Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: AlphaLima on July 07, 2012, 12:08 pm
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Is it common for vendors to cancel orders from noobs with no buying history?
I take percocet for osteoarthritis. I'm almost out and need more fairly quickly. I actually managed to find SR, do the TOR thing, get BC all on my own! But I am not tech savvy enough to understand that whole string of characters and encrypted messages and stuff. Hell, I did fabulous just getting this far! When I place my order I have no idea how to encrypt my address. I had no choice but to put it in the box on the order form. And my order was canceled by the vendor. Is this common?
I understand it's a good thing to be paranoid, I didn't even use my real address. But I can't encrypt it. Will vendors always cancel if I can't encrypt my addy? The person I placed the order with seemed reputable, good feedback, been on SR a while.
Do I just keep trying until someone will ship? Anyone have any recommendations?
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You hould definitely read up on how to use PGP asap.
There is a sticky about it in the security forum. and if you need further assistance you are welcome to PM me.
But the vendors reserve the right to cancel anybody's order. and if you are trying to buy a bulk amount amount of something with a brand new account and you don't even have PGP set up. Than I think that a lot of vendors will continue to cancel your orders.
start out small and make a few tiny buys.
work up a relationship with a vendor before you place an order. and you should always read a vendors entire page before ordering.
And you should always PM a vendor that does not know you before placing an order
Hope this helps
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You really should learn to use PGP encryption, if a seller cancels your order because your address wasn't encrypted, it's ultimately in the interest of your privacy and protection as proper packages have no incriminating evidence for the vendor. Being able to use basic PGP will make you appear to be a more competent, and therefore "safe" customer. Ultimately though, for a new user with few or no transaction ratings, there are vendors who either will serve you with caution or won't work with you at all. If it's a newbie friendly vendor they'll likely encourage you to use PGP in the future and still agree to ship, but they will often want you to finalize early. Unfortunately, vendors who sell opiates here seem to get more low purchase history scam buyers trying to rip them off than vendors who sell less addictive items. This means they are less willing to take the risk of new buyers than vendors of other products. What operating system are you using? I'm guessing Windows, and if so you should use the gpg4win utility, which can be had at this URL
http://gpg4win.org/
Once the program is up and running, it's as easy as copying and pasting your favorite vendor's public key into your keyring in gpg4win, then copying and pasting the encrypted message text(armor output) into the address box.
Hope this helps, I'd be willing to offer more help in getting started with basic PGP if you are interested in learning how to do it.
Oh, and welcome to the road. ;D
Remember to finalize your orders as soon as possible after you have received the package and everything seems to be in order, but never finalize early unless you absolutely have to. Don't use a fake name unless you have a fake ID to back it up for a PO box, or at least try sending yourself a letter to the fake name to be sure it works. Don't be afraid to PM your vendors if you have legitimate questions, they should be more than happy to answer any question that isn't answered on their vendor profile when they have time. Do be afraid of pestering the bejeesus out of them by constantly asking about when your package will arrive until it has been 5 days or so for first class mail. Happy travels.
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You hould definitely read up on how to use PGP asap.
There is a sticky about it in the security forum. and if you need further assistance you are welcome to PM me.
But the vendors reserve the right to cancel anybody's order. and if you are trying to buy a bulk amount amount of something with a brand new account and you don't even have PGP set up. Than I think that a lot of vendors will continue to cancel your orders.
start out small and make a few tiny buys.
work up a relationship with a vendor before you place an order. and you should always read a vendors entire page before ordering.
And you should always PM a vendor that does not know you before placing an order
Hope this helps
+1
As a vendor I know it means a lot to me if someone has gone to my profile page and read it, and then contacts me. I state there that anyone with fewer than five feedbacks should contact me first and it shows courtesy when they do so. And I think even if they do not request it explicitly like I do, many vendors would like to hear from you first. Just an introduction of who you are and what you are interested in, and I recommend you tell them (only if they have a long, steady, flawless track record!!!) that you will finalize early. This means they get paid before they ship.
