Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: dickalpert on November 15, 2011, 07:19 pm
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After several successful orders I'm blown away by SR. It will change my life. However, like all good things, I worry if it can last. It seems now that a model has been established they will never be able to kill this concept. At some point they're going to come after SR in a big way. At some point it will really hit the main stream media. You can see the evolution of the thing by looking at how salvia and synthetics recently got banned. However, getting rid of SR will be trickier than banning stuff sold in stores. But there will be a point where you read about this place in the New York Times or Time or Newsweek or see it CNN. Some young kid will OD in his living room on something he ordered. I just wonder how it will all play out. I'm sure the folks behind SR have thought about what happens when they become a big target. Despite the Gawker story and some peeps out of a couple of politicians, we're just at the beginning, and are still mostly under the radar...but it's not going to last much longer.
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Silk Road is already fairly mainstream - there's even an article about it in a recent Rolling Stone publication. My guess is that this sort of marketplace is here to stay. Even if SR goes down someone else will come to take it's place.
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It would be my advise to not get caried away making a ton of orders. Start small. One order at a time. I lost a whole bunch of stuff recently. It was during my honeymoon period and I thought I was invinceble.
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or perhaps make only a few but large orders
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Two things came together at just the right time to make Silk Road possible: Tor and BitCoin.
Selling drugs on the internet is not new. What's new is that we suddenly have ready-made anonymous payments and anonymous browsing. Both these were possible before, but not in a simple plug-n-play manner and not in a way that could scale up.
I hope that this is a tipping point, and that its results can never be reversed. I believe that it is.
You may think I'm wildly optimistic, but I do believe that this is the turning point. Even so, victory may take much longer than any of us can reasonably foresee now. I doubt that the end of the drug war will happen in my lifetime. And you might think that's wildly pessimistic in light of my previous statement. I suppose it is, yet I believe these things.
I have this crazy hope that one day my grandchildren will ask me, "GrandPa, what did you do in the drug wars?" and I can tell them I did not stand idly by. I hope that I can at least say that I was there when it all started.
Right now, all I can say was that I saw a lot of good people have their lives ruined for nothing. A lot of people. I didn't actively participate in their destruction, but I didn't do anything to help them either. Does it count if I resisted in my heart? What could I do? They would have taken me too.
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I know Tor is tha bomb and all that but my question is, Tor is an official company, what country is Tor opperating out of, and Tor was started by the US gov to secure secret agent anonominity
the US gov started the Tor network so my question is .......................................if senator BonerSpooge wants the dilly on the Tor network, he can prolly get it
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If some kid OD's, how is anyone gonna know where the kid got the drugs? Its anonymous...
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This is the beginning of the revolution, we are the pioneers. Something this powerful cannot be stopped.
If they squash SR somehow, the community will re-spawn overnight as the technology now allows us to do.
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Is there a backup plan for Silk Road?
I always thought of giving sellers my personal email, so just in case if SR goes down forever, they can still contact me.
I know, anonymity won't be guaranteed, but I hope certain sellers are willing to take that risk with me.
I already take risks by giving them my name and address, even though it's encrypted................
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How quickly we forget history :D
Back in June, Gawker posted a (now famous) article exposing Silk Road to the masses. It was a big deal for a couple of weeks. Senator Chuck Schumer publicly made a big stink about it and demanded that it be taken down.
And then, mysteriously, there was an almost total media blackout about Silk Road. Nobody was talking about it.
Here's what I think happened: At first, he figured that law enforcement could just take down the website, like they can with domains hosted on the clearnet. Then, some high level technical people explained to him the realities of TOR, and that if they could somehow go after things on the darknet, child porn would get every ounce of their resources before people buying and selling personal amounts of drugs. Basically, it's not getting shut down. So the best thing they could do is stop talking about it.
That silence speaks volumes.
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SILK ROAD RULES
1st RULE: You do not talk about SILK ROAD.
2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about SILK ROAD.
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I disagree. I tell everybody I know (who consumes) about SR.
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What you forget my friend is that online vending has been going on for years. SR used the 'apple' approach in that it took already existing ideas and technology, designed its own interface and made it easier for people to get involved and you know what? It so far has worked amazingly. Will SR last? Only time will tell but I bet they're working they're asses off to try and stop it.
