Silk Road forums

Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: TheBusiness on February 16, 2013, 01:27 pm

Title: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: TheBusiness on February 16, 2013, 01:27 pm
Myth 1. Silk Road is the Ebay of Drugs

I don't know if the Gawker article was the first time a journalist used this stupid phrase, but it's been repeated by stupid people ever since. Ebay is an auction site while Silk Road is an escrow trading site which is fundamentally different. It's often compared to Amazon too which is closer perhaps, but Silk Road actually makes a profit.

Myth 2. Silk Road is a Private, Hidden, Underground Website.

No, it's a public website where anybody is welcome. It runs on TOR to anonymize communication, not for hiding the site or restricting access.

Myth 3. Silk Road Sells Child Pornography & Guns.

Although Silk Road started with guns, turns out it's more profitable to sell stuff that feels good man. Journalists often seem to lump Silk Road in with the rest of the "dark web" and all the evil it may contain. The fact is Silk Road does not permit anything which is intended to cause harm. In terms of the dark web, Silk Road is more aligned with the activists and anti-censorship freedom fighters than the murderers and deviants.

Myth 4. Silk Road is More Dangerous Than Street Drug Dealing.

Reporters and police keep perpetuating this myth, that since you are buying anonymously you just don't know what you might get. The fact is, you don't really know what you get on the street either, but here a crowd-sourced quality control system and a strong community of drug testers mean that Silk Road may possibly be the safest way to acquire high quality, high purity, illegal drugs ever in history. Deal with it.

Myth 5. Silk Road is Massive

It may be the most popular online drug marketplace, and 7000+ products is nothing to sneeze at. The value of BTC is undoubtedly tied to Silk Roads daily trade volume. But with an estimated revenue of $22M in 2012, Silk Road represents 0.007% of the 320 Billion dollar global drug trade. It's notoriety comes from it's novelty, not from it's size. In all likelihood, Silk Road is a single instance of web software on a single server.

Myth 6. Silk Road Has Already Been Busted and is Now Run by the Government to Monitor You

Get your tin foil out people because this one is a fucking thigh slapper. Often spouted by the serially paranoid user who goes around revealing this high conspiracy but still uses the site to buy their anti-anxiety medication. Calm your tits people, while police selling drugs for convictions is not unknown it is, in a broad sense, illegal in most countries. It would be unconstitutional to pursue as an enforcement strategy. It wouldn't even get past an ethics committee for public health and safety reasons, so relax .. the day the police find the server is the day the marketplace stops trading.

Myth 7. Dread Pirate Roberts is Actually a Hot Blonde IT Anarchist Girl

You've heard this one right? I like to think this one is true, just because I can. Call me, DPR. We could be good together.

Myth 8. Silk Road is Invincible

This myth is the communities fault. Whenever someone is busted or a successful law enforcement operation takes place, everyone is quick to defend the road and blame the vendor or user. Unfortunately Silk Road is illegal, and one day this party will be over. Even if the software or the hardware never fail, people usually do. But know this - you cannot kill an idea. For this reason, there will always be a "silk road" just as there will always be an "anonymous". From here on in, it's a technology arms race and Dread Pirate Roberts is presently in the lead.

Have you heard a Silk Road myth? Share yours in this thread.

- TheBusiness
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: EarlyCuylerTOR on February 16, 2013, 01:37 pm
Nice list and some good thinking points.  Isn't Amazon for-profit as well?
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: randomOVDB#2 on February 16, 2013, 01:58 pm
Both Amazon and eBay make money, both in different ways.

SR is just exchange platform. Onion TradeKey or AliBaba ?
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: TheBusiness on February 16, 2013, 03:11 pm
Heh that was a throwaway stab at Amazon, but that company is well known for running everything at a loss in order to maintain it's position as #1 retailer and keep it's share price up.

(clearnet link for details :
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/10/26/amazon_profits_they_don_t_exist_but_the_company_keeps_on_keeping_on.html )

In terms of ratio of profit (%) to revenue Silk Roads will be higher than Amazons.
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: EarlyCuylerTOR on February 16, 2013, 03:45 pm
Thank you for posting that, I'm reading through the article now.