Now some caveats here. You can get totally screwed if you FE and the guy fails to ship. If you have any reason to doubt the vendor's integrity don't do it! I know everyone says here on the forums that you need to stay in escrow, but sorry the fact is nobody will sell to you as a total newbie if you don't finalize early (release escrow). It is a matter of common sense- vendors know that some people change usernames every day! The reason they have zero feedbacks is they were somebody else yesterday.
I wish you the best of luck on SR. It is unfortunate that your needs are not being met through traditional means, but bitcoin is the money of freedom so welcome to Silk Road, welcome to bitcoin, and welcome to freedom!
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Thanks for your support Flaxceed
And if the OP is in fact using Windows, and they intend to stick around the Silk road for a while. Than I have one important word for you:
LINUX
Learn it
Love it
and value your freedom
Because windows is simply not to be trusted (the same goes for Macintosh IMHO, as well)
The best method would be to use an old throw-away computer (preferably, laptop/ancient toughbook ;) )with the specs from yesteryear and set it up with a secure linux environment. (the right kind of linux OS can run just as fast as windows or mac on even the most outdated of hardware)
some around here like liberti linux. and it is decent for the average SR buyer's security , but I prefer a version of ubuntu that I have modified with some of the more important scripts and programs from backtrack
At the very least. you should set up a linux virtual machine inside of your windows computer (typically on a USB flash drive) or perhaps a dual boot (use to be my favorite until I became a total nerd)
Either way, as I said before: You are more than welcome to contact me with any and all computer/security related questions
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I hate to sound like a yes man but DGII is right again. I have sworn off windows totally now and SR started it for me. I run Ubuntu and it is a pretty darn good OS. It is not without problems, just like Windows and Mac, but it is pretty darn secure. There are just fewer holes in open-source software with so many nerds poring over the code in their basement trying to find vulnerabilities.
Stupid little things like requiring a password before installing new software would save Windows users a world of grief but I guess some Microsoft focus group said they don't want it so Windows stays wide open for attack. I'm not one of those who says Linux is vastly superior in every way, but it is reasonably user-friendly if you take the time to learn it and nobody can argue that it is much more secure than Windows. And it's free, brother! Think about it. Why get on Tor and SR with Windows when Ubuntu is free? Download the wubi installer and you can pick and choose between Windows and Ubuntu depending on the task. I did that in the beginning but now my entire household is Windows-free.
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Another SR n00b here too, so is it common for SR buyers & sellers to encrypt most of their SR messages to each other, or only for certain types of information, ie should i as a general rule encrypt my shipping address for a product i've just purchased? The buyers guide seems to infer that it could be a good idea but the information is encrypted by the SR software anyway?
FWIW i've also been migrating what i can from Windows over to an encrypted Ubuntu system. Damn 12.04 is nice from what i've seen so far. Easy, and it just seems to work.
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Wow...that took forever to get the forums back up. SR worked fine, but the forum page wouldn't load on my laptop.
I ordered from another vendor and I did send the seller a message explaining that I was trying to learn this encryption thing. I hope he doesn't cancel. I don't know if it would be considered a large order or not. It's worth about $180, I think it's tiny. But then, I haven't been around long enough to know if that's considered a large order and therefore makes me look suspicious.
I followed the sticky thread about the PGP and downloaded it. However, I didn't get the gpa file that showed up in the picture. It was nowhere in my computer....that I could find anyway. So that's where I got stuck. I even downloaded the manual to see I can teach myself how to do it.
Windows does suck, but I'm barely techno literate. I would be scared to try Linux or something else, only because I don't know it. At least with Windows I can sort of wander around and figure a few things out. Like Tor and BitCoins.
