Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: pine on February 10, 2012, 05:23 pm
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I want each buyer to give me the following items:
1. No. of packages sent to you.
2. No. of packages that arrived.
3. Your (rough) geographical location e.g. UK, USA
Simple enough, but we need lots of replies to get a decent estimate. Contriboot data points!
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I'm not a big fan of heuristics and rules of thumb. I'm not pedantic to the 4th decimal point either, but I'd like to know the reality of package successful delivery and I imagine you guys are interested as well, so I need about a dozen or so replies for each country to establish a realistic average for the Delivery Success Rate. This way we can finally talk a bit more intelligently about actual intercept ratios/packages that didn't make it. Obviously there's flaws in such analysis, but we're not aiming to be statistician of the year here.
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TIA!
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Current Status:
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Thread Resurrection Update:
DSR: 96.484375%
Results: 1729 out of 1792 packages arrived without incident.
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If this was Reddit, I'd give you an upvote.
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Only have had 1 package ordered from NL...took 13 days to southeast US, hope this helps a little, have more goodies on way and will update when they arrive. :o
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Interesting idea. I'll bite.
1. 5
2. 4
3. All were US to US with an average speed of 3-5 days.
The one I didn't get was probably my own fault. Finalized early, never got it. So far for me 100% success for in escrow and 0% OOE. lol coincidence? I don't know...
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1: 25
2: 20
3: US TO US, CAN TO US
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imho this exercise is useful only for domestic orders unless you break down statistics by the country of origin. Some countries are known as places of origin for drugs, but aren't watched by all other countries. Shipments from Aliceland might be suspicious in Bobistan, but common to Caroleria.
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You could just get statistics straight from the government agencies. USPI publishes how many people they arrest per year for getting drugs in the mail. Would be NICE IF WE HAD A DEDICATED INTELLIGENCE SUBFORUM FOR THE GROUP GATHERING AND ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION LIKE THIS, but for some reason everyone in any power position here completely ignores my request for this despite the clear benefits of having such a subforum
http://www.postalinspectorsvideo.com/uspis/AnnualReport2010.pdf
I think ICE publish statistics also....but fuck me digging it up (or digging through my massive collection of LE documents) for this forum if I can't even get an intelligence sub forum here
in 2010 uspi had (for drug in the mail crimes)
1,075 investigations opened, 1,322 arrests, 481 indictments, 1,083 convictions
that covers the majority of domestic arrests for drugs via mail....for international we will need to get ICE statistics. Go ahead and look for other nations also, I used to have shit from Australia and a few other places. We might need to get DEA statistics also but I think USPI is the primary agency that manages domestic drugs in the mail, and ICE is the primary agency that manages international packs. Although I think even if a pack passes customs it could still be snagged later on by USPI, ICE doesn't screen domestic to domestic mail though.
Welcome to open source intelligence.
edit: Hm on second thought this isn't the same as interceptions, since some of the people they busted obviously had multiple interceptions, and some were getting packs and some were sending packs out. It also includes drug money and paraphernalia.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service interdicts mail-
ings of illegal drugs and drug proceeds and inves-
tigates organized narcotic distribution groups to
protect employees and customers from the violence
related to drug trafficking and to preserve the integ-
rity of the U.S. Mail. Postal Inspectors, often work-
ing with other law enforcement officials, arrested
1,322 suspects for drug trafficking via the mail in
FY 2010. Their investigations resulted in the seizure
of approximately $7.6 million in cash and monetary
instruments, and 37,759 pounds of illegal narcotics
found in the mail.
they do mention interception statistics specifically, but you will need to analyze this entire document as well as perhaps other documents/sources to get the complete statistics for the entire USA interception rate of USPI (not including love letters that do not lead to further investigation)
Illegal drug mailings from South Texas—identified
as a problem for several years running—continued
to rise in FY 2010. By the end of the fiscal year,
Postal Inspectors in McAllen had interdicted 3,364
parcels, a whopping 44 percent more than those
seized only one year earlier; they attribute the rise
to trafficking by Mexican drug cartels. Inspectors in
Texas staged numerous interdictions of the mail,
seizing 20,020 pounds of marijuana and arresting
39 marijuana mailers.
Five-Year Trend (south texas)
DRUG POUNDS OF
PARCELS DRUGS
FY 10 3,364 20,020 lbs.
FY 09 1,759 19,380 lbs.
FY 08 699 7,010 lbs.
FY 07 303 3,471 lbs.
FY 06 221 2,310 lbs.
about.usps.com/publications/pub162.pdf
In an average year, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service:
.....
arrests roughly 1,000 suspects for drug trafficking and money laundering via the mail.
hm this article indicates that non-federal agencies are also involved with mail interceptions, but I have never heard of a local police agency initiating a drug pack interception unless USPI handed it off to them....
South Florida drug smugglers increasingly are using an alternative method of sending their shipments: the mail.
As bloody drug wars rage at the Mexican border and police efforts are stepped up to stop drug trafficking by the trailer load, the mail — both the U.S. Mail and commercial carriers — seems a less- risky way for drug dealers to ship their packages, authorities say.
"As the Border Patrol increases security on the border, it leads to smugglers using different tactics," said Miramar-based Postal Inspector Blad Rojo. "You know you can put it in the mail and it's going to get there. But we don't want the criminals to exploit the efficiency of our postal services."
Many of the marijuana and cocaine shipments to South Florida are coming from the Southwest region of the country, Rojo said, because Mexican drug dealers are crossing the border to mail their shipments.
Nationally, intercepted shipments of marijuana in the U.S. mail have been steady, if not decreasing, since 2009. But in Florida, more shipments are being stopped.
Nationally, there was 43,564 pounds of marijuana intercepted in the mail in 2009; 35,773 pounds confiscated last year; and 23,758 pounds confiscated through June this year, records show. In Florida, that was 2,158 pounds in 2009; 2,789 pounds last year; and 3,368 pounds through June.
Cocaine interceptions are on the rise both nationally and in Florida, records show. Nationally, there was 506 pounds intercepted in 2009; 657 pounds last year; and 434 through June. In Florida, there was 37 pounds of intercepted in both 2009 and 2010, and 44 pounds through June.
The packages typically contain 20-30 pounds of marijuana or a kilo or two of cocaine, Rojo said.
As Mexican drug lords get stronger, they no longer have to rely on Colombians, who typically shipped their drugs via the Caribbean, said Jim Hall, director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Substance Abuse at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale.
As the quality of Mexican drugs has improved, the quantity has increased along the U.S. border, he said.
U.S. mail statistics for Broward andPalm Beach counties were unavailable. But records for private carriers inspected by sheriff's deputies — show spikes in drug interceptions.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office reported 130 drug packages intercepted in 2009; 220 last year and 100 through June. The Sheriff's Office would not release what types of drugs were stopped.
Broward County has seen increases mainly in cocaine and prescription pill interceptions, the Sheriff's Office said.
In 2009, deputies intercepted 80 kilos of cocaine and 21,512 oxycodone pills; 276 kilos of cocaine and 53,819 oxy pills in 2010 and 13 kilos of cocaine and 28,057 pills through June, records show.
Both sheriffs' offices declined to be interviewed for this article, citing security issues.
Officials of FedEx and UPS said they have security programs in place but declined to discuss what would lead them to deem a package suspicious.
Public and private carriers, and law enforcement officers, need a warrant to open and search a package.
"We do a good job identifying suspicious packages," FedEx spokesman Jim McCluskey said.
Drugs usually come tightly packed in boxes, wrapped several times in plastic. When they contain pungent marijuana, that plastic often is covered in axle grease or fabric softener sheets to disguise the smell, inspectors said.
With the increase in drug interceptions comes an increase in drug arrests, authorities said.
"We are here to investigate and get big convictions so we discourage other people from doing it," Rojo said.
That's what happened to Charles Clayton, 39, of North Lauderdale, who was sentenced last year to 30 years in federal prison for having a kilo of cocaine shipped to him, court documents show.
Clayton's long criminal history contributed to his stiff sentence, Rojo said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in San Juan, Puerto Rico, intercepted a package labeled "Legal Documents," coming from St. Thomas and headed to Clayton's home, court records show.
The kilo was sent to the Postal Inspection office in Miramar and an undercover agent delivered it to Clayton.
Disguised as a postal carrier, the undercover agent asked Clayton if the package was his. Clayton said yes, signed for it, and when he tried to take the package, he was arrested.
sorry to hijack your thread I guess but since there is no intelligence forum to put all this shit in what else can I do ;)
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23
22
all orders were US to US or Canada to US except for the one that didn't make it through which was from the Netherlands (I took this as a sign from God that I shouldn't do E)
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sorry to hijack your thread I guess but since there is no intelligence forum to put all this shit in what else can I do ;)
It's fine, the more the merrier. Do you have any stats on the British or European situation?
I am thinking we are going to eventually find that the % of packages lost to 'acts of god' in the mail, is somewhat higher than the % of intercepted packages. I also have a hypothesis that the majority of drugs intercepted and destroyed are not illegal drugs, but pharmaceutical ones 'out of justification' so to speak i.e. doctors have certain trade monopolies and would very much like to keep it that way.
