Silk Road forums

Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: risky2 on April 03, 2012, 12:26 pm

Title: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: risky2 on April 03, 2012, 12:26 pm
Alright just wanted to start this off this thread with a preamble. I know there have been other threads with the discussion of "its great going to last forever" or "its doomed to failure, they will get us"

I'm not writing this to cause a panic or fear storm of " the sky is falling, the end is near, dec 21 2012 approaches!" shit. OK, BUT this (SR) is going to end sometime. 1 year from now, 10 years from now, 10 days from now who knows?

Heck, it could be more successful than even DPR ever imagined and morph into some Silk Road/ Facebook hybrid 2.0 thing. So it doesn't have to end badly even . It could spark some drug revolution online phase in the next evolution of web based drug dealing in outer space...... the point being the current silk road is going to end either positively or negatively. Someday the party is going to end, the music is going to stop, and we are going to scramble for the left over chairs, if you can get my analogy.

So what are you guys going to do? Business as usual before you got here? Hook up with your new online friends and vendors somehow? Look into getting 'straight and sober' ( shudders at the thought)? Try to find new online sites? Maybe SR will last so long than even drugs aren't needed? That future virtual realities will be our 'new drugs'?

And you guys could post any thoughts on the future of silk road  here too. Like if you guys see it going further and farther than imagined, OR if you see it going down in flames badly, like a lot of people busted, taken away in chains, and thrown into dark damp cells somewhere.  Utopia or Nightmare? Maybe a little of both?

Just curious where you guys stand, that's all....  (Umm,Yeah, I guess I'm a little bored too, so... heh. :::coughs:::)
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: perky on April 03, 2012, 01:11 pm
the most important thing is writing all your vendors "in case SR is down emails"..
I have like 1 or 2 i need to do this myself..
This is pretty important.
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: onlyone on April 03, 2012, 02:33 pm
Yea i guess try to establish a few good online connections. Thats all you can really hope for i guess until the next thing comes along. I hope this stays hypothetical and sr is here forever. VIVA SR!
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: Jimmy245 on April 03, 2012, 07:53 pm
I think that as long as there is Bitcoin or another similar cryptocurrency, then there's going to be silk road or something like it for years to come.  I think it will be difficult for governments to put the cat back in the bag, although I'm certain they will try, and the process might not be pretty.
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: blackend646 on April 03, 2012, 08:57 pm
All I can do is hope SR or something similar always exists from now on. This place has opened so many doors for me and really changed my life, the thought that it might one day dissapear because of some bureaucrat makes me both sad and extremely angry. I really have no idea what I would do if that happened.
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: kidx on April 03, 2012, 09:35 pm
Hypothetically speaking, I see no reason why sellers and buyers who have established an ongoing, trustworthy relationship can't keep each other's contact information and still contact each other about potential future arrangements. If for some reason that can't happen then things will have to simply go back to the pre Silk Road days.

I have a feeling that any disruption to business as usual on Silk Road, whether it be due to the media, the public, or various government and police agencies (or all three) will result in a watered-down Silk Road where veteran users will sit and talk/complain like old men in rocking chairs, telling stories of the good old days of the Silk Road.

"I remember when you could get an 8-Ball delivered to your front doorstep..."
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: philter3 on April 03, 2012, 09:42 pm

And you guys could post any thoughts on the future of silk road  here too. Like if you guys see it going further and farther than imagined, OR if you see it going down in flames badly, like a lot of people busted, taken away in chains, and thrown into dark damp cells somewhere.  Utopia or Nightmare? Maybe a little of both?


Some scenarios...

 1.) Near-term end, no LEO involvement.   (Timeframe: Any day now)
   - Dread Pirate Roberts slips in the bath-tub and hits his head. KOed and bleeds out in the bathroom. DOA at the ER. Nobody else has his command codes and he keeps the SR server in his closet. Silk Road mysteriously goes down when his significant others unplug the computers, wipe the hard drive, and use them to store funny cat videos on at a new undisclosed location.
   - Results - "Backopy" on Black Market Reloaded has a sudden influx of new people, and Dread Pirate Roberts is a new martyr, rumored to have been "cancelled" by the CIA for cutting in on their drug funding turf. Many sites emerge in the months that follow each claiming to be the "new" Silk Road, some of them with their own DPR impersonator. Since none have the code base most are feeble imitations at very best. There is vicious infighting and slandering about some of the new markets being LE fronts. Some of them are. ...
    - Long Term Results - EVEN MORE drugs are sold on the Darkweb. DPR becomes a legend.. though nobody ever knows who he actually was.

