Quote from: pine on September 09, 2012, 09:45 amQuote from: grahamgreene on September 06, 2012, 11:12 amThere have been a lot of unfounded accusations thrown around these forums lately by quite a large number of people; many of these accusations are based on pure conjecture, and that is also the case here as there is no evidence to suggest or back up your claims that LouisCyphre is LE.If you purchase the code and it does have malicious intent, you can stand behind your claim with proof.Whilst it is of course possible that the copy you receive may be different than everybody else's, it is terribly foolish to make claims based on pure conjecture, especially claims as serious as this.- grahamgreeneGraham, we are not playing by the same rules as regular civil society. We are criminals and we cannot afford to be playing by 'Marquis of Queensbury' rules or we will hang.It is literally not possible to prove anything concrete on a forum of anonymous participants, since all you have is information from them. That does not mean you cannot red flag suspect behavior when it occurs.Whilst I agree that we are not playing by 'Marquess of Queensbury' rules, given the nature of these forums it is entirely reprehensible to decry someone as being 'the enemy', without proof to back up that claim.The fact that it is not possible to prove the claim is exactly my point - you made a statement of fact "Say hello to our resident LE Agent. Deciphering LouisCyphre." based on pure conjecture. You didn't "red flag suspect beahvior", you straight out called LouisCyphre a law enforcement agent.I would of course consider it necessary to encourage users to remain cautious and view the product that he is offering with suspicion, and to seek independent verification that it contains nothing malicious. There are more diplomatic ways of doing that than by making a baseless claim that it's author and purveyor is the boogeyman. There is nothing stopping the buyer from releasing the code here on the forums for verification (which wouldn't give them much peace of mind as any or all of us COULD be LE), or indeed bringing it elsewhere for the same purpose.A thread stating "A new product is up for sale which could possibly contain malicious code that could de-anonymize a vendor, and should be independently verified before use." would have been a far better solution than simply identifying someone as LE based on admittedly unverifiable assumptions.Quote from: pine on September 09, 2012, 09:45 amLike I said already, if I am wrong, there is no real downside apart from Louis feeling aggrieved. The other option is that perhaps tens, hundreds, who really knows what number if nobody raised any alarm bells and it was popularized, of vendors go to the wall.I hope that I am completely wrong. I did not post this thread, as some have said/implied, in some kind of angry ranting mood. In fact I thought about this for several hours before posting it. I realized the only thing that really prevented me from posting and calling out Louis outright was that we knew each other though PGP Club. Since this is an illogical rationale, I wrote to DPR expressing my concern and he thought the best thing would be to air these in public.Granted the security benefits for the majority outweigh the personal negatives for LouisCyphre, however slandering his good (forum) name and reputation is entirely unnecessary given the alternative method outlined above. You admitted yourself that it is impossible "to prove anything concrete on a forum of anonymous participants". Given that fact, doesn't it seem rather outrageous to make a statement of fact based on conjecture?!Furthermore, this is an agorist marketplace - as such, LouisCyphre is free to offer the product for sale, as is any buyer is free to buy it. Demanding that he release the code for review goes against the ideals of an agorist marketplace wherein individuals are free to market their wares without regulation or coercion. Forgive me for paraphrasing but you are essentially saying "Release the code for independent verification; if you don't, then you're LE."I have no interest in this product, nor any interest in whether LouisCyphre is LE or not. If he's not, great. If he is, so be it. That does not take away from the fact that he is free to offer his wares in this agorist marketplace, which would seem to be a view that DPR shares as evidenced by telling you to "take it to the forum" rather than deciding to regulate the product / vendor in question.You cannot deny freedom to a minority in order to guarantee freedom for the majority. It is simply wrong, and goes against everything that this place stands for.Quote from: pine on September 09, 2012, 09:45 amI know something about computer hacking. I know more than I want to about law enforcement, that is where my certainty that this is a highly suspect, probable LE act comes from. If this is paranoia, is is most assuredly informed paranoia.This is the equivalent of preventative medicine. Would you want doctors to wait until they are 100% certain it is a cancerous tumor, or do you wish them to cut it out, even if it later turns out to be entirely benign? Or maybe you want to give the strange unknown lump a fair shake. After all, you have not yet proven it is cancerous. This is a direct analogy, because if you are busted on SR, it will be like a disease removing years from your lifespan, they are likely to be heavily disproportionate since they cannot catch us all at once, and will attribute yourself as a 'prime mover', as part of a conspiracy. I mean that in the legal sense of the word. That