back to article Japanese dark-web drug dealers are so polite, they'll offer 'a refund' if you're not satisfied

The concept of the "dark web" in Asia is way different to what peeps in Europe and the Americas are used to. This is according to researchers at New York computer security firm IntSights, which today outlined a number of quirks unique to Asian countries in the way underground sites, and those of questionable legality, operate …

  1. stiine Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    I think most of them are actually like that

    At least until the government employees start making drug buys and any other shit they think they can get away with in order to get promoted by downing another marketplace.

    You can't make money, lots and lots of money, by snubbing your clients, hiring hitmen to go after them, or selling them shit that will kill 100% of them 100% of the time.

    1. Sgt_Oddball
      Meh

      Re: I think most of them are actually like that

      To quote the singer David Ford; The first one, it always comes free

      They tell you heroin takes like ice cream

      1. Waseem Alkurdi
        Joke

        Re: I think most of them are actually like that

        They tell you heroin takes like ice cream

        I think you'll find that it's ice cream that tastes like heroin ...

  2. adnim

    It is often presumed

    that those who break the law are dishonest and without honour. This is not necessarily so.

    Those who are dishonest and without honour may indeed turn to illegal activity to finance a lifestyle. Although many dishonest and dishonourable people prefer the legal activities of politics and/or corporate leadership.

    The Japanese take honour and respect seriously. Too seriously? Perhaps. But our arrogant western asses could learn a thing or two

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Re: It is often presumed

      Although many dishonest and dishonourable people prefer the legal activities of politics and/or corporate leadership.

      A certain Zuckerberg comes immediately to mind.

    2. james 68

      Re: It is often presumed

      Maybe so when they work in the service industry, but outside of the job they are just as ignorant (often moreso).

      Just try walking in a large city in Japan or if you have overt masochistic tendencies try getting around any large metropolitan area by public transport during morning or late afternoon. This is my fourth year of living in Japan and from experience I can honestly say that the ignorance and intolerance is strong in this country, only when you enter the service industry or a person's home as a guest will you find the stereotypical overly polite Japanese.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It is often presumed

      "The Japanese take honour and respect seriously."

      Considering their "honour" led them to literally send their kids to certain death at the end of WW2 without any hope or victory nor any complaining...

      Considering their "honour" when they were victorious a few years previously led them to slaughter less honourable, defenseless non-superior-race civilians...

      ... one thing we can learn of it is - don't do it

      In my modern experience, they take face-saving seriously. Which can look like honour from the outside, but is different. Eg, they *will* go out of their way to help - up until they decide that face has been saved enough, and then put on a polite smile on their face, switch off all other interactions, and let you out to dry.

      Honour is BS, in every country, and anybody with the word in their mouth should not be trusted.

    4. nice spam database '); drop table users; --

      Re: It is often presumed

      7 years and counting in the little island.

      Japanese politeness is what in the states you call hypocrisy. I didn't get it even after attaining fluency both oral and written in Japanese. It was when I learnt history that I understood.

      1. Stevie

        Re: It is often presumed

        I just finished being lectured by some zygote Japanese Apologist crying over the inhumanity of the A Bombings and citing, of all things, an article on "Sputniknews.com" that had one "Dr. Gary G. Kohls" as it's only source and studiously omitted in it's account the calls to Hirohito to surrender between the Little Boy and Fat Man events.

        How evil we all were for causing so much civilian death. No sympathy from Mr Wet-Eyes for the soldiers and civilians hosted by the Japanese for the duration, nor the Chinese and Korean women who were put into involuntary "alternate career paths".

        The Apologist only shut the fuck up when I pointed out that the sailors and civilians killed at Pearl Harbor died before a formal state of war existed between Japan and the USA, and opined exactly what this said about Japanese honor and the code of Bushido. I asked where his sympathy was for them.

        I've no doubt he is still secure in his belief that "many of Eisenhower's generals" believed the A-Bombs were unnecessary, but when he mentioned that I told him to tell it to the marines - specifically any of the marines that took part in the Philippine Amphibious Assaults.

        He was talking about how much better it would have been to stage what would have had to be an airborne and amphibious assault of the Japanese mainland (whatever that is - Japan is a series of large islands according to my atlas) with no reference to exactly how that had gone down on Saipan. He waved away my objection that the fighting would have been to the last man, that firebombing would have been inevitable (so much for these generals' who seem to have no opinion on napalm and H.E. created firestorm tactics) and that the war would have dragged out interminably.

