Silk Road forums
Discussion => Shipping => Topic started by: Barracuda on January 04, 2012, 07:37 am
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I've been rechecking several threads and the Wiki in order to determine the agreed-upon best practices for what receiving address to give out, only to find that... there seems to be very little that is actually agreed on. There is an awful lot of agreement about what *not* to do (e.g. fake names, using abandoned addresses) but a lot less agreement about what *to* do. I know this topic has been discussed before but if possible I'd like to tackle it with a view of looking at what potential buyers *should* do to help ensure safe deliveries, and share some of my own thinking on what seems reasonable to me to get other opinions.
First, it seems to me that by necessity any precautions about delivery addresses are already a backup plan. If your delivery address is in question or your package is being looked into it is because contraband has already been detected and an investigation is underway.
Therefore, your main defense against arrest is plausible deniability. "I did not request this package", "I have no idea what this is", "I don't want this", etc. IANAL but I imagine this is a very weak defense, as the implication is that somebody who knows your name and address is 1) maliciously or mistakenly mailing you drugs that are also 2) for some reason disguised to avoid detection. However, assuming that the sender has taken all necessary precautions with regard to disguising his address and his association with you, the actual fact of the package being sent to you should be the only evidence that law enforcement has to go on.
So, how to create the most plausibly deniable situation? My thinking has been along the lines of ensuring that you are in the position of receiving a good quantity of unsolicited, legitimate mail in which contraband packages do not look out of place. Currently I'm mulling over two methods:
1) Use a fake name at your real address, **with the very important caveat** that you must have done the legwork of establishing a history for this fake name at your address. Sign up for free newsletters, magazines, ideally try to get to a point where third parties you never gave this name to are sending mail. I can't think of a good reason a fake name wouldn't work if you've established at least several months' history of receiving legitimate "I have no idea who this guy is, I keep getting his mail" deliveries.
2) Set up a PO box and have deliveries sent there with no name at all. This may well be a huge red flag to the Post Office, but I have a hard time believing that anybody could reasonably establish that you were expecting such an anonymous delivery. "They sent me drugs at PO Box 4072? Maybe it was meant for Box 4702? Who knows?"
I'd really appreciate feedback from other buyes on what methods have worked for them... specifically, if any buyers here have been in a situation where they were approached by LE after having a delivery intercepted, what methods were you employing that were helpful and is there anything additional you wish you'd been doing and would advise others to do?
Thanks!
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In fact, after rereading the information in this thread (http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=7236.0) it seems that the overall risks are extraordinarily low even when using your real name at your real address, assuming that you 1) Don't sign for packages, 2) Don't open contraband packages until a few hours have passed (perhaps go out to the store first to ensure nobody is trying to intercept you), and 3) Don't have other drugs in the house in case the worst happens and your home is searched. (This would perhaps be difficult to maintain.) And without wishing to adopt a blasé attitude it seems that even this scenario plays out almost exclusively when receiving significant quantities of contraband for distribution. Again, thoughts?
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I think the best idea is to use a safe address. That is an address that is not yours but one that you can trust and know the people. I have stuff sent to someone I know that lives at that address and I use all their correct information. I think the most important thing is to use accurate information. Additionally, the name provided should have ties to the address that can be found easily. LE is known to check to see if the person receiving the package is connected to the address. If they are the package is less suspicious. If they arnt than thats 1 strike against the package and so many strikes mean the package will be opened.
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It would be great to hear from an attorney or at least a graduate level law student. Some technical information might help a lot.
I think one major thing can't be overlooked. The package should not be delivered to the address where the order was placed. Your deniability goes down a lot if/when LE gets a search warrant for your computer and they find Tor browser etc etc.
I think the best route would be to ship to a trusted address, someone who isn't involved in anything illicit and doesn't have a criminal record. Using their name is definitely necessary, however I prefer to use first initials with last name, slightly more discrete I think.
BUT ULTIMATELY, the whole idea of SR and Tor and Bitcoins and anonymity is so that you don't have to worry about buying and receiving stuff like this at home. Alternate name and addresses are just a fail safe...but if you've done everything right the chances of trouble are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO low.
