Silk Road forums

Market => Rumor mill => Topic started by: Pharmville on September 20, 2011, 03:10 pm

Title: ***UPDATE: PHARMVILLE PGP ORDERS TO SHIP ON WEDNESDAY***
Post by: Pharmville on September 20, 2011, 03:10 pm
Hello Everyone,

Well, this has been an interesting journey, but mostly a long dark run down a rabbit hole.

Once we had exhausted the knowledge base of the local PGP experts here where we live, Ben had the incredibly good idea of getting in contact with the office of Phil Zimmermann, the originator of PGP.  This is where we FINALLY got a definitive answer about the PGP situation for anyone using a Mac with Snow Leopard 10.6.8  or Lion OS on it.  And the answer is: GPG, the free version, won't run on either system.  The GnuPG group is working on a patch to make it work but they're talking about *maybe* having it ready by Christmas! 

We were willing to pay for the licensed version so we made our calls out to Symantec (who is now the owner of the PGP brand name and family of products) and found out that in their infinite wisdom they made the product so that it only works with other people who have *their icensed PGP product* installed on their machine.  In othe words, even if you BUY PGP from Symantec you can't interact with the universe of people who are using the freeware GPG that all of us on SR are using. 

So we are doing the only thing that will definitely fix the problem permanently and make it so we can start decrypting your messages again and shipping your orders: we're going out this morning and buying a Windows laptop and installing Tor and GPG on it and then I will have it sitting right here next to my Mac, which will still be my main machine but when something needs to be read and responded to in PGP, I will pop over to the Windows machine and take care of it.

I haven't used a Windows machine for over 5 years so I have to allow myself today just to get familiar again with how to work it and make sure that the PGP and Tor work and if for some reason they don't then I have to get over to a local tech guy and get them working before it gets too late tonight.

For all the people who entered orders using PGP in the last 24 hours (there's about 20 of you) if you want to go in and change it to cleartext OR send your addy to us via TorPM, then we will ship your order today.  But if they're left there in PGP then they're going to ship tomorow.

Let's just hope there isn't some mysterious PGP ghost in the new windows machine that i have to overcome before I can get started with all the decrypting! ;)

Thanks so much for all your patience as we have gone through this...it has been a literal living hell.  As soon as this machine is set up I will be answering ALL the pm's that we have that have built up since yesterday afternoon because I just couldn't stay up all night and do them, I fell asleep and I didn't wake up until 6am. :P

And for anyone who is a seller and uses a Mac: for gosh sakes don't upgrade to 10.6.8 or the new Lion OS or you will NOT be able to communicate in PGP!

have fun everyone,
Alex & Ben
Title: Re: ***UPDATE: PHARMVILLE PGP ORDERS TO SHIP ON WEDNESDAY***
Post by: upstart on September 20, 2011, 06:59 pm
I'm using GPG 2.0.17 just fine on Lion, although I use the command-line version.

You can get version 2.0.18 here which I suspect will work just as well:

http://www.gpgtools.org

Install it, open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app then:

To import a public key:

gpg --import
<copy key from your browser with CONTROL-C>
<paste key, CONTROL-V>
<hit CONTROL-D>

To generate your own key:

gpg --gen-key

To encrypt a message:

gpg -e -s -a -v -r <recipient name> -u <your name> -o output.filename input.filename

To decrypt a message:

gpg -d input.filename

If you're like me and don't even like to save the plaintext messages to disk then to encrypt you can do:

gpg -e -s -a -v -r <recipient name> -u <your name> -o output.filename
<type in your message>
<press CONTROL-D>
<your encrypted message is now in output.filename>
Title: Re: ***UPDATE: PHARMVILLE PGP ORDERS TO SHIP ON WEDNESDAY***
Post by: upstart on September 20, 2011, 07:20 pm
Found this cheat-sheet on GPG which is nice:

http://irtfweb.ifa.hawaii.edu/~lockhart/gpg/gpg-cs.html

Just remember to press Control-D after you paste in keys or text (and Control-C to abort a command).
Title: Re: ***UPDATE: PHARMVILLE PGP ORDERS TO SHIP ON WEDNESDAY***
Post by: Pharmville on September 21, 2011, 02:20 am
***NOTICE: WE DID NOT GET OUR PGP WORKING TODAY.  FURTHER DELAY IN PGP ORDERS.  PLEASE READ THIS POST***
***NEW PRODUCT HAS ARRIVED AND WILL SHIP WEDNESDAY.  NEW ITEM OF KETAMINE POWDER TO BE INTRODUCED***
Hi Everyone,

I have spent now an uncountable number of hours trying to get this situation sorted out and I haven't been able to make it work. :(

I used Msellers excellent suggestion of the online decryption machine but even though I did everything right (or so it appeared) every single message decrypted to only say "invalid header detected".

