Silk Road forums
Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: metacontxt on July 24, 2013, 06:22 pm
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I recently posted a question about the best way to get something through customs. Within 10 mins, the answer to my question was PMed to me by another site user, along with a request to delete the topic I'd started because they said LE monitor everything that's written here, and they want to know what we know about how they operate. And of course, the less they know about what we know about how they operate, the better.
So wouldn't it be a good idea to make it more difficult for LE to read these boards? Here's my suggestion. When you sign up to SR, a forum profile is simultaneously created. You choose a SR username and a separate SR forum username (they can be the same or different if you like), but you access the forum through the SR main page only. No separate URL for the forum. You can't get onto the forum without logging into SR first.
The forum itself would be partitioned, with certain trusted members allowed to enter areas where more sensitive issues pertaining to evading LE are discussed. Those who have not demonstrated a clear motivation for being an SR member - or those whose activities on SR appear suspicious - cannot access these parts of the forum. Keeping LE out as much as possible is the name of the game. Trusted members who are unlikely to be LE could be profiled as such based on various aspects of their site activity. On the other hand, members using their accounts in a suspicious manner which might suggest LE activity could have their accounts flagged and be subject to greater scrutiny, as well as and restrictions to parts of the forum. I know there is a newbies section to the forum, but newbies can still read everything that's posted in other threads. LE probably don't care about adding to discussions - they're gathering intelligence. This should be stymied.
I have several ideas about how the site could use the data it retains on members to profile their motives for accessing SR. I also have some ideas about additional details the site could gather about users which would not affect their anonymity but could be used to indicate their motives for being on SR. If members' forum activity were logged, this would also be valuable in building a user profile. I don't really want to go into specifics here. I'm sure the people who have set this site up are more than smart enough to come up with this stuff on their own, but I'm happy to go into greater detail via PM if anyone authoritative at SR wants to talk further.
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It's not that critical.
And your plan wouldn't work like you think it would. LE also plays psyops. So your walled garden approach is just as easy to breach as things are now. But tying the forum to SR is a bad idea. It makes a single vector to attack. Think about when SR is down, but SR forum is up and we all commiserate here and wait for word from DPR. Well, under your plan, SR market goes down, so goes the forum.
Just practice fairly decent personal security. Assume LE reads every single word on here and act accordingly.
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You're both cops! :p
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Sorry but it's a bad idea dude,
Even if you did create this walled garden, LE will still play the long game and work their way in only now the people on the inside are chatting away with a fake feeling that they are safe.
As a rule conduct all your activity's here as if LE is reading what you write, At least that's how I play it
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A wonderful idea!
But not thought-out enough.
Every criminal organization (mafia, cartels, gangs etc.) has a method of preventing rats from gaining knowledge, and like it or not SR and all of us members are part of the criminal organization.
It would be advantageous to us to develop a method of doing so but very difficult (not impossible).
Requiring everyone with a forum account (non-newbies) to have made a certain purchase(s) may help somewhat.
...Brainstorming...be back later ;)
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Interesting idea. And although the notion of accounts being more scrutinized to try to weed out LE (which I'm hoping/sure happens anyways), it would be hard to implement practically. Know that LE might be our enemy, but they're far from stupid. And they have shitloads of resources. Without a doubt LE would be able to become a 'trusted member' (in fact I'm positive that a few "hero members" currently could very well be).
As someone mentioned, assume everything you say/discuss is being read by LEO's. You can bet your ass that this entire forum is crawled and archived for analysis. Every single word.
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fuck the police !
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"But tying the forum to SR is a bad idea. It makes a single vector to attack. Think about when SR is down, but SR forum is up and we all commiserate here and wait for word from DPR."
Well, that's easily solved. Keep this forum going for the specific purpose of keeping users informed regarding the status of SR - nothing else.
"But not thought-out enough."
Actually I have thought about specific ways SR could profile users in some detail using information they already retain about member accounts, as well as some new details they could collect - I just don't want to mention them at this point.
"Requiring everyone with a forum account (non-newbies) to have made a certain purchase(s) may help somewhat."
Yep, that's one of them - although what you've written is rather vague. I can think of some very specific buying patterns that could be analysed and, when combined with other collected data about the user, could be evaluated to determine the risk profile of the user.