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I think the best idea is to use a safe address. That is an address that is not yours but one that you can trust and know the people. I have stuff sent to someone I know that lives at that address and I use all their correct information.
I'm not convinced by the arguments for this. If you're using your name but your friends' address this is no better than a fake name, except it's more incriminating for you. And using your friends' real name and address is only putting them in the same position you'd be in if the worst happened and LE showed up - except now you're trusting them to not say anything, not incriminate you (even accidentally), and for LE to be unable to use their own resources to show that the two of you know each other. The only difference that I can see is that when they claim "I didn't order this!" it will technically be true; but LE shouldn't be able to prove it's true of you either! You're just informing more people of the fact of the order which cannot be a good thing.
I think the most important thing is to use accurate information. Additionally, the name provided should have ties to the address that can be found easily. LE is known to check to see if the person receiving the package is connected to the address. If they are the package is less suspicious. If they arnt than thats 1 strike against the package and so many strikes mean the package will be opened.
Agreed. That's what I hope one could accomplish be pre-establishing a history of junk mail being sent to the address, though I'd love to hear if and at what point LE digs deeper to uncover an actual relationship between a name and an address.
I think one major thing can't be overlooked. The package should not be delivered to the address where the order was placed. Your deniability goes down a lot if/when LE gets a search warrant for your computer and they find Tor browser etc etc.
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BUT ULTIMATELY, the whole idea of SR and Tor and Bitcoins and anonymity is so that you don't have to worry about buying and receiving stuff like this at home. Alternate name and addresses are just a fail safe...but if you've done everything right the chances of trouble are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO low.
Agreed; again, my post is assuming that both seller and buyer have taken other precautions with regard to anonymizing all SR activity as much as possible. I don't mind mentioning that at least on my end I have whole-disk encryption enabled and TorBrowser placed within a separate encrypted folder on the machine. Obviously if either seller or buyer are lax about other aspects of security all bets are off - the reason I focus on recommended shipping addresses is that it's the weakest link in the security chain as far as the buyer is concerned. On the sellers' end the weakest link would probably be packaging and mailing the shipment, and of course we are always hoping that sellers are suitably sneaky in their packaging for this reason ;)
As you mention, Bitcoin, Tor and the structure of SR should conspire to create a system anonymous enough that no other evidence outside of the delivery itself should exist. And as I'm personally only planning to order personal amounts of powders and LSD, instead of half-kilo blocks of cocaine or weed, the risk of detection should be very low. But I'm still interested to learn what could be considered general 'best practices' in this area, as it does no good to get complacent about these things.
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I know I'm not the be-all, end-all on here, but I haven't had a single package non-receive since August and I think the instructions I give my buyers helps.
Use your real name. If you have a criminal record or something else that might cause your name to flag in the customs system, use the name of the previous tenant (if after 3-6 months so you mail forwarding) or someone else who lives at the location that agrees to this - always be upfront about what you are doing if you are asking someone to receive a package in your name. If you can't be upfront, you can't trust them, and if you can't trust them it's a bad call to put that on them - they will be pissed and it might cause you more trouble than it's worth.
Use your real address. Again, if you have a record or that address has someone living there who has a record you might want to check out alternatives, but you are opening up more varialbes that can disrupt you receiving your package smoothly. This is a numbers game. You want things to blend in with the flow of mail as much as possible.
For the record, it is not illegal in and of itself to receive drugs in the mail. You have to have intended to receive drugs in the mail. Big difference, because anyone could look you up and send you random stuff, or someone you hates could send you illicits and call the cops on you. So, in all instances, unless you are not receiving several times and still trying to get items shipped to the same place (thus developing a pattern), you have 100% plausible deniability. Hold on to that.
If you are super paranoid about receiving packages (you might be, especially at first), keep a magic marker by the door. the second you get the package, stroke off your address and write "return to sender" across the envelope. If you were to get raided, you can just hand them the envelope and speak to your lawyer. He is your mouthpiece. Don't talk to the cops, ever, let the expensive pair of lips do it for you (that's what he's being paid to do). You have 100% plausible deniability in this instance, and most of the time you would never have charges pressed, or if they were your lawyer would have them dropped within an hour (again, if there is no pattern established, which is all on you).
