Silk Road forums
Market => Rumor mill => Topic started by: Pharmville on September 16, 2011, 05:36 am
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Hello Everyone,
This is our public notice that we can't read your PGP messages for the next few days until we get our main computer fixed. We had a major upgrade done that was for the purpose of increasing security by using TAILS, TrueCrypt, etc. but as part of the whole process we did a military grade wipe of our entire hard drive and then proceeded to reinstall the operating system. We were NOT doing this ourselves, we hired a very capable tech guy with impeccable credentials to help. Unfortunately, we had ordered in the installation disks from Apple and instead of sending the correct one, Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.8, Apple sent Leopard OS X 10.5.7. This doesn't sound like a big deal but when the re-installation was done we found that we didn't have OS X 10.6 and that many of the programs we use are not backwards compatible to OS X 10.5.
The tech guy was from out of town so he had to leave and we were unable to use our MAIL program to decrypt PGP messages. The tech guy tried to help us find a workaround but after several hours on the phone going back and forth we finally had to give up and just go back to shipping and answering inquiries. Apple had removed all copies of OS 10.6 from their stores and warehouses because they didn't want them sold at retail now that the new Lion OS X whatever is out. I finally got to the head muckety muck at Apple in Cupertino today and she promised the disks would be sent overnight, so hopefully they will arrive tomorrow, Friday, and we can install them and start using PGP again.
In the meantime, if your order is in our system and is not yet shipped and you have encrypted your address with PGP, please go in and change it to cleartext so we can ship your order on Friday. If you don't do this, I cannot guarantee we will get the disks in time to send your order out Friday and it may have to wait until Monday. If you feel uncomfortable about listing your address in cleartext on the SR system, pls send me a pm and tell me you've sent your address to TorPM and I will go there and get it, if that is more comfortabe for you.
We are truly sorry about the inconvenience that this has caused. Because of all the time this has consumed, Ben and I are also nearly a full day behind on answering pm's but we are staying up most of the night tonight and answering all the ones we can. If you sent a pm in PGP, it's the same situation, so just send it again in cleartext and we'll answer you right away.
All orders where we can read the address are being shipped and shipped on time. Nothing else is being delayed because of this problem. If anyone knows of a place that works like Babelfish except for PGP where you can just go and enter a PGP message and it will decrypt it for you, please pm me and we will use that as a temporary fix until the new Apple disks arrive. Please do not suggest using PGP file tools, we have tried this (and spent over 8 long hours with it) and it is not compatible with our system so we can't use it.
In a nutshell, this entire upgrade was done in a stunningly professional manner and yet has turned into a huge time wasting fiasco because Apple sent the wrong disks. And for anyone who is thinking "well, why didn't you just read the CD before you installed it"...well, Apple doesn't put the version on their label. The disk label simply reads "Mac OS X install DVD"...really brilliant, huh? :P So we can't blame the tech guy, we can't blame the machine, we can't blame PGP and we can't even blame ourselves. This is entirely a giant fuck up on Apple's part.
For anyone who has been wondering why they sent a pm and usually it gets answered in 3-4 hours but now it's been over 1 day and there's no answer, this is it. As I said, we are working our way out of it as I type this and we will be back running at 100% tomorrow but we won't be able to read PGP until the new Apple OS 10.6.8 install disks arrive and get reinstalled.
We are committed to delivering the same excellent service that you have come to depend on us for despite this obstacle and everyone can depend on getting their orders shipped as long as you get us your address, either in cleartext in the order system, by cleartext thru pm or by cleartext thru TorPM. For your reference, our TorPM is Pharmville, of course. :)
thanks and thanks for your patience in this matter,
Alex & Ben
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Alex & Ben,
I'm very sorry to hear about your problems. That must be very frustrating.
Did you have a backup of your PGP private key?
Your post implies that you did since you say you won't be able to read our PGP messages 'for the next few days'. Hopefully you have a backup and will be able to prove it in the near future. Please let us know if that's the case or not...
Best of luck to you with getting up and going soon. You have a great rep on SR and for good reason!
