Even if he has been busted, that's pretty good incentive for someone else to start up a new one if it goes down.

>>5297

Who has been busted?

>>5297

November 12, 2012, 02:15 AM

Hello everyone,

I'm alive, I'm safe. Luck would have it that the first time I'm away for more than 24 hours, the site goes down and I'm the only one that can bring it back up. As soon as we are sure there haven't been any security breaches and taken all of the necessary precautions, we will get back up and running. If anyone's orders get messed up because of this (auto-finalizing, etc), we will take full responsibility and make things right, just contact support once we're back up. I'm terribly sorry for this and all of the recent problems. I promise it is my top priority to get things running smoothly again.

- -DPR

>>5300
That page and the one linked from it
http://gawker.com/5926440/are-authorities-closing-in-on-the-online-drug-market-silk-road
seem to indicate there is a worry that DPR has been caught and may be working for authorities.

>>5303
Gawker is about as reliable a news source as the blurb for a page 3 girl.

>>5303
People shouldn't be shopping on SR without either of the following, singularly or combined: socks5, VPN or cracked/open wireless.

Tor is not secure!

They really haven't been able to cope with the traffic from new users, and it's not like they can just upgrade the servers. They should freeze new registrations for a while I think.

Plus it's been hard getting bitcoin in the UK recently.

>>5306

You're supposed to use a public key when ordering anyway. What kind of a mong would use plain text in the order fields?

>>5306
>Tor is not secure
How did you come to this conclusion?

>>5325
I'm assuming he (mis-)read the paper that suggested that controlling about a third of nodes would open the thing to compromise.

>>5324
I was talking to a quite highly rated seller. I told him I was having trouble getting hold of bitcoins and he was quite insistent I could pay him by bank transfer. He even offered to sell me bitcoins.

Has anyone not had a good experience with SR? Seems like it has been a runaway success if the foregoing posts are to be believed.

>>5327
Seems legit.

>>5328

In total,

I have bought for reasonable prices at top quality the following.. (over 18 months)

I'll get banned for posting prices but i'm in an internet cafe in a foreign country so fuck-it.

2 Ounces Swazi Buds - £80/ounce *amazing for price
10 grams Moroccan Hashish (£7-8/gram) *best iv ever had
7 grams NLX (£45, yes was SALE). *AMAZING smoke.

3-4grams of MDMA at 84% fucking sharp stuff, I forgot but maybe £25 a gram.

In Pill form you would get 125-150mg up to 200mg for about £3-5 each.

I bought an ounce of AK47 for £200 (pricey) but was the best smoke I have ever had, lovely high.

Only money I'v lost is trying to order stuff from the third world like opium an charass. But I hear its 80-90% ok to UK I was just unlucky.

>>5327

cop
cop
cop

dude, use intersango in UK ffs..

>>5331
>I'll get banned for posting prices

Oh? I wasn't aware it was illegal to talk about the prices of street drugs, merely to possess, intend to supply, or facilitate either of these. I'm not going to ban you just for talking about how you much you claim to have spent, mate. I myself paid £5852.99 for a species of endangered jaguar just the other day, after all.

I got offered 3.03BTC for £30 by a vendor, but something made me sketchy so I didn't go through with it. Bought some coins through a more expensive route instead (second life). £32 for 2.71BTC, admittedly a bit shit. Fucking fees, thought it might have been cheaper than do the whole international transfer business through mtgox or intersango but no. Was worth a try.

pingit and blockchain.info is the best rate you will get for smallish volumes

>>5334

intersango has a UK bank account you can deposit into and the fees is only like 0.65%

In some countries your paying like 10% with there exchangs..

>>5333

Fair enough, almost every forum I ever used had a strict no discussion of price policy, maybe its an American thing.

>>5336

According to Intersango they are not taking UK deposits and have no provision to do so in the future. Shome mishtake...?

Judging from google there's no reliable way of buying BTC via paypal, is there?
I've been sent a little money but it's pretty much useless in a paypal account.