I had an interesting thought the other night after a few hits from the bong. What if SR does last? What even if LE attacks, Anon attacks and anyone else trying to stop it, it still lasts?
SR to me is quickly becoming a strong legitimate case for (at least) decriminalization. I mean apart from a few scammers, SR runs very well. The forum is a prime example of a community who is coherent, able to function, able to prosper and generally a friendly place with everybody helping each other out. That's more than can be said of so many legitimate and other drug based forums (been to ovdb lately? There's more tension there than in a 200lb womans trouser elastic).
SR makes a mockery of the stereotype drug user/seller pushed onto us by the media and police. It generates revenue for the postal service which in turns increases jobs and tax money, legitimacy would create more jobs than destroy. The DEA might get closed but think of all the people out there with legitimate chemistry knowledge that could be used to make legitimate products which would later be taxed helping to alleviate the national deficit in these troubled times? Think of all the growers out there able to put their legitimate experience to use on large scale areas? Again this would drive product and therefore tax dollars. Think of all the users out there doing a shit job just to pay the bills and buy their stash that would suddenly be experts in an area which needs them? I bet they'd start putting in the hours at their job because for once it interests them and as a result would work a bit harder, may get promoted, may open their own business. Lives would prosper, overall national revenue would go up, quality of life would go up and for the government, tax income would go up and chances are spending would because people are earning better. If (some) drugs were at least decriminalized education on them wouldn't be so hit and miss and chances are casualties would decrease.
I guess to answer my own question, it's probably because the US's economy is driven in large by 'security' and incarceration. Too much of the economy relies on people working in jails, cops, people doing the paperwork for those in jails/arrested. Legalization would decrease this sector. So basically, US residents are literally paying with their freedom to keep the US economy going while those who are in foreign lands pay with their lives to keep another part of the US economy going. You may disrespect china but it's self sufficient. It has the largest car market in the world, fuelled by its own people. It has the largest manufacturing in the world, fuelled by its people. Communism is on its way to crushing capitalism. Let's hope they don't want revenge.
I have this crazy hope that one day my grandchildren will ask me, "GrandPa, what did you do in the drug wars?" and I can tell them I did not stand idly by. I hope that I can at least say that I was there when it all started.
Right now, all I can say was that I saw a lot of good people have their lives ruined for nothing. A lot of people. I didn't actively participate in their destruction, but I didn't do anything to help them either. Does it count if I resisted in my heart? What could I do? They would have taken me too.
Totally agree brother. If we stand aside and let them take our people away, there won't be anyone there to help when they come for us. We must unite.
ALL OF US
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SR User, your point of view is very interesting!
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I tell no one I know about SR on the basis that if they ever use it foolishly and get shopped by the police, they can grass you up too.
I am a casual drug user. I am experimenting SAFELY with drugs that I have wanted to experiment with for a long time but have been far too scared because of the possibility of buying a "bad" batch (ecstasy being my most recent adventure). I would never buy from a bloke in a pub or even a friend of a friend. I want to know what I'm taking is pure/as pure as it can be or not filled with shite. Aside from that I want to know it's not a setup and Im going to get mugged. SR gives me the ability to discuss drugs with experts, which I am not, and then I can make my own mind up as to how much of a drug I take. It also helps me buy drugs safely.
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Hoping the Road continues and prospers, it is the way things SHOULD be in a free society and a free market. I'm amazed and very pleased at how well it all works, incredible job, SR! Well done. My only concern is that our achilles heel is BTC, an unstable currency that could collapse to 0 value tomorrow. The US government is already moving to ban BTC. I have no idea how the Road would continue without it. Moneypaks will become unusable once IDs are required to purchase them, which likely will be soon. Survival depends largely on new and better funding strategies, and I am sure there is enough genius here to meet that challenge. 8)
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How quickly we forget history :D
Back in June, Gawker posted a (now famous) article exposing Silk Road to the masses. It was a big deal for a couple of weeks. Senator Chuck Schumer publicly made a big stink about it and demanded that it be taken down.