Here are the infos I've gathered on the UK situation to date:
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Royal Mail Statistics:
115,271 post boxes
62 million items per day.
out of which are:
63 million parcels per year (think this refers to anything > 100 grams)
Sauce: Annual Report and Financial Statements 2010-11
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imho this exercise is useful only for domestic orders unless you break down statistics by the country of origin. Some countries are known as places of origin for drugs, but aren't watched by all other countries. Shipments from Aliceland might be suspicious in Bobistan, but common to Caroleria.
Yeah, we'll do a proper detailed and comprehensive survey later, this is just a prelimilnary, I think the findings will be very interesting if everybody plies in and reports this stuff. We need way more input to get even an approximate average. Come on secret mastermind mammals :)
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You could just get statistics straight from the government agencies. USPI publishes how many people they arrest per year for getting drugs in the mail. Would be NICE IF WE HAD A DEDICATED INTELLIGENCE SUBFORUM FOR THE GROUP GATHERING AND ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION LIKE THIS, but for some reason everyone in any power position here completely ignores my request for this despite the clear benefits of having such a subforum
http://www.postalinspectorsvideo.com/uspis/AnnualReport2010.pdf
I think ICE publish statistics also....but fuck me digging it up (or digging through my massive collection of LE documents) for this forum if I can't even get an intelligence sub forum here
in 2010 uspi had (for drug in the mail crimes)
1,075 investigations opened, 1,322 arrests, 481 indictments, 1,083 convictions
that covers the majority of domestic arrests for drugs via mail....for international we will need to get ICE statistics. Go ahead and look for other nations also, I used to have shit from Australia and a few other places. We might need to get DEA statistics also but I think USPI is the primary agency that manages domestic drugs in the mail, and ICE is the primary agency that manages international packs. Although I think even if a pack passes customs it could still be snagged later on by USPI, ICE doesn't screen domestic to domestic mail though.
Welcome to open source intelligence.
edit: Hm on second thought this isn't the same as interceptions, since some of the people they busted obviously had multiple interceptions, and some were getting packs and some were sending packs out. It also includes drug money and paraphernalia.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service interdicts mail-
ings of illegal drugs and drug proceeds and inves-
tigates organized narcotic distribution groups to
protect employees and customers from the violence
related to drug trafficking and to preserve the integ-
rity of the U.S. Mail. Postal Inspectors, often work-
ing with other law enforcement officials, arrested
1,322 suspects for drug trafficking via the mail in
FY 2010. Their investigations resulted in the seizure
of approximately $7.6 million in cash and monetary
instruments, and 37,759 pounds of illegal narcotics
found in the mail.
they do mention interception statistics specifically, but you will need to analyze this entire document as well as perhaps other documents/sources to get the complete statistics for the entire USA interception rate of USPI (not including love letters that do not lead to further investigation)
Illegal drug mailings from South Texas—identified
as a problem for several years running—continued
to rise in FY 2010. By the end of the fiscal year,
Postal Inspectors in McAllen had interdicted 3,364
parcels, a whopping 44 percent more than those
seized only one year earlier; they attribute the rise
to trafficking by Mexican drug cartels. Inspectors in
Texas staged numerous interdictions of the mail,
seizing 20,020 pounds of marijuana and arresting
39 marijuana mailers.
Five-Year Trend (south texas)
DRUG POUNDS OF
PARCELS DRUGS
FY 10 3,364 20,020 lbs.
FY 09 1,759 19,380 lbs.
FY 08 699 7,010 lbs.
FY 07 303 3,471 lbs.
FY 06 221 2,310 lbs.
about.usps.com/publications/pub162.pdf
In an average year, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service:
.....
arrests roughly 1,000 suspects for drug trafficking and money laundering via the mail.
hm this article indicates that non-federal agencies are also involved with mail interceptions, but I have never heard of a local police agency initiating a drug pack interception unless USPI handed it off to them....
South Florida drug smugglers increasingly are using an alternative method of sending their shipments: the mail.
As bloody drug wars rage at the Mexican border and police efforts are stepped up to stop drug trafficking by the trailer load, the mail — both the U.S. Mail and commercial carriers — seems a less- risky way for drug dealers to ship their packages, authorities say.
"As the Border Patrol increases security on the border, it leads to smugglers using different tactics," said Miramar-based Postal Inspector Blad Rojo. "You know you can put it in the mail and it's going to get there. But we don't want the criminals to exploit the efficiency of our postal services."
Many of the marijuana and cocaine shipments to South Florida are coming from the Southwest region of the country, Rojo said, because Mexican drug dealers are crossing the border to mail their shipments.
Nationally, intercepted shipments of marijuana in the U.S. mail have been steady, if not decreasing, since 2009. But in Florida, more shipments are being stopped.
Nationally, there was 43,564 pounds of marijuana intercepted in the mail in 2009; 35,773 pounds confiscated last year; and 23,758 pounds confiscated through June this year, records show. In Florida, that was 2,158 pounds in 2009; 2,789 pounds last year; and 3,368 pounds through June.
Cocaine interceptions are on the rise both nationally and in Florida, records show. Nationally, there was 506 pounds intercepted in 2009; 657 pounds last year; and 434 through June. In Florida, there was 37 pounds of intercepted in both 2009 and 2010, and 44 pounds through June.
The packages typically contain 20-30 pounds of marijuana or a kilo or two of cocaine, Rojo said.
As Mexican drug lords get stronger, they no longer have to rely on Colombians, who typically shipped their drugs via the Caribbean, said Jim Hall, director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Substance Abuse at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale.
As the quality of Mexican drugs has improved, the quantity has increased along the U.S. border, he said.
U.S. mail statistics for Broward andPalm Beach counties were unavailable. But records for private carriers inspected by sheriff's deputies — show spikes in drug interceptions.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office reported 130 drug packages intercepted in 2009; 220 last year and 100 through June. The Sheriff's Office would not release what types of drugs were stopped.
Broward County has seen increases mainly in cocaine and prescription pill interceptions, the Sheriff's Office said.
In 2009, deputies intercepted 80 kilos of cocaine and 21,512 oxycodone pills; 276 kilos of cocaine and 53,819 oxy pills in 2010 and 13 kilos of cocaine and 28,057 pills through June, records show.
Both sheriffs' offices declined to be interviewed for this article, citing security issues.
Officials of FedEx and UPS said they have security programs in place but declined to discuss what would lead them to deem a package suspicious.
Public and private carriers, and law enforcement officers, need a warrant to open and search a package.
"We do a good job identifying suspicious packages," FedEx spokesman Jim McCluskey said.
Drugs usually come tightly packed in boxes, wrapped several times in plastic. When they contain pungent marijuana, that plastic often is covered in axle grease or fabric softener sheets to disguise the smell, inspectors said.
With the increase in drug interceptions comes an increase in drug arrests, authorities said.
"We are here to investigate and get big convictions so we discourage other people from doing it," Rojo said.
That's what happened to Charles Clayton, 39, of North Lauderdale, who was sentenced last year to 30 years in federal prison for having a kilo of cocaine shipped to him, court documents show.
Clayton's long criminal history contributed to his stiff sentence, Rojo said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in San Juan, Puerto Rico, intercepted a package labeled "Legal Documents," coming from St. Thomas and headed to Clayton's home, court records show.
The kilo was sent to the Postal Inspection office in Miramar and an undercover agent delivered it to Clayton.
Disguised as a postal carrier, the undercover agent asked Clayton if the package was his. Clayton said yes, signed for it, and when he tried to take the package, he was arrested.
sorry to hijack your thread I guess but since there is no intelligence forum to put all this shit in what else can I do ;)
+1
I wish there was an intelligence forum as well because it is definitely different than "security."
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To date we have 47 out of 54 packages arriving, which is 87%
Need more data points people! :)
Get that number of packages up to a few thousand, and then I can start believing it has substance.
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Good idea, I'm only 1 for 1 at this point but every little bit helps right? :P
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To date we have 47 out of 54 packages arriving, which is 87%
Need more data points people! :)
Get that number of packages up to a few thousand, and then I can start believing it has substance.
What about your stats pine? Or as the creator of this thread do you feel you'll dirty the data and plead the fifth ;)
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Not meaning to be a party pooper or anything, admire the enthusiasm, but you are aware that those numbers (prolly inflated) will end up in some congressional report or DEA intelligence paper.......... just sayin....
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Good thread. Keep in mind some packages not arriving could be due to scam vendors who don't ship it to begin with.
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Not meaning to be a party pooper or anything, admire the enthusiasm, but you are aware that those numbers (prolly inflated) will end up in some congressional report or DEA intelligence paper.......... just sayin....
I already thought about this. The DEA are not going to depend on numbers they discovered on an online forum. They are going to have to research them themselves with test packages sent throughout the mail. "Hurr Durr, Kingpin Pine said the numbers are X, Y and Z, millord".
In fact, I think you should assume the DEA have already sent hundreds of packages throughout the mail system with substances that would ID for cocaine et al, even though they are synthetic i.e. not drugs, just similar chemical structure to them. They would do this in order to ascertain the probabilities for the interception rates for different kinds of packages, which would be useful intelligence. If they haven't already done this, then they are as thick as fuck, which seems rather unlikely.