I guess I should have realized that opiates might be a problem. I've just had to take them for so long, I kind of take them for granted. And until the DEA started butting their nose into the relationship between me and my doc, I never had a problem getting what I needed to manage the pain. Now, I am only allowed X amount of pills a month. Yes, my script got cut by 20 pills a month because it was deemed excessive. Who is the DEA to decide what's excessive? I can't sample anything else here on SR because I'm subject to random urine testing. If it is found that there are any "other" narcotics, amphetamines, marijuan or even alcohol in my system, I'm not allowed to be a patient any more! So, in essence, it's because of the DEA that I found SR. Buttholes.... Rant over.... >:(
I know FE is risky, but I would do it. I'm not sure I mentioned that to the person I placed the order with. I'm less worried about losing the money than I am running out of meds.
DGII - I'll pm you and see if you can help me out. I'll take screen shots of what I've downloaded, maybe you'll be able to spot fairly quickly where I went wrong.
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@Zalaan: Some vendors want you to use encryption 100% of the time. (and they will say so in their profile)
But most do not want to deal with encryption unless it contains pertinent and potentially damaging information about you, the vendor, or your order.
@AlphaLima:
Take a lesson from Zalaan and check out ubuntu. It is perfect for people switching over from windows because it has a really solid desktop environment that is both beautiful and easy to use. (not to mention it is 100% free. and so is the majority of its software)
As an example: I have a friend that despises computers and although he had an EEE netbook with window to check email and shit. He was constantly frustrated and despised the machine.
Than i put a copy of ubuntu on it and "Captain Caveman" loves the shit. Even he can get around no problems and actually LEARNS about how his computer works in the process.
And the coolest thing is that YOU ARE ENOURAGED to modify any and all aspects of the system and its programs, however you wish.
So instead of have another generic windows machine that looks and acts just like everyone else's. As you learn to use it, you will eventually modify and customize your system over time until it is your own unique work of art.
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@DrGonzoII got it, thanks!
@AlphaLima if you want to have a play go grab yourself Ubuntu Desktop version, ( http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop ) burn it to disc and boot from it - you can run it in 'live' mode which lets you get a feel for it without actually installing it on your HDD.
If you decide you want to install it proper but don't want to blow away your existing Windows configuration, you could just go buy a cheap older-ish laptop or an external HDD to install it on, then boot from that as needed (I strongly recommend using full disk encryption, its a bit more of a complicated install process but pretty straight forward and well worth it, there a good step-by-step guide at http://blog.markloiseau.com/2012/05/ubuntu-aes-xts-plain64/ )
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Thanks! I actually have a 1T external HD here. That should be plenty big to run everything off of. As soon as I learn how to run everything period... :)
There's so much to learn.....
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yes ther is a lot to learn.
and a terbyte has way more than enough space to store a shit load of OSes on it.
Thats another cool thing about linux in general. You get desktop graphics that were better than Aero before it even came out. AND its not resource hog.
I have an ANCIENT compaq with 128mb of memory and a 600MHZ processor that I installed Damn Small Linux on.
And I turned it into a custom emulator machine with a jukebox/kios desktop that has all the old school games from pong to Super Mario brothers. And then I soldered up a custom arcade control set for it from a Keyboard's matrix to boot.
(it has literally every sytem from MAME to Genesis and every game that was made for them)
You could easily buy the same kind of junk computer for 20 bucks. and turn it into a machine thats dedicated to SR purposes
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Another SR n00b here too, so is it common for SR buyers & sellers to encrypt most of their SR messages to each other, or only for certain types of information, ie should i as a general rule encrypt my shipping address for a product i've just purchased? The buyers guide seems to infer that it could be a good idea but the information is encrypted by the SR software anyway?
Your address is the one thing you should ALWAYS encrypt - if SR was ever compromised, and someone gained access to private messages, the encryption will still ensure that only you and the vendor will be able to read your address. Other than that, it's usually up to the vendor's preference what should be encrypted - but i would anything (ie packaging details, etc) that could potentially be used to identify yourself or the vendor.
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Many, many thanks to DGII!! I finally got a public key and posted it on thread where the keys are. I haven't learned how to send and receive messages, but I'll learn that in a little bit.
So, I messaged the vendor that I ordered from (second one, first canceled) and gave him my public key. Will that be sufficient do you think? My big fear is that I may run out of the meds I have. Withdrawal is brutal and want to avoid it.