Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: Heyenezz on January 20, 2012, 05:55 pm
-
I noticed that SR's drug inventory is quickly growing.
How much of this growth do you suppose is legit (e.g., not from scammers or LEO)?
How big do you think SR will get before it becomes a major target of LEO?
How big do you think SR is likely to get?
-
Could you tell me what LEO is?
-
The astrological sign right before virgo.
Otherwise known as law enforcement organizations.
-
i bet the inventory would be a lot more than it is now if SR didn't close vendor registration occasionally, but i'm sure SR is being pragmatic about it as to not have an influx of scamming sellers. Having a flood of bad sellers would not be good for the site's name. As long as the established vendors can keep the community supplied, and everyone is making money then i can see this site becoming as big as craigslist.
-
LE can't pose as a high ranking seller. Only as noobs. So don't buy from low feedback sellers if you're paranoid. They'll get shit feedback after arresting you.
-
LE can't pose as a high ranking seller. Only as noobs. So don't buy from low feedback sellers if you're paranoid. They'll get shit feedback after arresting you.
What if LEO buy a vendor account and sell seized drugs and just collect names and addresses for 250 to 500 transactions and then one day quit and go after all the buyers? They could build up trust and then strike all at once. Maybe only focus on big buyers. Maybe send emails to various state LEOs (perhaps while they're still a trusted seller). Or even make all of the names/addresses they've sent to public. Once that vendor account is ruined, start over.
Local police departments are happy to seize assets.
-
Hopefully, competition will grow enough so that we can get better prices. How cool would it be for buyers if competition got bigger than street competition one day, and SR had the cheapest drugs anywhere?
-
LE can't pose as a high ranking seller. Only as noobs. So don't buy from low feedback sellers if you're paranoid. They'll get shit feedback after arresting you.
What if LEO buy a vendor account and sell seized drugs and just collect names and addresses for 250 to 500 transactions and then one day quit and go after all the buyers? They could build up trust and then strike all at once. Maybe only focus on big buyers. Maybe send emails to various state LEOs (perhaps while they're still a trusted seller). Or even make all of the names/addresses they've sent to public. Once that vendor account is ruined, start over.
Local police departments are happy to seize assets.
They could be sued for making that info public. Anyone can send anyone else anything in the mail. Also, LEOs are not interested in buyers or even that much really in small time dealers. They want to get the big traffickers. Buyers don't know anyone on SR, so they couldn't help. Vendors likely know their suppliers; so LEOs will target them.
I think some people on this site are way too paranoid. I learned from a professor and a defense attorney that most criminals are never caught. When people are caught, it's almost always because there's a witness, the person trusted the wrong person, or couldn't keep her mouth shut.
SR doesn't have those problems really; so there's not much to worry about.
-
LE can't pose as a high ranking seller. Only as noobs. So don't buy from low feedback sellers if you're paranoid. They'll get shit feedback after arresting you.
What if LEO buy a vendor account and sell seized drugs and just collect names and addresses for 250 to 500 transactions and then one day quit and go after all the buyers? They could build up trust and then strike all at once. Maybe only focus on big buyers. Maybe send emails to various state LEOs (perhaps while they're still a trusted seller). Or even make all of the names/addresses they've sent to public. Once that vendor account is ruined, start over.
Local police departments are happy to seize assets.
How could they use those addresses to bust buyers? At most, they could get search warrants, but without further evidence, they can't arrest any buyers. An address proves nothing in the court. Anyone can send anyone anything.
-
So to answer your question "What if a LEO buys a vender account and sell seized drugs.... ANSWER: That police officer would be indicted for at the minum possesion and sales. At the most trafficking. It is leggal for a police officer to sell illegal drugs with the intention of allowing the user to consume them. I do admit the CIA and the DEA both engage in this practice but is almost excursively limited to tons of drugs. In small amonts the dea and the cia is not going to be able to sell drugs with the blessings of the higher ups......
What in the blue hell are you talking about? Other drug forums have been taken down exactly this way.
