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[–]BitcoinPorn 35 points36 points  (0 children)

That was surprisingly not a shit post about Silk Road, well done man :)

[–]silkroadmagic 14 points15 points  (3 children)

Hi everyone!

I'm the seller who sold the Adderall to OP. I noticed the post on the front page mentioning Silk Road, and I was thoroughly surprised to see my own product description and pictures of my mailed product in the article!

I know Reddit loves proof, so if you're using Silk Road, you can see my seller page at http://ianxz6zefk72ulzz.onion/index.php/silkroad/user/1914. I put proof there.

Also, big thanks to OP for portraying Silk Road in a positive light! I don't think I've seen that even one time yet!

I happen to have quite a lot of free time over the next few days. Should I do an AMA? "IAMA seller on the illegal anonymous marketplace Silk Road. AMA". Would any other Redditors be interested in something like that?

[–]internetsuperstar 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Yes you should. Please post it to the IAMA subreddit though for maximum exposure.

[–]bitcoinfan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Do it!

[–]mrestko 7 points8 points  (7 children)

The stamps on the envelop aren't cancelled?

[–]gwern[S] 1 point2 points  (6 children)

Yeah, I rather wondered about that myself. I'm not a postal expert - do they not cancel stamps in any situations, like if you mail it in person at a post office? (I don't know about you, but I would have to mail a package like that in person: I don't keep any mailer envelopes around, much less padded ones.)

[–]murf43143 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Honestly it looks like you just put some stamps on an orange envelope and took a picture because that package did not go through the mail.

[–]gwern[S] 3 points4 points  (4 children)

/shrug

If you think it's more likely that this was all faked even down to the screenshots and photos than it is real and that is simply an odd detail of the postal service... I can hardly disprove that.

[–]murf43143 1 point2 points  (3 children)

But the fact of the matter is, this individual package went through about 6-10 transitional post offices, that would all have had to made the exact mistake and "overlooked" their official transit stamps, because each post master that touches that package is required to look for two things... one is the address and the other is the crossed stamps.

Who knows...

[–]gwern[S] 5 points6 points  (2 children)

But the fact of the matter is, this individual package went through about 6-10 transitional post offices, that would all have had to made the exact mistake and "overlooked" their official transit stamps, because each post master that touches that package is required to look for two things... one is the address and the other is the crossed stamps.

I'm not sure about either of those claims. 6-10 transitional offices sounds grotesquely inefficient - watching packages being tracked through Fedex or UPS, they don't stop in more than 2 or 3 intermediate centers, and this makes perfect sense since each stop is expensive and eats time.

Also, why would every stop along the way check for cancellation? The financial benefit of catching an uncanceled stamp is pretty small, and the machines are probably pretty expensive (they always are), so it doesn't sound like such redundancy pays for itself. Once it has entered the USPS system...

[–]murf43143 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Shit, all you had to say was 4+ year redditor and I would have shutup! But you are right now that I think about it.

[–]gwern[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

:) I don't like to stand on seniority or other forms of 'authority' - there and elsewhere on my site, I try to avoid anything like that. My honesty (or lack thereof) should be as irrelevant as possible to you: "Argument Screens Off Authority".

[–]TaintShredder 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Awesome write-up. Thanks for sharing the info!

[–]skittixch 2 points3 points  (0 children)

nicely done! This needs to be spread around.

[–]fuckdapopo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Bitcoin Killer Application. This is why Bitcoin will always have value.

[–]6ixEch0 2 points3 points  (2 children)

One drawback to using .onion sites is you only know about them through word of mouth. It'd be easy to set up an .onion site, put up a website front that looks like the silk road, post the address on a site like reddit, and simply harvest your email, passwords, or other information.

For all we know, the onion address gwern gives in the write up could be a phishing scam.

[–]gwern[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That is true. On the other hand, this is always going to be true - you need to have trust at some point.

If the SR existed at a regular domain, why do you assume that 'silkroad.com' is the real deal and not a scam for people who are actually looking for 'silkroad.org'? Suppose you get a public key from someone and you verify it against the fingerprint - well, why do you trust the fingerprint? Why couldn't there be a MITM attack starting with the fingerprint? And so on. (The most awesome example of how the issue of the 'trusted base' can be a real problem would be Ken Thompson's compiler backdoor hack, "Reflections on Trusting Trust".)

In this case, you can google the .onion address I supply and see that it is quoted on thousands of pages going back many months by many different people. Not a proof, but a good starting point to verify the word of mouth.

[–]gwern[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For all we know, the onion address gwern gives in the write up could be a phishing scam.

Ironically, someone tried this on my page - submitting a comment claiming a certain .onion was the real one (it was a phishing site of course, when I checked).

[–]drugsbypost 1 point2 points  (11 children)

The tor browser bundle can be set up in minutes. getting bitcoins is easier everyday. the site it's self has an escrow system so dealers are not paid until you confirm delivery. Also the value of coins is hedged while in escrow so no worries about price fluctuation. It's very safe and easy. You should have no worries at all receiving drugs in the post, if it was detected it would be destroyed the police would not try to get an arrest for a personal amount. But it wont be detected anyway. Obviously this depends were you live, bad luck if your Australian for example. Also If you are involved in other illegal activity at the same time your risk of being caught is multiplied as is the risk that the police will prosecute. Only commit one crime at a time.

The weak point for Silk Road is that buyers can cheat the system for refunds by claiming none delivery. Also LE can do this to make it less attractive to dealers. I predict this will happen more and more. Silk road will either adapt or fail and something else take it's place.

[–]fantasticsid 1 point2 points  (4 children)

What the hell does being Australian have to do with it?

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (3 children)

Australian Customs are meant to be good at their job or something?