 2.) Medium Term End, No Direct LEO involvement (2-4 years)
    -DPR gets tired of dealing with people's shit, he has made enough money playing Daddy Dopebucks and decides to REALLY cash out. He chops up the intellectual property that is S.R. into multiple chunks and sells them off to interested parties. A copy of the S.R. engine costs XXXX BTC. The actual S.R. name and DPR's blessing to use it costs XXXXXXXX BTC. The member database etc. Multiple "Roads" emerge.
   Long Term Results - EVEN MORE drugs are sold on the Darkweb. DPR becomes a legend.. though nobody ever knows who he actually was.

3. Medium Term End, Strong LEO involvement (2-4 years)
   - Uncle Sam gets highly pissed off. The boys at the Puzzle Palace are given tens of millions and a mandate.. "Break the Road". While they can't subvert it.. they can throw enough computer resources into it to hack & smash the virtual machine that SR is running on every time it pops up. This goes on with Stuxnet level TOR-fare (neologism! cool!) being waged on S.R. The last message from S.R. proper and DPR is a total release of the code base a la Wikileaks and a command "be fruitful and multiple.. fuck these assholes". In short order.. 500+ versions of the Road are running on the darkweb. Lots of people get scammed by teenagers with coding skills but no actual dope to sell.
 Long Term Results - EVEN MORE drugs are sold on the Darkweb. DPR becomes a legend.. though nobody ever knows who he actually was (and he will never tell cause the Firm will wax his ass).

4. Medium Term End, Moderate LEO Involvement (2-4 years)

 This is a combination of #2 and #3. LE resources follow the Roman rule (divide et impera) and actually allow significant amounts of dope and money into the hands of their assets with sub rosa instructions to sow dissent and disatisfaction. It's all deniable of course.. Federal agents would NEVER sell actual drugs to children (bullshit.. they will do ANYTHING)  So  their assets make a point to sell hard drugs to underage folks anytime they think it could be happening, and they do their best to "poison the well". Legitimate vendor and customer concerns are amplified and made less solvable by the constant harping and trouble-making of the "assets". "Incidents" with supposed purchasers are created in meatspace. There are fatalities blamed on S.R. Think of this option as a 2 year long ongoing "False Flag" event. At some point DPR has had enough, and auctions off the code base.. but by this time various moneyed factions among the vendors have already gone "Free range" and hired their own code monkeys to write vendor-specific replacements to the road. The smaller vendors cluster on "interest specific" versions of S.R... the big vendors have their own sites.. and there are too many disorganized centers of commerce for the Feds to pull the same trick 100 times.

Long Term Results - EVEN MORE drugs are sold on the Darkweb. DPR becomes a legend.. though nobody ever knows who he actually was.
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: risky2 on April 04, 2012, 12:20 am
holy shit philter3 that was a damn entertaining post! wow... hm number 2 seems kinda likely to me I think. Yeah he might ' cash out' sometime.
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: Devaney1984 on April 04, 2012, 01:49 am
WOW, good read philter3!  If you're not some type of a writer, I think you should be...
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: mike.murphy on April 04, 2012, 02:24 am
SR very well may be around forever.  you never know, it's done a damn good job of staying up thus far
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: msprophit on April 04, 2012, 02:30 am
philter3, awesome. Just awesome.
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: philter3 on April 04, 2012, 03:25 am
SR very well may be around forever.  you never know, it's done a damn good job of staying up thus far

Obviously this is the one I most hope happens myself. I'm not really a writer (though thanks for the kudos!), so much as a student of human motivation and their patterns.

 Three things about S.R. look especially promising to me. It's not the TOR-anonymity or the Bitcoin use. Those are necessary preconditions to make the whole thing possible to begin with.

Those three things are..
 1. Offering a home to OVDB (inclusion, empathy, comradery)
 2. Spinning off the Armoury (caution, focus, discipline)
 3. Having a widely distributed profit motive (lots of disparate parties have the chance to make profits)

 It is very rare to find 1.) Inclusion , 2.) Concentration (focus on mission) and 3.) Motivation all in one Big Idea.

 I think S.R. will work long term, or at least.. provide the example for other things that do work longterm.
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: redalloverthelandguyhere on April 04, 2012, 03:37 am
All things move towards their end! That said I know dealers who have going 30 years strong - in the real world - so Silk road has an advantage. Also its easy to buy drugs online on open blatant websites and forums - even Facebook has dealers so the police usually fish the easy waters. You can even meet face to face with dodgy dealers. Many do post and there have been many many websites over the years - member only - dealing in weed mainly.

If Silk Road went down - there would be many similar websites set up. I bet at least 0.1% of the people here are wondering if they can maybe strike out and run something after all Silk Road might get so big that other websites will not really matter. If the audience here expands 100 fold in the space of a few years - then its likely that a new breed of self service websites will take up the challenge.

I'd say the age of buying drugs online has just begun.

