Silk Road forums
Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: candles on June 08, 2013, 11:08 pm
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A looked here and in the Security forum but I couldn't find a sticky or a good post (not that they aren't out there, I just couldn't find one) about how to research a vendor. I mean, obviously I can read the reviews on SR and look for a domestic vendor with a lot of orders and good reviews, but is that enough? Feel free to reply with links to other posts.
Also, what (if anything) is preventing the DEA or other law enforcement from selling through SR to conduct a sting? Is it only that they don't care that much about catching buyers?
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catching a buyer of an anon site , does nothing
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I think you answered you own question. The best research is to look over the reviews and also find any forum postings by or about the vendor.
also: try sending out a message to the vendor. see if they reply. that is usally a good indication that the vendor has at least good customer skills. that said, if you send a message that they expressly state in their page will NOT be answered, that goes without saying...
what i look for: how long has the vendor been around; how active is the vendor in the forums; have they set up a review forum for their product; does it appear that the vendor modifies their shipping practices to reflect new methods of drug detection by their postal system? Does the vendor keep the customer informed as to when new inventory might be in; and also does the vendor take the time to post known issues about their product? For example, recently some packages came that had been sealed using a thermal press that caused the product to basically melt into the packaging. the vendor acknowledged the mistake; made ammends; and all is good.
you really should view vendors like any other business and see if they handle themselves in professional manner and present themselves as active and informed people.
if a vendor does ask you for something that clearly shows a disregard for ensuring your safety and the anoanymity of a transaction:: STAY AWAY.
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order bulk and FE
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Go to your local library to research a vendor.
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catching a buyer of an anon site , does nothing
Theoretically: US DEA gets a vendor account on SR, says they only ship to US. Anyone who buys gives them some sort of address. They track the package one way or another and arrest whoever picks it up. The anonymity of the system is completely broken if they can in any way link the SR account or the Bitcoins to the person who received the goods, and even if they cannot they can arrest the person for possession, get a search warrant, and most likely find other contraband unrelated to the purchase for which they can prosecute.
Not a hugely effective way to catch dealers, but a way to create a chill against using SR.
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also: try sending out a message to the vendor. see if they reply. that is usally a good indication that the vendor has at least good customer skills. that said, if you send a message that they expressly state in their page will NOT be answered, that goes without saying...
Any vendor who has reached a point where they won't be able to answer any more messages personally because they are getting too much business has hopefully solved all problems they've had by then. From my stay on here so far I would say the best way of reaching this state is to structure the business in such a way that common questions won't have to be asked again, for example let's say 80% of your messages are people asking for samples or small quantities, if one puts up a small listing you won't get that question (as often) any longer. :)
what i look for: how long has the vendor been around; how active is the vendor in the forums; have they set up a review forum for their product; does it appear that the vendor modifies their shipping practices to reflect new methods of drug detection by their postal system? Does the vendor keep the customer informed as to when new inventory might be in; and also does the vendor take the time to post known issues about their product? For example, recently some packages came that had been sealed using a thermal press that caused the product to basically melt into the packaging. the vendor acknowledged the mistake; made amends; and all is good.
Two vendors could have registered at the same time and one of them could have 200-800% more business due to having a ten man crew or living in a more active country, so adding amount of transactions into that would probably make it more accurate. Same principle would partly go for the forums, one could have been spamming all day while another could have ten posts but all relevant to what's been going on business wise.
I partly see your point with the forum review thread but I've seen vendors switch their active listing to an entirely different product/batch instead of creating a new listing, how does this work then? If there's a review on every product the vendor has ever had and he's permanently run out on all of them and only has one entirely new type, do the previous reviews really help at all then? Say someone reads a review thread where the product gets rave reviews from everyone, customer proceeds to order said product and it turns out it's a different batch which is basically worthless - how does this help then? Now granted this won't happen for everyone but as long as there's no enforceable standard on how products are listed/delisted this is not the most stable way currently in my opinion.
