but
it's frequented by criminal elements including
child pornography rings, gangs claiming to
be hitmen and very real drug dealers.
"Something special came in the mail."
Libertarian vlogger Adam Kokesh of Adam vs.
The Man amazed his subscribers by buying hallucinogenic
DMT on one such site, the Silk Road, and inverted
commas 'enjoying it' online.
So just what is the silk road? Well it's the
eBay of the illicit world in which buyers
and sellers anonymously exchange drugs, books
and paraphernalia. Adam says it's an inevitable
product of our times.
"Fortunately the Silk Road is a great solution
to what is merely a temporary problem. The
drug war creates a need for an online anonymous
marketplace where you can evade that accountability.
It just shows how futile the drug war is when
people want to take control of their body
chemistry and if you try to stop them from
doing that, they're going to find a way."
The site trades in an encrypted currency developed
for computer games but bought and sold in
real life, known as Bitcoins and users rely
on a feedback system to ensure dealers are
legitimate.
"I feel much more safe consuming substances
or anything that I would buy from Silk Road
then ideally even at a grocery store. You
have solved one of the problems of the black
market which is lack of accountability. Anytime
you point guns at people for what is normal
economic activity and say well if you do that,
you exchange those goods and services we're
going to lock you in a cage, you have a great
problem that is created and that is that of
accountability. On the Silk Road you have
both perfect anonymity for the sellers as
well as perfect accountability because you
have an account where people can be rated,
where they can be held accountable if something
goes wrong. So for a dealer on the black market
outside of the Silk Road, yeh there's a little
sketchiness to that because someone could
sell you something and then disappear but
on the Silk Road people actually have reputations
and their business is based on their reputations.
It is a near perfect system. Now I don't want
to say that if you have something delivered
to your door nothing bad will happen to you
because that's not true but you do have plausible
deniability and it is very difficult for them
to prosecute in cases like that. It's not
perfect, but it's still a heck of a lot safer
than buying on the street."
But that doesn't mean you can't get burned
buying drugs online. In Spring 2012 one of
the Silk Road's most trusted buyers under
the name Tony76 launched a fire sale of cut
price drugs whilst demanding up-front payment
rather than the usual method of putting money
into a digital holding pen. Buyers, trusting
his good name, bought drugs thought to be
worth hundreds of thousands of dollars which
never arrived because Tony vanished taking
the cash with him never to be seen again.
Likewise there's nothing to stop law enforcement
leaving bad feedback or selling fake drugs
themselves exploiting the one kink in the
system's armor that the often paranoid buyer
and seller have to trust each other. But questions
over trust and the obvious illegality of many
of its products aren't the Silk Road's and
other websites like it only conundrum. There's
an obvious moral question. Is it right that
drugs should be freely available online for
anyone to get their hands on. An adult making
a decision about what to put in their body
is one thing but what's to stop a 12-year-old
from buying cocaine for example then either
using it or selling it at school. Silk Road
claims not to sell anything that could harm
others but that means nothing to the end user
who may just have found an easy supply to
sell on. But how about this for an interesting
twist? Assuming some people are always going
to take illegal substances, could the Silk
Road's very active community forums actually
be a tool to engage with and encourage safety
among the drug use community? Tim Bingham
is an independent researcher who also has
links to the Irish Needle Exchange Forum and
he says the site could be a useful tool to
encourage those who want to use to do so responsibly
and help those who want to quit.
"There's a load of information on the forums
and there's some very good information on
the forums as well around safety. A lot of
the people engaged on the forums are, have
an awful lot of knowledge and they are prepared
to share that knowledge with other people,
to keep other people safe. I mean you've got
people, you've got people... there's a thread
on how can I, you know, if someone wants to
reduce their drug use and reduce what they're
taking how can they do that safely and other
people engaged in that will say it's safe
to take x drug with x drug. There was a thread
recently on Benzos and how can I come off
Benzo's safely. I think part of it is a new
era for, even for drugs workers, I think drugs
workers actually start engaging on these sites
because you're engaged with a cohort of users
that wouldn't necessarily be presenting these
services. I think that's another interesting
step for us to be taking."
So what do you think? Have you used the darkweb
to buy drugs? Is it safer, or is the anonymous
marketplace more of a danger to society than
the identifiable drug dealer? Comment, post
your video responses and there's always subscribe,
like and share... the video that is. Not drugs.
That's illegal.