And then, mysteriously, there was an almost total media blackout about Silk Road. Nobody was talking about it.
<SNIP>
That silence speaks volumes.
The letter that was published in the Congressional Record was hilarious. The response from the DEA was even more telling. Yes, sir right away.
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Tor has been mentioned, and Tor is part of the reason for SilkRoad's success. But there have drugs sold on Tor before we got here. There are two reason Silk Road had so much success, and notoriety: Bitocoins and Escrow. I notice nobody is getting too excited about escrow. A long time ago I read that most countries fall from within. And so will be the same here. I love this place, like many, feel it is a libertarian shot against the repressive legal prohibition most of us have struggled with. But there are tons of drug sites on the regular web, no reason to get busted: why don't they become famous?
Because they mostly are ripoffs.
We are already in a bad way because of ripoffs here. When the Gawker article came out, we used escrow almost exclusively. Problems were discussed here in the forums, but nobody suggested that we do aways with escrow: escrow was at the very heart of Silk Road. That would be akin to suggesting we abolish Tor, or bitcoins.
It began with buyers--like me--in an effort to help out vendors who were having problems with the btc volatility, finalizing early...I remember thinking "what to put in feedback," so I put "Trusted vendor, finalized early." I think I did this for envious, I don't remember. Somebody else, some other buyer, started doing it too.
I took off for a month--late june, early july, somewhere--and when I came back, the scams had begun. Legit vendors were demanding that new buyers finalize early...and some of them requested that even vendors with some 'time' here, finalize early also. And many, including me, just kept finalizing early for all kinds of reason: sometimes out of gratitude and good will towards vendors, sometimes hoping to prod a 'slow' vendor into hurrying up, sometimes because it was requested.
But the scammers saw their opportunity, and began. And the half-assed vendors, who were kind of chancy to begin with, just about all requested that we either bypass escrow, or finalize early. So it became, within weeks, pretty much commonplace on here. And all our protections, all of the *main* reason for Silk Road's fame, were starting to fall apart...because without buyer protection--and without escrow, there is none--this site is doomed, and will go the way of all the other sites.
So my prediction is--unless SR himself makes some radical changes('warnings' aren't enough)--that SR itself, with all it's possibilities, won't really survive. We won't fall apart because of some grand LE bust, and I doubt we'll fall apart because bitcoins will be outlawed (though that is possible)--we'll fall apart because we were too shortsighted to see that this site is based on escrow.
Again: without escrow and bitcoins, we are no different than any other drugseekers website. In just a couple of short months, through the sidestepping of escrow, we've managed to put the seeds of our downfall in place. Every newbie that gets ripped off, is just one more nail in our coffin.
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I'm going to say this again: I wish some sellers would keep my private email as a backup just in case SR goes down. We could always exchange emails safely through Tor.
The problem would be any financial transaction... I don't mind exposing my credit card info to a reputed seller, but, of course, they have a lot more to lose than me...
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It began with buyers--like me--in an effort to help out vendors who were having problems with the btc volatility, finalizing early...I remember thinking "what to put in feedback," so I put "Trusted vendor, finalized early." I think I did this for envious, I don't remember. Somebody else, some other buyer, started doing it too.
I keep reading how it was you and people like you. who started the whole finalize early trend. My first purchase here was in March. I finalized early on that one, and in the feedback, I wrote "Finalized before order arrived, Will post updates in forum" that was before having a seperate forum. and before gawker, and probably before YOU were here. guess what, I was scammed back then by doing it just like people are getting scammed right now by doing it. so please stop posting how you opened the door for scammers when you took it upon yourself to finalize early for the first time ever. FUCK OFF! you are not special. scammers didn't magically show up on your month off in June. They have ALWAYS been here. remember goldismoney? he was scamming before Silk road was ever even thought of, and kept scamming on Silk Road, and is probably scamming today, and will still be scamming when Silk Road is forgotten about! He was, by the way, as far as I can tell, the longest running scam on the road. Many people finalized early for him because he was so "trusted" and if I remember right, that was before people could even edit their feedback after posting it. I am tired of reading all this BS from you. I get it, you have finalized early...you haven't been scammed...FUCK OFF!