"And your plan wouldn't work like you think it would. LE also plays psyops."
I'm not suggesting it's a silver bullet. The point is to make their psyops a lot more difficult. Limit the number of accounts LE can use to get onto the forum and read up on more sensitive stuff people are sharing. Because we use blanket acronyms like LE, we often overlook the fact that LE targetting us is not a homogenous bloc - it's made up of several agencies. Many of whom either hate each other and have a terrible working relationship, or have no contact with each other. The fewer accounts LE in the aggregate can use to gather intelligence effectively, the more agents have to share accounts that operate in a way that doesn't arouse suspicion. Many LE agencies are not legally allowed to operate their SR account in a way that would not arouse suspicion if the system of profiling users I'm thinking of is implemented. This makes them more reliant on inter-agency intelligence sharing. For reasons I mentioned above, that's something LE are generally pretty shit at. Consider the Boston Bombings. Make their intelligence gathering more difficult, make them more reliant on intelligence sharing. That can only be a good thing.
"people on the inside are chatting away with a fake feeling that they are safe."
No, users should maintain the same level of caution. There will always be LE interlopers. But the fewer, the better.
Yes I know it would not be a simple matter to implement something like this, but I think it would be worth it. It protects SR buyers, and if SR buyers are better protected, then SR itself is more durable.
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fuck the police !
Word, bro.
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This already happens. The roundtable forum is only available to proven vendors.
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Everyone knows there are LEOs about, so I feel the best approach is better security, not less. I do feel that there may be some validity to the stepped access approach. Probably half the people at SR fail to use PGP on a regular basis, creating a security risk for not only themselves, but the whole SR community.
My main worry for SR is the inevitable flood of school aged kids join SR after the media shows "how easy it is to get all the drugs you want". I doubt the media will waste time on security or harm reduction, and instead will secretly pray(and maybe pay) for the first SR-caused OD. The WOD warriors will then demand any price be paid "to save our precious children".
Know I'll get flamed for kid comments, but feel this will be the major challenge for SR. Perhaps SR could have a graduated account where prospective member would have demonstrate knowledge in the areas of harm reduction, dosage, privacy, security, crypto Tor before being permitted to make purchases. This would hopefully
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you'd only need 1 cop to get through and then he'd pass all the info he got onto all the other cops. and 1 would get through an all.
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I doubt the media will waste time on security or harm reduction, and instead will secretly pray(and maybe pay) for the first SR-caused OD. The WOD warriors will then demand any price be paid "to save our precious children".
Yes, that would be their style. They wouldn't even be ashamed of sacrificing a few people in some sort of false flag attack, in order to justify their lies. Luckily, they still have to act undercover, because otherwise the general public would notice the insanity.
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This already happens. The roundtable forum is only available to proven vendors.
Pity the powers that be on SR decided it's ok for vendors and users to sell their accounts.
Stopping LE should be one more reason this is banned since they obviously don't care about making it more difficult for scammers
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This already happens. The roundtable forum is only available to proven vendors.
Pity the powers that be on SR decided it's ok for vendors and users to sell their accounts.
Stopping LE should be one more reason this is banned since they obviously don't care about making it more difficult for scammers
How could you stop it? Selling an account simply means handing over the password. Unless you're caught advertising the sale under your username somewhere, nobody would ever know.
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misinformation is prolly the best way to combat LE here. put out tonnes of misinformation that all has to be checked and verified. it will slow them down immensely.
it reminds me of a thought i had how people could combat the crazy amount of cctv on british streets. by law if you are caught on a camera then you have a legal right to ask for a copy of the film that was taken of you and the cctv operator is compelled to provide it. if enough people asked for copies all the time, the operators would not be able to keep up. the time and cost would outweigh the benefit of the camera being in place.
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it reminds me of a thought i had how people could combat the crazy amount of cctv on british streets. by law if you are caught on a camera then you have a legal right to ask for a copy of the film that was taken of you and the cctv operator is compelled to provide it. if enough people asked for copies all the time, the operators would not be able to keep up. the time and cost would outweigh the benefit of the camera being in place.