-
I would think that if the police were guilty of distributing drugs they would be charged as such, but recently they were found selling high powered guns to gangsters (fast and furious, I think the operation was called) and nothing happened with that.. so who knows. For now, I will stick with venders with good feedback.
-Aspire
-
What in the blue hell are you talking about? Other drug forums have been taken down exactly this way.
I don't know about other countries but in the US there's a pretty hefty penalty for selling seized contraband. There was a local police officer arrested in my area recently for doing something along those lines while trying to bust meth labs.
-
What in the blue hell are you talking about? Other drug forums have been taken down exactly this way.
I don't know about other countries but in the US there's a pretty hefty penalty for selling seized contraband. There was a local police officer arrested in my area recently for doing something along those lines while trying to bust meth labs.
What if LEO is using it in a sting operation?
-
Would you share a couple of the sites names with us?
I am sorry, I did not notice the "seized" qualifier and ended up posting some irrelevant bs. I agree that using seized drugs would be highly unusual and unlikely for police to do, when there's a plethora of other legal attacks that are are possible.
-
How could they use those addresses to bust buyers? At most, they could get search warrants, but without further evidence, they can't arrest any buyers. An address proves nothing in the court. Anyone can send anyone anything.
I'm just trying to imagine a scenario where a vendor with hundreds of transactions and good feedback suddenly turns out to be LEO, or maybe even got busted and is now working with LEO. Or maybe the vendor's computer was compromised by LEO at some point, or under surveillance the whole time.
Maybe most of a vendor's transactions are from LEO shills, done quickly (or slowly) to build trust. They could build a network of vendors and shills. LEO could do this with tons of different vendor accounts, creating honeypots where they will catch big buyers buying large amounts, with an intent to distribute. Don't buy large amounts? You could still be caught in their net.
Vendors are told to destroy addresses but someone working with LEO obviously won't do that. What could that big list of names and addresses be used to do? There are a lot of posts on these forums telling people to use your real name and use your real address. Even if a parcel is not addressed to the real buyer, why was the parcel sent to that address? The buyer lives at that address, or someone who knows the buyer lives at that address, or the buyer is trying to frame someone, or I don't know maybe the location is vacant. Maybe "anyone can send anyone thing", but in this case the vendor is LEO and they know what they sent.
Vendors could be dropping parcels from anywhere. But buyers have to provide a valid address for delivery, and that makes them (or someone they know) vulnerable.
Or maybe the LEO vendor doesn't actually send any parcels at all, but simply sends the name/address to local LEO who perform a controlled delivery. Say this is done in multiple states when the vendor decides to strike all at once. Or maybe it's done throughout the vendor's history but the buyer is incarcerated and has no way to warn people on the forums. Who's going to notice when a bunch of buyers go missing?
Say multiple search warrants are served at once. Say they find controlled substances at some of the addresses, and seize computers. Say some people at the addresses talk and point the finger at the true buyer.
Poker sites in the US had a Black Friday and nobody saw it coming. Everything was just seized all at once. I expect the DEA would like to do the same with SR.
-
Silpheed, that is what has happened with a couple other drug forums (dzf and the a-s boards come to mind immediately). On dzf, one attack vector was that the forum was set up as a federal honeypot and was used to farm addresses and other intelligence from the legit vendors. When the end came, they brought down most of the large opiate vendors, a few other vendors, and used the farmed addresses to make a few controlled deliveries. I know firsthand some were made, but not how many, but I would guess the majority of buyers got away -- the risk is still there though. They also did buyer flooding on dzf and a-s like you describe, but I am not sure how they used that intelligence beyond busting the vendors. The type of vendor flooding attack you describe is exactly what I would expect the feds to do next on SR though, since most people use encryption now and pwning the server would open only up more difficult attacks like mitm, etc. than simply reading vendors' mail.
-
It also could have been as simple as the owner of DZF was incompetent (which I thought he was), got caught do something illegal, and plea-bargained by providing anyone of interest on a platter to LEO, no?
