Silk Road forums
Market => Rumor mill => Topic started by: tootiefruitie on July 11, 2012, 06:28 am
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anyone else notice that every time a large number of people start freaking out about how good and how stealth a vendor's packaging is, that same vendor starts having trouble getting orders through starting 3-5weeks later? there is no reason to make a big fuss about great packaging. all we need in info is satisfactory, needs improvement, or unsatisfactory.
if the vendor wants you to know they have stealth they will tell you so. (although the only vendor to specifically offer this in shipping options has gone missing from SR, surrounded by many rumors) saying it is stealth is exactly what that thing under the leave feedback box means to NOTdo when it says not to reveal shipping techniques. but do buyers stop there even? no they don't just say it's stealth... they start masturbating on the keyboard about it and add a bunch of !!!!!! and capital letters just because apparently it's so fucking exciting. and then they come to the forums and do it all over again! because OMG ITS THE BEST EVER YOU SRSLYHAVE TO SEEE THIS COULDNT EVEN FIND IT UNTIL AFTER IT HAD BEEN THROWN AWAY LOL
this doesn't help your fellow buyer out. it's actually annoying to many of us. but more importantly, when people do this shit over and over about packages, it most likely will draw LE attention to it, and goddamn it they will make a point to get a sample ordered ASAP. because they're excited about packaging too! vendors already have to change packaging frequently to keep us safe and to make sure orders make it through. don't force them to change it even more frequently, and cost them and their buyers money in the process.
a vendor with feedback like i describe here has just recently started experiencing shipping problems on a large scale. this is the third time i have sen this happen on SR. i really don't think it' s a coincidence. rather than FE, vendors are going to have to start requiring an IQ test to order.
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You have a pretty solid point. I think the more and more a vendor is being spot on with the way he runs things, and the more publicity this site gets, the easier and harder customs might (or might not) crackdown. Who knows though. The site has grown so much in the past year it's been a crazy ride. Hopefully things all work out for the better though :)
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As long as you don't go into details, saying that it was stealthy alone isn't that risky.
Customs know that anything illegal trying to go through will be stealthy.
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I've found I have the best success rates when a vendor simply hand writes the address on the bag and deposits said bag in mail.
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Is it far-fetched to think that LE has probably ordered something from SKYY, DrAmsterdam, and all the big sellers and analyzed their shipping methods already? And what is knowing that the drugs in an envelope are "super stealthy" going to do? You think they're going to X-ray every single letter coming out of a country just because some nobody on a forum says its stealthy? We rely on the sheer size of the postal service and the amount of post going thru it every day to get our orders thru. They.physically cannot examine every letter to see if there's some "super stealthy" drugs inside.
One love
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I personally wouldn't worry about 'tipping' off LE because it's like a needle in a haystack for them. What annoys ME though is when people finalize simply after receiving the product without testing it or when people leave feedback to say 'packaging was great' but give no information about the product at all. This happens on way too many occasions. Basically, if you're going to leave feedback, don't bother saying that the packaging was great because they usually are. Good packaging is a given in this game. I think buyers should only mention the packaging if it was actually bad and/or could be improved. I wish people would talk more about the quality of the products because that would be FAR more useful to other buyers.
Basically, tootiefrutie, I agree with your premise but for different reasons I think.
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All people need to say is that the package came and it was not labelled 'cocaine' or stinking of cheese bud or stinky hash.
The risk I see for vendors is to stick with just one business type letter (for the small under 5 gram packages)
I have already triangulated the location in which some UK vendors post. Just out of curiosity as to the vendors own security levels.
Lets face it some vendors are users and might be strolling around the corner to the same postcode to deliver the mail.
And vendors who do have good shipping methods, will have been doing this for years. Customs and police and law enforcement are onto the new emerging markets online. A new generation of cops will be smart enough to take some vendors down IF they get the funding. Most cops know the war on drugs is not a war. Wars end. This is forever until we legalise some produce and maintain addictions with medical quality gear with provisions that users behave. They will be good boys and girls for the sake of 0.1 bitcoin worth of pure pharmaceutical heroin. Most crime is over then. 90% of the shit going on ends.
Cops then will be able to catch the real bad people out doing nasty things to other people. Rape. murder, robbery, fraud and abuse.
Taking drugs can be bad if you put drugs before loved ones. For users who take care of life and then chill out now and again, what crime is that really?
Who really gives a flying fuck if someone works all week then buys a gram of coke?
Someone smokes a gram of bud, does this matter really?
Cops are losing jobs so I doubt many will be on some special force to take down one website out of thousands and more being set up each day by people less honest than the SR management. At least we have quality control here. THAT is why I buy here.
