I’m never going to hear how this ends, and that’s a shame:
Well, here’s a shocker. Incognito Market, a darknet platform connecting sellers of narcotics to potential buyers, has turned out to be not entirely trustworthy.
Drug vendors and buyers alike are being extorted. They are being threatened that their supposedly secure (and in some cases supposedly deleted) private chats will be made public unless they give in to their blackmailer’s demands.
More here (H/T: @tomabella). Apparently Incognito first drained their users’ accounts, and has since then moved on to extortion. Astoundingly – anyway, I see a flaw in this plan, and it features the phrase ‘drug vendors.’ Let us just say that this type of non-standard entrepreneur is not known for their scrupulous adherence to laws and social norms, particularly when you steal from them. They also are not burdened with the necessity of building a court case when investigating who stole from them. And, needless to say; the field that they earn their primary living in is quite familiar, and even comfortable with, applied violence as a deterrent.
…Yeah, maybe it’s not a shame I’ll never know.
Sounds like the Cohen brothers have their new script.
There’s a saying. “Asshole or criminal. Pick one.” These folks have.. declined to pick one. There’s also absolutely no guarantee that a) they actually have this stuff to share, b) they’d be able to usefully share it with the police without catching themselves as collateral damage or c) once they’ve got someone on the hook and paying they won’t come back for another bite at that apple later.
Now, a) does at least seem reasonably likely, even if it’s not guaranteed. b) is a bit on the challenging side. c) actually looks pretty dubious.
Still, it’s an interesting variation on the way silk road collapsed. I’d say… the *next* version of this is entirely owned and operated by the FBI from day 1. I’m pretty sure that “here’s a website where you can talk with each other if you want” doesn’t count as any kind of entrapment.
That said… a quick check of the wiki “The cops shut it down in a flurry of arrests” and “the admins stole a bunch of bitcoin and then ran away laughing” seem to be *extremely common* as outcomes of sites like this. The only difference here is the bit where they added blackmail about the former to the cut direct of the latter.
Criminal or Asshole:
This is the exact situation for which they coined the phrase: “Why not both?”