is if somebody on SR commits a crime, then you are responsible for it. Sounds like something I'm making up I know, but I'm unfortunately not.Paranoia, whether informed or not, has nothing to do with this. I would agree that it IS highly suspect, purely because of the fact that it may contain malicious code that may put a vendor's freedom at risk. Again, it "may". Not "does". Until we see the code, we have no way of knowing either way. I'm looking at this from a purely agorist perspective, pine; I completely agree with you that people should be warned of any potential security risks, but to state that someone is LE and should give away their product for free simply because it may be damaging should it contain something malicious is entirely unreasonable given the principles by which this market and this community operate.Quote from: pine on September 09, 2012, 09:45 amSo, those are the stakes. A "middle of the road" perspective, where everybody has a point but nobody is completely wrong is a dangerous one. It makes LE agents into hypothetical creatures, which they most certainly are not. A lack of visibility on this is a key problem on this hidden service, kmfkewm has frequently noted this, it is detrimental to drug consumers, but positively lethal to drug suppliers.There are two options before you: Louis Cyphre is a LE agent or he is not. Ignore his words after the incident, and examine his actual actions. What do you get?I have put the probability at 70:30, which I think is more than fair. You can arrive at your own personal conclusions. I do not require other people to agree with me to change that ratio up or down, that would be fundamentally irrational when for all we know half the respondents in the thread could also be LE sockpuppets.So in short, you don't get to change the title of *my* thread because you don't agree with me. That doesn't make sense. You can however make your own thread on this topic and call it whatever you wish.A "middle of the road perspective" certainly doesn't make LE agents into hypothetical creatures; we all know that the risks are very real, and we all know that our enemies will stop at nothing in their efforts to throw bars around our freedom, but that is not a valid reason to abandon the principles of the very thing which we are trying to protect. When we abandon those principles we abandon the ideals behind them.When I examine LouisCyphre's actual actions, I get an individual who wishes to sell a product which he has worked on and for which he is entitled to remuneration should he desire it. Nothing more, nothing less. I see the very real risk in implementing something which would have huge security concerns were it not independently verified, of course, but that is not something that concerns any of us further than strongly encouraging those who use it to do so with a security conscious mindset.You're putting the probability that LouisCyphre is LE at 70:30. This is not probability, it is conditional probability based on a single assumed event which itself is conditional in nature. It is not unlike me stating that it is 70% likely that you are LE based on my hypothetical assumption that you're main function here is to cause dissent on the forums. As you would probably agree, a most baseless accusation.I am not agreeing nor disagreeing with your personal conclusion, I am simply stating that you have arrived at entirely subjective result, not a factual one.I don't want to change the title of *your* thread, I am simply asking you to reconsider its wording given the unprovable and slanderous statement it contains.As I've stated before, I have a lot of respect for you for the huge amount of work you put in to the security aspect of this community and none of the above is a personal attack on you; however I cannot stand idly by whilst the very ideals of this marketplace are trod on in the interests of security.To quote Benjamin Franklin: "They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."As far as the following:Quote from: pine on September 09, 2012, 09:48 amQuote from: grahamgreene on September 07, 2012, 08:30 pmI was a staunch capitalist for many years Limetless - I was pro-regulation, pro-market manipulation, pro-government and essentially pro-fascist given the nature of the beasts that I supported. With capitalism comes regulation and government intrusion. Indeed capitalism by it's very regulatory nature is what powers the governments of today, and with them, their restrictive laws. I think you just lost pretty much everybody here. Is this a postmodernist interpretation of capitalism?That statement was a response to Limetless' somewhat tongue-in-cheek remark of "Nowt wrong with Capitalism. It's what drives progress. Bloody hippies." I was simply stating that I used to be a model capitalist before I experienced something of an epiphany after a number of personal life-changing events.With even a cursory glance we can clearly see that the capitalist model employs regulation (the fact that it doesn't actually benefit from it is a topic for another day) and is the subject of constant government intrusion. We can also clearly see that the regulatory nature of capitalism powers the governments of capitalism based economies by giving them extensive influence over the markets and the people within those markets, thus the regulatory nature of capitalism directly affects the implementation of laws (such as drug prohibition due to extensive lobbying by certain interest groups etc.)My declaration was simply a statement of my views as they currently stand, nothing more.- grahamgreene