Silk Road has set the precedent for ease of use and ensuring a level of security for users that is way less risky than buying in the real world! Here - an envelope might be seized - in real life - we are seized with the goods and that might be the start of those prison blues. I know what route I would take.

Also Silk Road manages to ensure that we have quality control led by the consumer! The escrow system is the best solution for a very delicate matter of paying upfront or for a seller sending out something. This combined makes a fairly risk free experience that is way ahead of the antique style dealing online with haphazard security and 9/10 sellers being scammers. Scammers will not last here as the users feedback is a reflection of the quality. In the real world its recommendation that makes people buy. Buying blind is for the unprepared. Like turning up at a festival with no stash.

I would love to run a weed only kind of Silk Road but it would take a lot of money to set up and to be honest I like to go to sleep without thinking of the worlds police forces angling to know who I am. I have not got the tech knowhow and it would scare me holding bitcoins in escrow. Also you got to deal with the disputes which is not easy. Running something like this I'd need help and there would be the Judas risk as I don't know people who can do this kind of tech stuff.

Fortune favors the brave and Silk Road does pioneer an alternative way of both buying and selling drugs.

As stated by others build up a relationship with your seller if you need anything. I would never buy MDMA off the street or off anyone in the UK! Its all moody - so I buy off a UK seller and will likely buy enough to see me last a few years as I use at most a gram a year! 100mg of good pure MDMA is well enough for me so ten doses a gram its actually the cheapest high when you count up the hours. Makes coke look insanely priced but each to their own.

I love the hash here also and will buy more of that but I don't need the internet for bud.  :)

Silk Road will have its back up plans also. The main danger is authorities tracing someone running this and even with encryption they could easily trace keyboard stokes for example then see the other end. Mostly you would need to be a terrorist to get this attention off the authorities.

Weapons might see anti terrorism agencies get involved.

Drugs can be bought anywhere online so stopping one website amongst millions seems a bit pointless. Of course America poses the biggest threat as they seem to have the ability to now drag any citizen to the USA to be charged. In theory this would be bad. Maybe the owner has plans to bail out after a certain point. I guess when sales here get lower due to others spawning. That would be good as journalists could discover other sites and cry into the cocaine about the horror of opening a envelope to see evil drugs.

They should get angry over child porn - those lowlife run sites this life so ask the public who really deserves the attentions of law enforcement agencies worldwide?

Nobody is forced to buy drugs. An ideal society would see personal choice as something outside the remit of government law when that personal choice causes no harm to others.

Silk Road is already kind of immortalized.

Its like being in a a good future when drugs are teleported to you.

And some of the sellers here its been 24 hr delivery! Not teleport speed but we will get there one day.

PS you know your addicted to SR when you start converting your wages into BTC  :)

the UK min-wage is 2 BTC per hour right now so a 12 hour shift would get you 10 grams of Afghan plus a gram of some cheeky little Moroccan. ;)
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: CharasBros on April 04, 2012, 04:22 am
this kind of thoughts about SR end based on good sense of history.  SR is centralized, transactions controlled, membership controlled in this terms it did not moved much far from how it was before, Of course technically is big advancement: TOR, bitcoins, escrow, but same centralized design.

SR can be a good platform for future development and would be better if this future development be ready before SR goes down.

my idea about future SR:

1. distributed encrypted content hosting via TOR p2p style similar to bitcoins. no host, no server - how can it be destroyed, nothing to destroy.no admin. no moderators.

2. free access to everybody, no fees, just download client and you in, sale, buy. no control over transactions, no fees.

3. escrow, guaranties, loans and other financial instruments as services.

Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: simplyanon on April 04, 2012, 07:41 am
this kind of thoughts about SR end based on good sense of history.  SR is centralized, transactions controlled, membership controlled in this terms it did not moved much far from how it was before, Of course technically is big advancement: TOR, bitcoins, escrow, but same centralized design.

SR can be a good platform for future development and would be better if this future development be ready before SR goes down.

my idea about future SR:

1. distributed encrypted content hosting via TOR p2p style similar to bitcoins. no host, no server - how can it be destroyed, nothing to destroy.no admin. no moderators.

2. free access to everybody, no fees, just download client and you in, sale, buy. no control over transactions, no fees.

3. escrow, guaranties, loans and other financial instruments as services.



^^^^

I like this idea.
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: yaosh on April 04, 2012, 07:43 am
I prefer communicating with vendors whom I trust outside of SR channels for additional security.  I think all distributors and consumers should make an effort to establish communication with their suppliers outside of SR just in case.  I only intend to be in business as long as necessary to achieve my goals, though I feel a sense of responsibility to the community to ensure they have a safe, clean supply of product.  Far more kids get hurt by adulterated, misrepresented, and potentially fatal substitute drugs than from the original drugs in question.  Even more are hurt or killed acquiring these drugs through shady ass hoodrats in dangerous areas.  What motivated me to become involved was getting sick of seeing people hurt and killed by dirty [drug name].  Now, I ensure they don't have to put themselves at risk any longer.