>>5351
You could use virwox but you'll get shit rates and have to set up a second life account

>>5352
Fuck that. Thanks anyway

localbitcoins.com is a good site for bitcoins. Some people on there probably offer paypal, but I used a bank transfer with this guy: https://localbitcoins.com/ad/1821/buy-bitcoins-with-cash-hp2-6er-united-kingdom

I had the coins in my account in a few hours.

>>5360
9.44 is not market price lad

Bitcoins are becoming more expensive pretty rapidly. I might become a speculator.

>>5335

This man is correct. Setting up a Barclays PingIt thing (which you can do with any uk bank account & a smartphone) and using blockchain.info honestly seems to be the best thing to do.

Their rates are okay.

>>5377

Blockchain also do a (maximum £50 a pop) bank transfer service. Rates are 6%.

I'd suggest bitcoin-otc. Learn how here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYJ-GdErX1c

Make sure whoever you trade with is authenticated before you transfer money. Common (ish) scam is to trade under a known nick without authentication.

Looks like some haxors are fucking with SR at the mo.

Somehow they've managed to mess with the image server, causing product images to be overlaid with a message asking plebs to send bitcoins to some random wallet 'for quick delivery'.

More worryingly, they've also managed to disable the shipping options for purchases.

They are currently targeting the top selling products / vendors and working their way down.

Keep an eye on the SR forums for updates.

No sensimilla for me this Christmas. Serves me right for leaving things to the last minute as always...

THE WAR ON DRUGS IS OVER!

Having realised the futility of prohibition, governments around the world have indefinitely suspended the prohibition of narcotics.

DEA administrator Michele Leonhart announced today that "Silkroad has pretty much fucked our monopoly on the supply of illegal drugs."

In an unusually Frank speech she continued to declare that "Using the TOR browser (https://www.torproject.org/download) in combination with information gleaned from the Silk Road Forums (http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion), the worlds populations are now able to bypass all attempts at suppressing the masses from getting drugs outside of the DEA supply chain". Thus, continuing the battle to maintain said monopoly is beyond fiscal sensibilities; even for silly 'Mericans.

In unrelated news, it was somewhat disappointing to learn that I can't write for shit. Especially when high on drugs. Oh well...

>>5489

* It has come to our attention that we neglected to mention in our previous article that Local Bitcoins (https://localbitcoins.com) have been implicated by ourselves as being a major factor in the facilitation of purchasing narcotics outside of the DEA's purview. We humbly apologise for neglecting to mention this fact in our original article.

>>5489
How can you buy drugs online? Do they mail it to you?

>>5492

No, they electrically wire the drugs straight into your brain. For fucks sake....

>>5493

Actually...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Doser

>>5523

Fuck off back to 4chan lad

>>5524
Seconded.

Anyone posting that i-doser crap should be lit up with the red text as far as I'm concerned.

>>5524
>>5525

Calm the fuck down lads. That post was made in jest.

Anyone else waiting an horrendously long time for orders from El Mexico? My first order arrived within 2 weeks; a current order from the same vendor has been at least 6 weeks in transit. Does anyone have experience with ordering legal products from this part of the world?

Haven't been down that road since well into last year now. Is it still running well? What are prices like atm for weed?

>>5663
Prices are good if you buy in medium sized amounts, say 5-8g. If you buy by the g you'll pay about a third more than on the street though.

Atlantis anyone?

Recently made my first purchase, 5 of JoR's Mayan Calendar blotters and 1g of his 'source G' MDMA. The acid turned up yesterday, but apparently there's a bit of a backlog with his MDMA orders so could be a while yet. I used local bitcoins for the BTC, which was very easy and went smoothly.

It was mostly a test order really, but I wish I'd bought more. It's for Glastonbury, and suddenly the other people going with us have decided they want some MDMA too.

I'll have to make more orders, but it's a shame I had to buy at that small quantity, as I'll end up paying not much less for another 2 grams as I could've got 5 for originally. It's still cheaper than what I'd have to pay here, and without having to go through a chain of 4 or more people and probably ending up disappointed.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/meet-the-dread-pirate-roberts-the-man-behind-booming-black-market-drug-website-silk-road/
Worth a read.