They can do a far better data analysis because they can coordinate with the Postal Inspectors directly.
No, this data gathering exercise is for us, the buyers and sellers of the Silk Road. Knowing the numbers, is a big part of the Game in any business. It allows you to work out your margin of safety, the profitability of your potential business model, and the kinds of risks that buyers are realistically taking and lots of other useful stuff. Even rough averages such as this one are critical to consumer confidence.
Intelligence from *already open data sources* cannot compromise the Silk Road. As long as identity anonymity is respected, more knowledge helps us, not harms us. In fact, this kind of information helps us a lot lot more than the DEA because the biggest obstacle to global implementation of a decentralized drug trafficking service is confidence.
The word Credit comes from the Latin 'credo', which means trust or confidence. The entire capitalist system ultimately runs off confidence or trust. Not naive trust, not faith, but trust established through contracts and deals i.e. reciprocal relationships and reprisals for uncooperative behavior.
More transparency = more intelligence = more customers = more resilient marketplace.
Edit: The business environment today as I see it:
Most people still assume, subconsciously almost, that each and every piece of mail gets analyzed. When that myth is fully dispelled with the new up and coming vertically integrated business strategies by sellers on the Silk Road and Black Market Reloaded and direct sales from the manufacture/farming of drugs to the consumers directly, it's curtains for the DEA, not to mention each and every drug cartels who doesn't have a handle on the source of their product.
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I think you have way more sense in you than they do :)
I can just see that paper with a heading like "SR publicly boasts 9x% delivery success rate" with a screenshot on some requisition request for more funds for surveillance/tracking/yadiya.....
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To date we have 47 out of 54 packages arriving, which is 87%
Need more data points people! :)
Get that number of packages up to a few thousand, and then I can start believing it has substance.
What about your stats pine? Or as the creator of this thread do you feel you'll dirty the data and plead the fifth ;)
I've never ordered a thing from the Silk Road and I never will. I'm a business person, not a drug user. I am a capitalist operating in the purest market system I can find with the highest margins of profit for the lowest amount of risk. My strongest drugs for personal use are chocolate and coffee. I believe it's up to an individual to make decisions for themselves for good or for ill. The price of freedom is individual responsibility. As far as I can see, a sizable majority of drugs are relatively benign providing sensible precautions, the kind you'd take with any drug, are taken. e.g. having a accurate scales to weigh quantity, a drug testing kits for your purchases, knowing the half-life of the drug etc.
What I sell is human catnip, a high margin commodity. And I can assure you the quality is as high as I can get it, no shortcuts have been take in the production or processing, and it's free from contaminants, cutting and other bulk up bullshit. There is 'selfishness' and then there is 'self interest'. It's the difference between the short term and the long term. If I poisoned my clients, I wouldn't be getting a whole lot of repeat customers and good feedback.
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okay here are my stats
1/1 from Canada to .us
4/4 from .nl to .us
so im 100% thus far with all international, have not done any domestic
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Update:
Global Delivery Success Rate*: 88.33%
Incidentally, my research shows that the general drug market has a much worst ratio for mail interceptions. Our batting average is at the very least four to five times better than theirs. This is partly because we're expert "reverse package profile engineers" and partly because our low volume mass mailing business model is simply a more successful one. If anybody's shipping the average seizure amounts that are intercepted in the USA, which is 1 kilo of cocaine and severals pounds of weed, then you should probably resign from SR for being an epic moron. Patience, not impulsivity is the key here! I take it most of us have heard the story about the father and son bulls sitting on a hill watching the cows?
*henceforth GDSR or just generic DSR, and I'll update for specific countries if only I get enough data. Imagine we'll mostly get UK and USA respondents and so they will be the most accurate averages, but even so it means something. Post procedures the world over are pretty much the same with some tweaks. I'll do domestic/international breakdowns if there's enough data too.
However this is the preliminarily investigation (haha) into the subject, and we'll setup a proper survey as detailed as it gets when this is over. It's important to get a rough idea first. Then maybe we can sticky it and view updates of it each month in graphical form or something should the mods see fit.
Yeah, obviously some of the packages not arriving is due to scammers. At least 50% is probably just that. However I think we should assume the worst case scenario and in any case it's what geeks call the 'throughput', what actually comes out of SR that matters, rather than the bandwidth/hypothetical outcome.
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DSR: 90.12%
So far, 81 packages ordered, 73 received. If you feel uncomfortable mentioning your rough geographical area, then you don't need to mention it, it's only important to know the no. packages ordered and delivered for the DSR statistic.
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I am not sure how many packages I have over the years. If I am allowed to make a rough estimate, I would say
international: 8
domestic: 30
I know of at least one package (to a friend) that wasn't intercepted per-se but was apparently ripped open and had the contents stolen by mail sorters. Could have been scammed I suppose, but personally I trust the dude.
Anyway I have never had a package to me intercepted and I have had probably 38 or so packs.
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I'm at 11 transactions in 1 month
100% delivery
International and domestic
Do your research on your vendors before buying and you will have a 100% too.
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10 out of 10 - All domestic
Eastern US
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I want each buyer to give me the following items:
1. No. of packages sent to you.
2. No. of packages that arrived.
3. Your (rough) geographical location e.g. UK, USA
Simple enough, but we need lots of replies to get a decent estimate. Contriboot data points!
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I'm not a big fan of heuristics and rules of thumb. I'm not pedantic to the 4th decimal point either, but I'd like to know the reality of package successful delivery and I imagine you guys are interested as well, so I need about a dozen or so replies for each country to establish a realistic average for the Delivery Success Rate. This way we can finally talk a bit more intelligently about actual intercept ratios/packages that didn't make it. Obviously there's flaws in such analysis, but we're not aiming to be statistician of the year here.
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TIA!
I'd say almost every package gets to its destination country to country...
3/3 USA
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I will add my own seller stats. Unfortunately since I can't verify all of the OOE deals I used to do or anything from over on OVDB, I will only take from my actual published SR statistics.
443 Packages shipped.
About 250 to US - 3 not received
About 90 to Canada - 2 not received
About 80 to EU - 4 not received
About 20 to AUS/NZ - 1 not received.
Also, I cannot verify if the non-received were scammer buyers, although I am inclined to think that at least two of those are off of the top of my head based on correspondence at the time and communication with other sellers about these individuals. 8 FOR SURE non-received and 2 possible.
Gives me a shipping success rate of 97.75%, including all 10 non-received, so far, for verifiable packages.
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This entire process could be built right into SR order interface. Probably best way to gather statistics.
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Agreed, but SR could easily mine that data from feedback scores which would probably have at least an 80% correlation to non-received. Total feedback left, total 1-3 versus total 5 of 5. That would get you closer.
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Update:
DSR: 96.91%
583 out of 565 packages received.
Thanks for the data, especially anarcho47! . You fellows give me more and I'll plug it into my spreadsheet. A sample of 1000 packages would be nice.
I think at this stage we are able to make some comments with a fair degree of scientific validity.
1. The idea each and every package is analyzed by an omnipotent postal service is utter, utter bunk of the highest order.
2. The currently missing 3.09% can be interpreted as:
A: Scammer buyers.
B: Mail interceptions by inspectors.
C: Lost/stolen mail.
It appears to me that to close the gap to 99%, the following would have the greatest impact on DSR:
- seller education on reverse package profile engineering.
- some method to detect or deter buyer scammers. Could be as simple as ensuring the first 5 packages have to finalize early (with new sellers suffering a similar restriction but in reverse).
I mean, if we can reasonably claim that 1 in a 100 packages get through, then imagine the impact on sales!
It's not (just) about getting a little extra profit from sales, it's also about buyer confidence and reputation of SR.
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Why are you all helping the authorities to gather data?
They can use this info against us to get funding.
Magic8Ball, see my reply to johnwholesome a little further up the thread in case you missed it.
Basically they can already work out our DSR rate by page scraping the Silk Road and it does our business more good than ill if the statistics are public thanks to increased consumer confidence in our reliability. As kmfkewm keeps saying, security through obscurity is the worst kind of security. We have nothing to lose.
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By the way, I came across some most amusing information while doing my research. I think it's some comfort to our professional vendors dealing in high volumes.
- A 2009 study showed that at least 90% of US dollar bills have cocaine residues on them, and some of the tests showed that more than 95% of the cash in circulation is cocaine- contaminated.
- People send cash through the post all the time despite being told it's a stupid idea by the postal service. Especially at Christmas time.
Putting two and two together, this will mean:
Using electronic noses for drug detection systems to stop each and every package is actually impossible.
Yes, you can use a electronic nose for drug residue detection.
Yes, in theory they are able to detect up to 1 billionth of a gram of cocaine or other drug.
But in practice probably more people send cash through the post in the world, than use SR's services (those statistics don't differ much between Europe and America). As a result, the sensitivity of the electronic drug detection mechanisms has to be quite low or they would have to stop the mail every couple of seconds.
