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Messages - astor

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2146
Off topic / Re: 3 times of people that order from SR.
« on: January 28, 2013, 04:14 pm »
Quote from: Jediknight on January 28, 2013, 02:59 pm
AVerage sellers earn about $350,000. per yr .   Its not bad.

Source?

If we believe Nicolas Christin's estimate of $15 million in revenue, and use your number for the average revenue per seller, then there would only be 42 sellers on the site. That is obviously not the case. Christin found 560 unique sellers and 112 "core" sellers who were on the site for the whole 6 months that he scraped it. There are a lot of small time and short lasting sellers on SR. Over half don't last longer than 3 months. (See the paper below)

If we assume that there are always about 200 sellers on the site, and the ones who leave get replaced by an equal number of newcomers, then the average yearly revenue per seller is $75,000. Note: that's revenue, not profit.


https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~nicolasc/publications/TR-CMU-CyLab-12-018.pdf

2147
Security / Re: tails through TOR?
« on: January 28, 2013, 02:48 pm »
Those things are not required, but they are certainly safer.

Downloading the Tails image over Tor is safer than over clearnet, because your IP address is not stored in their server logs.

Checking the sig is safer than not checking the sig, so you don't inadvertently download someone else's compromised Tails image.

It is up to you how safe you want to be.

2148
Security / Re: Where Would I Go to Start a FOSS Assassination Market Web Application?
« on: January 28, 2013, 04:30 am »
If you want others to contribute, you should market / describe it as a betting app that does those things, and not an assassination market. :)

With that out of the way, you could host it anywhere, like Github, and run Git over Tor.

As for the language and framework, that seems fine. A core part of this app would be interfacing with bitcoind, and you can do that in most popular languages, including Python.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/API_reference_%28JSON-RPC%29

2149
Security / Re: Where Would I Go to Start a FOSS Assassination Market Web Application?
« on: January 28, 2013, 04:12 am »
What functionality do you want it to have?

BTW, are you the same Raynardine who is posting on tor-talk?

2150
Silk Road discussion / Re: A message to SR forum newbies (< 6months)
« on: January 27, 2013, 02:35 pm »
Quote from: kmfkewm on January 26, 2013, 08:26 am
On the other hand, Agorists/Libertarians do think that the final call for censorship is the right of the property owners. It would not be in violation of Agorist principles for DPR to censor the information on the forum that he runs, it is his to do as he pleases with as he is the person who runs it.

That was my point.

The fact that there is universal agreement that the spam threads should be deleted demonstrates that there really are no free speech absolutists. Thus there is no qualitative difference between us on this matter, only a quantitative difference. As I said originally, it's a matter of degree and nuance, applying that censorship in specific ways that promote a healthy community rather than destroying it.

2151
Silk Road discussion / Re: What benefits do LE receive by keeping SR up if it is compromised?
« on: January 27, 2013, 02:20 pm »
Quote from: Roky Erickson on January 27, 2013, 05:39 am
But if we forget those logic nuggets do you still believe that LE would happy to allow an enormous amount of drug deals and drug cash withdrawals in the hope of nabbing a few personal users? I doubt LE are that stupid (or nice).

Of course not. They are hoping to bust vendors, but they won't know whether they can bust any unless and until they operate the site. That's why it's worthwhile to do so. That was my point in the second post.

Anyway, that is standard operating procedure, as seen in the Shadow Crew bust and many other busts of criminal organizations/communities.

2152
Security / Re: Is PGP encryption necessarry to remain anonymous?
« on: January 27, 2013, 01:40 pm »
2048 bit PGP keys will be resistant to brute force attacks for a few decades, so the only sense in which PGP is "false" security is that you would turn over your clients' info when you got a knock on the door. Thanks for the heads up, at least.

2153
Security / Re: did i just lose my money? here is what i did.
« on: January 26, 2013, 04:04 am »
The coins in your SR account don't exist in the block chain. They are kept in a separate database that SR manages.

When you submit a withdrawal, it can take a few hours to process. That's different from the bitcoin network / block chain, where a transaction shows up across the network within seconds.

You submitted a withdrawal and a few hours later the coins showed up, so everything went as planned. :)

Well, almost everything. Keep in mind that, although the SR interface allows you to translate bitcoins into American dollars for convenience, you don't have dollars in your account. You have bitcoins. So when you withdraw X amount, that's BTC, not USD.