>>5956
http://www.dailydot.com/crime/tumblr-teens-silk-road-drug-deals/

>>5957
>Used my real name on the silk road. What was I thinking.
That has to be a joke, right? Nobody could be that stupid.

>>5959

Have you ever met a teenager?

If feel fucking awful for this generation of youngsters. I did no end of stupid things as a kid, but they live on only in the memories of a handful of people I'll probably never speak to again. This generation are chronicling their every action with phone cameras and making it public through social networking. I can't imagine what it'll be like for them in a few decades time, having every stupid youthful indiscretion preserved forever on the Wayback Machine.

How can they be this stupid? Seriously, I cannot wrap my mind around it.

>>5963
Not all drugs are that bad, are they?

>>5964
Yes.

>>5963
You have clearly fell out of a parallel universe where common sense is... well... common.

http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/10/2/4794780/fbi-seizes-underground-drug-market-silk-road-owner-indicted-in-new
Is this real?

>>6170
Yes.

>>6170
I should fucking hope not. I'd be wary of connecting to it in the next 48 hours though.

>>6170
>It looks like they sniffed him out by looking back at old Internet records (forum posts, IPs etc) from around the time of SRs appearance. The first person to ever advertise SR was DPR himself, and he used an email account attached to his natural born identity. No NSA or technical hack.
Brilliant.

>>6172
You might as well hope the sun's not going to set tonight. The FBI have confirmed as much to Reuters.

>>6171
I wonder where people will go now. I heard a lot of shit about how that Atlantis place was a DEA sting operation or whatever.

This poor bastard who ran SR must be shitting it right now. They're going to lock him up for a very long time.

http://krebsonsecurity.com.nyud.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf
http://www.linkedin.com/in/rossulbricht

The recent attacks on Tor services seem to be confirming the fundamental security of Tor itself. Silk Road and Hidden Hosting weren't taken down with a technical attack on Tor, but with good old detective work.

>>6179
Then there's hope. A friend of mine said "long live BMR", I expect an exodus to there after this.

>>6178
Oh my.

>>6181
I'd be worried if I was one of those 146,000 people.

>>6179
And some proper sloppiness on DPR's part.

>>6182
I wouldn't. Even if they had the technical ability to track them, they probably lack the manpower and will. The sellers on the other hand will face scrutiny.

>>6185
>they probably lack the manpower

I guess you're right, yes. They're not going to kick the door down of someone who bought a few E's six months ago, but I dunno, it would still be very worrying - if he's sloppy enough to use his own email account and get caught like this, he's probably been similarly sloppy with the design of the site/database - goodness knows what kind of data they'll find. Agree with you on the sellers.

Hope the rest of you lads on /A/ have packed your rice AND YOUR RAPE ALARMS because when the feds get your number off the databases you could be faced with a lengthy stretch in t'pokey.

>>6185

I believe the correct reponse is to tell the rozzers you were commiting fraud. You were conning idiots by selling them legal highs and herbs. Unless they bought from you they'll have trouble proving that you weren't, and it's a significantly lower sentance.

>>6191
Or if you had any knowledge of the law whatsoever, you'd know that offering and supplying controlled drugs is the exact same offence.

>>6190

Correct procedure is to PGP encrypt all discussion between you and the vendor, discussion which you then both proceed to destroy once the transaction is complete.

>In March of this year, a SR user/vendor called "FriendlyChemist" attempted to extort DPR via SR's private message system, providing proof that he had the names/addresses of thousands of vendors/users after having allegedly hacked a bigger vendor. He demanded $500,000USD, saying that he needed the money to pay off his supplier. DPR then stated that he wished to speak to FriendlyChemist's supplier.
>A user called "redandwhite" then proceeded to contact DPR, stating that he was FriendlyChemist's supplier and also the owner of his debt. DPR then solicited redandwhite to "execute" FriendlyChemist, supplying redandwhite his full name and address. After having agreed on terms, DPR sent redandwhite approximately $150,000USD (1,670BTC) to have FriendlyChemist killed. redandwhite later provided photographic proof of the alleged murder.
>Investigators could not find any record of somebody in that region being killed around that date or matching that description. This possibly implies that DPR was duped/scammed, but, DPR is also quoted as having told redandwhite the following: "Not long ago, I had a clean hit done for 80k."
http://pastebin.com/8aVN81Ta

$150K for a killing? Me thinks he has more money than sense. Up north, he'd pay a tenth of that. Supposedly.

