Silk Road forums

The guy who created that site started a thread here a few months ago. There was a long debate with him about why it's unsafe, but he might have deleted the thread, because I can't find it. Other people have come up with similar ideas:

http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=131274.msg897203#msg897203

You can read the extensive debate there and how we go into great detail explaining why it's a bad idea.

The issue isn't whether it's a hidden service or a clearnet site. It's the fact that you have to trust a third party with your sensitive info. PGP is the safest option you have. Don't be lazy about your security.

I wanted to experiment something which I did and it works

I ve ordered  from a domestic vendor which ships next days or in 2 buisness days at most

I gave my real name and a random address

The next day I went to this address and waited on the sidewalk for the postie to come

I stood there for about an hour and when I saw the postie asked him if he has a letter for mr ME

he said yes and gave it to me(I had my id in case  but didnt even bother to ask)

I know its a bit of a hassle but it works!!

If you're standing there waiting for it, and the "mailman" physically hands you the package, how is that any different than accepting a controlled delivery?

MtGox survived it's second significant DDOS in three days without crashing. Maybe if the market manipulators don't get what they want, they will finally give up.

So I tried it with Tor running on a separate machine and listening for Socks connections on its public IP.

I confirmed that the SocksPort was working by pointing my web browser and it and getting an exit node on the other end.

However, when I pointed OpenVPN at it, I got this error:

socks_handshake: server asked for username/login auth but we were not provided any credentials

It thinks that Tor is asking for a user/pass. Still investigating.

I suggest that you don't or you do so entirely via Tor. The FBI and others are running stylometric software between this forum and that one to deanonymize people.

I mean you can write there, just do it with a style you wouldn't normally do. e.g. "OMG platypuses SUCK!!!!" <-- something Pine will never say.

There's software for this, but it's difficult to use.

Yeah, check out Anonymouth: https://psal.cs.drexel.edu/index.php/JStylo-Anonymouth

I've played around with it. It crashed a lot.

Hmmm yeah, won't connect for me either. Apparently it's more complicated than that, because OpenVPN changes the routing table, and thus the way Tor itself works. So the Tor instance should be on a different machine, like a gateway / anonymizing middle box.

I'll have to look into it.

Depends on what you want to accomplish. Tor over a VPN will hide your Tor use from a local observer like your ISP, since they will only see an encrypted connection to the VPN server. A VPN over Tor gives you an IP address that isn't a Tor exit node, so you *may* be able to access MtGox that way.

How you do it depends on the VPN protocol and software that you use. For OpenVPN, you would add these lines to the configuration:

socks-proxy 127.0.0.1 9150    # or 9050 for the Tor daemon
proto tcp                                  # because Tor doesn't carry UDP packets

Keep in mind that a VPN over Tor is useless unless you paid anonymously.

does anyone know what the advantage/disadvantage of using litecoins as opposed to bitcoins?

Biggest advantage: they are easier to mine.

Biggest disadvantage: they are harder to buy, since fewer exchanges deal with them, but I heard MtGox will allow LTC trade soon.