RAMP - why the fuck not?

After the SR2 bust wired.com ran a story about the Russian language darknet market RAMP. In case you've missed it:

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/oldest-drug-market-is-russian/

The concept is dead simple:

The only disadvantage I can see compared to our SR-type system is that you don't automatically get escrow for every purchase. IMHO not having to worry about all this market drama is totally worth it. So if anyone is willing to start an international version of RAMP - you have my full support.

Not that I don't enjoy reading the shitstorm soap opera posts that happen here every other month, but sometimes I just want to deal with the vendors I know, get my drugs and move on with my life.


Comments


[4 Points] al_eberia:

The concept already exists for psychedelics, in the form of the Majestic Garden. It seems to be working there due to the presence of a trusted body to oversee it (The LSD Avengers), the general demeanor of psychedelic vendors, and a relatively low number of vendors which keeps competition low and reduces the need for shilling.

I don't think the concept is sustainable on a larger scale, unless you set up something like safeorscam.com, where you need a hard to obtain invite to provide ratings, and a karma system that will quickly ban you if you have referred suspected shills.

Having the operators conduct purity tests is only possible if there are a low number of vendors, as for the tests to be in any way accurate (and for the safety of the operators) they need to be purchased anonymously. Buying product from every new vendor would be expensive and time consuming, and the vendors that are most likely to have adulterated product (cocaine and heroin) have zero control over their supply chain, so every new batch would have to be considered untrusted and need a retest.


[5 Points] guest20253:

The reason RAMP worked and still works is that it is a Russian marketplace. And unlike international markets, they keep their market under secret. Nobody needs to know that RAMP exist and that's a huge part of their OPSEC I think. The more people know about something, the easier it gets to hack it/seize it.

Look at SR2. People who are not even buying drugs knew about it. Keeping something under cover can sometimes be much safer than implying loads of security features.