2154
Silk Road discussion / Re: What benefits do LE receive by keeping SR up if it is compromised?
« on: January 26, 2013, 12:46 am »
The bigger point is that LE wouldn't know that ahead of time. They would have to run the site to find out. So even if it turned out that 100% of buyers encrypt their addresses and 100% of sellers use anonymous cash out methods (which is almost certainly not true), it would still be useful to run the site for a while and find out.

2155
Silk Road discussion / Re: What benefits do LE receive by keeping SR up if it is compromised?
« on: January 26, 2013, 12:42 am »
Quote from: Roky Erickson on January 25, 2013, 05:40 pm
Even with access most buyers will be using pgp, especially the bigger orders that LE want to catch,

Vendors report that 80-90% of their customers don't use PGP. Among them, there will be some big orders in the thousands of dollars that are worth LE's time.

Quote from: Roky Erickson on January 25, 2013, 05:40 pm
Also most vendors would be smart enough to make sure that LE cant trace bitcoins from their SR wallet to it's final destination.

Most yes, but not all. If there are 500 vendors on the site, there may be dozens who transfer directly to a bitcoin address at an exchange. Again it would be worth LE's time.

2156
Security / Re: If SR gets destroyed, what REALLY happens to my BTC account?
« on: January 26, 2013, 12:05 am »
If I had faith that nothing would ever go wrong or that the worst case scenario was impossible, I wouldn't bother PGP encrypting my address, yet that's my biggest message on the forum (check my sig).

Even if the worst case scenario doesn't happen, lots of other things could go wrong. Perhaps you remember the November down time when people's accounts and money were inaccessible for 5 days. That is reason enough not to store more coins in your SR account that you need for a purchase, and no longer than you need them for a purchase.

2157
Security / Re: If SR gets destroyed, what REALLY happens to my BTC account?
« on: January 25, 2013, 09:34 pm »
Quote from: parabol on January 25, 2013, 08:39 pm
In your account settings you can enter a external BTC address that will be used to give you back the coins in the event of the worse.

The worst case scenario is that all SR operators are simultaneously raided and arrested, so they never have a chance to send out coins. That's why you should never keep more coins in your account than you need to make a purchase.

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

2158
Silk Road discussion / Re: A message to SR forum newbies (< 6months)
« on: January 25, 2013, 05:00 am »
Except, you know, when you were 14, you didn't give those hoodlums your $20 with the intent of transferring it to SR, while people on the forum are. That changes the whole culpability game.

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if you don't understand that, intentionally or otherwise.

2159
Silk Road discussion / Re: A message to SR forum newbies (< 6months)
« on: January 25, 2013, 04:45 am »
Quote from: Roky Erickson on January 25, 2013, 04:30 am
When you delete a thread created by a robot you are not denying anyone free speech, kay? kay

This argument is so stupid, it hurts. Did a robot write those messages? They were written by a human who wants to steal money from people. The method of delivery is a technicality. When you censor the bot, you're censoring the scammer who wrote the bot.

Quote from: Roky Erickson on January 25, 2013, 04:30 am
As for scamming that is what the SR escrow system is for, and is what makes SR so great. So because you want to deal outside of SR with people you meet on the forums the rest of us who are not borderline retarded must suffer censorship? FUCK NO!! Silk road mods don't need to flush out scammers, that is what the resolution center is for, get it? good

As I've argued elsewhere, every bitcoin stolen by the scammer is a bitcoin that could have gone to a vendor, and part of that would have been SR profit through commission. So yes they have a vested *financial* interest in censoring the scammer who is literally stealing from them.

2160
Silk Road discussion / Re: A message to SR forum newbies (< 6months)
« on: January 25, 2013, 04:09 am »
I didn't twist your words. I quoted you directly. You said it was practical to censor spam threads, therefore you agree that some forms of censorship are permissible. Otherwise you should be arguing to allow the spam threads.

BTW, I was here a year ago, and there wasn't nearly the problem of spammer-scammers let alone trolls and people spreading FUD. Times change and the honeymoon is over. You can't compare a year ago to today.

During the November down time, there was an organized disinformation campaign, most likely by members of BMR, claiming the site was hacked, people were going to get doxxed, etc.

The forum has been getting increasingly shitty over time and proper moderation is the only way to combat it.

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