Losing your Silk Road virginity - Share the story of your first experience on a Dark Net Market

After reading an earlier post where the writer urged experienced DNM users to be kind and helpful to new users, I thought about my own first experience on the Silk Road. I'm interested in hearing about how you lost your Silk Road virginity (or whichever market you used first). When and how did you first learn of the Silk Road? How did you go about learning good OPSEC? How did you acquire Bitcoin? What roadblocks (pun intended) did you face, if any? What did you buy, and finally, what did you think of your experience? I'll post mine below, and I look forward to reading yours as well. :)


Comments


[7 Points] None:

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[4 Points] None:

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[3 Points] Liliaceae08:

Sorry, it ended up being much longer than I expected (I'm wordy, so no TL;DR):

I remember when I first heard about the Silk Road in August of 2011—I was browsing a shady review board for online offshore pharmacies, and there was a post asking if anyone had ever ordered pharmaceuticals from SR. No one seemed receptive to the idea, even though these were people who were foolish enough to sink sizeable sums of money into a money wire, bound for the head of some shady Indian website that may send you the drugs you desire in return (spoiler alert: they probably wont).

One educated forum user described the escrow system and the layer of protection it offered for the buyer, which sounded appealing compared to the mere wing-and-a-prayer system which buyers clung to here. Most disparaged the site, even though they only knew a guy who knows a guy who used it and never did themselves. Off course, there were those who believed it to be a true black market, replete with human trafficking, abundant weapons sales, hit-men-for-hire, and hookers galore! The majority expressed fears of a deadly bait and switch in which the coke you ordered is swapped with a poison-laced look-alike, for fun I guess, while in the same post they recommended their favorite unscrupulous Indian pharmacy (not that they’re known for quality control).

Personally, I thought it sounded like the stuff my dreams are made of; it was like my inherent laziness and my love of illicit substances and my hatred of all my real life drug dealers morphed into this wonderful place called the Silk Road. I couldn’t click over to google fast enough. I did a cursory search, became confused when I realized SR shared a name with some online RPG type thing, and then I found the infamous gawker article—the first real mention of SR in the media—and I serendipitously came across gwern’s guide to accessing the Silk Road. I read voraciously, still in utter disbelief that a service this awesome could possibly exist. I downloaded the tor browser bundle, copied the SR link from gwern’s page, and pasted it into the address bar, watching the page load on baited breath.

After registering, I eagerly browsed the listings “like a kid in a candy store,” finally understanding the meaning of that stupid cliché and taking stock of the drugs I’d always wanted to try. I wasn’t ready to take the plunge and purchase anything yet though, as I still felt unprepared. So, I continued to read the forums extensively, every day for about six months. I witnessed the early drama that was SR’s early heroin market, which included the quick rise and fall of ItalianPilot, a sort of Tony66 prototype. I read daily about Bitcoin, the one aspect of this process that kept me from making that first purchase—I lived in a city with various BitInstant locations within a one mile radius, but the lazy part of my brain naively refused to admit defeat in finding a site where I could purchase BTC with a credit card, so I could order drugs in one fell swoop, without ever leaving my desk.

I settled on purchasing a Moneypak and using an on-site bitcoin vendor with great feedback; I had my coins in short order, and I used them to purchase a quarter gram of vortexmilkman’s methamphetamine (he had great feedback, and his reputation preceded him on the forums). I put too much trust in the site and believed, foolishly perhaps, that addresses were destroyed post-purchase, so I didn’t use PGP (shame on me—to be fair though, I didn’t know it even existed at this point). Like a cringe-worthy newbie, I messaged the vendor after the first day in transit, and then like clockwork every day after that in an impatient frenzy—I reminded myself of the saying “if it sounds too good to be true…”

I pretty much shamelessly stalked my mail lady that week, greeting her every day and inquiring if she was certain she hadn’t just missed an envelope addressed to me. She just smiled and shook her head. By day seven I had pretty much given up on receiving it at all, despite a plethora of reassuring messages from vortex telling me it will arrive and not to worry; I went to my parents house one day, and that same day I typed up a forum post imploring other buyers-in-limbo to pipe up and share their experience comfort me; instead I received a few replies telling me to take a xanax, to just calm down, and to be patient, goddamnit.