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It began with buyers--like me--in an effort to help out vendors who were having problems with the btc volatility, finalizing early...I remember thinking "what to put in feedback," so I put "Trusted vendor, finalized early." I think I did this for envious, I don't remember. Somebody else, some other buyer, started doing it too.
I keep reading how it was you and people like you. who started the whole finalize early trend. My first purchase here was in March. I finalized early on that one, and in the feedback, I wrote "Finalized before order arrived, Will post updates in forum" that was before having a seperate forum. and before gawker, and probably before YOU were here. guess what, I was scammed back then by doing it just like people are getting scammed right now by doing it. so please stop posting how you opened the door for scammers when you took it upon yourself to finalize early for the first time ever. FUCK OFF! you are not special. scammers didn't magically show up on your month off in June. They have ALWAYS been here. remember goldismoney? he was scamming before Silk road was ever even thought of, and kept scamming on Silk Road, and is probably scamming today, and will still be scamming when Silk Road is forgotten about! He was, by the way, as far as I can tell, the longest running scam on the road. Many people finalized early for him because he was so "trusted" and if I remember right, that was before people could even edit their feedback after posting it. I am tired of reading all this BS from you. I get it, you have finalized early...you haven't been scammed...FUCK OFF!
How about you FUCK OFF? What an asshole. You are wrong but I won't bother explaining why because you aren't worth the time. Go fuck yourself with a stick and keep your ignorant bullshit to yourself.
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what am I wrong about? that I finalized my first ever order early? that I was ripped of then? that the forum used to be on the main site and not separate? that you used to not be able to change feedback?
or that phubaiblues has posted over and over again how he was "one of the first to finalize early" and how he is sorry for starting the trend of finalizing early or some other bullshit?
I first finalized early not to be nice to the sellers or because I trusted them sooo much, but because I didn't want to have to find an open wifi, boot up virtual machines on my laptop, decrypt a flash drive, sort through lists of stored links, usernames and passwords, and log in to the site to click the "i got it button". drug forums have been around for a long time. this one is no different than any of the others, escrow or not! other forums don't need escrow because they don't let scammers flock in by the truckload. their members are proven and trusted. most of what I buy online, I use cash because it is even more anonymous than bitcoins.
I am just tired of reading post after post of phubaiblues claiming to have started this trend. if that makes me an asshole, then I guess I am an asshole
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We won't fall apart because of some grand LE bust
They infiltrate crowds of protesters in order to incite violence and riots, what makes you think they won't scam drug users and sellers in order to turn us against each other?
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We won't fall apart because of some grand LE bust
They infiltrate crowds of protesters in order to incite violence and riots, what makes you think they won't scam drug users and sellers in order to turn us against each other?
Agents provocateurs!
If we're united and know each very other well, then the scammers will be rooted out!
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We won't fall apart because of some grand LE bust
They infiltrate crowds of protesters in order to incite violence and riots, what makes you think they won't scam drug users and sellers in order to turn us against each other?
Agents provocateurs!
If we're united and know each very other well, then the scammers will be rooted out!
I think the community has gotten so big now that its almost impossible for a seller to have a personal relationship with each buyer. However that being said, I stick with a few trusted vendors that have been here awhile and have never had any trouble. People aren't going to stop coming to this site just because of a few bad apples. It will just make people more cautious in the end which is obviously a good thing.
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what am I wrong about? that I finalized my first ever order early? that I was ripped of then? that the forum used to be on the main site and not separate? that you used to not be able to change feedback?
or that phubaiblues has posted over and over again how he was "one of the first to finalize early" and how he is sorry for starting the trend of finalizing early or some other bullshit?
I first finalized early not to be nice to the sellers or because I trusted them sooo much, but because I didn't want to have to find an open wifi, boot up virtual machines on my laptop, decrypt a flash drive, sort through lists of stored links, usernames and passwords, and log in to the site to click the "i got it button". drug forums have been around for a long time. this one is no different than any of the others, escrow or not! other forums don't need escrow because they don't let scammers flock in by the truckload. their members are proven and trusted. most of what I buy online, I use cash because it is even more anonymous than bitcoins.