LOVE this idea, if only there was a way to get the whole country to join in on this.
misinformation is prolly the best way to combat LE here. put out tonnes of misinformation that all has to be checked and verified. it will slow them down immensely.
i do this all the time to hide my tracks. i like talking, i know i like talking (bloody cocaine ::) ;) ), so i throw in a lot of curve balls. Some shit happened to me, some to my mates, some i just read somewhere and thought it sounded good, and some is just total bollocks :P LE has a TON of shit to wade through to determine whats true 8)
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This already happens. The roundtable forum is only available to proven vendors.
Pity the powers that be on SR decided it's ok for vendors and users to sell their accounts.
Stopping LE should be one more reason this is banned since they obviously don't care about making it more difficult for scammers
How could you stop it? Selling an account simply means handing over the password. Unless you're caught advertising the sale under your username somewhere, nobody would ever know.
I've seen several threads here titled "Looking for second hand vendor account" with MOD approval.
While I agree it cant really be stomped out, Not a allowing the forum here to be used as a marketplace would be a start
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When it comes to anything personal that you are talking about, lie through your teeth!
Just imagine that a bunch of your friends and family where reading all your posts, could they identify you? If they could, you need to lie more.
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LE has infiltrated the worst organizations in the world, mexican and colombian cartels,Islamic terrorists cells, italian mafia, you name it.
So its not about trying to do the impossible (keeping LE outside of a PUBLIC forum), is about knowing that everything you write is read by LE, every mistake you made is gonna be noticed by LE, and everybody you deal with can be LE.
So is all about having a method to do your stuff in secure way, and not being lazy or over-trusting.
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"you'd only need 1 cop to get through and then he'd pass all the info he got onto all the other cops. and 1 would get through an all."
You're making the mistake of assuming LE is a large homogenous bloc. It's not. Consider inter-agency rivalries and tensions. Petty jurisdiction turf wars. Do the DEA have a good working relationship with customs? Reasonable chance there are issues there. Practically every LE agency thinks the ATF are a bunch of utter incompetents. And that's just the Americans - many of their LE agencies battle each other just as fiercely as they battle us. And this is a global enterprise - how do the LE agencies of the world coordinate? Pretty badly on the whole, as it happens. Interpol? Don't make me laugh.
I'm sure the vast majority of LE agents collecting intelligence on this board and on the SR trading floor are anonymous lurkers. It would be easy to shut them out based on their usage patterns. Don't forget that it would be illegal for many of the LE agencies that target SR to operate a SR account that doesn't arouse suspicion (ie they have to buy/sell gear), so that would be a massive hindrance for them right there. Again, I'm not suggesting that we could possibly shut out all LEOs, but if we can get rid of a good number of them, that's going to make the aggregated LE campaign against SR significantly less effective.
"LE has infiltrated the worst organizations in the world, mexican and colombian cartels,Islamic terrorists cells, italian mafia, you name it. "
They've had some successes, sure. But many of the biggest criminal organisations in the world have for years thrived in complete defiance of the efforts of LE, so it's worth weighing LE failures along with their successes. Overall, organised crime stays several steps ahead. And the bottom line is that making it more difficult for LE to gather intelligence on SR and its users would make it a harder target, period.
"This already happens. The roundtable forum is only available to proven vendors."
Well yeah it already happens for the vendor roundtable, and that might be of some use to strengthen the defences of the supply side, but there's no such protection for the demand side. You need both for any marketplace to exist, and they should both be fortified to keep out as many adversaries as possible.
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Just maintain that in open pseudonymous markets you really shouldn't be trusting anyone. Everyone is LEO
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^^^ LEO. 100%
Nice taglines douchebag.
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"They've had some successes, sure. But many of the biggest criminal organisations in the world have for years thrived in complete defiance of the efforts of LE"
They do because they operate under the assumption that they are infiltrated, so they compartmentalize the operations, kill people to scare future infiltrators and use discardable people for the most risky operations.. not because they think that they can be ahead of LE and keep them out of their operations. You say that is easy to identify "a good number" of LE, I say that if there is infiltrator that can be detected so easily is just so people can feel safe and talk shit while the real cops are reading all you write from an account just like yours or mine. When LE infiltrates they goo all the way in.. just read " Operation Firewall" on the shadowcrew, If those guys have acted under the asumption that everyone is LE it had not been so easy for the law to grab a lot of them.