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lol tootie frutie chill out dude, as a buyer i love seeing people say it was incredibly stealthy, it gets me pumped, but im into not getting arrested maybe u r i dont know. Also to say calling the packaging stealthy is tipping customs off is so ridiculously stupid and unthought out i almost dont feel the need to respond lol. Do you know how many packages go through customs every day, o wait they know there are drugs coming through in stealth packages now, i can see what the bosses at customs will say " Everybody we read on a website drugs are coming through in SUPER STEALTh packaging everybody stop the STEALTH PACKAGES and we will stop all the drugs, stop every package that looks like it is stealth because stealth doesnt mean you cant tell the packages contents, we are geniuses hooray those idiots who tipped us off" lol sounds like a comedy skit.
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What if during feedback a package ranking dropdown could be in place, five categories and hope that people honor them. Perhaps re-stress the importance of not giving everything up in the feedback.
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What if during feedback a package ranking dropdown could be in place, five categories and hope that people honor them. Perhaps re-stress the importance of not giving everything up in the feedback.
I don't really understand quite what your saying, can you try rephrasing it perhaps? Are you saying they should have a system more similar to the ebay system where vendors get a seperate rating for p and p? If that's what you're saying, I completely agree. It just gets so boring reading in feedback that the packaging was stealthy. Big deal! Once you've seen a product vacuum packaged once the novelty wears off pretty soon so it gets boring when people talk about it all the time. It's not hard to get a vacuum sealer you know?
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FYI: I am sure the USPS and DEA / Government already know that most packages come in priority mail bubble or flat rate.... not that hard to find out after a few orders / looking at comments and profiles..
Come on get real guys. They aren't that stupid
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FYI: I am sure the USPS and DEA / Government already know that most packages come in priority mail bubble or flat rate.... not that hard to find out after a few orders / looking at comments and profiles..
Come on get real guys. They aren't that stupid
Hear hear
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What if during feedback a package ranking dropdown could be in place, five categories and hope that people honor them. Perhaps re-stress the importance of not giving everything up in the feedback.
I don't really understand quite what your saying, can you try rephrasing it perhaps? Are you saying they should have a system more similar to the ebay system where vendors get a seperate rating for p and p? If that's what you're saying, I completely agree. It just gets so boring reading in feedback that the packaging was stealthy. Big deal! Once you've seen a product vacuum packaged once the novelty wears off pretty soon so it gets boring when people talk about it all the time. It's not hard to get a vacuum sealer you know?
Not really sure where the confusion could lie, but essentially yes to what you are saying. Next to the typed feedback would be a dropdown menu of ratings from 1 - 5. Each of of the rankings would need to qualified and would have to stress holding to standards so everyone wouldn't be handing out fives just because they received something outright. ie 4/5 would be an excellent rank (standard bubble wrap, no smell) whereas a 5 would be a rare thing, only used in the sense of truly creative or innovative packaging. Along with a heightened disclaimer telling all reviewers to leave any details of packaging out of their statement.
-Cheers
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lol tootie frutie chill out dude, as a buyer i love seeing people say it was incredibly stealthy, it gets me pumped, but im into not getting arrested maybe u r i dont know. Also to say calling the packaging stealthy is tipping customs off is so ridiculously stupid and unthought out i almost dont feel the need to respond lol. Do you know how many packages go through customs every day, o wait they know there are drugs coming through in stealth packages now, i can see what the bosses at customs will say " Everybody we read on a website drugs are coming through in SUPER STEALTh packaging everybody stop the STEALTH PACKAGES and we will stop all the drugs, stop every package that looks like it is stealth because stealth doesnt mean you cant tell the packages contents, we are geniuses hooray those idiots who tipped us off" lol sounds like a comedy skit.
You sound like a comedy skit, be constructive and jog off.
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Is it far-fetched to think that LE has probably ordered something from SKYY, DrAmsterdam, and all the big sellers and analyzed their shipping methods already? And what is knowing that the drugs in an envelope are "super stealthy" going to do? You think they're going to X-ray every single letter coming out of a country just because some nobody on a forum says its stealthy? We rely on the sheer size of the postal service and the amount of post going thru it every day to get our orders thru. They.physically cannot examine every letter to see if there's some "super stealthy" drugs inside.
One love
of course LE orders from vendors. THATS WHY THIS IS AN ISSUE. they likely order no more than once a month. when 20+ people make a big deal about a specific vendor's packaging, they order again to see what the new packaging is. if buyers didn't point it out to them, perhaps they would still be looking for the old packaging they had from their sample a month prior.
