Hi all,Apologies to punkst0ner and pine for the lack of reply to the posts a couple of pages back, I've been far too hungover all day to use my brain - I logged in earlier with the best of intentions and just couldn't bring myself to type more than 2 words; my posts in that state would probably have made as much sense as a 2 year old's so I thought it best to go back to sleep for a while! Alcohol is the devil. :-\Pine, in response to your well written post on page 29: Yes! Just "Yes!"I agree fully with everything you wrote there, and I have to admit that I too find it hard to empathise with the people who have lost their money in this debacle. All of these schemes - whether they be Ponzi's or otherwise - are terrible places to 'invest' one's money. Most people see the huge returns and seem to think that they're a sure thing, then when they lose all their money they feel hard done by. To everybody that is inevitably going to put their money into these kinds of schemes in the future: Always do your due diligence, never invest more than you can afford to lose, and consider anything over 0 to be a successful return! As far as the cash-in-the-mail losses go, buying and selling Bitcoin in such a manner was incredibly risky to begin with, and though I did point people looking for such a service toward vlad1m1r in the past, using his service was each and every person's own choice. There's a reason that Bitcoin exchanges and sites such as bitcoin-otc (with it's WoT) are so popular - because cash-in-the-mail is inherently risky!Quote from: Wadozo on August 31, 2012, 07:28 pmIf they were Police, surely they would be trying to infiltrate the inner circle and secrecy which plays a major role in the success of this site.There is no SR 'inner circle' per se; DPR - as far as any of us know - is the only one with administrative control over SR itself. As far as secrecy goes, it doesn't actually play that big a role in the success of SR as one would imagine - common sense, constantly educating oneself and constant vigilance are the major factors that keep things ticking over so well here on a human level. Secrecy has it's place, yes, but common sense would dictate that one should not reveal anything which may compromise one's security to ANYONE here regardless of their standing in the community.Pine hits the nail on the head with the following:Quote from: pine on August 31, 2012, 08:38 pmnope.jpgThe default assumption is that everybody, including the administrators, are Law Enforcement. The reason why it works is precisely because we don't have to trust each other, and we trust in cryptographic strength instead. That's hard for for LE to comprehend, they've been facing hierarchical structured organized crime for decades, but now they're facing something rather different.If we assume that everybody here is law enforcement we'll inherently keep our guard up, and unless one is missing a brain cell or two, one is far less likely to trust another member. Trust has absolutely no place in a community such as this, or on a site such as Silk Road. Granted you have to trust that the vendor is not law enforcement, but there are common methods of ensuring that this is the case. Lack of trust is also where PGP comes in; assume that DPR him/herself is LE and I guarantee that you'll never send an address unencrypted or discuss any sensitive details in cleartext via the Silk Road PM system. Assume at all times that everything you do and say is being watched, read and logged somewhere and you'll be surprised how much compromising information you would have otherwise let slip simply from feeling comfortable and trusting the system.Quote from: BenCousins on August 31, 2012, 09:44 pmexactly everyone here is LE. Anyway the consequences of Limetless Really being LE is gonna cause a huge gash in the community, people will be splintered, people will leave, will be a massive blow not only to SR but the idea and SR predecesssors as a whole. its psy-ops. here we have an idea that cant be killed and they know that, So why not try and place misrust amongst our little communitty that holds this place together so well, and someone like Limetless who i would consider the highest up without being parto the original team or whatever, reveled to be LE would cause mass panic. I rkn it would kind of be like a bank rush.Were Limetless to be outed as LE (note that this is an entirely hypothetical situation; I'm not suggesting for a second that this is the case!), I personally don't think it would affect the community at all. People may feel a little shaken up but I don't see a mass exodus occurring. It wouldn't be a blow to SR at all as Limetless' moderator powers exist only within the confines of these forums - he has absolutely no control on the main SR site, therefore should a hypothetical situation such as this occur it would simply mean that DPR would need to be a little more careful selecting Moderators in future. There would have been no breach of operational security or anything of the sort, so no reason to panic.It should also be noted that Limetless hasn't used his position as moderator to manipulate the positioning or details of sensitive threads or topics, therefore making him an absolutly woeful LEO in the hypothetical situation being discussed.You say you consider Limetless "the highest up without being part of the original team"; I'm just wondering why? Limetless is simply a moderator here and as such he holds the exact same moderating powers as any of the other moderators (if anything I would consider squidSheperd / IndicaSativa to be members of any 'higher echelon' here.) Limetless posts incessantly, so perhaps you are rating him on his high post count, but it's not hard to pad one's post count with one line replies and general chit-chat. IF he were revealed to be LE, I believe that 99% of users here would simply talk about it for a couple of weeks - if even -, ensure their security measures are up to scratch and continue doing business as usual. This is another good reason why we should view EVERYBODY as LE in the first place, so that if somebody actually is LE it's not an issue as your security will already be completely solid.Quote from: UKMJ on