The reality of the situation is that customs siezes literally TONS of drugs every year. For most of the personal stuff, you might get a love letter in the mail (I have never heard of any follow up after this, and the only suggestion I have is to not ever use that address to receive goods ever again). Might. many times you don't even get that, it just doesn't show. Postal workers and sorters and people too, and drug usage is a fairly universal ratio across a lot of the social spectrum, so there is a decent chance that a worker just punked your stuff and you are out product while they are getting high off of your shit. Better than a lot of other options.
The end game is that there will always be a chance of a product getting siezed. You just want to play that chance way down and maximize the odds of smooth receipt of your purchase. Anything that could possibly raise a red-flag, avoid completely. You have 100% plausible deniability on your side, so the risks are pretty small of any actual consequences and state violence being initiated against you. It is also up to sellers to make sure they play the odds on their end. We need to provide packaging that blends in with mail, 80% of which is corporate reply mail, has no odor, and does not look smell or feel like an illicit substance. If you can cover all of these bases maybe 1 in 100 or less will not make it there, and you can bet some of those are just scam buyers trying to get free or dirt cheap product (but avoiding that is for another topic).
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If you are super paranoid about receiving packages (you might be, especially at first), keep a magic marker by the door. the second you get the package, stroke off your address and write "return to sender" across the envelope. If you were to get raided, you can just hand them the envelope and speak to your lawyer. He is your mouthpiece. Don't talk to the cops, ever, let the expensive pair of lips do it for you (that's what he's being paid to do). You have 100% plausible deniability in this instance, and most of the time you would never have charges pressed, or if they were your lawyer would have them dropped within an hour (again, if there is no pattern established, which is all on you).
That is an INCREDIBLY good idea. That should be in the Buyer's Guide or stickied or something. Just brilliant and gives plausible deniability a HUGE boost... absolutely love it...
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I just use my real name and address. I'm in Australia where we supposedly have the best customs in the world. 100% delivery rate at the moment, and I think half or more have been from the NL.
The method I first used was absolutely perfect though. One of my friends had just purchased an old house that he had planned to renovate (no one living there at all). So I made up a couple of different identities and had legit stuff sent there for a few weeks. Signed up to a few places that sent out samples etc (although they are pretty hard to find these days!!), just to get some constant mail coming through. This was all left inside with return to sender written on them. I only had this window open for a few months, as it was getting ready to rent out, so I went pretty nuts on SR and got a fair bit of stuff delivered. Everything came through. Still wish I had taken the chance though and ordered larger amounts.
If you ever get the opportunity to use that method, go for it!
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2) Set up a PO box and have deliveries sent there with no name at all. This may well be a huge red flag to the Post Office, but I have a hard time believing that anybody could reasonably establish that you were expecting such an anonymous delivery. "They sent me drugs at PO Box 4072? Maybe it was meant for Box 4702? Who knows?"
That sounds like a really good idea to me. I get mail sent to me P.O. Box ALL THE FUCKING TIME that just says "Box Holder" or has no name whatsoever. "YO MAN I DIDNT ORDER NO DRUGS MAN......." is what what I would say, and how could they prove you did? Lol..
I think one major thing can't be overlooked. The package should not be delivered to the address where the order was placed. Your deniability goes down a lot if/when LE gets a search warrant for your computer and they find Tor browser etc etc.
That's a good example of how they could prove it, but you could refuse to let them search your shit, run home, finalize(or destroy any evidence of even owning a computer by lighting it on fire and smashing the remains repeatedly with a baseball bat until it is rendered unrecognizable LOL) and by the time the cops get there you'd be good right? I'm not entire sure how the whole warrant thing works though, as far as I know they have to go before a judge and prove that they have a good reason to search through your shit, but I could be wrong.
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...because its advise, and up to you to decide what works for you, some are comments about local delivery quirks and definite no-no's.... or how much of the good advise you are going to put into practice yourself.
;)
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That's a good example of how they could prove it, but you could refuse to let them search your shit, run home, finalize(or destroy any evidence of even owning a computer by lighting it on fire and smashing the remains repeatedly with a baseball bat until it is rendered unrecognizable LOL) and by the time the cops get there you'd be good right?