Then no more than a few minutes later, I got a call from my husband, in which he simply said, “it’s here.” Honestly, I could not believe it—it actually fucking worked. When I got back home, I curiously examined the envelope it arrived in—poorest stealth I’ve ever seen, no mylar or mbb, just a weed baggie with a pot-leaf motif and a shiny green star sticker (for some reason). But it held the prettiest crystal I’d ever seen, after living in the land of shake and bake.

The bag was heavy—heavy! You see, in the aforementioned land of shake and bake, bags were never heavy, even though they contained yellow, wet crank—hell, they were never even on point (did I mention this is also the land of dealers with perpetually broken scales). In the pipe, it burned long and the smoke curled beautifully around the contours of the glass bulb; it made my mouth tingle like a peppermint, and tasted fresh and plastic-y, but in a pleasant way; it felt like an electric snap went up my spine and neck and finally my brain. I stayed up all night, chatting and basking a euphoric glow altogether unrealized before this. I finalized and wrote a gushing, meth-fueled review the length of a novel, you probably know the kind. Then, I noticed I still had some coins in my account, enough to perhaps maybe possibly purchase something else? Thus began my beautiful friendship with the Silk Road.


[3 Points] None:

O my first time on SR was about two months after it went online. I was blown away with the listings, which now in retrospect was quite small. After browsing almost every day for a few months I decided I wanted some rolls. I ordered from a vendor x4u and received my Dutch pills in three days. O the nostalgia :-) I miss SR 1.0 so much.


[3 Points] Idungoofedawshucks:

I bought 200mg of 2C-B from Nawlins. A very kind vendor and answered all my noob questions. The 2-CB blew me out of the water and since then, he's my go-to.


[3 Points] KitchenWhippin101:

First purchase was from nevita for a g of 2ce. Finalized Early and it came 6 days later from India.


[1 Points] Plumpixiedust:

My first experience was in early 2013. I have a medical condition that requires painkillers for at least a few weeks almost every month (I won't go into detail) yet my doctor only prescribed me 30 vicodine for an entire year! I went online looking for pharmacies that do not require an RX to only find some shady ones located in countries where I couldn't even name their capitals. I've never bought drugs off the street and wouldn't even know where to begin. One day I found a site that had a list of "reputable" online pharmacies and on that list was the onion to Silkroad. I decided to copy and paste it into the address bar. Low and behold it didn't work. I had no idea at the time that there was a whole "other internet" in existence. I then found a blog that went into depth about silkroad and how to access it using Tor. I read everything I could about this magical hidden service and finally downloaded the Tor bundle.

Once I accessed it, I was exposed to a whole other world that I couldn't imagine in my wildest dreams. A site where you could buy any drug as simply as purchasing something on amazon. Then I realized it wasn't that simple. I had to get my hands on BTC which also took some research and figuring out. I looked for sites where I could do CC to BTC transaction, but none existed. I wasn't comfortable with sending in my DL to some random foreign website. So I found a site in the US. After a week, I had my BTC, figured out blockchain, PGP, and made my 1st purchase on SR1. My life hasn't been the same since. Can't say I haven't been moderately addicted to the pain meds or DNM's. Haha! My heart sank when I saw that seized notice on that horrible morning in Oct 2013. No other site thus far has lived up to SR1 nor do I think they ever will. But I've had many successful transactions with some amazing trusted vendors from SR on other markets. All hope isn't lost. But it's still not the same.


[1 Points] None:

Dear god when I stumbled across SR 1 I was like a kid in a candy store for the first time, I freaked out and started yelling for my girlfriend to come look ASAP! Everything I could ever dream about right at my finger tips, I heard mention of it in one of the exchanges I was day trading in. When I found out it went down I was outside on quite a busy sidewalk and dropped to my knees yelling "NO NO NO NOOOO!" Man did I get some weird looks....