I am just tired of reading post after post of phubaiblues claiming to have started this trend. if that makes me an asshole, then I guess I am an asshole
Easy does it, man: I just hadn't *seen* it before that: I kind of figured I had't invented it, but when I started doing it, and mentioning it in the sellers threads--back when they were complaining about the bitcoin bounces--nobody at all mentioned the idea, so I started doing it, and said it was a good thing to do, as there was no hedging, and it was to help sellers. Nobody at that time was going out of escrow, on the opiate sales anyway....but in spite of all that, it is a small thing to get all riled up about. You're undoubtedly are right tho, I just was surprised nobody else was doing it at the time...but I'll damn sure quit claiming credit for it. :)
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You guys are not pioneers you are actually noobs. SR is awesome, but it really irritates me when people act like it was the first site like this. The private scene had been around for over a decade before SR came out.
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You guys are not pioneers you are actually noobs. SR is awesome, but it really irritates me when people act like it was the first site like this. The private scene had been around for over a decade before SR came out.
I kind of figured that. I admit, I came on to main site a little while before they went down in june, from OVDB, then over here when they split off the forums, and this got started up. I never thought of myself, tho, as any kind of pioneer, but point taken...
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People! Chill the fuck out!
Not to shake the shit jar anymore but I have to agree with "IHEARYOU". It wasn't a great idea to start the finalize early trend and if I were you phubaiblues, I'd keep the hell quiet about it. It's a sore point for many including myself. To date I've not been scammed but I'd be mighty pissed off if I was and even more so if like a dick I finalized early. I have only finalized early once using a trusted vendor (exchangeservice) after I'd made a few purchases and luckily the product came through.
Would I have finalized early if he was a new vendor? Would I fuck! That's asking to get ripped off. If it means it costs me an extra $10 to buy a product off a more reputable vendor, then so be it but the problem with that is that you may start to get vendors that get carried away with prices because they have a good rep. It would essentially be "branding". Also, I don't see why the buyer should take all the risk from a transaction point of view. I know the vendor takes massive risks, no doubt about it but it's also not the buyers fault BitCoin is so volatile.
Over on ovdb they use pecunix. It's stable but it seems like a massive long winded pain in the ass to use.
To finish with, phubaiblues you make a great case for the reason of silk road's success (besides the legitimate vendors) which is escrow, but then you actively go against it and apparently start a trend against the very reason for this success and what's worse, you then tell everyone. It's like having an awesome girl who lets you do anything for as long as you want for years ahead but then intentionally getting her pregnant after 1 week of fucking. I'm a little confused to be honest. Dude, what I'm trying to say is think it through before you act.
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You guys are not pioneers you are actually noobs. SR is awesome, but it really irritates me when people act like it was the first site like this. The private scene had been around for over a decade before SR came out.
I hate shit like this! Yes you make a good point of SR not being the first site to buy drugs from but coming along and saying "private forums have been around for 10+ years" doesn't really help anybody, it's just kindergarten "i know this, you don't" behavior that doesn't help a thing and just leads to isolation of those not involved and also those that are.
While I appreciate the need for discretion in these matters, going around calling people noobs and talking about private forums and how long they've been around is, from a psychological point of view, just showing off that you know and others don't. If you were truly intent on enjoying private forums and keeping it that way, you wouldn't have mentioned it in the first place.
OVDB is full of shit like this! Please let's not turn the SR forums into the OVDB forums cos that place is full of negativity and quickly becoming useless.
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private forums may have been around for 10+ years, but i highly doubt their monetary transactions have ever been as anonymous. even if i had known about these "private forums" what would make me believe that a cop couldn't know about them as well? if you're worried about getting ripped off, then start out with small transactions and use sellers that have been around a while. The integrity of SR's long-term vendors is what will keep SR thriving.
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Paranoia sinking in......... imagine if SR is run by LE....... or Tor has been developed by the government in an attempt to catch terrorists....... we could just be giving ourselves up willingly without even knowing.................................................
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Paranoia sinking in......... imagine if SR is run by LE....... or Tor has been developed by the government in an attempt to catch terrorists....... we could just be giving ourselves up willingly without even knowing.................................................