NO. NO. NO. And again, NO.
You do NOT want to wipe/destroy any computer material in your house.
That is considered tampering/destroying evidence which is has a pretty severe punishment, which may be more than what you would actually be charged with if they found out it was you ordering an eight of weed or whatever.
You NEED to be using full disk encryption, as a preemptive measure.
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If you are super paranoid about receiving packages (you might be, especially at first), keep a magic marker by the door. the second you get the package, stroke off your address and write "return to sender" across the envelope. If you were to get raided, you can just hand them the envelope and speak to your lawyer. He is your mouthpiece. Don't talk to the cops, ever, let the expensive pair of lips do it for you (that's what he's being paid to do). You have 100% plausible deniability in this instance, and most of the time you would never have charges pressed, or if they were your lawyer would have them dropped within an hour (again, if there is no pattern established, which is all on you).
That is an INCREDIBLY good idea. That should be in the Buyer's Guide or stickied or something. Just brilliant and gives plausible deniability a HUGE boost... absolutely love it...
i didnt understand the idea. can you explain it in a simple way. my mother lang is not English. i am really paranoid because in my country it is VERY VERY VERY strict, meaning the illegal drugs laws. i just wanna buy some but how can i recieve it i dont know probably if i give my home adress the drugs will come to my home with the police officers. how can i reviece.. some help would be really good. i live in Turkey.
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This has been a good question to start up and something i've wondered myself.. But let me throw in another so shipping to your house direct is covered but what if you need to ship something a little more risky would you do multiple deliverys.. So it's sent to point A then picked up motor cycle and taken to point B then UPS to point C then maybe motor cycle to its final drop??? Or if someone has some ideas on this????
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i didnt understand the idea. can you explain it in a simple way. my mother lang is not English. i am really paranoid because in my country it is VERY VERY VERY strict, meaning the illegal drugs laws. i just wanna buy some but how can i recieve it i dont know probably if i give my home adress the drugs will come to my home with the police officers. how can i reviece.. some help would be really good. i live in Turkey.
they say that is best to have a marking-pen by you, and you must are be ready to write on the pack they must have to return to sender. because is not your. and you have not idea who is the sender and why he send that stuff.
i hope you understand, english isn't my mother language too ;)
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If you are super paranoid about receiving packages (you might be, especially at first), keep a magic marker by the door. the second you get the package, stroke off your address and write "return to sender" across the envelope. If you were to get raided, you can just hand them the envelope and speak to your lawyer. He is your mouthpiece. Don't talk to the cops, ever, let the expensive pair of lips do it for you (that's what he's being paid to do). You have 100% plausible deniability in this instance, and most of the time you would never have charges pressed, or if they were your lawyer would have them dropped within an hour (again, if there is no pattern established, which is all on you).
That is an INCREDIBLY good idea. That should be in the Buyer's Guide or stickied or something. Just brilliant and gives plausible deniability a HUGE boost... absolutely love it...
i didnt understand the idea. can you explain it in a simple way. my mother lang is not English. i am really paranoid because in my country it is VERY VERY VERY strict, meaning the illegal drugs laws. i just wanna buy some but how can i recieve it i dont know probably if i give my home adress the drugs will come to my home with the police officers. how can i reviece.. some help would be really good. i live in Turkey.
- if you are paranoid
- when you receive the 1st delivery write 'RTS' in big letters on the front with a black felt tip pen.
- if you get raided hand the envelope to your lawyer
- get your lawyer to negotiate don't attempt it yourself.
{i'm not sure if the above steps -writing RTS on the letter as if you meant it needed to be returned, would help in any way...}
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This has been a good question to start up and something i've wondered myself.. But let me throw in another so shipping to your house direct is covered but what if you need to ship something a little more risky would you do multiple deliverys.. So it's sent to point A then picked up motor cycle and taken to point B then UPS to point C then maybe motor cycle to its final drop??? Or if someone has some ideas on this????
i'm not sure what you mean...people who traffic very large amounts of drugs already have transportation networks like this in place, and if you aren't part of a major drug cartel you probably don't need to do something that serious.
one thing i can say for sure though...NEVER use UPS or Fedex.