This is certainly a possibility. I do not know for sure whether the owner was turned or whether the forum was an FBI honeypot from the very beginning. What I do know firsthand is that the forum became a deathtrap at some point, several members of staff and many buyers were FBI, and the end came soon after. Some of the policies of the owner also significantly deanonymized users in ways that could be misattributed to incompetence but make sense if you assume it was a federal sting operation from jumpstreet.
-
Maybe "anyone can send anyone thing", but in this case the vendor is LEO and they know what they sent.
Vendors could be dropping parcels from anywhere. But buyers have to provide a valid address for delivery, and that makes them (or someone they know) vulnerable.
That doesn't matter as long as you follow basic recommendations. All the LEO can prove is that someone ordered contraband sent to your address. He still can't prove you ordered it. Don't sign for anything and don't order from the same address again if you get busted.
If you're worried about fellow residents snitching on you, then tell no one, not even family or friends, that you use SR, bitcoins, or in anyway receive contraband through the mail. I trust absolutely no one but me with knowing what I do on Tor. Even if someone's trustworthy, that person might accidentally blab or do something stupid without thinking that would give you away.
Almost all arrested criminals are caught due to witnesses.
-
If you're worried about fellow residents snitching on you, then tell no one, not even family or friends, that you use SR, bitcoins, or in anyway receive contraband through the mail. I trust absolutely no one but me with knowing what I do on Tor. Even if someone's trustworthy, that person might accidentally blab or do something stupid without thinking that would give you away.
As they say.... Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. :-/
-
What if LEO is using it in a sting operation?
Possibly, but there's only two scenarios for this and one of them is highly illegal.
They could set up a vendor account, gather addresses, and then issue warrants on those addresses. HOWEVER, you'd have to prove that the person at that address was actually ordering the product. That's really hard to do unless they seize your computer and even then it could be pretty difficult. That's why some people make little variations in their real names because you could always argue that there was spelling error so it got sent to the incorrect person.
I guess they could pose as a vendor and ship real products to your house, but they'd have to actually accept your money for the product (i.e. escrow). It's illegal for cops to accept money for drugs regardless of if its a sting operation or whatever. That's why they always bust the dude after he gives a string prostitute money because if he wanted the sex then the money it would mean the cop undercover has technically broken the law.
#highlogic
-
They could set up a vendor account, gather addresses, and then issue warrants on those addresses. HOWEVER, you'd have to prove that the person at that address was actually ordering the product. That's really hard to do unless they seize your computer and even then it could be pretty difficult.
What makes you think that address farming wouldn't be done in conjunction with surveillance, a controlled delivery, or any number of other methods to link you to drugs? I personally know several people who have gone down this way.
I guess they could pose as a vendor and ship real products to your house, but they'd have to actually accept your money for the product (i.e. escrow). It's illegal for cops to accept money for drugs regardless of if its a sting operation or whatever. That's why they always bust the dude after he gives a string prostitute money because if he wanted the sex then the money it would mean the cop undercover has technically broken the law.
This is so far detached from reality... I cannot even begin to unpack and respond to this.
-
What if LEO is using it in a sting operation?
Possibly, but there's only two scenarios for this and one of them is highly illegal.
They could set up a vendor account, gather addresses, and then issue warrants on those addresses. HOWEVER, you'd have to prove that the person at that address was actually ordering the product. That's really hard to do unless they seize your computer and even then it could be pretty difficult. That's why some people make little variations in their real names because you could always argue that there was spelling error so it got sent to the incorrect person.
I guess they could pose as a vendor and ship real products to your house, but they'd have to actually accept your money for the product (i.e. escrow). It's illegal for cops to accept money for drugs regardless of if its a sting operation or whatever. That's why they always bust the dude after he gives a string prostitute money because if he wanted the sex then the money it would mean the cop undercover has technically broken the law.
#highlogic
If they had a search warrant I assume they would seize any computers they found. And LEO now knows a valid address. They can start asking questions. "Who could have ordered this", etc.