If that's the case then the pigs are doing a lousy job, cause so far I got plenty of good stuff.
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I actually agree with you, man: that's all I was trying to say. All my threads have been saying that escrow is what makes us strong. I only mentioned the 'finalizing early' to show how I *hadn't* thought about the consequences, because when I first did it--june, I think--we weren't having any of these problems--or at least I hadn't noticed them. Kind of funny: one guy is mad at me, because I *didn't* start a trend, and you are kind of pissed that I did. I pretty much doubt I started anything, but who knows, I feel bad about it, and it does make me seem hypocritical, which is why I keep bringing it up, to show the timeline, that I didn't know back then...but people think for themselves...
Mostly here was just attempt to show that well-meaning ideas can have consequences, which I think is what you are saying too. Finalizing early for trusted vendors may actually have nothing at all to do with the scammers insisting on lifting of escrow, but if it did, I wanted to show how/why I had been doing it. Now, of course, I regret ever mentioning it, as it was irritating others, for different reasons.
I was trying to show the history of how this might have got started. Other than that, and in spite of all my errors and feeling a bit like my karma took a blow here, I agree totally with your point...and most of my efforts are towards making this site better, helping newbies, outing scammers, etc., and I truly would hate to think that anything of my doing, had caused this site any harm. I never had much luck on OVDB, and actually got ripped on Black Market, for the very reasons you've already mentioned, tho BM has added escrow since those days, I believe....
But mostly I do take this stuff to heart, and this site, for all kinds of different reason, political and personal, means a lot to me, but obviously, I make errors too, that affect others. This is actually a good fucking thead, and a lot of stuff that hasn't been aired, is getting some airing, so even if I feel a little bad about it all, I'm glad it's getting said, as it'll make me be more careful in future.
People! Chill the fuck out!
Not to shake the shit jar anymore but I have to agree with "IHEARYOU". It wasn't a great idea to start the finalize early trend and if I were you phubaiblues, I'd keep the hell quiet about it. It's a sore point for many including myself. To date I've not been scammed but I'd be mighty pissed off if I was and even more so if like a dick I finalized early. I have only finalized early once using a trusted vendor (exchangeservice) after I'd made a few purchases and luckily the product came through.
Would I have finalized early if he was a new vendor? Would I fuck! That's asking to get ripped off. If it means it costs me an extra $10 to buy a product off a more reputable vendor, then so be it but the problem with that is that you may start to get vendors that get carried away with prices because they have a good rep. It would essentially be "branding". Also, I don't see why the buyer should take all the risk from a transaction point of view. I know the vendor takes massive risks, no doubt about it but it's also not the buyers fault BitCoin is so volatile.
Over on ovdb they use pecunix. It's stable but it seems like a massive long winded pain in the ass to use.
To finish with, phubaiblues you make a great case for the reason of silk road's success (besides the legitimate vendors) which is escrow, but then you actively go against it and apparently start a trend against the very reason for this success and what's worse, you then tell everyone. It's like having an awesome girl who lets you do anything for as long as you want for years ahead but then intentionally getting her pregnant after 1 week of fucking. I'm a little confused to be honest. Dude, what I'm trying to say is think it through before you act.
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Thank you, phubaiblues, for continuing to bang the drum about escrow, even though it appears to be a touchy subject around here. I don't think you need to apologize for anything.
I have been a member since May but am not a frequent buyer -- I just placed order #5 for an eighth of weed. I have never been asked to finalize early, which is good, because I would cancel the order if a vendor made such a request. I figure that a vendor should have enough business acumen to be able to cover the $25 (or whatever the product cost is) for 2 or 3 days until I receive the shipment and can finalize it.
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If the buyers act with one accord, and SR stands behind, as will the long term members, to never finalize a sale before receipt, then the message shall be sent, loud and clear, that the old sheriff is back - we will not abandon escrow- that;s my position from now on.
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You guys are not pioneers you are actually noobs. SR is awesome, but it really irritates me when people act like it was the first site like this. The private scene had been around for over a decade before SR came out.
I hate shit like this! Yes you make a good point of SR not being the first site to buy drugs from but coming along and saying "private forums have been around for 10+ years" doesn't really help anybody, it's just kindergarten "i know this, you don't" behavior that doesn't help a thing and just leads to isolation of those not involved and also those that are.
