Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: anaballin on February 10, 2012, 02:10 am
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Allot of people on SILK ROAD are saying to me that PO Boxes are a no-no, but my IRL friends say that they are good and discrete because it is a federal agency of sorts and cannot be fucked with by other people whereas with rental mail boxes and virtual mail boxes are owned privately don't have the safety and rights(if you will) of USPS PO boxes.
I'm just not sure what to do right now, Security and Anonymity are a top priority for me in this... so I really want to know if I should get rid of the PO and get something else.
Thanks in advance!
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If your mail is shipped via USPS it has every right that any other mail has, regardless of where its shipped to. If you're going to get a mail box, the post office is the last place I'd get mine. Small mom&pop type places are much better as they typically have less or no security cameras and are more lax about some of the identification requirements.
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I agree with LM. I inquired about a box at a UPS store yesterday and all they need is a picture ID and then some type of bill with your name on it. Both of those can be easily acquired in a fake name, whereas the PO has all kinds of ID requirements. I remember I had to show my freaking car insurance to them! Plus a UPS store (or mom and pop operation) would not have dogs walking randomly through that could alert on a letter or package. Postal inspectors are doing random inspections all the time, from what I understand. That being said, I think that both options are REASONABLY safe, given the fact that we aren't hearing about a whole lot of people getting pinched while picking up their packages. The one good thing about PO's, is that often their lobbies are open 24 hours a day, so you could slip in and do a late night pick up, or confuse anyone watching the box by doing a pick up in a crowd of people. There's something that makes me happy about making pigs sit there all day and night waiting for me. If I am going to take a pinch, at least I'll be as annoying to the pigs as possible that way!
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You should get better friends. Didn't I already give you a ton of advice on this very subject already? Yes I did.
Let me think. You are buying illegal drugs, and want anonymity, yet you are giving up your identity to a corporation in order to receive them.
What is wrong with this picture? I mean seriously?
Even if you go to the trouble and expense of supplying fake ID, you have now committed mail fraud, so add that to your sentence for importing/distributing-with-intent-to-supply/possessing drugs.
OR
You could just buy a virtual office. Hell, buy ten of them. Use a prepaid card, no proof of ID required, nice friendly staff, possible to wear a disguise to avoid CCTV footage without raising suspicion if indeed there is any CCTV, and it's about 10 times cheaper than any damn P.O Box.
Protip, the clerk will also sign for all your packages. And you can call yourself the WhatEver Inc Corporation and nobody will double check it.
Protip2: if the people you're dealing with accept cash in the way I've described, then they will also do 'extra curricular' services if you pay them, so that's a good thing.
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I just researched this where I live and the cheapest one I could find was $50 a month. That's what a PO Box costs for 6 months. Great idea tho. But not financially feasible for occasional deliveries.
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If you're a vendor and you can't afford an overhead of $50, then you've a problem with your business model as well as with your mailbox.
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I don't think the original user who created this thread had intentions of being a vendor.
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I don't think the original user who created this thread had intentions of being a vendor.
I've talked to him before now and had got that impression (offline vendor that is). He can correct me if I'm wrong.
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A. Dubois, I think I'm finally disagreeing with you..
I have a box at the USPS Post Office in my town. It's a tiny little town built around a college. Plenty of people not affiliated with the college use it though, so it's not a campus post office.
When I registered for mine, I had to show my state ID-- that was it. And a once yearly fee of something like 150 dollars. I've been using it for years now, for all of my normal mail, and since i just started using SR, I've received 5 packages to the same box. Never had any problems.
Also, there are never dogs or LEO anywhere. But then again, this town doesn't even have a police service as far as I know. Basically, the size of this PO is about the same as any mom and pop shop operation. So if your post office is small, you're pretty much safe IMO.
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@opio- Wow! Lucky you. I got a PO box last year for 6 months and I had to show 2 pieces of ID and a proof of car insurance ticket. Maybe it is different in my state, which I won't mention for obvious reasons. You'd think if it's all federal the regs would be the same all over tho.
@pine- Even if he was a vendor, why would he need a place to receive mail? I guess if he got his product for resale from SR he would need one, but I would assume most vendors get their product off the street locally. I do like the way you think, tho. I had never heard of a virtual office. Credit for thinking outside the box.
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imo you shouldn't use po box or a chain at all. I have gotten boxes at mom and pop places that not only didn't have CCTV, but didn't bother to photocopy my fake ID even though legally they are required to. Mom and pop places like this half the time don't even photocopy your ID, a chain store is almost always going to and a PO sure as hell is going to.