The part about switching shipping practices is an interesting notion but as with the review it's similar in that it's almost impossible to verify without ordering large quantities and verifying things have been changed. I personally think the best way is to keep some standard/variable consistent with all orders, like for example using Moisture Barrier Bags as according to STEALTH THAT WORKS - DITCH THE PE FOOD GRADE VAC SEAL: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=119458.0 One way of solving this (which I've been thinking about a bit recently) would be to setup say 4-8 different letter/parcel-types and then let the customer pick exactly which type they want or if they pick nothing they will let the vendor randomly pick one of them. The downside with this is it can only be done if there's enough variations as for example two types would be enough for profiling as the types are out in the open basically. In addition one would obviously need to use various companies and/or return addresses so the type in itself would not be enough for profiling.
Also, what (if anything) is preventing the DEA or other law enforcement from selling through SR to conduct a sting? Is it only that they don't care that much about catching buyers?
Theoretically: US DEA gets a vendor account on SR, says they only ship to US. Anyone who buys gives them some sort of address. They track the package one way or another and arrest whoever picks it up. The anonymity of the system is completely broken if they can in any way link the SR account or the Bitcoins to the person who received the goods, and even if they cannot they can arrest the person for possession, get a search warrant, and most likely find other contraband unrelated to the purchase for which they can prosecute.
Not a hugely effective way to catch dealers, but a way to create a chill against using SR.
Except the resulting backlash from the public would be huge from finding out police are wasting massive amounts of money selling drugs themselves to the public. I would go as far hoping this happens someday, because after the backlash it won't happen again. If there would be no potential backlash at all from the public we would have vastly bigger problems than police.
Edit 2013-06-17: I just remembered a story I read some time ago about how the US government poisoned alcohol during prohibition killing thousands of people: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2010/02/the_chemists_war.html So it's basically a question on how low would the government go, and I would hope its improved to the point where something like this won't happen again at least.
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PM/ask the vendor any questions you have, a solid vendor usually cares about their customer service and you can make assumptions on the vendor based on their reply. Look through as much of the feedback history as you can and search the forums for the vendors name to see if there are any review/discussion threads about said vendor. Also, never FE!
edit: I'm pretty sure even if an officer set up as a vendor they wouldn't be able to act on any information because you can just always claim "Hey I didn't order this, I'm an upstanding citizen etc"
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if sr admins wanna give me 10 user names I can get the data about them no problem.
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PM/ask the vendor any questions you have, a solid vendor usually cares about their customer service and you can make assumptions on the vendor based on their reply. Look through as much of the feedback history as you can and search the forums for the vendors name to see if there are any review/discussion threads about said vendor. Also, never FE!
^^ Yes! As you noted, obviously read the forum reviews. Then, BEFORE you PM the vendor, read their profile page carefully. There's two reasons for this. First, it will allow you to send a PM to the vendor that doesn't ask about things that they've already carefully invested time in answering on their profile page, so that you don't waste their time. Vendors appreciate that. But second, I've learned that you can, not always but usually, learn a lot about a vendor from their profile.
I won't buy from anyone who requires FE, requires a 5/5 feedback rating, or doesn't use PGP. In my opinion, a vendor who states in his/her profile that a 5/5 feedback rating is required is essentially saying that buyers are not permitted to be honest in their feedback. That tells me something about the vendor. A vendor who doesn't use PGP either doesn't know how, and if s/he doesn't have the time or intelligence to learn PGP then s/he is not prepared to vend, or doesn't care enough about the security of his/her buyers to bother. That also tells me something about the vendor.
Look at the general preparedness of the profile page. Is it carefully written? It's not a college essay of course, but in general, a vendor who has put time and thought into writing his or her profile page has also put time and thought into other areas of vending, like product sourcing, product quality, and your security.
THEN PM the vendor. Ask a question that wasn't answered on the profile page. If the vendor's response isn't timely (my standard is 48 hours, as vendors are very busy, but you'll have to choose your own threshold), polite, or professional, then find another vendor.
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Theoretically why would an anonymous website keep details?
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Just do a search by their username.
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It is my thinking that LE has much better things to do, rather than something like setting up an account on SR, etc.
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It is my thinking that LE has much better things to do, rather than something like setting up an account on SR, etc.
They got paid snitches/police informants on here.
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Thanks Burning Babylon and BajoZero for your very helpful responses. I'd give you Karma points if I could.