Thanks to papes93 and FarmerBob for posting additional thought provoking concepts.I really do think that we need a fully fledged clandestine science laboratory at the SR's disposal to generate reliable, tested information.We would require at a minimum;- materials science expertise [shipping and security research]- reagent development expertise [drug testing, mostly drug identification and purity]- information security, esp. penetration testing on 'typical' vendor/buyer setups, interception chips.Some of these would be one-off projects to disseminate vital data to the vendors or community at large in the form of something like a quarterly report on the state of the road , but some like reagent development would be perpetually on-going. The key to the success of such service(s), would be ensuring a disconnect, a physical airgap between SR and the lab. Indeed, it is unlikely it should be collected in one geographical location. Nearly all expensive hardware and resources would be unwittingly supplied by industrial labs and universities our scientists have access to.This could be an arm of SR itself. After all, this is Quality Assurance in its essence and we may need a trusted arbiter. Coordinating payments from vendors to the scientists taking the risk could be achieved by something like an optional few % additional tax.Alternatively we could go much further and decentralize by having a market could be setup like the Armory, exclusively dedicated to the purveyors of pure information, whether scientific like the above, or in terms of intelligence on the DEA's modus operandi, the level of activity by the postal inspection task force etc, I'm sure KMF and our coworkers at OVDB for one would welcome such a development.I realize this is ambitious, but really it's just a matter of organizing already existing components together, after all we already have dozens of different scientists and computer experts all over the world severely in need of cash injections and that's just on this forum, our connections in RL are even broader. The real key, is who puts up the capital or time to make this all possible. Like I said before, the structure of capital flows is what it takes to produce permanent change in the game. In line with that thought, we need much more intel on financial engineering, the methods used to covertly extract and conceal cash from our economy (highly sensitive topic!) and a plethora of methods for buyers to obtain anonymous currency (since that is undoubtedly where operations against the Silk Road will strike to instigate FUD).I'm aware talk is cheap and we're all busy people, but you've got to begin somewhere! No matter how awesome a system is, if it doesn't evolve in response to the environment, it's going to go extinct.