Obviously this doesn't mean you should stop vacuum packing and using rubbing alcohol to get rid of drug residues, but it certainly makes sure that LEO is put back in his box. :P
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64/65, Even better if you include samples.
There's another problem here that isn't being mentioned here. Buyers do all kinds of shenanigans with addresses. I'm nearly certain that my one missing order was due to this. I'm sure other vendors can confirm that the addresses are just ridiculous sometimes, either the name itself or the reckless formatting. Missing zip codes etc. I bet a substantial majority of parcels that go missing (and aren't due to scammers) are simply undeliverable. Then they end up in one of those huge warehouses where posties tear through them trying to find clues to get them delivered. Fun job I bet.
Just think about how much legit mail you've had go missing -- I can't even recall a single piece. The mail system is solid.
It would be pretty easy to thwart electronic sniffers I think, especially if there was a concerted effort. Throw a gram of finely powdered offender into a blue boxes near major shipping hubs on a regular basis. Everything gets contaminated (not quite, but you know what I mean). If this model of drug distribution ever scales up, I think they will focus on cracking down on the mail though. Then again, given the financial situation faced by the post, they may be limited anyhow.
I think a huge dead drop network would be brilliant though, but that's another animal entirely.
I'm a business person, not a drug user.
Are these mutually exclusive?
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64/65, Even better if you include samples.
There's another problem here that isn't being mentioned here. Buyers do all kinds of shenanigans with addresses. I'm nearly certain that my one missing order was due to this. I'm sure other vendors can confirm that the addresses are just ridiculous sometimes, either the name itself or the reckless formatting. Missing zip codes etc. I bet a substantial majority of parcels that go missing (and aren't due to scammers) are simply undeliverable. Then they end up in one of those huge warehouses where posties tear through them trying to find clues to get them delivered. Fun job I bet.
Just think about how much legit mail you've had go missing -- I can't even recall a single piece. The mail system is solid.
It would be pretty easy to thwart electronic sniffers I think, especially if there was a concerted effort. Throw a gram of finely powdered offender into a blue boxes near major shipping hubs on a regular basis. Everything gets contaminated (not quite, but you know what I mean). If this model of drug distribution ever scales up, I think they will focus on cracking down on the mail though. Then again, given the financial situation faced by the post, they may be limited anyhow.
I think a huge dead drop network would be brilliant though, but that's another animal entirely.
I'm a business person, not a drug user.
Are these mutually exclusive?
I think that's a brilliant idea (your drug 'bomb' idea) Very achievable with very little product, for $100 at each node we could guarantee a huge backlog in the mailroom with next to no risk. The key thing, is to coordinate such efforts for maximum impact. We could keep up such an attack for months at next to no affect on our bottom line, I'm pretty sure the CEOs will bend to the bottom line once they see the numbers. Postal inspection is always subject to economic realities, and this definitely hits them where it hurts, especially since they wear throughput rate of post as a badge of honor.
As for your comment on my comment, the answer is no. I was not implying some snooty customer derision or contempt to drug users. My point was that this is a business like any other business. I don't have to smoke or inject all my products before I sell them. They do however, go through an extremely rigorous testing regime and quality control process that I consulted with industry experts over several months to achieve. Getting paid three times the yearly salary of my peers within a single week has a tendency to focus the mind on ROI and everything to do with it.
The days of having to smoke a batch with the local gang to prove you're legit are long gone, today drug manufacture, drug agronomy, drug distribution are as corporate as Starbucks and just as ubiquitous. The different with the Silk Road, is that the payment mechanism has finally caught up with the market.
Capitalism <3
Also, on the dead drop network, there's a fellow thinking about similar ideas called Project Zanzibar here:
http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=11112.msg102309#msg102309
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considering the fact that every year over two hundred billion pieces of mail are sent via USPS, it really is impossible for them to do very intensive screening on the mail. Fuck cocaine residue being on 95% of money, a lot of the sophisticated mail scanning technology that LE has takes several minutes to run on a single parcel. It is just impossible for them to keep delivering mail at the required rate if they subject more than a small % of it to those sorts of technologies.
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We really need to organize the people on SR to start doing things like this, throwing in a bit of coke with all the other mail at a bunch of blue boxes. If enough people do this it will seriously hurt their ability to use not only electronic noses, but real drug dog noses. Turn their sensitivity against them to make them hit on everything :). After all a hit is a hit as far as a drug dog goes anyway, an electronic nose can probably filter out noise a little better though.
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considering the fact that every year over two hundred billion pieces of mail are sent via USPS, it really is impossible for them to do very intensive screening on the mail. Fuck cocaine residue being on 95% of money, a lot of the sophisticated mail scanning technology that LE has takes several minutes to run on a single parcel. It is just impossible for them to keep delivering mail at the required rate if they subject more than a small % of it to those sorts of technologies.
Yes, sometimes I think that 'package profiling' is as much about not being blatantly in their faces so they can persist in their drug war daydream.
While you and I might know that it's logistically impossible to filter out SR, the general public does not know that. Mr and Mrs Joe Public almost subconsciously believe the Man is on top of everything at the post office. Well, 2011 - 2020 is the decade in which that belief will vanish forever.
Also, the general trend in post is obviously for there to be many more packages due to the e-economy of Amazon/Ebay et al, and fewer letters due to email.
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We really need to organize the people on SR to start doing things like this, throwing in a bit of coke with all the other mail at a bunch of blue boxes. If enough people do this it will seriously hurt their ability to use not only electronic noses, but real drug dog noses. Turn their sensitivity against them to make them hit on everything :). After all a hit is a hit as far as a drug dog goes anyway, an electronic nose can probably filter out noise a little better though.
The law of unintended consequences.
Suddenly people in postboxes, people in postboxes everywhere. :D
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My stats:
7 orders
6 received
All successfully received packages were shipped within the US. The one shipment that went missing was Canada to US. I also got an extra package that I didn't order, intended for another customer and mislabeled by the US-based vendor. In other words, it was an awesome Christmas present! If you want to include that as well, then the total received packages would be seven.
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583 out of 565 packages received.
565 out of 583, maybe?
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1 ordered
1 received
EU to EU
100% Success aha :)
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Yes, sometimes I think that 'package profiling' is as much about not being blatantly in their faces so they can persist in their drug war daydream.
While you and I might know that it's logistically impossible to filter out SR, the general public does not know that. Mr and Mrs Joe Public almost subconsciously believe the Man is on top of everything at the post office. Well, 2011 - 2020 is the decade in which that belief will vanish forever.
And considering the fiscal state of the USPS, the amount of resources they have to combat trafficking is only going to decrease. Who knows, there might not even be a government-run postal service by the end of the decade!
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583 out of 565 packages received.
565 out of 583, maybe?
Haha! Hey we've been working really hard here, giving 103% and everything. :D
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Update:
DSR: 96.95%
636 out of 656 packages*
I think we're reaching stability in our average, but I'd still like twice as many data points to make sure.
* I'm always assuming the worst case here, i.e. LEO has intercepted, nothing got lost, mislabed or otherwise 'accidentallyed'. Not true, but a good precaution.
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My stats: 2/2 so far.
I have 1/1 in processing right now, so I am not counting that one, but its been a couple of days.
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shmoo, thats crazy. how the f does something like that even happen? can you tell what you got in general and did you know who it was from?
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Yes, sometimes I think that 'package profiling' is as much about not being blatantly in their faces so they can persist in their drug war daydream.
While you and I might know that it's logistically impossible to filter out SR, the general public does not know that. Mr and Mrs Joe Public almost subconsciously believe the Man is on top of everything at the post office. Well, 2011 - 2020 is the decade in which that belief will vanish forever.
And considering the fiscal state of the USPS, the amount of resources they have to combat trafficking is only going to decrease. Who knows, there might not even be a government-run postal service by the end of the decade!
I think the bigger question is if there is even going to be a solvent government as a whole in most western nation-states. A great majority of them passed the mathematical line of repayment impossibility over the last decade, some even in the 1990's. The US is among that number (if they had to actually use GAAP the public national debt would stand somewhere between $75,000,000,000,000.00 and $125,000,000,000,000.00)
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Only one person I have ever sold to has claimed that the package did not arrive.
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Ok Tryptamine, but what were the actual amount of packages sent vs the amount that were said to be arrived?
Update:
DSR: 97.07%
697 out of 718 packages
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Ok Tryptamine, but what were the actual amount of packages sent vs the amount that were said to be arrived?
Update:
DSR: 97.07%
697 out of 718 packages
Not exactly sure, but in terms of transactions,
112 out of 113 = 99.12%
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xD Trypt I think I was that blemish on your record, are you talking about the 2 chillpill bottles and 1 bottle of mindfood or something of that nature? You received the items back but it was probably most likely due to incorrect postage....
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5 out of 5 so far for me. Four were US to US, and one was Canada to US. Currently have one in transit form US, and three from Canada. Will update when the others arrive.
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xD Trypt I think I was that blemish on your record, are you talking about the 2 chillpill bottles and 1 bottle of mindfood or something of that nature? You received the items back but it was probably most likely due to incorrect postage....
