Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum

We (speaking as a netizen) need Usenet 2.0; eg: something that can fulfill the role of reddit that is decentralized&#x2F;distributed. Perhaps reddit can even transition into being a reader (a la google reader) for people that don&#x27;t want to set up their own node.<p>I&#x27;m not saying that drug discussion is the quintessential act that deserves to be protected, but I am worried that the government has such an easy avenue to get this information. What happens when it&#x27;s something far more political? What happens when they serve a gag order alongside their subpoena? What happens when the people talking aren&#x27;t technically inclined, and don&#x27;t use Tor? (By the way, I would bet these people were using Tor and this subpoena is useless.)

Warning: this opinion probably won&#x27;t fit into the HN zeitgeist.<p>If you commit a crime online don&#x27;t be surprised when they seek to gain evidence against you. This isn&#x27;t a liberty issue. This is a <i>you&#x27;re probably a criminal</i> issue and law enforcement is coming after you. I don&#x27;t protect drug dealers in my neighborhood because of their <i>right to free speech and personal liberty</i> so why would I protect these guys?<p>It just always makes me chuckle when criminals won&#x27;t face the fact that they are criminals. They&#x27;ll deflect, ignore, and basically try anything to escape the reality - they broke the rules of society and now society wants to punish them.<p>And just to give you a little background - I&#x27;ve done some time in a few bids for violence and drugs. I know what it means to be a criminal because I grew up as one. I have <i>no</i> pity. None. You should&#x27;ve made better decisions. I made a choice to leave that behind a long time ago, and you should too.

Wow, Gwern from gwern.net is implicated in this. No idea he moderates that subreddit.<p>It&#x27;ll be interesting to see how this all plays out considering Gwern has a few essays on self-experimentation with drugs and discloses they were purchased from Darknet vendors. Despite the articles pertaining to illicit substances the experiments in question were exceedingly academic (like much of Gwern&#x27;s writings).

More details from gwerm here <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;DarkNetMarkets&#x2F;comments&#x2F;30tudk&#x2F;psa_5_reddit_accounts_subpoenaed_by_ice&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;DarkNetMarkets&#x2F;comments&#x2F;30tudk&#x2F;psa_5...</a>

From NSWGreat&#x27;s AMA linked in the article:<p>&gt; The Darknet is amazing, its changing the drug scene for the better. Its taking away the violence and the dangers that are inherit with buying drugs.<p>Never thought about it this way, but as everyone is talking and writing endlessly about how taxi rides will be revolutionized by billion-dollar Silicon Valley start-ups I found this insight about the drug-market fascinating. Online selling of drugs probably means less deaths of young (mostly black) people fighting for &quot;street corners&quot; and also less people killed by the Mexican cartels.

I actually predicted that this would happen [1]. That particular Evolution thread had a ton of very incriminating statements in it. This shouldn&#x27;t be surprising; don&#x27;t post in public forums talking about your highly illegal activities.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9229342" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9229342</a>

Not sure how willing they will be to hand this over given the recent events surrounding A&#x2F;Swartz&#x27; suicide.

One would assume that the users of deep web-related subreddits would take just as many precautions to protect their privacy when using Reddit as they do when on the deep web. Just because you don&#x27;t actually conduct illegal activity via Reddit doesn&#x27;t mean that it&#x27;s impossible for someone to connect the dots to your deep web forum account(s) with enough effort.<p>If people turned out to truly be that foolish then I will have little, if any, sympathy for them.

Off topic, but is there a name for the fad of having side-pane elements perpetually zoom and fade in and out as I read a blog post? Is there a reason for it?

Any idea on Conde Nast&#x27;s response to all this? If they were looking for an excuse to shutdown DNM then this would be it.

I hope they were going though two vpn&#x27;s running in a virual machine.

if you don&#x27;t assume that Reddit is under pervasive surveillance, you are making a huge mistake.<p>you should probably assume the same of HN, or most things that don&#x27;t live on I2P or Freenet.

If you&#x27;re having problems using Reddit through Tor, use HTTPS. Better yet, force the HTTPS redirections in the Reddit settings.<p>This info is, of course, redundant or too late for the people talking about illegal activities on that particular subreddit, but it might come in handy for when they come searching for you.

ugh.