Quote
That's just staggering. It means that Wall Street is on board with an Amazon business strategy that doesn't require it to actually make profits as long as it increases sales volumes. And if you're in any line of business where you compete with Amazon—and Amazon is in a lot of businesses, and seems to get into new ones each year—that should terrify you.
 

That is just insane.  The fact that this company exists and continues to grow just demonstrates how ass-backwards economics works these days.  Thanks big brother, this is working so well for us.    ::)
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: Gengar17 on February 16, 2013, 04:20 pm
Wow, great work Market. Interesting read. Mostly interested in rumor number 7 though, hmmm...  :-*
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: queequeg55 on February 16, 2013, 07:16 pm
Great post!  Myth 4 is one that I have to explain endlessly to my friends who are afraid of SR but have no problems buying and ingesting chemicals from the sketch guy on the street-corner.
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: gambino on February 16, 2013, 07:21 pm
Nice post, thanks.

While SR might not be massive, I can't help but wonder how fast it's growing and if that rate is constant, increasing or decreasing.
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: fivesigma on February 16, 2013, 11:35 pm
Myth 5. Silk Road is Massive

It may be the most popular online drug marketplace, and 7000+ products is nothing to sneeze at. The value of BTC is undoubtedly tied to Silk Roads daily trade volume. But with an estimated revenue of $22M in 2012, Silk Road represents 0.007% of the 320 Billion dollar global drug trade. It's notoriety comes from it's novelty, not from it's size. In all likelihood, Silk Road is a single instance of web software on a single server.

SR is almost certainly a pool of web servers behind a load balancer, with a separate database server.
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: Ticket on February 17, 2013, 12:39 am
Sounds intriguing. Care to put it in layman's terms?
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: OzFreelancer on February 17, 2013, 01:24 am
Nice list :)

I can tell you why it is compared to eBay and not Amazon though.  SR is actually much closer to the eBay model - i.e. nobody buys anything from eBay (or SR), it is simply a mechanism for bringing buyers and sellers together and eBay (SR) takes a commission for facilitating the meeting.  Also feedback and ratings are left for the *people* (i.e. the vendors) rather than just the product. 

c.f. Amazon, which is a place you can physically purchase from and feedback is about the product only.

If you want to be totally accurate, Silk Road is like the 'buy it now' option of eBay.  But "Silk Road: the Buy it Now Option of eBay of Illegal Drugs" just doesn't make for a snappy headline :)
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: chasezip2201 on February 17, 2013, 02:03 am
Good post though I don't necessarily believe it isn't a honeypot.  I've heard several theories on why it can't be as in its illegal or they wouldn't run something that has the potential to hurt people.

I think these things are negated by known honeypot stories of the past.

I think the most compelling evidence that isn't a honeypot is it seems as though none of the big players disappear wither it be vendors or staff.

Well vendors disappear because they usually go scammer or quit but you know if they were busting people I think it would be at a more alarming rate.

I'll use supertrips as an example he is the most unorganized, low stealth, giant vendor and he is still in business somehow. 
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: anonymart on February 17, 2013, 03:15 am
Well said man!
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: smogmonster13 on February 17, 2013, 04:28 am
Thanks for this post. I think it's helpful to demystify SR. Keeps us all safer. Good on you!
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: addysfromscript on February 17, 2013, 04:43 am
Great job on this list OP.

Myth 2 is certainly the most important and often overlooked. In my opinion PGP should be required for all communications but hey I just don't want to end up in jail. People are so naive, especially on the forums. The law is 100% undeniably positively combing the forums and main page for any slip up. BE CAREFUL.
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: HEATFan on February 17, 2013, 05:11 am
Nice list
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: StraightThuggin on February 17, 2013, 08:01 am
awesome list OP
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: livestr0ng on February 17, 2013, 08:48 am
Haha good stuff. I'd like to hear more too. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), I don't even know of any other SR related myths.
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: masterblaster on February 17, 2013, 08:51 am
SR myth #9, the forum consists mostly of mature adults who know what they're doing.
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: PrincessHIGH on February 17, 2013, 08:58 am
I like what you've done here TheBusiness, I like you've put time, thought, and effort into writing this.
Myth 5. Silk Road is Massive