        I, of course, am old enough to remember those semi-humorous stories during the late 60s of boats sent with loudspeakers to certain islands where Japanese servicemen were still refusing to believe their country had surrendered, to try and persuade them to stop living on snakes and accept a lift home. This informs my opinion on exactly how easy an invasion would have been. Forget the added danger of partisan guerrillas once the invasion was underway.

        Azathoth's Piping Host, I hate 21st century armchair revisionists, especially those who see Japan as Pokemon and Hentai and Bad Monster Movies mixed with awesome (sounding) martial arts. I love a good Rashomon myself and have a weak spot for the 60s Zaito Ichi movies, adore their high speed railway system, own two Kimonos, one of which is a lavishly embroidered Mitsukiku number, and once earned a green belt in Judo, but that doesn't blind me to what the Japanese were capable of when the will to make war was strong, and anti-American feeling was being orchestrated from the Chrysanthemum Throne angered by the Manchuria Fiasco and desperate to hide how financially ruinous *that* war had been.

        When the Vets had that display at the Smithsonian of the A-bombings from a similar critical revisionist perspective removed I thought they had blundered. They should have let the exhibit stand, but demanded an equal footprint next to it featuring the Bataan Death March, the accounts from Saipan and so forth.

        As an aside, Dr Kohls is a prolific writer. His many informative, groundbreaking and conspiracy-uncovering works can be found at https://www.globalresearch.ca/author/gary-g-kohls - some are aligned with things I'm interested in, some even sound halfway truthful and informed. Read with care.

  3. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    The Register's Lecture by Jamie Bartlett

    IIRC he got a similar impression from the sites he visited.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Japanese Dark Web Prostitution?

    Will they give a refund if you're not – ahem – "satisfied?"

    Asking for a friend.

    1. Cranky_Yank

      Re: Japanese Dark Web Prostitution?

      I have lived in Japan for nearly four decades but it never ceases to amaze me. I recently read that exchanging money for sex is legal so long as the sex is manual, oral, or anal. Vaginal penetration is illegal. Inscrutable, eh what?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Japanese Dark Web Prostitution?

        That's remarkably in line with 'equal opportunities', everyone has an asshole.

      2. Ogi

        Re: Japanese Dark Web Prostitution?

        > I have lived in Japan for nearly four decades but it never ceases to amaze me. I recently read that exchanging money for sex is legal so long as the sex is manual, oral, or anal. Vaginal penetration is illegal. Inscrutable, eh what?

        Wait... "Manual" sex? As opposed to what? Automatic sex? Would automatic sex involve the use of power tools? Or sexbots? If automatic sex is with sexbots, would it qualify as prostitution at all?

        Laws everywhere are inscrutable and illogical and haphazard from what I have seen. I am quite frankly astounded society does not collapse on itself more often.

        1. JLV

          Re: Japanese Dark Web Prostitution?

          >Wait... "Manual" sex?

          A handjob, dear.

          You really should go out more.

  5. VikiAi
    Thumb Up

    At least the "Customer-focused" business ethic is hanging on somewhere out there!

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      You know you're in trouble when you phone your drug dealer and get put on hold to hear muzak and a recorded voice saying, "your call is important to us..."

  6. nice spam database '); drop table users; --

    Title and flag don't match

    elreg following mainstream media china defamation campaign is just boring.

  7. c1ue

    Always important to keep in mind that residency in Japan, even "fluency" in the language, does not equate to either understanding the culture or being an integral part of it.

    One example: Most of the foreign men who have learned to function in Japanese talk like gay men or women.

    It is because the Japanese language is highly contextual: tone and words used are different between a man to woman vs. woman to man, as well as different from boss to subordinate, parent to child, etc.

    Teaching Japanese to foreigners is also an extremely low status occupation - which is why the vast majority of such teachers are women.

    Last fact: the vast majority of foreigners in Japan are men.

    So, Japanese women teaching the Japanese language to classes composed almost exclusively of men. The men learn tone and word choice from the women.

    I have friends who have been in Japan for 20 years - and no Japanese ever told them of their Japanese language equivalent of a lisp - another cultural thing to keep in mind. Foreigners are such unreliable, unspeakable barbarians that pretty much anything is expected from them except "proper" behavior.

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