No, I didn't include that one since it returned to me and you re-ordered (couldn't have been wrong postage, I sent it at the post office). I meant that I've only ever needed to give one refund; that is, no one received the package (or else buyer lied).
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Update:
DSR: 97.36%
814 out of 836 packages.
Nearly there folks! Only ~200 packages more to a satisfying statistic!
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xD Trypt I think I was that blemish on your record, are you talking about the 2 chillpill bottles and 1 bottle of mindfood or something of that nature? You received the items back but it was probably most likely due to incorrect postage....
No, I didn't include that one since it returned to me and you re-ordered (couldn't have been wrong postage, I sent it at the post office). I meant that I've only ever needed to give one refund; that is, no one received the package (or else buyer lied).
Am I reading this right? A vendor put his own return address on a package of illicits??
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xD Trypt I think I was that blemish on your record, are you talking about the 2 chillpill bottles and 1 bottle of mindfood or something of that nature? You received the items back but it was probably most likely due to incorrect postage....
No, I didn't include that one since it returned to me and you re-ordered (couldn't have been wrong postage, I sent it at the post office). I meant that I've only ever needed to give one refund; that is, no one received the package (or else buyer lied).
Am I reading this right? A vendor put his own return address on a package of illicits??
I've never sold anything illegal on SilkRoad.
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okay fair enough.
But couldn't you still get "aiding and abetting" for knowingly funding the administration and operation, via sales commissions, of what would be defined under RICO as an organized crime syndicate?
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okay fair enough.
But couldn't you still get "aiding and abetting" for knowingly funding the administration and operation, via sales commissions, of what would be defined under RICO as an organized crime syndicate?
We should book the government for "aiding and abetting" pointless exercises like the War on Drugs. And "wasting tax payers time". Yeah, big time. Seems once people start utilizing exotic semantic descriptions they become convinced they are morally in the right all the time (also known as 'high horse syndrome'). Well fuck LEO and the horse he rode in on.
I mad today. Becoming box of hot frogs.
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Orders: roughly 10
Received: 9
9/10 orders were domestic, one from Canada.
Only one I didn't receive was my first order for MDMA from Calistoner back when he ripped and dipped dozens for domestic molly.
Ever since then I try to stick to the big guns (top 5 sellers). Twice I've used smaller time guys - top 30ish but 100% (RECENT!) feedback with recent positive chatter on the forums.
I've been happy with them as well, but I only risk ordering from small time guys if it's something that doesn't move in huge volume (psy's) so they never get a chance to get huge amounts of feedback ratings.
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I'm merely pointing out that the tyrannical legalist bastards (who have the guns and write the licenses to kill people without punishment) have a plethora of ways to bring their violence down on someone's head. If I were a seller even selling something completely legal I would never use my return address.
Guilty by association gets people killed by governments every year since we were stupid enough to bow our rights to them.
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I'm merely pointing out that the tyrannical legalist bastards (who have the guns and write the licenses to kill people without punishment) have a plethora of ways to bring their violence down on someone's head. If I were a seller even selling something completely legal I would never use my return address.
Guilty by association gets people killed by governments every year since we were stupid enough to bow our rights to them.
Too right. It is simply extraordinary how many people have been collateral damage in America's various misadventures. I'm not anti-America in any way. I support Free Markets, Democracy and classical Western ideals that go all the way back to the Greeks. I think America increasingly doesn't, that's the problem.
I just think it's a pity a large portion of American society apparently rejects their heritage. It's not a party political thing. There seems to be a considerable amount of latent decay in American's character. For all the battles in Congress, the parties fundamentally agreed on the basics of America. That no longer seems to be the case, I've never seen the parties so entrenched in their positions before, and believe me, that is saying something. Decay is normal in society, but usually it is replenished by fresh and original thinking. I don't see much of that around here.
Economy literally looks like a re-run of Keynesian doctrine from 80 years ago. The Occupy protesters haven't the foggiest idea that far from being rebels, they are enthusiastically supporting the entrenchment of the State. The Venus Project is thinly veiled communism when you get right down to the economics of it. There are so many WTF moments with them it's unreal.
They all want solutions, but they are falling back on old, tired solutions that didn't work in the past.
My real worry is that 20 - 30 year old people today have no real hope for the future. The economists tell them they are fucked, with a fair amount of justification. The Fortune 500 seems to be entirely composed of patent trolls, or maybe ghouls. The scientists tell them what is effectively a doomsday prophesy called Global Warming. There doesn't appear to be any positive messages about the future from the scientific community.
That pisses me off, because I know science and I know most people are dead fucking wrong about many aspects of reality. People are living longer, new materials/tech are being invented, the ozone layer is back, the world is not being deforested and is in fact growing more trees than before when all is told, almost half a billion people have been extracted from poverty to the middle class in China in a mere few decades, there is a *lot* to be optimistic about, but the only young people I've seen with a positive view of the future are, wait for it... the steampunk advocates.
I miss that spirit, the exploratory, adventurous zeitgeist that characterized people attitudes to Science, Technology, Markets and Government in the previous centuries. Seems to me we've become jaded and misanthropic without justification. Anyway, this too will pass.
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I'm merely pointing out that the tyrannical legalist bastards (who have the guns and write the licenses to kill people without punishment) have a plethora of ways to bring their violence down on someone's head. If I were a seller even selling something completely legal I would never use my return address.
Guilty by association gets people killed by governments every year since we were stupid enough to bow our rights to them.
Too right. It is simply extraordinary how many people have been collateral damage in America's various misadventures. I'm not anti-America in any way. I support Free Markets, Democracy and classical Western ideals that go all the way back to the Greeks. I think America increasingly doesn't, that's the problem.
I just think it's a pity a large portion of American society apparently rejects their heritage. It's not a party political thing. There seems to be a considerable amount of latent decay in American's character. For all the battles in Congress, the parties fundamentally agreed on the basics of America. That no longer seems to be the case, I've never seen the parties so entrenched in their positions before, and believe me, that is saying something. Decay is normal in society, but usually it is replenished by fresh and original thinking. I don't see much of that around here.
Economy literally looks like a re-run of Keynesian doctrine from 80 years ago. The Occupy protesters haven't the foggiest idea that far from being rebels, they are enthusiastically supporting the entrenchment of the State. The Venus Project is thinly veiled communism when you get right down to the economics of it. There are so many WTF moments with them it's unreal.
They all want solutions, but they are falling back on old, tired solutions that didn't work in the past.
My real worry is that 20 - 30 year old people today have no real hope for the future. The economists tell them they are fucked, with a fair amount of justification. The Fortune 500 seems to be entirely composed of patent trolls, or maybe ghouls. The scientists tell them what is effectively a doomsday prophesy called Global Warming. There doesn't appear to be any positive messages about the future from the scientific community.
That pisses me off, because I know science and I know most people are dead fucking wrong about many aspects of reality. People are living longer, new materials/tech are being invented, the ozone layer is back, the world is not being deforested and is in fact growing more trees than before when all is told, almost half a billion people have been extracted from poverty to the middle class in China in a mere few decades, there is a *lot* to be optimistic about, but the only young people I've seen with a positive view of the future are, wait for it... the steampunk advocates.
I miss that spirit, the exploratory, adventurous zeitgeist that characterized people attitudes to Science, Technology, Markets and Government in the previous centuries. Seems to me we've become jaded and misanthropic without justification. Anyway, this too will pass.
I agree with a lot of what you have said, but I'm a hardline NAP advocate so I would be grudgingly placated with minarchism at the most lol.
All of these core issues stem from a monopoly on violence. Economic distortion, funding of science through state-extracted resources (who do you think gets more funding: the guy who says "no, everything is pretty well cool", or the guy that says "our benevolent overlords need to take drastic action to save us!"), the erosion of culture via this devolving towards a socialistic ideal of 'normalcy' that everyone is supposedly born to be destined to live out (again, 'equalization', 'redistribution'), permanent and perpetual classes of people created by state programs like welfare and disability, etc.
The key is the money. As soon as a monopoly on money is established it's game over. The US has had a de facto WORLD monopoly on money since 1933 at the latest. It is mathematically impossible for the promises the government has made to ever be kept, and thank GOD the jig is almost up for them. Once they have devoured themselves that will free up the rest of society to do what it does best when left to it - push mankind onward and upward!
I agree there are amazing things in the works right now. I'm extremely optimistic for those people who have fought tooth and nail against the Monster to create things that will forever change the path of the entire human race. They deserve the rewards that will come their way.
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okay fair enough.
But couldn't you still get "aiding and abetting" for knowingly funding the administration and operation, via sales commissions, of what would be defined under RICO as an organized crime syndicate?
The buyer is the one that pays the commissions.
Not that that'd stop them if they're determined. But if that were the case, neither would putting a fake return address.
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orders: 5
received: 5
good o'l U. S. of A.
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Australia, 4 received as expected, 2 domestic 2 international.
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1. 11
2. 10
3. Ireland
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Update:
DSR: 97.22%
842 out of 866 packages received.
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Ordered: 2
Received: 2
I have two on order right now but since I have yet to know if they will get here they are no factor. Both orders were US-US.