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opiophilia, literally everyone knows everyone in small towns, doesn't that concern you? I come from a small town originally and I swear to God that those people have fucking G.P.S in their heads when it comes to the town's social network. It can be inconvenient on a number of levels. An interception virtually guarantees the possibility of being picked up if the police want you. Problem is, if you have used fake ID, that using a P.O box gives the impression of being a trafficker in addition to mail fraud. Think about that.
A much better alternative, is to use the student dorm pigeon hole system on the campus. If you can do it, then it makes a controlled delivery next to impossible (search the forums for my thread with "pigeon holes"). Also, it is free...
A. Dubois, I also had the impression of him being a middleman between SR and his corner of the woods. Not unreasonable business plan at all, there's a British teenager in his high school on here making thousands each month doing it, but you need a rock solid addressing system to achieve such a thing with a high volume of mail. You should assume 1 in a 100 packages get intercepted even if the packaging is lead shielded and coated in kryptonite (from some back of the envelope calculations it's nowhere near that high, but you should still assume it, esp. for weed).
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imo you shouldn't use po box or a chain at all. I have gotten boxes at mom and pop places that not only didn't have CCTV, but didn't bother to photocopy my fake ID even though legally they are required to. Mom and pop places like this half the time don't even photocopy your ID, a chain store is almost always going to and a PO sure as hell is going to.
Mom&Pop places are the best :) The one I use has no CCTV and they didn't photocopy my ID.
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opiophilia, literally everyone knows everyone in small towns, doesn't that concern you? I come from a small town originally and I swear to God that those people have fucking G.P.S in their heads when it comes to the town's social network. It can be inconvenient on a number of levels. An interception virtually guarantees the possibility of being picked up if the police want you. Problem is, if you have used fake ID, that using a P.O box gives the impression of being a trafficker in addition to mail fraud. Think about that.
A much better alternative, is to use the student dorm pigeon hole system on the campus. If you can do it, then it makes a controlled delivery next to impossible (search the forums for my thread with "pigeon holes"). Also, it is free...
@pine
Oh trust me, the town I originate from is so small-- if I got a package from Canada, the postman would be talking about it and my grandparents would be asking me about it before the day was up! :P The reason it doesn't concern me here is because of the college. The post office is on the corner of campus. So they have 100's of different people every year applying for boxes and canceling them. To the people at this post, I'm just another blur in an endless ebb and flow of students. So I am lucky in that respect. Plus, there are no cameras or LEO, and I don't have to talk to anybody (as long as product is in an envelope, I just come in and open my box and leave). And unfortunately, my university doesn't have any pigeon hole system such as this. But honestly, I don't worry too much. I never order more than half a gram of anything. I know there is still room for concern, but I feel like LE would be much more concerned busting suppliers. PLUS, if I WOULD get caught by some interception of my package, all I have to do is deny it to my grave, anybody can send a package in the mail, especially with the small amounts I'm dealing in, maybe somebody wanted to blackmail me ::)
Have a good one, all the best!
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opiophilia, literally everyone knows everyone in small towns, doesn't that concern you? I come from a small town originally and I swear to God that those people have fucking G.P.S in their heads when it comes to the town's social network. It can be inconvenient on a number of levels. An interception virtually guarantees the possibility of being picked up if the police want you. Problem is, if you have used fake ID, that using a P.O box gives the impression of being a trafficker in addition to mail fraud. Think about that.
A much better alternative, is to use the student dorm pigeon hole system on the campus. If you can do it, then it makes a controlled delivery next to impossible (search the forums for my thread with "pigeon holes"). Also, it is free...
@pine
Oh trust me, the town I originate from is so small-- if I got a package from Canada, the postman would be talking about it and my grandparents would be asking me about it before the day was up! :P The reason it doesn't concern me here is because of the college. The post office is on the corner of campus. So they have 100's of different people every year applying for boxes and canceling them. To the people at this post, I'm just another blur in an endless ebb and flow of students. So I am lucky in that respect. Plus, there are no cameras or LEO, and I don't have to talk to anybody (as long as product is in an envelope, I just come in and open my box and leave). And unfortunately, my university doesn't have any pigeon hole system such as this. But honestly, I don't worry too much. I never order more than half a gram of anything. I know there is still room for concern, but I feel like LE would be much more concerned busting suppliers. PLUS, if I WOULD get caught by some interception of my package, all I have to do is deny it to my grave, anybody can send a package in the mail, especially with the small amounts I'm dealing in, maybe somebody wanted to blackmail me ::)
Have a good one, all the best!
It sounds reasonable, but watch this space. LEO can be more unreasonable and unpredictable than usual when they are motivated by politics rather than economics. I imagine them using tactics like 'name and shame' lists in newspapers, mass scaremongering of buyers etc. They can't hit the sellers, so the buyers are the low hanging fruit here. In any case, ordering the low quantities you do is a sensible precaution.