It may be the most popular online drug marketplace, and 7000+ products is nothing to sneeze at. The value of BTC is undoubtedly tied to Silk Roads daily trade volume. But with an estimated revenue of $22M in 2012, Silk Road represents 0.007% of the 320 Billion dollar global drug trade. It's notoriety comes from it's novelty, not from it's size. In all likelihood, Silk Road is a single instance of web software on a single server.
I think the '$360 billion' valuation is way off, the source of this information is the UN who published it way back in 1998, fifteen years ago.
Quote from: United Nations Drug Control Program
With estimates of $100 billion to $110 billion for heroin, $110 billion to $130 billion for cocaine, $75 billion for cannabis and $60 billion for synthetic drugs, the probable global figure for the total illicit drug industry would be approximately $360 billion. Given the conservative bias in some of the estimates for individual substances, a turnover of around $400 billion per annum is considered realistic. This figure can be compared to estimates of more than $500 billion which are based solely on the average of minimum and maximum prices in the United States."
Source: United Nations Drug Control Program, "Economic and Social Consequences of Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking," Technical Series No. 6, 1998, p. 55
How much the drug industry is worth today is anybody's guestimation, I'd say it's at least doubled. Great post The Business, I like you have a +1 from me, thank-you for inspiring our community :)
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: dbz4u on February 17, 2013, 09:02 am
SR myth #9, the forum consists mostly of mature adults who know what they're doing.

That's a myth? I thought that was just a known quantity, all forums have more dickheads than helpful members. Fact of the internet  :-\
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: addysfromscript on February 17, 2013, 09:59 am
SR myth #9, the forum consists mostly of mature adults who know what they're doing.

That's a myth? I thought that was just a known quantity, all forums have more dickheads than helpful members. Fact of the internet  :-\

Yeah but this forum seems to attract people who are paranoid, clueless, young, or just plain dumb. The most out of any forums i've browsed. This is what makes me nervous about the future of SR. Changes need to be made to at least inform these people and make the forums more secure.
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: dbz4u on February 17, 2013, 10:20 am
SR myth #9, the forum consists mostly of mature adults who know what they're doing.

That's a myth? I thought that was just a known quantity, all forums have more dickheads than helpful members. Fact of the internet  :-\

Yeah but this forum seems to attract people who are paranoid, clueless, young, or just plain dumb. The most out of any forums i've browsed. This is what makes me nervous about the future of SR. Changes need to be made to at least inform these people and make the forums more secure.

That's kinda the nature of this kind of uncharted territory. Most people don't know where any of this stands in the real world, it's all virtual til it gets to your door. The fear part of the reaction is simply caution. No one, and i mean NO ONE, believed this shit was real the first day they got here. Everyone had that same hesitance, and heavy skepticism. The problem with that is, the longer you're here, the more comfortable with everything you become. What was once completely alien and impossible has become second nature. It's easy to hate on the newbies, sure they're annoying, but just like anyone else who was here their first month, their curious, cautious and a little scared. That's why the newbie section is great when the spam is under control. All you can do is modulate annoyance like that, there's no way to eradicate it
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: TheBusiness on February 17, 2013, 12:02 pm
I like what you've done here TheBusiness, I like you've put time, thought, and effort into writing this.

...snip...

I like you have a +1 from me, thank-you for inspiring our community :)

Hey, thanks PrincessHIGH!

Yes, I agree on the $320B underestimation, the figure will always be an estimate.

Apparently, the top global commodities by revenue are :

1. Oil
2. Food
3. Drugs

That short list speaks volumes about many things.

 
Title: Re: 8 Common Silk Road Myths - Know Your Marketplace!
Post by: EarlyCuylerTOR on February 17, 2013, 06:26 pm

Yeah but this forum seems to attract people who are paranoid, clueless, young, or just plain dumb. The most out of any forums i've browsed. This is what makes me nervous about the future of SR. Changes need to be made to at least inform these people and make the forums more secure.
 

Oh, you mean the typical type of people that are interested in mind-altering substances?  I think it's a pretty good forum personally.