A bit pissed off he engaged in such barbarity though. I was initially offended when he set up his gun selling site, but then bought into the whole libertarian world-view thing. Being a murderer however, makes him a hypocrite. And a cunt. Even if he was 'protecting' his customers.

Still gutted the site has gone. I have bought my ganja off there for the last year. Fuck knows where I'll get in now. Just moved area so no real-world contacts locally. Pants. On an up note, I ordered weed off there yesterday morning. And guess what just turned up?

Hum, just realised by giving money to SR I am guilty of supporting a murderer. Come to think of it, most purchases I make go to a business that engage in behaviour I detest. And what about my tax and the criminal behaviour of my government? Am I a hypocrite? Oh shit, this weed is fucking awesome. The thoughts, the thoughts man. How deep! Err, actually I appear to be rambling shite, sorry...

>>6196
Just a thought though. If someone you have never met was making your life very difficult/miserable, how many people would consider hiring someone to 'sort it out' assuming the price was good and nobody would know?

I'm kinda in the situation of someone I've never met making my life considerably worse than it would have been otherwise and given the opportunity I don't think I'd feel bad. Sure if it was someone I know even vaguely but as just some amorphous blob with a name and face I have no empathy. Does this make me a psychopath?

Not that I'd ever actually do it due to lack of opportunity/funds and not wanting to be locked in a box for the rest of my life but the fact that those are the only things stopping me is kinda worrying...

>>6196

>Hum, just realised by giving money to SR I am guilty of supporting a murderer.

If you've ever given money to Nestle or own any sort of technology or clothes, it's likely you've funded worse that a single murder.

>>6198
Yeah but the corporations only do it indirectly because they want to make money, whereas Roberts... erm... hmmm.

>>6179
Just another reason not to use persistent identities on the Internet.

>>5960
Agreed

>>6192

I do, no it isn't.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24443216

I'm sorry they arrested you Devon-lad. Are you out on bail yet? If so and they havent cut you off from the internet please tell us about what charges you're facing and what your plan of action is...

>>6179
>Silk Road and Hidden Hosting weren't taken down with a technical attack on Tor, but with good old detective work.

The authorities have not yet released any information about how they found actually found the hidden servers, in either of these cases, as far as I know.

Lots of information has been released, but not this. Personally I suspect that heavily trafficked hidden services could be located using statistical attacks pretty easily (for an NSA level organisation).

There was a news story yesterday about some lads up in Manchester being arrested. It suggested they were 'large scale' customers. AND THEY'LL COME FOR ALL OF US NEXT!!!

I wonder if this was a result of Pluto Pete having his laptop confiscated, customer records intact, or unencrypted addresses from the busted SR server. Or maybe the Manchester lads were grassed up by associates and the police are using the SR bust for cover (and to freak out other SR customers for shits and giggles)?

Either way, one of my last orders placed the day before the raid never arrived. So I have disposed of all cannabis paraphernalia, replaced my pay as go broadband sim and scrubbed my lappy. I hear the new 'English FBI' are trying to make headlines so don't want to be that silly cunt in the local newspaper arrested for "3g's of genetically modified rape skunk". I guess it's back to booze for me, at least for a couple of months...

>>6234

It's all in the court documents. The detective work required to track down Ross Ulbricht was absolutely painstaking. If the FBI did have the ability to compromise Tor, then they have gone to tremendous lengths to conceal that fact.

Leaked documents from the Snowden dossier show that the NSA consider Tor to be fundamentally secure and are working to develop sidechain attacks rather than attacking the core Tor security model; They have tried and failed to de-anonymise the network by controlling large numbers of nodes. To quote from the document:

"We will never be able to de-anonymize all Tor users all the time. With manual analysis we can de-anonymize a very small fraction of Tor users, however, no success de-anonymizing a user ... on demand."