If LEO can't actually accept money in a sting, simply outsource it (find some guy who is willing to do it for them). In that case, LEO doesn't have to be a vendor, they simply have to find a person or people willing to be vendors and report back to them.
A vendor might not actually be LEO, but how do you know a vendor is not narcing (snitching) on buyers, especially if they're getting paid to do so? Doing it after every order may seriously damage their feedback rating, but if they saved up 500 names or so and *then* snitched for money, what then? I suppose by then much of the drugs would be used and gone, but some buyers are bound to have something illegal sitting around.
-
Long ago, I created fake names to get free BMG CD offers. Remember those? I'd pay for the 10 and buy the requirement with money order, then quit. They had a limit of so much time per household. That's why I created multiple names. Built up a nice collection. Fond memories.
Well I still use those names except now for silk road. So if LEO comes a knockin' a simple feign of ignorance will save the day. "Gentlemen, officers. Who? Who is that? What? I have no idea what your are talking about. Never heard of them. Who? OMG, what did they ship here? OMG. No. I never received anything like that here. OMG is someone watching my house and stealing my mail? You know I miss getting some bills every now and again. I complained to the companies and they swore they sent then out. But I never got them."
LOL. Or some such. You know. So I hope someone gleans some advice in all that.
-
i don't get why people are worried about LEO busting buyers - what would they gain out of it? in their eyes it's just 'another smackhead off the streets' or whatever, even though it would probably amount to a caution unless the buyer is buying kilos. but it's not going to stop or even slow down the supply of anything is it? it would be a complete waste of time and resources.
maybe rookie cops would do it just for the arrest rate, but it's not gonna disrupt SR in the slightest is it? and they have to pay for a sellers account, which is directly funding a 'criminal enterprise', just to bust a couple of users?
If LEO busts anyone, I think it's more likely that it will be buyers than sellers, because buyers must provide a valid address to get their items. That is the weak link in the chain. Even after the labyrinth of all the steps to obtain bitcoin and TOR and PGP and tumblers, the vendor still sees a real address. An address where a warrant can be served, or put under surveillance, or questions asked, or property seized, or simply added to some watchlist.
What does LEO gain out of it? Asset forfeiture, for one.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/26/the-forfeiture-racket/singlepage
If tons of buyers were busted at once it would have a chilling effect on the marketplace.
I've made some other comments about LEO:
http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=9297.msg86941#msg86941
http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=9491.msg87748#msg87748
http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=9297.msg90015#msg90015
A huge net of LEO vendors would absolutely disrupt SR. As well as a huge net of LEO buyers that acted as shills for LEO vendors. And LEO doesn't even need to pay for a vendor account, they can simply find a vendor who's willing to be an informant.
The DEA isn't going to just let SR operate freely, indefinitely.
-
im gonna start helping supply a wider variety of drugs... you'll see it soon, so I don't need to tell you what
-
Long ago, I created fake names to get free BMG CD offers. Remember those? I'd pay for the 10 and buy the requirement with money order, then quit. They had a limit of so much time per household. That's why I created multiple names. Built up a nice collection. Fond memories.
Well I still use those names except now for silk road. So if LEO comes a knockin' a simple feign of ignorance will save the day. "Gentlemen, officers. Who? Who is that? What? I have no idea what your are talking about. Never heard of them. Who? OMG, what did they ship here? OMG. No. I never received anything like that here. OMG is someone watching my house and stealing my mail? You know I miss getting some bills every now and again. I complained to the companies and they swore they sent then out. But I never got them."
LOL. Or some such. You know. So I hope someone gleans some advice in all that.
Sounds promising, but what if they find out that you previously received mail from someone under this name? Then threy'll wonder why you didn't inform the Post Office. But generally, you still have a pretty low risk of arrest.
-
it certainly is scary that the risk of LEO being present on SR is always there, however I'm sure everyone is using their own discretion and better judgement in protecting themselves and others if a worst case scenario situation were to play out. Regardless, sticking with reputable vendors will be my main safeguard among others to protect my identity!