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That's a good example of how they could prove it, but you could refuse to let them search your shit, run home, finalize(or destroy any evidence of even owning a computer by lighting it on fire and smashing the remains repeatedly with a baseball bat until it is rendered unrecognizable LOL) and by the time the cops get there you'd be good right?
NO. NO. NO. And again, NO.
You do NOT want to wipe/destroy any computer material in your house.
That is considered tampering/destroying evidence which is has a pretty severe punishment, which may be more than what you would actually be charged with if they found out it was you ordering an eight of weed or whatever.
You NEED to be using full disk encryption, as a preemptive measure.
- so you're suggesting just handover all the tools then?
- as far as i'm concerned a certain partition can just go "missing"...
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If you're too paranoid yet tool lazy (kinda contradiction there, but stick with me) use a cryptocontainer with FF, TB (with Enigmail, etc.) and Pidgin Portable in it for _anything_ drug related. Yet as said: full disk encryption is the way to go. Though at least here in Germany a DA would have a hard time proving that you really tampered with evidence. "I was setting up a new system." is a plausible answer as to why there is nothing on your PC. Also I know of at least one case where a guy went to his PC during a search just saying to the cops "You want to confiscate the PC, right? I'm just shutting it down." while just doing a dd if=/dev/random.
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i didnt understand the idea. can you explain it in a simple way. my mother lang is not English. i am really paranoid because in my country it is VERY VERY VERY strict, meaning the illegal drugs laws. i just wanna buy some but how can i recieve it i dont know probably if i give my home adress the drugs will come to my home with the police officers. how can i reviece.. some help would be really good. i live in Turkey.
they say that is best to have a marking-pen by you, and you must are be ready to write on the pack they must have to return to sender. because is not your. and you have not idea who is the sender and why he send that stuff.
i hope you understand, english isn't my mother language too ;)
thanks bro :) i got it kinda
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That sounds like a really good idea to me. I get mail sent to me P.O. Box ALL THE FUCKING TIME that just says "Box Holder" or has no name whatsoever. "YO MAN I DIDNT ORDER NO DRUGS MAN......." is what what I would say, and how could they prove you did? Lol..
If a recipient's address does not conform to postal regulation's the parcel is supposed to be returned to sender. I'd be a little more careful. ;)
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You would be WAY better off putting it under a business name if you have a P.O. box. Get the package addressed to a business name - the postman doesn't go by who it's addressed to when putting mail into post office boxes, he just opens up the main door and shoves them in by number labeling. Putting "box holder" is massively sketchy, as far as I'm concerned.
Anarcho47
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So from what I'm reading, it appears that actually the best option may actually be to just use your real name and address, while trusting in the seller to package well and being certain that your computer is forensically sound? Given that what I'm planning to order should be pretty undetectable in any case I think I'm OK with that but it is a surprise :)
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So from what I'm reading, it appears that actually the best option may actually be to just use your real name and address, while trusting in the seller to package well and being certain that your computer is forensically sound? Given that what I'm planning to order should be pretty undetectable in any case I think I'm OK with that but it is a surprise :)
That is the best route in mine and a lot of people's opinions.
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I don't want to insult you; so I'll restrain.
But if you go around signing up for a bunch of shit under a fake name they'll just TRACE THE FAKE NAME TO YOU. Then you ordered drugs under the same name that you've been sending shit to.
It's way easier to just deny it.
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I don't want to insult you; so I'll restrain.
But if you go around signing up for a bunch of shit under a fake name they'll just TRACE THE FAKE NAME TO YOU. Then you ordered drugs under the same name that you've been sending shit to.
It's way easier to just deny it.
What makes you think it's impossible to sign up for junk mail anonymously? A cursory Google search reveals websites with literally hundreds of magazines all aching to give away free trials, and I'm willing to bet some of them will happily sell that information on to third parties.
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I kinda skimmed the thread but don't think I saw it mentioned; remember to encrypt your address when placing an order using the seller's pgp key. Be as secure as possible at every step.
Anarcho has great advice in his post, thanks.
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I don't want to insult you; so I'll restrain.