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DPR is Obama and every vendor is state LE involved in a regionally organised name swapping program. Every time you buy drugs from the evidence locker, they give your name to your state.
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Think of SR as a fruit tree.
Some fruit grow on top and a hard to get at from the ground.
Other fruit grow in the middle and without shaking the whole tree,
require quite a lot of resources to pick off.
Then we have the low hanging fruit who while easy to pick off, would fall anyway.
So there's no point trying to keep them on the tree.
If they fall, they fall.
But not every low hanging fruit that falls is picked up or that's still hanging low is picked off.
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^^^ LEO. 100%
Nice taglines douchebag.
Nice try attempting to divert people away from you being part of SOCA dirtbag
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"you'd only need 1 cop to get through and then he'd pass all the info he got onto all the other cops. and 1 would get through an all."
You're making the mistake of assuming LE is a large homogenous bloc. It's not. Consider inter-agency rivalries and tensions. Petty jurisdiction turf wars. Do the DEA have a good working relationship with customs? Reasonable chance there are issues there. Practically every LE agency thinks the ATF are a bunch of utter incompetents. And that's just the Americans - many of their LE agencies battle each other just as fiercely as they battle us. And this is a global enterprise - how do the LE agencies of the world coordinate? Pretty badly on the whole, as it happens. Interpol? Don't make me laugh.
I'm sure the vast majority of LE agents collecting intelligence on this board and on the SR trading floor are anonymous lurkers. It would be easy to shut them out based on their usage patterns. Don't forget that it would be illegal for many of the LE agencies that target SR to operate a SR account that doesn't arouse suspicion (ie they have to buy/sell gear), so that would be a massive hindrance for them right there. Again, I'm not suggesting that we could possibly shut out all LEOs, but if we can get rid of a good number of them, that's going to make the aggregated LE campaign against SR significantly less effective.
"LE has infiltrated the worst organizations in the world, mexican and colombian cartels,Islamic terrorists cells, italian mafia, you name it. "
They've had some successes, sure. But many of the biggest criminal organisations in the world have for years thrived in complete defiance of the efforts of LE, so it's worth weighing LE failures along with their successes. Overall, organised crime stays several steps ahead. And the bottom line is that making it more difficult for LE to gather intelligence on SR and its users would make it a harder target, period.
"This already happens. The roundtable forum is only available to proven vendors."
Well yeah it already happens for the vendor roundtable, and that might be of some use to strengthen the defences of the supply side, but there's no such protection for the demand side. You need both for any marketplace to exist, and they should both be fortified to keep out as many adversaries as possible.
see..
The term "information sharing" gained popularity as a result of the 9/11 Commission Hearings and its report of the United States government's lack of response to information known about the planned terrorist attack on the New York City World Trade Center prior to the event. The resulting commission report led to the enactment of several executive orders by President Bush that mandated agencies implement policies to "share information" across organizational boundaries. In addition, an Information Sharing Environment Program Manager (PM-ISE) was appointed, tasked to implement the provisions of the Intelligence Reform and Prevention of Terrorism Act of 2004. In making recommendation toward the creation of an "Information Sharing Environment" the 9/11 Commission based itself on the findings and recommendations made by the Markle Task Force on National Security in the Information Age.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_sharing
LE all over the world are all about information gathering and sharing these days man. these fuckers make the stasi look like they just jotted shit down on the backs of till receipts.
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misinformation is prolly the best way to combat LE here. put out tonnes of misinformation that all has to be checked and verified. it will slow them down immensely.
it reminds me of a thought i had how people could combat the crazy amount of cctv on british streets. by law if you are caught on a camera then you have a legal right to ask for a copy of the film that was taken of you and the cctv operator is compelled to provide it. if enough people asked for copies all the time, the operators would not be able to keep up. the time and cost would outweigh the benefit of the camera being in place.
Exactly mate, my sentiments entirely, it's these little loopholes we need to exploit to beat them at their own game. misinformation is the way, lead the fuckers up the garden path and back fuckin down.
Lie, and blag there heads till they don't know if they're coming or going.