August 31, 2012, 10:09 pmHow the fuck did we get from "Vlad1m1r has gone rogue" to "Limetless is LE"?look Vlad fucked off with some money, he was gone for a week due to "sickness" and he never really came back, he did come and comment on his thread about him being sick (a reply to my comment) but that was the last anyone saw of him, shortly afterwards his accounts were deleted. Limetless went on holiday between Vlad's sick note and the account deletions, he also said he was going on holiday for a bit anyway so once again, I ask, how the fuck did this thread transmography into hate Limetless when Vlad took the cash?People are very quick to connect the dots that they see, even if they're missing the most important dots that are needed to bring them to the logical conclusion and most likely scenario.I believe the reason people are making the unfounded accusation you mentioned above is because of Limetless' friendly forum relationship with vlad1m1r. The two exchanged chit-chat and seemed to have built up a rapport, but some people are now using that as conclusive proof that Limetless and vlad1m1r were two peas in the same pod so to speak. It's outrageous, and as I mentioned before it's turning into something of a witch-hunt which I find absolutely abhorrent given the type of community this is and the ideals it is based around.Quote from: Wadozo on August 31, 2012, 11:18 pmWhat are you saying about everyone hear is LE? And Limetless being LE? I'd be more than surprised if that was the case but it seems that generally speaking, our paranoia about LE infiltration and the ongoing discussion about it are clouding our judgement and diverting our attention away from finding the real perpetrator/s of this elaborate, premeditated scam.We can continue to compile any evidence relevant to what has happened in preparation for Lim's return which is just days away. Lim's return will begin a tedious process of elimination as we (Forum Community) sift through the evidence we currently have whilst asking Lim for an explanation on certain co-incidental occurrences that really prevent . Lim will need to provide answers if he can, for questions posed by the Community. The minute he clams up (a possible scenario ) and refuses to answer a question, he will immediately lose the confidence of loads of people waiting on his every word since the scam was discovered, and would struggle to make a return in his previous capacity. Get some sleep BC, or are you pushing on through to keep posting? :)Quote from: Wadozo on September 01, 2012, 12:47 amBC, do you know approx. when Lim returns? I know it's fairly soon but do you know a day or date?The "paranoia about LE infiltration and the ongoing discussion about it" are not necessarily a result of us actually believing that there is a large degree of LE infiltration occurring, it is more-so a result of us acknowledging that the safest course of action is to assume that EVERYONE is LE, therefore ensuring that we don't begin to let our guard down in relation to security.As for "diverting our attention away from finding the real perpetrator/s of this elaborate, premeditated scam", the real perpetrator was vlad1m1r, and it most certainly wasn't elaborate, nor pre-meditated as far as scams go. Making an educated guess, and as I have stated before, it is quite likely that vlad1m1r was investing money into pirateat40's Ponzi scheme. When pirateat40 stated that he was closing up BCST vlad1m1r would likely have known that the Bitcoin he put into it was in great danger of disappearing. When pirateat40 defaulted on August 20th any Bitcoin that vlad1m1r had tied up in it was confirmed as lost. As such he wouldn't have had the necessary Bitcoin on hand to honour the cash-in-the-mail orders he was receiving, and perhaps decided to state that he was sick in order to buy himself more time to see if pirateat40 would come through in the end. pirateat40 promised to have his 'investors' paid back by August 27th, but this was just to placate the community and buy him a little more time for obfuscation of his Bitcoin movements. By the 27th vlad1m1r would have realised that no payments would be forthcoming from BCST so instead of facing the music and attempting to sort this out he decided to cut and run, taking the cash he received in the mail up to that point in an attempt to mitigate the financial losses he would have experienced as a result of pirateat40's default. If it were a pre-meditated scam then the most logical course of action would have been for him to drop his rates / drop his prices in order to increase the number orders and increase his cash intake - had he done this he would have gotten away with a lot more than he actually did, so it's highly unlikely, though I'll admit not impossible, that it was a pre-meditated scam.Where Limetless is concerned, he is under no obligation to explain himself to any member of this community as he has thus far done absolutely NOTHING wrong. There may be things that some view as co-incidental, but he is under no obligation to answer any questions regarding those either. He is innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. The burden of proof lies entirely on his detractors, not on Limetless himself.He has already lost the confidence of a lot of people here due to the baseless accusations being thrown around about him in his absence, and as I stated previously the veritable witch-hunt that's occurring is a disgusting spectacle to witness in a freedom based community such as this. Some people here are already acting as judge, jury and executioner; it's a witch-hunt, plain and simple, following the exact same warped methods and mob mentality as took place during the late 1600's / early 1700's. 'Are you a witch? How long have you been in the snare of the devil? Confess!' Asolutely outrageous behaviour.As for the approximate date of his return, according to his Vendor profile: "Now officially off duty until I return which will be the first week of September."I apologise to all for the incredibly long post but I wanted to individually address the points that each of you raised, and I felt it was important to clarify points regarding the topics discussed above.- grahamgreene