But if you go around signing up for a bunch of shit under a fake name they'll just TRACE THE FAKE NAME TO YOU. Then you ordered drugs under the same name that you've been sending shit to.
It's way easier to just deny it.
What makes you think it's impossible to sign up for junk mail anonymously? A cursory Google search reveals websites with literally hundreds of magazines all aching to give away free trials, and I'm willing to bet some of them will happily sell that information on to third parties.
And you realize you have to mask your Ip on the clearnet?? Inb4 VPN, cops will get warrant the VPN to give your IP.
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And you realize you have to mask your Ip on the clearnet?? Inb4 VPN, cops will get warrant the VPN to give your IP.
So I fire up TorBrowser, or make my way to somewhere with free WiFi like an Apple Store or Starbucks.
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Public WiFi doesnt seem like a good idea..
I used to use a slight mis-spelling or variation of my birthname name. for some reason its always misspelled and mispronounced anyway (I honestly have no idea why). I stopped doing that eventually, and the very next package I received was from a family member of the same last name, with a printed label and our surname spelled wrong 2 inches below his return label! lol I always thought that was funny.
I hear talk of anon mailboxes... anyone have any info on how to get a private box with no ID? Who does that still?
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Public WiFi doesnt seem like a good idea..
I used to use a slight mis-spelling or variation of my birthname name. for some reason its always misspelled and mispronounced anyway (I honestly have no idea why). I stopped doing that eventually, and the very next package I received was from a family member of the same last name, with a printed label and our surname spelled wrong 2 inches below his return label! lol I always thought that was funny.
I hear talk of anon mailboxes... anyone have any info on how to get a private box with no ID? Who does that still?
That's not that good of an idea. If you ever do get caught, your plausible deniability goes out the window. Better to get it in your name and make them try and prove you ordered it.
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How about using the name of someone who has previously lived at your address?
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Everyone has already said most of the things I would mention, and I notice that these sort of threads come up quite frequently. I assume the majority of SR users are based in the USA but it might be useful if there were sticky threads for other popular countries, e.g. UK, AUS, NL? Laws vary between countries and what can be excellent advice in one location might be useless in another.
For example, in the UK they have made it illegal to withhold encryption keys if the police have a warrant - very dodgy legally as the onus is on you to prove you don't have them, which perverts the whole "innocent until proven guilty" principle.
And if you want to get really paranoid about what they can get off your computer if they really want to then read this article about how the FBI busted Max Butler - http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2011/03/features/the-card-master?page=all , he was running full crypto on his systems with auto power off dump. Of course he was running a multi-million dollar card fraud, they are unlikely to go to the same effort for a small time buyer.
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How about using the name of someone who has previously lived at your address?
The only problem I can see with this is that they may register a change of address with the Post Office and have mail addressed to them automatically rerouted. Otherwise I personally can't see an issue with this.
For example, in the UK they have made it illegal to withhold encryption keys if the police have a warrant - very dodgy legally as the onus is on you to prove you don't have them, which perverts the whole "innocent until proven guilty" principle.
I recommend everybody use TrueCrypt's hidden volume protection for this reason.
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Some of you guys are on another planet with your advice...
First off, NEVER use a friends name and address. Obviously most of you have never faced hard time based on the testimony of a co-defendant. If you use a friend and he gets busted he 'WILL' rat on you. Some of you are all like "not my best friend!" bullshit.
When the cops get done interrogating your buddy he will give up you and everyone else who has ever done anything wrong to keep from going to prison... (he may not be facing prison but LEO is going to fill his head with prison rape stories and all the other B.S. that goes with it and he will sing.
Rule #1: if you can't do it alone, don't do it.
Secondly... why do some of you insist on putting your name on the package? I get mail at my place with others peoples names all the time. Once the postal worker gets used to that fact they never look twice at the name...just the address. Why would you sign your name to the crime.. sure you could say you didn't order it but that just makes you look like a liar. Plausible Deni-ability only works if your lie is... well Plausible.
Rule #2: don't sign your crime.
I would be happy to discuss what I have said here and debate the merits of your thoughts but I am sure the majority of you have never been to prison and I have spent 1/4 of my life there... trust me...I have learned a few things along the way.
Take care and be safe!
Blksheep