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"You say that is easy to identify "a good number" of LE, I say that if there is infiltrator that can be detected so easily is just so people can feel safe and talk shit while the real cops are reading all you write from an account just like yours or mine."
Well, no I said it would be easy to identify a good number of suspicious accounts, not LE. Forum lurkers, SR browsers who never buy etc. I'm sure many of them would just be tire kickers and the curious. Many of them would also be LE. But that's not really the main point - you misunderstand the purpose for making the changes I suggested. This is not about making SR users feel more secure to speak more openly on the forum or conduct their business less discreetly, as I said before.
It's about making LE's job more difficult. It's about making SR a harder target.
We should continue to maintain the same level of caution in what we divulge here in any case.
"LE all over the world are all about information gathering and sharing these days man. these fuckers make the stasi look like they just jotted shit down on the backs of till receipts."
Yeah, and their track record on data sharing is awesome, isn't it? Why, just consider those guys who tried to bomb the Boston marathon and were busted before their bombs went off, because the various agencies that knew about them pooled all the puzzle pieces they collectively held, put them together, and figured out what they were up to in advance. Oh hang on.....
Inter-agency data sharing is problematic at best. Making them rely on this more can only be a good thing for SR's security.
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It is like trying to hide shit from the cops.
It is likely that anything we talk about, they have already considered...not the average pig, but a fed is on a different level, at least intellectually.
I wouldn't talk about anything actually while it was happening, but look at the seizures at the border and tell me you could have hidden the shit any better.
What saves us is the sheer volume of the mail and the fact that we really are not trying to hurt anyone. If anything, the road causes many to tame their addiction and avoid more dangerous situations that happen when looking on the street.
When is the last time you went to the hood and your new guy showed you his feedback sheet?
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"LE all over the world are all about information gathering and sharing these days man. these fuckers make the stasi look like they just jotted shit down on the backs of till receipts."
Yeah, and their track record on data sharing is awesome, isn't it? Why, just consider those guys who tried to bomb the Boston marathon and were busted before their bombs went off, because the various agencies that knew about them pooled all the puzzle pieces they collectively held, put them together, and figured out what they were up to in advance. Oh hang on.....
a lot of us think the boston bombing went exactly as the feds wanted it to, from start to fucking finish. its suspicious at the very least. maybe you should choose a different example.
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Well, I guess we could go full conspiracy theorist retard if you want. Me, I tend to follow the Southpark doctrine on this - by their very nature, governments simply aren't competent enough to organise most of the stuff conspiracy theorists ascribe to them.
If you've boiled the cause of something down to either government conspiracy or government incompetence, I reckon you can usually pretty safely assume incompetence.
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i didn't say they orchestrated it, but they could have ignored it and let it happen. i wouldn't put it past them tbh.
but this is getting way ot now, so let's just leave it at that.
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Ah, I see. Well after Snowden's leaks I'm not sure you could put anything past *some* of the national intelligence agencies. But you're still coming at LE as if it's one big monolithic bloc. Non federal forces have zero interest in collaborating in such conspiracies, same with State (who really are dumb shits and wouldn't know what the hell to do if they found themselves in the middle of a government high level coverup/blackops mission). Non-American LE agencies would often have little or no access to American LE data, and vice versa.
Many LE agencies are no doubt infiltrating SR as lurkers to work their own cases in their own jurisdictions. The more these people are isolated from the marketplace and the main areas of the forum, the better for us all. Of course you'll never shut out all the cops. But most of them would be a good start :)
And seriously, imagine you're a low level detective in a mid-sized American town who's following up a lead you got about drugs being sent in the mail. You log on to SR to try to identify buyers/sellers of interest, but you are only allowed limited mobility on the SR site. Perhaps your behaviour's so suspicious that your account gets blocked. Do you
a) call up the DEA and ask if you can use one of their small handful of established SR accounts to have a better look around
OR
b) give up and look into another line of inquiry
Hint - it's not a. Who you gunna call? Some DEA agent? Not for some smalltime possession or supply investigation; they'd laugh at you before telling you not to waste their time again.
But of course from a buyer's perspective, it's absolutely crucial to protect the smalltime SR consumers and suppliers who might be pursued by low ranking LE with few-to-no intelligence connections to more powerful agencies. If you largely block out this level of LE from SR, you are removing a - perhaps the - major threat to the smalltime buyers and vendors.