While I appreciate the need for discretion in these matters, going around calling people noobs and talking about private forums and how long they've been around is, from a psychological point of view, just showing off that you know and others don't. If you were truly intent on enjoying private forums and keeping it that way, you wouldn't have mentioned it in the first place.
OVDB is full of shit like this! Please let's not turn the SR forums into the OVDB forums cos that place is full of negativity and quickly becoming useless.
See, that is how you see it, but when I see people on SR who started buying drugs online a few months ago saying that they are the pioneers of buying drugs in this fashion, I see it as noobs taking credit for something that other people did years before they even knew you could buy drugs online. I don't mean any disrespect to SR or anyone here, we are all on the same team after all. I am just correcting inaccurate historical points. Look up operation webtryp for example, how many of you even know that there have been DEA operations against online drug vendors before? Look up operation raw deal. Ever heard of DZF, it was an FBI run drug forum honeypot from ~2008. There has been a thriving online drug trading community for over a decade. SR was the first site to take it really mainstream and they deserve mad props for that, but when I see randomnoob009 claim to be a pioneer of online drug trade I am going to quickly point out that he isn't a part of the underground online drug community that still exists today and that has roots stretching back as far as the late 90s. In the end it really is irrelevant though.
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Look up operation webtryp for example, how many of you even know that there have been DEA operations against online drug vendors before? Look up operation raw deal. Ever heard of DZF, it was an FBI run drug forum honeypot from ~2008. There has been a thriving online drug trading community for over a decade. SR was the first site to take it really mainstream
mp3's existed before Napster, but the P2P model changed file sharing forever. It would be an understatement to say Napster made mp3's mainstream. The question is why did it go mainstream instead of one of the thousands of other mp3-swapping tools/sites/clubs?
The old Napster is dead and gone, but it showed the power of P2P file-sharing in a way nothing else had. It was a tipping point. I think SR is like that.
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Look up operation webtryp for example, how many of you even know that there have been DEA operations against online drug vendors before? Look up operation raw deal. Ever heard of DZF, it was an FBI run drug forum honeypot from ~2008. There has been a thriving online drug trading community for over a decade. SR was the first site to take it really mainstream
mp3's existed before Napster, but the P2P model changed file sharing forever. It would be an understatement to say Napster made mp3's mainstream. The question is why did it go mainstream instead of one of the thousands of other mp3-swapping tools/sites/clubs?
The old Napster is dead and gone, but it showed the power of P2P file-sharing in a way nothing else had. It was a tipping point. I think SR is like that.
I think a better comparison would be Bittorrent claiming to be the first filesharing system. SR went mainstream because for one it was one of the first public open registration sites debuting about simultaneously with OVDB. Actually, farmers market came before either. Also SR was in the news with a url linking to it included. It also was the first to use bitcoin exclusively, and it coincided with a massive focus of interest in bitcoin. Private forum vendors were using secure payment systems before bitcoin though, getting centralized E-currency and cashing out with anonymous ATM cards is pretty secure. Also, Ecache let people mix other E-currencies, although bitcoin is the best E-currency for ease of mixing and security imo. Also, it had escrow and it had an integrated order form / payment system, which they did best but not first. Pretty sure The DrugsTor was the first hidden service forum if anyone remembers that place :P. A private forum was the first forum with a rule to use GPG and many people using it, several years ago. I do agree that SR is a tipping point, but I disagree that bittorrent was the first filesharing system.
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Phubaiblues, I was just pointing things out the way I see them. I'm certainly not angry, maybe a little confused, but not angry :)
It seems you've taken on board the lessons from this and that's all that can be asked, just don't make the same mistake again in a similar situation so that way this wasn't so much an error causing a hit to your karma (which I doubt it is) but you can see it more as experience.
Lazypeeps, yeah you've worded it in a much better way this time that I see your point about noobs claiming to be SR pioneers and to an extent, I agree. But you have to measure the success of a system by how user friendly and effective it is and so far, SR takes the trophy of all the forums I've seen over the years. There was another mail vending service around 2008 which is the only other one I can think of even coming close, but that got busted in less time than SR has already been going so really, SR does take trophy for me.