I see mention of "no harm to others" above...  Keep in mind that LEOs are trained (read: brainwashed) to believe that when you give bitcoins to some guy in the Netherlands who makes budder because he enjoys it, a handgun automatically appears in the hand of a Sinaloa Cartel member and they go masturbate while shooting infants in the face.  They see harm indirectly through our actions.  Granted, some of the drugs available here do obviously come through traditional channels and fund less than desirable people, but I would argue that the "war on drugs" has done far more harm by forcing nearly all manufacturing and major distribution to be performed by these groups.  Saffrole comes mostly from trees being cut down at an astounding rate with no control measures or sustainable development because there is no legitimate cultivation allowed.  Opium poppy farms fund terrorism in Iran, Afghanistan, and other countries because one cannot simply grow them elsewhere and the only people buying and providing income to these farmers are criminals.  Methamphetamine manufacture leads to diversion of pharmaceuticals from India and China through manufacturing facilities in Mexico which have grown tremendously in the last decade and fueled the cartels simply because of partial restriction of precursor availability without covering the back doors to make sure it isn't *helping* groups like them.

[tl;dr jump point]

The point is, SR does cause harm in the eyes of LE and government twits who don't know anything but what they read in the World Drug Report or hear from professional protestors who make their living protesting anything they can raise donations for.  To some extent they are correct, and I urge SR vendors to consider this when sourcing their product.  Sure, you've gotta pay bills, but who else's bills are you paying?  Support small growers and labs, and don't assume that LE will ever back off on the grounds of reduced harm.  Powerful people who think for them and give them money are the ones who have a financial interest in hunting us, they don't care whether SR didn't earn a single cent for real criminals or not.  As long as it is profitable to do so, we will be hunted.

As some people have pointed out, more attention *should* be paid to child porn rings, but follow the money...  It isn't pedos making it difficult for the US to control global oil, it is organizations funded by drugs.   Pedobear isn't roaming Somali villiages with RPGs and AKs stealing humanitarian aid supplies and starving children. There aren't a million groups raising funds and contributing them to election campaigns because of kiddie porn, but there are a lot of people doing this over drugs.  Non-US countries don't get billions in aid from the US to hunt down pedos, but they get unimaginable assistance to choke off drug supplies (which in turn cuts money and power to organizations who fight US interests).  The picture is much larger than us, SR, or drugs as a whole.  It's all part of the global power game, it's all money, they wouldn't spend money fighting us without expecting a return on investment, that's how capitalism works.  Why do we fight *true* green technologies, and carefully restrict nuclear power?  "They'll nuke israel!!!1!" no, when hundreds of Soviet nukes disappeared, it would have been done already.  Actually the US is the only country who has -ever- nuked anyone.  If you have no nuclear power or viable alternative, you are reliant on petroleum products.  If the US ever gets its way and controls oil, you now depend on them.  Its been a fight to get everyone by the balls ever since oil shortages in WWII showed how powerful oil can be.  After spending so long fighting to secure that power, it makes no sense to quit, so they artificially increase the power of wielding oil control to make the plan remain viable.  Drugs are just a part of that.

-yaosh

*experience: former military, former private military contractor, former liaison to multinational law enforcement.  current believer in peace, freedom of choice, harm reduction, and experiencing life outside of the serialized cage we are assigned at birth.

**please don't read "US, Non-US, etc." as being preferential, the US is simply the major pusher behind fighting drugs and the big source of cash for doing it (and the largest consumer... funny).  by no means do i believe the US is better than anywhere else, i have seen that we are not with my own eyes.
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: madmanan on April 04, 2012, 09:56 am
I have just found silk road and armory after much searching. I would not like to lose them now. I hope it stays for good long time
Title: Re: What's coming for Silk Road and what will you do?
Post by: ijumz on April 04, 2012, 05:04 pm
this kind of thoughts about SR end based on good sense of history.  SR is centralized, transactions controlled, membership controlled in this terms it did not moved much far from how it was before, Of course technically is big advancement: TOR, bitcoins, escrow, but same centralized design.

SR can be a good platform for future development and would be better if this future development be ready before SR goes down.

my idea about future SR:

1. distributed encrypted content hosting via TOR p2p style similar to bitcoins. no host, no server - how can it be destroyed, nothing to destroy.no admin. no moderators.

2. free access to everybody, no fees, just download client and you in, sale, buy. no control over transactions, no fees.

3. escrow, guaranties, loans and other financial instruments as services.

THIS^^^ :)