Loving this thread by the way, comforting to know that we've pretty much got a guarantee of getting something as long as it gets sent properly, thanks pine.
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Member for 4 or 5 months now and have accumulated **looks embarassed** 17 purchases, all received in the USA, from Netherlands, Germany, Spain, U.S., and Canada. I'm gonna make another purchase from the Netherlands but am not ordering anything I can't bear to have seized by U.S. customs.
1. 17 sent
2. 17 arrived.
3. Eastern U.S.
I always order some books and paper materials or trinkets from ebay and amazon (guitar strings, drug paraphernalia, etc.) just after my SR orders ship. I get some model airplane stuff from Hong Kong so packages with foreign languages on them don't surprise the mail carrier. I also subscribe to a lot of (free) trade journals so the carrier has a lot of stuff to sort through.
If some LE agency has enough manpower to start a file based on this info just to keep me from smoking cannabis products, then my tax dollars are being wasted even worse than I thought.
I registered different user names on SR and the forums in case security was lax on the forums and they got hacked. So far, this hasn't caused any problems as a buyer and I don't anticipate becoming a seller.
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Update:
DSR: 97.28%
861 out of 885 packages arrived safely
Come on fellows! We're almost at 1000 packages! A nice round number! :)
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Personally I believe the delivery rate should be increased by 1-2%. Scammers who say their packages have not arrived must be accounted for. We know they exist, we know they're frequent, and often there's no way of telling if they are lying or not. We can consider the scammers, the margin of error, in our whole percentage.
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an update,
I just had another package arrive, NL to North America
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Personally I believe the delivery rate should be increased by 1-2%. Scammers who say their packages have not arrived must be accounted for. We know they exist, we know they're frequent, and often there's no way of telling if they are lying or not. We can consider the scammers, the margin of error, in our whole percentage.
There are basically four options for the Delivery Failure Rate (100 - DSR):
1. Interception.
2. Scammer Buyers pretending they didn't receive package.
3. Lost mail (more likely than regular post due to Buyers goofing around with the address and name).
4. Packages arriving late, such that the buyer reasonably could say the package didn't arrive and has no incentive to update feedback status. Similar to (2), but unintentional.
The only way I can think of to reasonably separate those options from each other is to put electronic tracking devices with G.P.S capability. We also need a electronic device which detects the package being opened (yes, this is possible via photosensitive electronic devices) and sends us a timestamp to a busy open location online e.g. google groups/usenet etc
To prevent LEO using the new package profile, we'd need to send all packages simultaneously.
Now, all of that is possible, and would allow us to work out exactly how many packages per 1000 get intercepted.
The problem is a matter of funding, coordination and a significant level of technical expertise. Also the attention that such a sophisticated setup would attract. The keyword here is funding, we'd need ~200k to make that work. Product has to be real remember. Probably not worth it at this moment, until the interception rate results in losses above 400k a quarter. Right now it's simply more economical to lose the occasional package.
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I have ordered 6 and 6 have came. All from Europe to the UK.
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Update:
DSR: 97.30%
868 out of 892 packages.
108 packages to go folks! :D
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Ordered: 6
Received: 6 to the United States
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Pine, first let me commend you for your effort and for your professionalism. As an avid yet responsible drug user for all of my adult life, I have come to appreciate the difference between business people who sell the commodity of drugs and the idiots who merely sling shit to make a buck, scamming at every opportunity because they are too ignorant to employ proven business models.
Silk Road makes it easy to spot the difference.
5 packages ordered.
3 were US to US
1 was CA to US
1 was France to US
All were received without incident.
I agree with others that a large percentage of unsuccessful transactions are due to hanky panky on the part of the buyer, or an oversight on the part of the vendor... These packages are each nothing more than one out hundreds of millions of pieces of mail handled daily.
Think about these numbers for a moment. If they've already been posted, I apologize, but according to the USPS:
203 billion - total number of mail pieces processed in 2008.
That breaks down to:
3.9 billion - average number of mail pieces processed per week in the same year.
556 million - average number of mail pieces processed per day in the same year
That's 23,173,515 pieces of mail per hour. Assuming the post office works 24/7, which it does not.
Even acknowledging that the post office has seen a decline in mail volume over the past few years... Well, I'll take those odds.
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^ This is why you should ALWAYS ship USPS when you can. This is a numbers game, and the numbers are on your side.
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Thanks cacoethes and everybody who contribute to the thread thus far!
Update:
DSR: 97.34%
879 out of 903 packages
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This should make it quite a bit harder for bad sellers to pull ye olde "well youngen yer know how many of them letters get nabbed"-routine haha....
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I'm in the UK (surprise surprise), here are my stats:
Sent: 12
Arrived: 6/6 from Holland (sellers Planta and Dutchshop)
4/5 from UK
1/1 from Finland
So the only one that didn't arrive was an internal UK to UK package, strange!
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Im in UK and have recieved 22/22 orders
1 from mexico
3 from spain
3 from uk
3 from germany
12 from holland
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Would be a good idea to put the current title in the first post, makes it easy to check for updates
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Welcome new data!
Thanks FiveSeven, that's a good idea, I'll put it in the header/first post.
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Update:
DSR: 97.33%
912 out of 937 packages
--------------------------------------
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Im in the US,
57 for 57, 3 from Canada, one UK, all of the rest US to US.
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Update:
Thank-you twon, we approach conclusion.
DSR: 97.4849094567
969 out of 994 packages successfully delivered.
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Ok I've have had 13 orders
1 from asia
1 from EU
3 from Canada
Rest from US.
All have been received :)
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That is an excellent percentage, definitely worth the risk of not receiving a package for cheaper prices :)
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This thread is a surprise. Now I don't know how solid overall this sample size is as control group for the total number of items shipped, but seriously, over 97%...WOW.
I would have thought just inefficiencies in the international mail system by themselves would cause a lesser rate than that. Let alone popped shipments due to badly masked nature of the mailpiece etc.
I think this may alleviate some of my paranoid tendencies :)
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Thanks to everybody who participated in our survey.
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Final Update:
DSR: 97.5173783515%
Results: 982 out of 1007 packages arrived without incident.
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If you prefer rounded down numbers for ease of remembering them:
DSR: 97.50%
975 out of 1000 packages.
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Comment:
The vast majority of packages had the USA as a destination from at least 12 different countries. The Silk Road is pretty cosmopolitan, as befits the global capitalist enterprise that it is becoming. It's very similar to the beginning of Facebook, Ebay and Amazon, where they started in the States and then quickly spread to Europe and then the World.
No matter how well known the Silk Road becomes, we should not forget this is a war. Because that is how the DEA views you, as enemy combatants. They are savage to those who attempt to pacify them. They are out of control and regularly break their own rules, especially by venturing into extralegal semantics of the sort that brought us that weal on the face of America, Guantanamo Bay. If you know their South American tactics, then you are already aware of their innate capacity for violence. This stopped being about justice a long long time ago, it is only about control in the way a union is a parasite on the jugular of a corporation.
I'm sure you've heard of the "long arm of the law". Well, they are about to hear about the invisible hand of the market because we're going to throttle them without shedding a drop of blood. And if they turn this cold war hot, then they'll quickly find out that not every libertarian is advocate of the non-aggression principal and they are completely outnumbered.
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That's pretty impressive, I would have never expected such a high percentage. I wouldn't be surprised if that's a better rate than even legal sites like ebay.
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The only problem I see is that all the domestic orders which are usually close to 100% are going to skew the international numbers. If you really wanted to get in depth you could do Country A to Country B, Country A to Country C and so forth etc but that would be a huge amount of effort so probably not worth bothering.
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No thank you...
I have no interest in helping anyone charting the flow of illegal goods.
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This stopped being about justice a long long time ago, it is only about control in the way a union is a parasite on the jugular of a corporation.
I'm sure you've heard of the "long arm of the law". Well, they are about to hear about the invisible hand of the market because we're going to throttle them without shedding a drop of blood. And if they turn this cold war hot, then they'll quickly find out that not every libertarian is advocate of the non-aggression principal and they are completely outnumbered.
I hope you wrote that backwards by mistake. Otherwise, really? Union bashing? Not cool at all Pine. They may not be perfect - and there has certainly been corruption at the top - but the unions have been the only ones that work for a decent living wage and safe working conditions that sets standards for most other workers. Why do you think the powers that be are working so hard to destroy them all over this country? It's the non-tax paying corporations that are the parasites in this country. And also, what, you're going to go and arm yourself against the aggression of the Feds? They may be outnumbered but good luck in getting any kind of violent opposition organized in this country.
Sorry for sidetracking this thread.
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Oh, and in case anybody was concerned that anarcho47's 443 packages are throwing out the average, that is not the case at all.
If you compute the average without anarcho47's contributed data, you get 97.32%, i.e. it is a relatively stable average.
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This stopped being about justice a long long time ago, it is only about control in the way a union is a parasite on the jugular of a corporation.
I'm sure you've heard of the "long arm of the law". Well, they are about to hear about the invisible hand of the market because we're going to throttle them without shedding a drop of blood. And if they turn this cold war hot, then they'll quickly find out that not every libertarian is advocate of the non-aggression principal and they are completely outnumbered.