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I wouldn't necessarily argue which forum is best, because that is subjective to a point. I can objectively say that the people who got into the online drug scene on SR weren't the first though...in fact they are some of the most recent to become involved.
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Maybe LE are cool with SR. Why? Well, there is a certain barrier to entry in this market. Everyone participating needs a certain level of technical sophistication to be involved, therefore education. I'm guessing that the majority of people here are not involved in any other form of criminality, least of all violent crime. It's a good clean and harmless crowd.
Previously these harmless people have been forced to take their money into inner city neighborhoods and buy from people who most likely ARE involved in other crimes, ESPECIALLY violent crimes related to "protecting turf". The dollars of middle class drug buyers that once financed inner city turf wars, may now be going into clean cut, non-violent SR. I think LE already have their hands full, why stop something that may actually reduce street crime?
I know it's wild speculation, but I thought I'd throw it out there.
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I wouldn't necessarily argue which forum is best, because that is subjective to a point. I can objectively say that the people who got into the online drug scene on SR weren't the first though...in fact they are some of the most recent to become involved.
Oh yes, that's for sure...as a matter of fact, some, perhaps many of us, learned of this site, on other drug sites, that have either tightened up on the freedom of movement among members, or just got too corrupt. Drugs were actually around, to one degree or another, on listserve electronic mailing lists and whatnot, before there was even a web. This site was first I'd heard of, tho, that got so mainstream and irritating to authorities, thru gawker and the Rolling Stone article. I don't know if any other onion site had bitcoins and escrow both, but there very well might be, they just keep more quiet about it. But until the gawker and then media frenzy, I just heard thru other dopers, usually geeks, that passed this on.
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You have zero evidence that I have zero evidence so do yourself a favor and stop acting like you know what I am talking about better than I do, because you obviously have no idea. My evidence is court records and first hand reports from people who were busted from DZF, after they got out of prison. One of the opiate vendors, who was raided by the FBI, had court documents showing that the staff of that forum, people who she sold to, were undercover FBI agents. DZF being a string forum is pretty common knowledge now. And it was pretty obvious they were feds even before a lot of people were busted. What legitimate reason does a non-fed run forum have to block Tor exit nodes from accessing the site and encouraging people to not use anonymity solutions because they are 'for scammers to hide'? Oh yeah thats right then the evil scammer filled Tor network DDOSed them so they had to block it. Puhleeze. There were like 600 members on DZF obviously the feds didn't bust all of them but they busted the majority of the opiate vendors, a few illegal drug vendors and several customers got controlled deliveries right before it shut down. Even when they 'bust' carder forums they usually are only getting a few dozen of the total members, and its the same thing that happened with DZF.
webtryp occurred in 2004
Yeah that was sort of my point, there were operations against the online vendor / source community in 2004 so obviously people getting involved in 2011 aren't pioneering it.
So much hostility towards me for simply pointing out easily verifiable facts, sheesh
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I guess thats one good thing about the stringent process one goes through to successfully buy/sell on here. It weeds out alot of 'gawkers', I'm sure.
But I agree, way too many people talk about SR in ways that obviously are harmful,not helpful to the growth of the market. Like I mentioned in another post, I never even heard of SR (not much into pop culture/modern society,wtc is gawkers?) until some moron was blabbing, basically spamming SR on some other forum.
Some people just dont know when to be professional. I think anything to do with SR should be taken completely serious. I know I wont be telling anyone I currently know (and I dont meet people very often) about S.R.. Not because of greed, but because I feel there is a major responsibility when it comes to a source, even an intermediary one like this.
SR will have a predecessor, I just hope someone passes me the memo,lol.
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People need to quit being scared little pussies IMO. Silk Road is here to stay, and even if it's not who cares? Get over it. How many of you have crystal balls and can see the future? I've been wheelin and dealin on the net for 10+ years and nothing has ever come close to Silk Road. Way back in the day discussion forums had RULES making it mandatory to use the word SWIM! As if that would save people from being incarcerated lol. People do stupid things when they're scared. Don't be scurred!