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/801028/silkroad.pdf

http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/oct/04/tor-stinks-nsa-presentation-document

>>6236
>If the FBI did have the ability to compromise Tor, then they have gone to tremendous lengths to conceal that fact.

Which would explain why no court document mentions it.

>"We will never be able to de-anonymize all Tor users all the time. With manual analysis we can de-anonymize a very small fraction of Tor users, however, no success de-anonymizing a user ... on demand."

The timing of that leak would be pretty convenient for an intelligence agency trying to look less intelligent than they really are.

The NSA do have the ability to compromise Tor by brute force - the Tor project was not designed to protect against such an adversary. The question is really whether they have done so *yet*.

>>6235
I never used silk road so I have no experience of the reality; But surely people should be using PGP encryption for all messages on a site like SR?
I even thought I read something about it saying that was the way to do it.

>>6238
You did, and they should've, but not everyone did. Also, if the sellers then kept a copy of your unencrypted details somewhere, in hard format or digital, the police then have access to your address in some form or another. That or the sellers may even be legally compelled to divulge the password for their keypairs so the police can access anything of theirs that's PGP-encrypted (I have heard of cases where people are legally forced to give over passwords or otherwise be found in contempt or something, so it could happen...I think.)

>>6239
>I have heard of cases where people are legally forced to give over passwords or otherwise be found in contempt or something, so it could happen...I think.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11479831

>>6240
Can't believe people have forgotten about that law so quickly.

>>6240

I'd refuse to give the password as well. Only 16 weeks and no need to sign the sex offenders register, awesome.

>>6240

Just say you forgot the password. I'd like to see a counsel prove otherwise.

>>6255
Then you get out, and they ask you again. Back in you go. Enjoy.

>>6258

Double jeopardy.

As >>6257 says, it's an incredibly difficult offence to prove unless the defendant admits "my data is encrypted and I refuse to provide the key". The prosecution has to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a) there is encrypted data on the storage medium, b) that the defendant is aware of that data and c) that they know the key but are refusing to provide it.

As far as we know, only three people have ever been convicted of this offence, which suggests that securing convictions is as hard in practice as it is in theory.

Does double jeopardy exist in this country and for this 'crime'?

I'm amazed he didn't think of leaving the US while running it. I realise most countries will have laws making it illegal but still.

>>6262

He's a complete mug for staying in the US. He could have operated SR with complete impunity from Russia, because they tolerate anything that pisses off the Americans.

>>6261

Yes. Double jeopardy is a fundamental principle of English law. The only exception is murder trials where new evidence has come to light, but that only allows for the retrial of someone who has been acquitted. You cannot be prosecuted twice for the same offence in English law.

>>6259

I may be wrong, but as I understand it the RIP act allows up to three years for refusing to hand over any passwords, keys etc and that beyond this the judge may hold you in contempt of court and keep on bringing you up until you play ball.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/11/operator-of-silk-road-20-arrested-and-indicted.html

Down goes another dark marketplace. Silly sod bought a Tesla Model S using bitcoins.

>>6268

Yep. You can be held on contempt of court and basically detained indefinitely. We're yet to see this actually happen, though.

Silk Road Timeline etc

Pre-2014 bust

http://antilop.cc/sr

>>6996

>>6997

This supposedly highly intelligent rocket scientist running an illegal marketplace from a country with extremely harsh laws if caught decided to use an email with his full name to host said marketplace. It almost seems set-up because it's so ridiculously incompetent of him. Could autism have something to do with this?

>>6998

He just wasn't that smart and didn't have the relevant expertise. People setting up dark markets tend to be some combination of nerd/druggie/libertarian; Their background and predisposition just doesn't equip them for working in a hostile environment. What you really need is someone with a security and intelligence background, who knows how to create structures and processes that prevent you from making stupid slip-ups. A spook would be ideal, but a bent accountant would be my second pick.