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I personally wouldn't worry about 'tipping' off LE because it's like a needle in a haystack for them. What annoys ME though is when people finalize simply after receiving the product without testing it or when people leave feedback to say 'packaging was great' but give no information about the product at all. This happens on way too many occasions. Basically, if you're going to leave feedback, don't bother saying that the packaging was great because they usually are. Good packaging is a given in this game. I think buyers should only mention the packaging if it was actually bad and/or could be improved. I wish people would talk more about the quality of the products because that would be FAR more useful to other buyers.
Basically, tootiefrutie, I agree with your premise but for different reasons I think.
you guys are all missing the point. it's not a needle in a haystack when they get tipped off to make another order from the vendor to check out the packaging, and get a return address to flag and a packaging description to go with it. that maks it MUCH easier to find. by drawing massive attention to specific vendors, their packaging has to be changed even more frequently to get through, because LE is going to order from them more.
honestly, return addresses and packaging should be changed after every batch that is shipped, but most vendors don't even change it monthly. if they changed it after every shipment, or even every week, it would make no amount of description from buyers or samples ordered by LE useful to LE.
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Is it far-fetched to think that LE has probably ordered something from SKYY, DrAmsterdam, and all the big sellers and analyzed their shipping methods already? And what is knowing that the drugs in an envelope are "super stealthy" going to do? You think they're going to X-ray every single letter coming out of a country just because some nobody on a forum says its stealthy? We rely on the sheer size of the postal service and the amount of post going thru it every day to get our orders thru. They.physically cannot examine every letter to see if there's some "super stealthy" drugs inside.
One love
they likely order no more than once a month.
That seems pretty speculative. Do you know that for a fact? (Pure curiosity). My guess is they order as often as possible to attempt to triangulate a vendors location.
And what is knowing how the drug is hidden going to do? They can't tell all the postal sorters to look for the envelope with the drugs hidden in it this way or that way.
It seems like it'd be fairly difficult for a vendor to change their packaging so much.
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lol tootie frutie chill out dude, as a buyer i love seeing people say it was incredibly stealthy, it gets me pumped, but im into not getting arrested maybe u r i dont know. Also to say calling the packaging stealthy is tipping customs off is so ridiculously stupid and unthought out i almost dont feel the need to respond lol. Do you know how many packages go through customs every day, o wait they know there are drugs coming through in stealth packages now, i can see what the bosses at customs will say " Everybody we read on a website drugs are coming through in SUPER STEALTh packaging everybody stop the STEALTH PACKAGES and we will stop all the drugs, stop every package that looks like it is stealth because stealth doesnt mean you cant tell the packages contents, we are geniuses hooray those idiots who tipped us off" lol sounds like a comedy skit.
obviously, you are the one not capable of thinking this out well. LE orders from major vendors probably about monthly. when a lot of attention is drawn to one vendor's packaging, they order it again immediately, because they know they might not have the current packaging. there is no "needle in a haystack" benefit when they know specific return address info and packaging.
and no, no one is getting arrested from this happening, but will you be happy when this affects you, and you get a $300 refund when your $600 order is intercepted?
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it's the 10,20,30,40,50+ comments about the packaging being undetected even if opened by customs, or that a roommate opened it and had no idea it was drugs, or that it was thrown away because it was hard to find. this draws LE attention, and they make a point to order so they can see this wonderful new method they are unaware of that is apparently making it through customs. guess what? after that happens, the method is no longer safe when customs opens it.
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Is it far-fetched to think that LE has probably ordered something from SKYY, DrAmsterdam, and all the big sellers and analyzed their shipping methods already? And what is knowing that the drugs in an envelope are "super stealthy" going to do? You think they're going to X-ray every single letter coming out of a country just because some nobody on a forum says its stealthy? We rely on the sheer size of the postal service and the amount of post going thru it every day to get our orders thru. They.physically cannot examine every letter to see if there's some "super stealthy" drugs inside.
One love
they likely order no more than once a month.
That seems pretty speculative. Do you know that for a fact? (Pure curiosity). My guess is they order as often as possible to attempt to triangulate a vendors location.
And what is knowing how the drug is hidden going to do? They can't tell all the postal sorters to look for the envelope with the drugs hidden in it this way or that way.