Today I purchase a Windows laptop and spent all day installing Tor and getting GPG4Win installed and moving my keys over to the new machine but it still has a problem that I cannot figure out and I'd like to ask for the communities help:  When I got the machine I uninstalled Norton Security and turned off every firewall that I know of so that the .onion addresses would be able to be accessed.  But I still cannot access them.  Tor is working perfectly and I can access the Net, no problem.  But the machine simply WILL NOT connect to a .onion address.  I have tried every .onion addy I know and they ALL just time out and never connect.  If someone can tell me what network settings or whatever I need to change so that I can access .onion addresses then I would be very close to having the problem solved.  I *think* I know how to decrypt and encrypt once that is solved and I have Kleopatra installed and all my GPG keys imported so I think this is the last hurdle.  I've tried to hire someone locally to fix it but no one that I can locate seems to know anything about Tor. 

The good news is that we've continued to ship all orders that have arrived with cleartext addresses or where the buyers have taken my suggestion and sent their address to me via TorPM. 

TO THE BUYERS WHO HAVE CURRENT ORDERS WITH PGP ADDRESSES:  I cannot in good conscience tell you any longer with total confidence that I know that this situation will be fixed tomorrow or the next day.  It might happen tomorrow morning or it might take a week.  I can't believe it's been this difficult and taken so long already.  I will try each of the suggestions in this thread tomorrow after shipping and pm's are answered.  I just can't justify letting the communications lag with our good buyers while I spend 80% of every 24 hour day trying to make PGP work.  So I ask again that please, if you can see your way clear to do it, please send whatever info is in your PGP message attached to your order to us at TorPM and we will get your shipment out.  We did run out of roxis today but the new shipment arrives tomorrow morning so we will ship EVERY ORDER that we can read the address for tomorrow.  If your order shipped, you have already received your shipping confirmation.  Anyone who hasn't gotten one yet, your order is still in process and will ship tomorrow, Wednesday, unless we can't read the address because it's in PGP.  Our valium arrived today, 5 days early, so we will be shipping all those pre-orders tomorrow as well. :)
We still have good stock and another large order coming of the (now proven by it's biggest critic to be good, potent xanax ;)  ) 2mg xanax.  So we have EVERY ITEM IN STOCK AND IN GOOD QUANTITIES.  Place an order with a cleartext address and it will ship right away.  Place an order and put in the address box "sent you my address by TorPM" and I will go to TorPM and pull your addy from there and your order will ship right away. 

@silkroaduser-I *think* you are using a different name to purchase, right?  Your address is in PGP so I need you to either give it to me cleartext or send it to us at TorPM under "Pharmville" for me to ship it.  I took down the listings because of the continued argument about the millligrams per milliliter but I still have bottles, they are still just as potent as before and I will be happy to ship them to anyone (especially and including the couple of hundred of buyers who have already bought one and pm'd to me how much they loved it and how strong,clean and pure it was) who wants one.  Just send me a pm and we'll work it out. ;) 

For those people who simply cannot or will not believe that ketamine comes in a solution concentrated higher than 500mg/10ml we are going to offer gram and half gram bags.  The prices will be $45 for a half gram and $80 for a gram because it is a pain in the butt to dry the stuff out and scrape it up and then weigh it out.  It's a job that gets added on to an already extremely long work day so it's got to be compensated for.  Ben volunteered to do the work (I don't have any time left with the PGP problem and the normal communications plus purchasing plus selling BTC's plus plus plus) so it will be available soon, probably starting Thursday.  It's also a great way for a person who doesn't have experience with ketamine to give it a try without having to make a $150 investment. :)  Each baggie will be packed by Ben and then checked by me on the scale so that there will be no issues about short weights or any of that kind of thing.  We hope this will make it possible for anyone and everyone that wants to buy our ketamine (which we think is a damn fine product! :)  ) in the way that is most comfortable and convenient for them.  We are using all the current stock of bottles to make the dry K powder except enough for current orders.  I am going to get another shipment of bottles on Wednesday and I will dry one out to make sure it is a full 2000mg/10ml and then the listings for the bottles will go back up. :)  Probably on Thursday as well.  Friday at the latest.

Wow, I didn't realize this was going to be a full review of the current operations of Pharmville, but that's sure how it turned out. :)  for the TL;DR crowd: Every item is exactly as advertised, every item is great quality, every item is in stock in good quantity and can ship immediately.  The only problem we have is that we still can't read PGP and need you to send your address in cleartext or use the TorPM workaround.

