A few questions regarding ordering online and pgp

If i encrypt a message to someone else's public key, can only they open it?

When I order online, how would i go about contacting the source?

What's the best way to keep your bitcoins safe?

Do you recommend using the wallets provided on the websites, or having a separate one?

What information do you encrypt and how do you deliver it to the dealer?

Thanks


Comments


[3 Points] sohhlz:

If i encrypt a message to someone else's public key, can only they open it?

Only they can decrypt it.

When I order online, how would i go about contacting the source?

Usually darknet markets have some kind of internal messaging system. On Silk Road, from a vendor's profile page, you would import their public PGP key which is listed in a box near the bottom. You would encrypt your message to them with their public key. You would then click on send message at the top and be redirected to a page with a message box. You would copy your encrypted message to the message box do the captcha and hit send. If you want them to be able to send encrypted messages back to you, you would enter your PGP public key into the PGP box on your profile page.

Here's a good PGP tutorial:

http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1qh266/guide_pgp_4_n00bz/

Do you recommend using the wallets provided on the websites, or having a separate one?

Keep a separate wallet with backups. If you can build a secure computer system up, then don't trust any online site with all of your bitcoins, especially tor hidden sites, since they can just disappear.

What information do you encrypt and how do you deliver it to the dealer?

People usually just encrypt the addresses to where they want their items delivered, since that is the most critical information. If the darknet site is seized or is a honeypot or has informants, that is the info you are trying to protect. Other data that can't really link your account on the darknet to you in real life is not as important to encrypt, especially since it's can be pain for vendors if they have to copy and decrypt a bunch of non-critical messages.

What's the best way to keep your bitcoins safe?

That's a complicated question. If your not up to putting together a Linux based system to store your bitcoins, you may be better off leaving them at Coinbase or some other well trusted provider. Make sure that you set up some kind of two factor authentication system with them so when your Windows computer is hacked, you won't have your account emptied. Most peoples home machines running some version of Windows are terrible at protecting an electronic cash like bitcoin. Special purpose built viruses and other malware is stealing bitcoins from unsuspecting users right now. Computer security is one of the most difficult problems that bitcoin is facing.


[2 Points] Gabralkhan:

Yes, only the person(s) who have the private key can decrypt your message.

If you mean by "source" trying to make business outside the market with a direct contact with a Vendor be careful, the darkmarkets escrow features are here to protect you from scammers. Even reputed Vendor can turn into scammers or selective scammers so escrow is an important thing to keep you safe.

To be safe, first you should always try to keep common sense when you are browsing the markets, and try to follow the advices of the experienced user on scam. You have some link in the sidebar to help you to understand some of the scammers methods so you can spot them more easily yourself when you see some.

Concerning the safety of your bitcoins you should perhaps precise that, are you talking about that regarding hackers that could steal from your computer, or regarding money you want to use to buy on DarkMarkets, or regarding when you make orders on a DarkMarket?

I will advise you myself to have a separated wallet to centralize your transfers to the DarkMarkets, also it is a good advice to always have a minimum management possibility on one of the address of a transfer, and don't do transfer site to site that you won't be able to follow well if there is a bug.

Basically try to do that :

Bitcoin source (exchange, market,...) --> Wallet --> DarkMarket

this is only a simplified vision that does not include tumblers and mixers just to make you understand that you will have more elements if a wallet you have is involved in the transfer you make. For example MtGox don't give all the details about the Bitcoin transfers they make, if there is a bug and it is "site to site" it can be a pain to sort things out and solve the problem.

There are debates in the community on what type of wallet to use, some recommend online wallets like blockchain.info which is however a good one, others recommend only local wallets using clients like Bitcoin-Qt the native Bitcoin client, some people are beginning to recommend secured wallet like "Armory", this could be definitely a trend in this year 2014 to have Bitcoin wallets more secured like Armory.

Every type of these wallets will do the job and there is no real crucial points that could make people decide surely what type of wallet to use.

Concerning the information to encrypt it depends on people but every sensitive information that can be exploited to link to your real identity should be encrypted basically, addresses for the orders of course, but also the conversations that contains details and that could provide sensitive information in case the DarkMArket Server is compromised (reference to the SR 1.0 arrests and server seize).

I hope that answer to your questions.

You will probably get more answers from the community also...


[2 Points] al_eberia:

If you encrypt it correctly only they can read it.

Unless you are doing a deal through email all communication will be through the black market of your choice.

The best way to keep your bitcoins safe is to keep them on your computer with a wallet password. Backup the wallet on a USB stick. Never leave coins in a online wallet or in a black market account. Wallet services get hacked all the time and numerous Admins have stolen all the coins in market wallets. Just transfer over enough coins to buy the item and transfer the leftovers back out.

And finally, are you fucking retarded? What could you possibly give the vendor so that they can send you the drugs???

Put in some actual effort and do some research before asking questions. There are FAQs and tutorials all over the place.