It seems like it'd be fairly difficult for a vendor to change their packaging so much.
with return addresses being in their tracking database, it is incredibly easy to flag packages from one. if not the packaging, then a vendor should at least change the return address every time they ship. that should not be hard at all.
and no, i don't know for a fact that LE orders once a month. it is logical that they would order from a vendor more frequently than that if buyers make a big deal about how their stealth is "100% open-safe and will always make it through." knowing stealth methods is great for them i'm sure, but knowing specific return addresses to flag is a sure thing. the frequency of their orders would be determined by their budget, and the number of vendors targeted at a time. if they target the top 30 vendors, each round of orders would be $1500 if each order was $50 average. that would mean weekly orders costing $6000. they definitely have the money, but the question is how much they have dedicated to ordering packages. i'm sure higher officials would protest what is essentially supporting the vendors by buying drugs from them too frequently, which would probably cause the amount dedicated to the activity to be at least fairly low, with much more money spent following other routes that don't benefit the vendor directly.
do people honestly think LE's strategy is "alright customs boys, let's be extra vigilant!"? they're aware of the mass number of parcels allowing drugs to blend in. that's why they do things to make them easier to find. like gather return addresses. up until now they really didn't have the abiility to buy packages from people shipping drugs, so in that respect this site gives them another weapon in their arsenal, just as it does for us. we only have to take this into account, and make minor modifications to render their's useless.
above all... requesting that vendors change packaging frequently (monthly? bimonthly? a rotation that doesn't repeat for 6months?) , and return addresses even more frequently in addiction to buyers limiting feedback about packaging to "a+ packaging" , etc. doesn't cost a thing to anyone. it isn't hard to implement. there is little reason not to other than sheer stubbornness. if it just has a 10% chance of helping SR be more successful and to stay around longer, don't you think it's worth doing?
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I think the better question is how are we going to notify our buyers that we have been turned without making it look like we are notifying them?
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What if during feedback a package ranking dropdown could be in place, five categories and hope that people honor them. Perhaps re-stress the importance of not giving everything up in the feedback.
I don't really understand quite what your saying, can you try rephrasing it perhaps? Are you saying they should have a system more similar to the ebay system where vendors get a seperate rating for p and p? If that's what you're saying, I completely agree. It just gets so boring reading in feedback that the packaging was stealthy. Big deal! Once you've seen a product vacuum packaged once the novelty wears off pretty soon so it gets boring when people talk about it all the time. It's not hard to get a vacuum sealer you know?
Not really sure where the confusion could lie, but essentially yes to what you are saying. Next to the typed feedback would be a dropdown menu of ratings from 1 - 5. Each of of the rankings would need to qualified and would have to stress holding to standards so everyone wouldn't be handing out fives just because they received something outright. ie 4/5 would be an excellent rank (standard bubble wrap, no smell) whereas a 5 would be a rare thing, only used in the sense of truly creative or innovative packaging. Along with a heightened disclaimer telling all reviewers to leave any details of packaging out of their statement.
-Cheers
Sorry, what you wrote makes perfect sense to me now! I agree with your idea as well.
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I think the better question is how are we going to notify our buyers that we have been turned without making it look like we are notifying them?
if you are "turned" if would be willingly. you could always refuse to cooperate.
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This question as to LE activity is something which those well versed in security are better placed to answer without adverse speculation. Personally I don't think the extreme example of purchasing multiple or many times a month as an attack on a certain vendor is realistic, simply because for the cost, man hours and effort it would take to do detailed traffic analyses on their tor activities/events and profiling their stationary etc, there are no evident results: we don't see half a dozen of the top 12 vendors busted every month or two like clockwork. There is no concerted Interpol task force cooperating to simultaneously take down the biggest guys in 3 countries at once. We are not that big a deal, as others have said many times. NSA hasn't wiped out the site, either. One reasonable interpretation states that the most likely attacks will be intelligence based on low-hanging fruit. For myself, if I were an eager and somewhat determined enforcement official, given enough resources, I'd probably deploy similar tactics to the RIAA/MPAA in going after torrent users: enough legal threats to enough ordinary users, a few busts judiciously sprinkled around so as to encourage a fear for most ordinary users that the service won't be safe to use, and so many of them won't. To do that, I'd only need to pwn a handful of extant vendors, coupled with my own stalking horse trojan vendor accounts. Besides, I think it would rankle somewhat to pay a weekly chit to drug dealers for their latest intelligence offings.
More directly on topic, this cuts both ways. Just as with the Changes by DPR to the sales, ranking and feedback interfaces, there has to be a balance between protecting the vendors relative transparency and limiting the data, and still giving buyers enough information to make calculated decisions about risk. I maintain that the key to succeeding as a buyer is research, interpretation of feedback information and drawing as many coherent inferences from it as possible. I don't need to be told that KeyThugAlpha is shipping his heroin inside teddybears and its fucking hilarious, but conversely if there's no wiggle room as far as establishing the efficacy or novelty of a method, then my security is compromised. I need to know enough to take a gamble, whether in ordering from a new vendor or from someone I have a history with, and the fewer shades I have in sounding it out, the worse off I and other buyers are in turn. There's no need for outright hostility, simply to remain modest, meaningful, and cautious. Everything has its cost.