I hope you wrote that backwards by mistake. Otherwise, really? Union bashing? Not cool at all Pine. They may not be perfect - and there has certainly been corruption at the top - but the unions have been the only ones that work for a decent living wage and safe working conditions that sets standards for most other workers. Why do you think the powers that be are working so hard to destroy them all over this country? It's the non-tax paying corporations that are the parasites in this country. And also, what, you're going to go and arm yourself against the aggression of the Feds? They may be outnumbered but good luck in getting any kind of violent opposition organized in this country.
Sorry for sidetracking this thread.
That's what unions used to be about. Now they're mostly about corruption, promotion of laziness, and acting as a massive liberal voting bloc. Unions have outlived their usefulness and need to be put down. As for arming oneself against the feds, we have the second amendment for a reason.
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Maybe we should do a inside the states stats. If packages that are sent from the states to the states, that the stats should be close to 100 percent of not 100 percent. I think most of the packages that dont make it are either stolen by the postman or the buyer is not telling the truth about receiving the product. I have found that my receipt rate is about 99 percent (most are state to state) and I have a feeling the ones that don't make it is like i said, sticky fingers or flat out lie... But, still, I'd take 99 percent of delivery rate any day. Especially knowing what is being sent...
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Great survey thanks for crunching the numbers but you may want to re-think this:
... a union is a parasite on the jugular of a corporation.
Do you really want to go back to the days of child labor and seven day work weeks?
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^ You need to study some history, man.....
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Re: Rocketdog and TalkingHead on Unions.
Unions, have contributed not one thing, not a single iota, not a solitary modicum of improvement to the human condition and the worker's salaries.
Unions, are a mirage. They are much like politicians taking the credit for improvements they had nothing to do with.
Survey after survey, economic analysis after economic analysis shows that they don't contribute *anything* to anybody.
Not even serious economists on the left believe Unions contribute to society. When you work out how wealth is actually generated in society, you'll understand why. It is really basic Econ 101. The level of wages raises when the division of labor expands. A bunch of people bitching, doesn't have an iota of impact on the economy. The economy is driven by actions, not words.
The function of unions is about as mythological as fire breathing dragons. They are a pernicious lie. The scientific evidence for this is simply overwhelming.
Read the book: Economics In One Lesson, if you're interested in understanding why unions exist.
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Maybe we should do a inside the states stats. If packages that are sent from the states to the states, that the stats should be close to 100 percent of not 100 percent. I think most of the packages that dont make it are either stolen by the postman or the buyer is not telling the truth about receiving the product. I have found that my receipt rate is about 99 percent (most are state to state) and I have a feeling the ones that don't make it is like i said, sticky fingers or flat out lie... But, still, I'd take 99 percent of delivery rate any day. Especially knowing what is being sent...
Hey chronicpain! Could we get this thread stickied onto the Shipping Forum? I'm sure it would help new buyers :)
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Yeah Hazlitt. Ayn Rand. Unregulated free markets. Pay and treat workers however you like, profits before people. Employers firing workers by the millions so now everyone is afraid to assert themselves because the next poor shlub who is even more desperate will be very happy to take that job. But hey, survival of the fittest, no government oversight. It's all good, right? You conservatives and libertarians need to take a look around you and see the human cost of these ideas.
Wow, the attitude towards unions is rather astounding, and I am not saying that unions aren't deeply flawed in some ways. But basic wage standards, job safety, child labor laws, collective bargaining agreements and so much more would not exist if it wasn't for working people fighting and dying (oh wait, "bitching") for their basic rights against corporations whose only goal is to maximize their profits at whatever cost. Again, why do you think so many people are doing their best to destroy them?
"Not even serious economists on the left believe Unions contribute to society."
Oh really? Paul Krugman, NY Times, Dec. 24, 2007:
"Once upon a time, back when America had a strong middle class, it also had a strong union movement.
These two facts were connected. Unions negotiated good wages and benefits for their workers, gains that often ended up being matched even by nonunion employers. They also provided an important counterbalance to the political influence of corporations and the economic elite.
Today, however, the American union movement is a shadow of its former self, except among government workers. In 1973, almost a quarter of private-sector employees were union members, but last year the figure was down to a mere 7.4 percent.
It’s often assumed that the U.S. labor movement died a natural death, that it was made obsolete by globalization and technological change. But what really happened is that beginning in the 1970s, corporate America, which had previously had a largely cooperative relationship with unions, in effect declared war on organized labor.
Don’t take my word for it; read Business Week, which published an article in 2002 titled “How Wal-Mart Keeps Unions at Bay.” The article explained that “over the past two decades, Corporate America has perfected its ability to fend off labor groups.” It then described the tactics — some legal, some illegal, all involving a healthy dose of intimidation — that Wal-Mart and other giant firms use to block organizing drives.
These hardball tactics have been enabled by a political environment that has been deeply hostile to organized labor, both because politicians favored employers’ interests and because conservatives sought to weaken the Democratic Party. “We’re going to crush labor as a political entity,” Grover Norquist, the anti-tax activist, once declared."
And it's only gotten worse. Look, I'm just a worker bee but I know for a fact that if my colleagues and I weren't organized, the corporations we work for would basically be able to dictate whatever they wanted in terms of work hours in a day, meal breaks and so much more. But hey, if I don't like the little dribbles that they deign to hand down to me in their infinite corporate wisdom and generosity I can just get any other job I want, right?
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All unions do is exclusively inflate their member's wages at the cost of increasing unemployment. It's very simple.
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Yeah Hazlitt. Ayn Rand. Unregulated free markets. Pay and treat workers however you like, profits before people. Employers firing workers by the millions so now everyone is afraid to assert themselves because the next poor shlub who is even more desperate will be very happy to take that job. But hey, survival of the fittest, no government oversight. It's all good, right? You conservatives and libertarians need to take a look around you and see the human cost of these ideas.
Quit throwing around jaded cliques like "profits before people" and pick up an economics textbook and study it carefully. Deadly serious. I don't remember advocating completely unregulated free markets recently, I'm not an anarchist. I simply happen to agree with anarcho47 most of the time because from reading his historical posts it is clear that he's actually gone and read the literature and history of economy. So go attack a strawman if you want to, because you must really be talking to somebody else entirely.
Economics by Paul Samuelson for example. Millions of economists have studied that book. He's not exactly Ayn Rand. This is not an argument because there isn't really two sides to this. There are just some things are just scientifically shown to be true and others are not. When you've read it, then we can have some frame of reference instead of these vaguely general accusations.
Honestly, the kind of mistakes people make in these discussions are not esoteric aspects of economics open to debate, but things which have been established as being true time and time again for literally centuries.
"Not even serious economists on the left believe Unions contribute to society."
Oh really? Paul Krugman, NY Times, Dec. 24, 2007:
blahblahblahblah
Krugman's political op-ed pieces in the New York Times are not taken seriously by anybody in the community of economists, whether they are left or right wing. He's a populist, so that is the explanation for that. An example of this would be that he was loudly advocating the generation of a housing bubble in the early part of the last decade around the dot com era. So, his track record on political economy, is ah, somewhat sketchy to say the least.
His actual economics, if you study them, are probably not at all what you imagine them to be.
A quote from the Bible is appropriate for what Krugman is. I don't actually believe in God or the Bible one little bit, but it has some insightful observations on a few rare occasions about life and the kind of people you will meet.
2 Timothy 4:3
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear
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All unions do is exclusively inflate their member's wages at the cost of increasing unemployment. It's very simple.
Ditto. An extremely tenuous oasis of happiness in a ocean of despair. If you truly care about equality, you shouldn't support unions at all. Ah, the irony.
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If inflate their member's wages you mean fight for a basic living wage against all corporate desires then I agree with you. Yes, when people get paid more, companies pass along the higher costs which winds up costing everyone. I get that idea. But does that mean that workers should just accept whatever is offered? I guess maybe I feel that profits shouldn't be the be all consuming goal that they seem to be. And yes "profits before people" is a cliche, but for a reason. But I guess it's better to overpay corporate CEOs rather than have a more equitable pay structure that shares all of labor's efforts.
Look, the quote from Timothy could apply to both of us, I guess. To dismiss all of my arguments by claiming some kind of scientific basis for your beliefs is spurious at best since, when it comes to economic theories, everyone has theirs - it's not really a hard science now, is it? I also believe that the truth/best course, etc. usually lies somewhere between the poles.
You guys all make some good points but I still believe the end result of following many of those ideas unreservedly (not saying that's what you guys are doing) can be a whole lot of human suffering.
Anyway, I love that we can have this kind of discussion in this wonderful SR community. And sorry for hijacking this thread.
So Pine, how are those statistics coming? When I get to my mailbox today, hopefully I'll be 14 for 14, all domestic US.
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All unions do is exclusively inflate their member's wages at the cost of increasing unemployment. It's very simple.
Ditto. An extremely tenuous oasis of happiness in a ocean of despair. If you truly care about equality, you shouldn't support unions at all. Ah, the irony.
Yep, nicely put.
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TalkingHead, what do you think actually determines your salary?
