Within the shadowly depths of the darkweb lurks characters of questionable motives. However, there also exist services which have hidden benefits unbeknownst to the average user. Certainly, marketplaces such as the Silk Road secure the identities of individuals with less-than-noble intentions, yet there remains a silver lining among these darkweb services: their ability to provide an alternative to and undermine the profitability of real-world, entrenched organized crime.
The silk road makes use of strong encryption, both of our communications and, now with bitcoin, our money supply as well. This cryptographic method of communication and commerce combined make for a formidable opportunity to conduct business outside the grasp of enforcement authorities which have previously been able to sniff out and crack down on illegal operations within their borders. Strong encryption not only punctures a glaring hole in the enforcement ability of authorities, but creates a playing field governed by rules which recognize no man-made laws. In this amoral dimension, the rules of the game have changed completely. No longer can you ‘cheat’ the system, because the system itself is enforced by the laws of physics and computational science rather than judicial proceedings. This radical reshaping of law is something which has the potential to reshape the very root of our societies.
Read the full post on Diginomics I wholeheartedly agree. Let me give a hypothetical situation. Some drug addicts, will remain drug addicts no matter what (when I say drug addicts, i'm referring to hard drugs like heroin or meth). Some of these people are soo addicted to these hard drugs that they will do things normal people wouldn't even think of. It might be violence, it might be stealing, it might even be murder. Silk road stops all that shit, because unless you pay WITH REAL CRYPTOGRAPHIC CURRENCY, you will not get your drugs. You can't cheat this system, you can't steal, and you can't murder anybody. This fact makes the drug trade business much safer. And let's be honest here, drugs and hard drug addicts are not going to go away anytime soon. The best option, is cyptocurrency and silk road. Nobody gets hurt. And if the end drug user starts acting weird in public or doing illegal stuff, then he will get arrested anyways.