Re:Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road
by telephonetemp on Thursday August 15, 2013 @03:36AM
(#6216589)
That sounds like a lot of effort and genuine technical skill to invest in crime. If that is true, you have to wonder what motivates people to do it. Is it really profitable enough to be rationally worth the risk if you don't care about the ethics involved, or is it that the people who do it can't find legitimate employment where they live due to the state of the local economy or have personal traits that prevent them from being employed?
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Re:Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road
by MacsHeadroom on Thursday August 15, 2013 @07:56AM
(#6217254)
2-4% of all credit card transactions are fraudulent. Credit card fraud is a $200B+/year business.
It's extremely lucrative. You can learn and buy everything you need to get started on the open Internet.
Re:Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road
by rdl on Thursday August 15, 2013 @04:21AM
(#6216695)
1) It's incredibly profitable for some of the participants
2) Until maybe 2007, there were not a whole lot of comparably-profitable licit opportunities for Eastern Europeans. The contract marketplaces have helped. We really need to fix our immigration system in the US (and, worldwide, really) to help more.
3) A lot of the more dangerous parts are essentially blue collar crime; this is FAR safer than drugs/prostitution/human trafficking/terrorism/armed robbery/etc., so it's a clear decision for those guys.