Box
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You can try there; online (ssl) decrypter (you must have a private key of course)
https://www.igolder.com/PGP/decryption/
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God I hope people stop give y'all the third degree know.
They're all like "OMFG WHERE IS MY ORDERS??!:!?!? I mssged them lik 12 hours ago djxkhghgkgkghb they are obviously scammmers~!!!!!!"
Might be a little over the top, but I had faith it was something like this. ;)
Keep up the good work guys!
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Hi everybody,
Yes, we have our private key and everyone elses on the keyring, no problem. Unfortunately in researching PGP experts to help us locally Ben found a message board for Stanford Univ. that was telling people not to update to 10.6.8 because PGP wouldn't work with it. Which is srange because I'm 95% sure that's exactly the version we had BEFORE the Apple fiasco happened, but it could have been 10.6.5 because I remember that was a version that we had for some time, but I *thought* we had updated from it. The truth is I am just not sure what version of 10.6.X we were working with BUT I SURE WISH I DID AND THAT IT WAS ON MY COMPUTER RIGHT NOW! :(
@ Box 9-thanks. It will get handled one way or the other. Mseller has given us a workaround and as soon as I can figure out how to correctly export just the secret key portion, we can start using that workaround until we get PGP itself fully working on the Mac again. Ben has contacted the original developer of PGP and is awaiting a call back for a definitive answer about whether it works with OS X 10.6.8 so we don't spend too many more hours going up blind alleys.
@ Mseller-I got your other 3 new messages and I'll be working all those options to find one that works to get my secret key out and start using that as our workaround.
@ exodus-it is a bit amazing, isn't it? If we were brand new and had only shipped a few orders, it would at least be a bit understandable. But the fact that we've been at this for just one month and already have 300 excellent feedbacks to back up the notion that we are going to do what we say we'll do makes it just plain stupid and crazy to me. Ben and I both know from working mail order on other private and public forums for the past 6+ years that no matter what the rules or conditions are stated as, buyers will start to get crazy after 6 hours of not getting a message reply and 24 hours after placing an order. That's why whenever new, small guys with a couple of scripts that ask me about whether they should become sellers on SR, I always tell them "plan on working 7 days a week, answering every message within 4 hours of receiving it and shipping every order within 24 hours or don't even start". But, I got my frustration out of my system last night in my one reply to the forum and I was much calmer by the second reply so I see no problems going forward. I have to remember that sometimes "discretion is the better part of valor" and to just ignore when people are behaving like idiots...even if they are doing it in such a way that they are being very personal when attacking you on something that you take great pride in. I've literally slept at my desk 4 of the last 5 nights because I answered pm's until I just finally collapsed. I've now developed this carpal tunnel type feeling in my left hand and I'm going to the doctor to see what can be done about that. So, anyone who thinks that normally they spoke to me by pm and I seemed like a pretty calm, rational guy but last night I sure went off on everyone when they attacked us, all I can say is: everybody has their limit and when I'm working so hard to do this job right for you, the buyers, that it's jeopardizing my health and what I get in return is called a liar, thief and scammer...well, that's my limit! :D I'm still finished with the last pm's, but I'm down to 15 messages and then mr. Oxyhoot gets his reply as my last pm to do. I'll have put in about 45 hours straight with a 20 minute desk nap when he finally gets that reply but I'm sure that won't be enough to satisfy his desire to find some other way to rag on me about something. haha!
Thanks to all you guys for sticking up for us. A lot of the very satisfied buyers we have don't even have accounts over here at the forum and probably don't have the time to write posts about nonsense like this even if they did, so it's much appreciated when you take the time to do it for us. Much, much appreciated. :) Adios!
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Heya Pharmville,
If we are not in a rush, and don't want to send our address in cleartext, is it OK to just leave our orders up until you guys get your PGP sorted? Or should we cancel our orders and place them at a later time?
Thanks for all you do!
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@gaah-pls just leave your order, if you can, because we are within 48 hours of having this solved completely. Pls look for the other post I am putting up now concerning this issue. Thanks! -Alex-