[–]fuckdapopo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They inspect EVERY package. Stuff that looks like legal prescription drugs are often let through though. Not so much with obviously illegal stuff.

[–]jimmick 0 points1 point  (1 child)

We have a bunch of shitty shows about border security but they only ever pull aside foreigners and weird statues packed with heroin.

[–][deleted] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

i got half a gram of 2ci sent through about 10 years ago. a friend picked it up from customs who questioned him over it for an hour. shit gets you fucking high.

[–]jomkr -4 points-3 points  (5 children)

This is terrible advice, TOR is not magic, it is a system with well known weaknesses. If someone doesn't know what they are doing the chance of not being anonymous at all multiply. A Law enforcement agent may well want to make a name for themselves by taking on Silk Road, after all a senator has mentioned it so it would sound suitably impressive. "I took down a major online international drug organization".

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

i'm guessing you have no idea what the tor bundle is.

[–]dangerlouse 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What are the specific dangers of downloading the tor browser bundle from torproject.org and then accessing SR? Would like to know.

[–]powercow 3 points4 points  (1 child)

instead of hyperbole how about just link

[–]scrubadub 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Except with hidden services there is no boundary for the tor network, or rather the boundary is the machine hosting the silk road. Hidden services are significantly more secure than just browsing with tor normally.

[–][deleted]  (27 children)

[deleted]

    [–]gwern[S] 3 points4 points  (26 children)

    I can probably answer most of your questions (as long as you're reasonable about it.)

    [–][deleted]  (24 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]gwern[S] 4 points5 points  (9 children)

      1. You need at least basic knowledge. With Tor, it's probably enough to know how to browse through tor in an 'privacy mode' or a separate mode. With Bitcoin, you need to know how to transfer between addresses, otherwise you obviously can't do the coinmix thing. You could transfer straight to SR and hope their cointumblers are up to snuff... but is that a risk worth taking? You also do need to understand basic GPG, although the recipes in the article are all you really need to know - how to store a public key and encrypt a text file against that key.
      2. There were many vendors and only a few with ratings (as covered). Reading through reviews, it looks like the risk of a bad seller is something like 1 in 10.
      3. Hypothetically, if I wanted something listed on it, yes. I don't know whether I will; Bitcoins are a hassle to get and not many nootropics are listed.
      4. You're correct. I'm not sure whether Silk Road will last out the year. I think it probably will. I don't worry so much about scammers. (If nothing else, the fee for seller accounts will seriously discourage that.) I'm more worried that there will be Fed infiltration scaring off the better sellers, reducing the marketplace quality in a vicious loop. (Network effects can operate both ways.)

      /PS - Your other articles on the site are awesome, too. I'm a Melatonin supplement fan as well.

      Thanks. Did you see the Zeo article where I try to measure the melatonin effects? Very nice to have practical confirmation of what one believes.

      [–]yelnatz 3 points4 points  (9 children)

      I thought SR was taken down? Please enlighten me.

      [–][deleted]  (3 children)

      [deleted]

        [–]snowball666 5 points6 points  (2 children)

        Actually it was down for a few days right after the gawker shit. They then added the requirement for having a user account to get on, and like most sites on Tor it has the tendency to be up less than reddit.

        [–]fireduck 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        Yeah, fault tolerance with tor is not easy. I tried setting up multiple servers serving with the same private key to have fault tolerance on a single onion address and it did not work at all. So you end up handling all traffic on one box.

        [–]lordofindia 3 points4 points  (4 children)

        It wasn't. Now you are enlightened.

        [–][deleted]  (3 children)

        [deleted]

          [–]ex_ample 1 point2 points  (1 child)

          Click on the join, and you will be taken to another page for registering your account, much like any other site. (I suggest picking a strong password. Learn from the Mt.Gox fiasco.)

          Lol, I think if your SilkRoad account ever got hacked you'd have a LOT more to worry about then people guessing your passwords on other sites.

          I am tired enough of the game to finally route my Bitcoins into the final set of anonymizing mixes, Silk Road’s own cointumbler. How do we do a deposit? We click on the link in the profile and see:

          Here's thing though. If you ever get coins from a coin mixer like that, isn't every address that comes out of that potentially going to be 'hot' somehow? I mean, the feds could just dump a bunch of bitcoins in there, and if they ever show up again associated with a person, charge them for money laundering.

          [–]gwern[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          Lol, I think if your SilkRoad account ever got hacked you'd have a LOT more to worry about then people guessing your passwords on other sites.

          The reference was to having short/weak passwords with hashes that could be cracked in the event of a cracker or law enforcement penetration. Not so much the reuse at other sites issue but impersonation or other issues on SR. I'm not imaginative enough to think of how you could screw over someone with their password (aside from obvious things like stealing their balance), but I'm sure it can be done. So, best to have a very long password.

          If you ever get coins from a coin mixer like that, isn't every address that comes out of that potentially going to be 'hot' somehow? I mean, the feds could just dump a bunch of bitcoins in there, and if they ever show up again associated with a person, charge them for money laundering.

          The Feds can do that for bitcoins in general and it would be as justifiable. (It wouldn't be hard to 'contaminate' most bitcoins in circulation under that sort of attack. So much has gone through mt.gox that probably most bitcoins in circulation are contaminated under that definition.) As well, this is an issue for the sellers, isn't it? As a buyer, my bitcoins would go into SR and never come back to me.

          [–]FrustratedFighter -1 points0 points  (3 children)

          So... just who are you, gwern?

          [–]gwern[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

          I'm John Galt.

          [–]FrustratedFighter -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

          Ah, a captain, too. Can I ask your tools of anonymity, or are they all common? You sure have a nice site and presence on so many sites.