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This already happens. The roundtable forum is only available to proven vendors.
I can guarantee you that LE are all over the vendors roundtable too.
They are here, always have been and always will be so just act accordingly and when you see a reckless post please report it so we can deal with it.
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One of LE must have made it to a Moderator post by now surely.. ACAB
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One of LE must have made it to a Moderator post by now surely.. ACAB
Given DPR background checks us I'd doubt that ;)
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One of LE must have made it to a Moderator post by now surely.. ACAB
Given DPR background checks us I'd doubt that ;)
criminal gangs have been 'background checking' new members forever, yet under covers still get through. its not hard for LE to create a fake identity that checks out.
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One of LE must have made it to a Moderator post by now surely.. ACAB
Given DPR background checks us I'd doubt that ;)
criminal gangs have been 'background checking' new members forever, yet under covers still get through. its not hard for LE to create a fake identity that checks out.
One thing I think we ARE probably safe on is any chance the staff/ DPR/ mods being or working with LE, anything and everyone below that level is infiltrated as far as I am concerned.
Still shouldn't lose sleep over it, 90% of LE would just be lurker accounts that never/ rarely post imho. Sure there'd be some vendors, some hero members and so on, but in general terms MOST of them probably have little or no reason to interact/ post very often.
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One of LE must have made it to a Moderator post by now surely.. ACAB
Given DPR background checks us I'd doubt that ;)
criminal gangs have been 'background checking' new members forever, yet under covers still get through. its not hard for LE to create a fake identity that checks out.
This is true, would be quite funny to discover LE modding this forum hey, helping people evade customs, advocating for the implementation of shipping practices that beat detection techniques, answering customer support issues etc etc
DERP DERP
In fact you could be LE conducting psyops ??? the plot thickens...
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yeah i couldn't see what they'd have to gain from modding this forum tbh. i was just pointing out that they can easily manage a fake background if they wanted to. they've been doing it for years and are very good at it.
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yeah i couldn't see what they'd have to gain from modding this forum tbh. i was just pointing out that they can easily manage a fake background if they wanted to. they've been doing it for years and are very good at it.
Don't underestimate what some people will do to get an invite to the SR Christmas party on DPR's yacht.
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Clearly SSBD is under mind control via a chip in his brain and upon hearing the activation code phrase, he will become a full time brain washed DEA asset.
Its a shame, but that's what alien abductions really are you know? Ever since he told his alien abduction story I knew the truth.
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The truth is out there Tellemetree, Fox Mulder knew it.
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Don't underestimate what some people will do to get an invite to the SR Christmas party on DPR's yacht.
what would i have to do? ..i'll do anything. i so wanna be at that xmas partay on dpr's yacht. just name it i'll do it.
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Much as I love the concept and it would be great if there was a way to verify people and be able to have more open talk it just isn't possible to sustain that. People flip all the time, especially once they are caught. The first thing many do if they are really nailed by evidence and have no way out is try to reduce their sentence by cooperating and offering to help LE. Once someone gets in it doesn't mean they should stay in and how could you possibly verify they continue to be worthy? There are just some conversations that can never be had over this medium. It would be cool if they could but look at every organization, legit corporation or mob entity and you always find individuals willing to switch teams for a big score or to save their ass. Whether its some employee who knows the secret recipe for a product or a henchman who knows where the bodies are buried, human greed and the desire to stay out of jail make people flip.
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although i understand why u doing this i disagree with your method of regulation. for instance ive had an account for 3 months, not bought anything, but i have surfed the market and forums gathering various intelligence. Under your reforms this might classify me as suspect right. well youd be wrong because i am far from LE.
fuck the police.
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This thread is hilarious. Mods comments about background checks etc. :P
TL;DR
LE are everywhere collecting info. What we know about them/what they know about our OPS
Keep what we know about them among friends. After Snowden, its all been confirmed. They are everywhere. Treat it that way. If anonymity is ever compromised for one moment, that's one moment too long for the LE to creep up on your from the shadows. It's not the cops who you can see that you have to worry about, it's the ones you cant see.