As always, thanks for all your support.  Ben and I truly appreciate it and we love working with the people we meet here at the Silk Road!
Title: Re: ***UPDATE: PHARMVILLE PGP ORDERS TO SHIP ON WEDNESDAY***
Post by: foobaranon on September 22, 2011, 04:06 am
pharmville, I'm a fan of yours.  you've been good to me many times in the past, and hopefully in the future (I'm posting under a non anon account solely for the purpose of not pissing pharmville of and being unable to use them again!).

Your message was definitely not a good one from a security perspective.  Unfortunately anyone reading the forum knows:
1. You made contact with the creator of pgp
2. You made a phone call to Symantec
3. At one point (hopefully still not true), you've disabled every firewall you know of
4. You've tried to hire local people to fix your gpg/tor issue
5. You recently purchased a new windows laptop, and you were previously using a mac

These are all fantastic leads if one wanted to try and figure out your location and identities.

I know for a fact you had good intentions, and I'm all for open communication and all, but not at the cost of you getting busted.  Think smart man.

And def delete any non-relevant messages, even gpg ones :)
Title: Re: ***UPDATE: PHARMVILLE PGP ORDERS TO SHIP ON WEDNESDAY***
Post by: Pharmville on September 23, 2011, 05:49 am
Hi good-customer-hiding-behind-anon-account, ;),

While I *do* appreciate your concern for our well-being and security I assure you that the actions that were taken were taken with the same eye towards security that all our actions are taken.  Meaning, maybe the details of what I say I did are not exactly the same as the actions really taken.  Or perhaps they were taken in a manner to avoid detection up front. 

I am SURE that if the DEA could get the NSA to devote some resources to a project to find Pharmville, they would accomplish it.  but I seriously doubt we're important enough to warrant that attention, no matter what our level of sales at SR.

If you've ordered from us multiple times, just think of this: how many different packaging labels and styles have you received?  We've been on SR exactly 41 days.  I know we've used a dozen or more in that time so you may have already seen 5-6 yourself.  And did anything about our package say "drugs in the mail" to you?  I only point this out because we use that same care with everything we do.

If I was willing to post a Craig's list ad to get someone to fix my GPG/Tor problems on a Mac running 10.6.8 then I could likely have it done in a day, no sweat.  So just the time this is taking us *might* indicate that we use much more discreet methods to find and source both human and machine help.  Ben had the idea to get in contact with the people who created PGP to get a definitive answer about the compatibility issue with 10.6.8 and we did get a definitive answer.  But did Ben or I call from a phone registered in our real names or even a phone that formally exists as far as AT&T knows? You're right about Symantec, but how many people call there every day?  They would need more than that to even start, especially if the phone being used to call them didn't ping back to our real physical location.  And disabling firewalls on a machine with no information on it doesn't matter one way or the other.  And did we buy a Win laptop?  I don't think we did.  We "got" one.  \

But I appreciate the concern.  I do try to be informative and I have to always watch what info that is giving the other side.   There are a few real life reasons that we are particularly hard to find but I can't and won't go into them.  But that doesn't lull me into a sense of false security.  I just have to hope that the security we use is enough which is why we have this problem in the first place: instituting additional security.  hahaha! 

And just btw, you would never get banned or black listed for criticizing us on the forum or any other reason like that.  Just ask Oxyhoot if he has been told he's welcome even after that shit storm. :)  Everyone makes mistakes and I NEED people to tell me when I do so I don't repeat them or make them habits. 

Next post: the PGP issue finally limps towards resolution.
Title: Re: ***UPDATE: PHARMVILLE PGP ORDERS TO SHIP ON WEDNESDAY***
Post by: towelie on September 23, 2011, 06:10 am
And this is why we/I love you :D
Title: Re: ***UPDATE: PHARMVILLE PGP ORDERS TO SHIP ON WEDNESDAY***
Post by: Ineluctable on September 23, 2011, 06:24 am
Pharmville, I suggest you download this bundle on the Tor webpage for .onion viewing, it's a lot easier than trying to configure it all yourself:
https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en

It sounds like you have the GPG end of things figured out, so that's all you'll need. :)

Title: Re: ***UPDATE: PHARMVILLE PGP ORDERS TO SHIP ON WEDNESDAY***
Post by: WhoDat28 on September 23, 2011, 06:26 am
Hey Pharmville,

Not sure if you guys are still having trouble accessing .onion sites, but I wanted to throw in something that I didn't see mentioned in your post. I believe that besides running the Tor software (eg. Vidalia) you also have to run an app within your browser in order to activate that browser for Tor and be able to access .onion sites. I use Firefox as my browser and the "add-on" that I use is called "TORBUTTON". Hope this helps guys, lets get this PGP sucka up and running again!!
 :)