-- Slightly different topic --
P.S. On the CEO compensation issue, I'm in complete agreement it's outrageous. It's an obvious problem, and a small one in the grand scheme of things, but nonetheless it's still a problem.
You know why it occurred? It wasn't always this way, as I'm sure Krugman will tell you in some op-ed. Used to be that the maximum salary of a CEO in America was about 25 to 50x the salary of the lowest paid employee. Today it is 250x that.
The reason though, is interesting. It's because of the principal agent problem in economics. Mis-directed self interest. Basically the people who own companies publicly and privately are shareholders, and they are what has changed.
Previously, the majority of shareholders at the start of the 20th century were individuals like you and I. Today, the majority of shareholders are institutions like pension funds, sovereign wealth funds etc.
Now, they almost never exercise their voting rights to force down CEO pay. This is partly because they know the CEOs personally and they will get 'deals' in which the CEO sells out his or her own company if they STFU. Other times it is simply because of paperwork, there is simply too much of it to control all those companies directly and vote on everything. Too much to read! Some funds have tens of thousands of constituents, they can't know them all.
So, essentially a lack of shareholder activism, a lack of individual shareholders is what has caused the problem. They can vote with their feet, but there are too few of them in the stock market for them to be noticed.
If most investors were fundamental investors, or value investors, this problem wouldn't exist. Eventually it'll work itself out, it's doing that at the moment in fact. More institutional funds are taking more responsibility, trying to setup automatic voting networks etc. But it'll take a while for the system to adjust, perhaps a decade or two. True improvement in economies moves slowly, at a sure but snail like pace.
On the other hand, large institutional funds are often reliable sources of capital for corporations that would be difficult to rally from millions of investors. So there's an upside and a downside.
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Okay, so, unions, totally derailed thread, but my 2 cents nevertheless.
If there is one thing human history has shown, it is that no adherence to "absolute" ideologies/powers/mantras has ever worked out for long. Call it yin yang or whatever you want, one of the basic formulas for overall "human advancement" is the balance of somewhat opposing powers. In this case, corporations vs. unions.
The idea that if you simply stopped all regulation on business entities would automagically create some mystic free market equilibrium to the benefit of everyone is flat out ridiculous.
Tell me again, before the unions, what was the country again where the national guard had to protect workers from corporate goons with clubs and tire irons?
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Human beings are self-interested and that is a constant. You can play around at the edges but that's how it works, and it is not a bad thing.
The idea is that consumers, who are able to withhold their claim to resources (money) and force bankruptcy and ruin on businesses who do bad things, are a more powerful force (when coupled with actual property rights for the individual) than a small group of men and women who have the license to enforce mandates with a monopoly on violence. You wonder why it is that corporations write the regulations and game the system to benefit their business. It's simple - it's more cost effective to be self-interested and pay off a group of 100 or 200 people (who can shut down your competitors and write the mandates so that they favor you) than it is to have to slave and bleed to serve your customers so that they don't choose someone else of their own volition.
All REAL economics, as a science, recognize humanity for what it is. Believing that some group of people with guns and mandates are going to make the world this beautiful place is a fantasy that shouldn't exist in a human mind beyond the age of ten..... It isn't corporations and greedy businessmen who committed the 100 million or so murders/genocides of the 20th century..... You need to understand who your enemy is, and it's not greed. It's violence. And corporations can only be violent if they have a government to be violent for them.
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Okay, so, unions, totally derailed thread, but my 2 cents nevertheless.
If there is one thing human history has shown, it is that no adherence to "absolute" ideologies/powers/mantras has ever worked out for long. Call it yin yang or whatever you want, one of the basic formulas for overall "human advancement" is the balance of somewhat opposing powers. In this case, corporations vs. unions.
Yes and No. 'Balances of power' exist in some kind of sine or cosine wave over, sure. But it's not corporations vs unions. Unions are completely superfluous to the economic situation, so they cannot be a component of anything. It's about capitalism (generating wealth) vs socialism (distribution of wealth). Not unions. Unions are completely ineffective at both. They exist today, in the same capacity as organized religion.
The idea that if you simply stopped all regulation on business entities would automagically create some mystic free market equilibrium to the benefit of everyone is flat out ridiculous.
Sort of. You're correct that there isn't 1 system to rule them all. But it's really about 'levels'. Larger economies generate more complex superstructures in a kind of feedback loop over time in the spheres of government and markets. Like when we were hunter/gatherers, we didn't exactly need a government, because there was no centralization of anything. But when you develop private property rights, you require central monopolies on power to protect them, and that's why governments came into existence. Since 400 years ago. Before then, there were no governments. You can laugh, but it is true. The concept of a nation state is an entirely new concept on the world scene. Previously you had a bunch of guys with big knifes that took most of your stuff, to protect you from a smaller bunch of guys with big knifes that would take all your staff. i.e. feudalism.
A western government would be completely retarded to have in Central Africa. They don't have the markets to support such an entity. You truly have no idea how small the African economy is. It's pathetic.
Tell me again, before the unions, what was the country again where the national guard had to protect workers from corporate goons with clubs and tire irons?
No idea. Pray do tell. Do you realize that workers are free to work elsewhere in a capitalist economy? It's a critical component of your rights as a citizen, otherwise it's fascism.
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You need to understand who your enemy is, and it's not greed. It's violence. And corporations can only be violent if they have a government to be violent for them.
Right, it's part of the contract capitalists made with the government centuries ago. You protect property and we make money.
Any crossover, whether it's capitalists in government or government inside corporations, is a bad thing. They should be discrete as much as humanly possible.
Otherwise it's like the Chinese say, not enough water, not enough fire. System comes to a standstill.
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I would argue more for the case that the invention of the individual gun was what ushered in the end of the feudal era more so than the development of markets. The ability for an individual to protect his property against multiple assailants with one affordable tool has never before existed in history.
Government does not function under market principles, ever. They feed off of the market using violent coercion. The only argument I can make for a state is a couple of tiny roles that would encompass the entirety of a country universally, like border defense. Even courts and arbitration could be "opt-in/opt-out" if both sides of a dispute agree to use alternatives (as is often the case with private business disputes, since the effectiveness, efficiency, and "justice" of public courts has been demonstrated to fail all litmus tests a great majority of the time). Monopolization of anything is ineffective and requires a violent backdrop. It is counter to improving economic conditions, in all instances. Therefore, it makes no sense to possibly argue FOR such an institution in any but the most "necessary evil" sort of context, which would be minarchist at MOST.
This individual arguing for unions needs to do some studying of wage history in the US and child labor, like what happened to wages before unions were given the weight of government violence and entrepreneurs started becoming the most politically demonized "class" of citizen (as it is today), or how many "child laborers" were actually effected by the enacted legislation against it (i.e. how much of the child labor issue the private market had already dealt with LONG before the demigods with guns decided to pass laws for political gain).
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I would argue more for the case that the invention of the individual gun was what ushered in the end of the feudal era more so than the development of markets. The ability for an individual to protect his property against multiple assailants with one affordable tool has never before existed in history.
Government does not function under market principles, ever. They feed off of the market using violent coercion. The only argument I can make for a state is a couple of tiny roles that would encompass the entirety of a country universally, like border defense. Even courts and arbitration could be "opt-in/opt-out" if both sides of a dispute agree to use alternatives (as is often the case with private business disputes, since the effectiveness, efficiency, and "justice" of public courts has been demonstrated to fail all litmus tests a great majority of the time). Monopolization of anything is ineffective and requires a violent backdrop. It is counter to improving economic conditions, in all instances. Therefore, it makes no sense to possibly argue FOR such an institution in any but the most "necessary evil" sort of context, which would be minarchist at MOST.
This individual arguing for unions needs to do some studying of wage history in the US and child labor, like what happened to wages before unions were given the weight of government violence and entrepreneurs started becoming the most politically demonized "class" of citizen (as it is today), or how many "child laborers" were actually effected by the enacted legislation against it (i.e. how much of the child labor issue the private market had already dealt with LONG before the demigods with guns decided to pass laws for political gain).
Something I am curious about. Do corporations exist in this view of the world anarcho?
This question is prompted by the essay "The Nature of the Firm" by Ronald Coase, in which it successfully argues that corporations and governments are essentially communist entities.
Now, I'm sure most people reading that would be thinking "whatisthisshit.jpg". But actually it's a profoundly important question, why do corporations exist?
After reading it, I came to the conclusion that Capitalism is not about corporations at all. They are like little islands in the pacific, surrounded by a vast body of water that is the market. The market is the transaction between corporations and individuals, but it is not the individuals or the corporations themselves. Bizarre though that may sound, it explains a whole lot of other things.
So, you see, I came to the conclusion that in a real anarchy-capitalist world, there would be no corporations, just individuals working on the basis of contracts collecting together momentarily and scattering after work was completed.
If you think about it, it could be that we're gradually heading into this direction in the far distant future. You would have a central state perhaps, but the concept of corporation would be vastly more fluid than it is today. Think of Amazon's Mechanical Turk Machine, and you understand the direction I'm coming from.
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Update:
2 more successful international deliveries.
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I would argue more for the case that the invention of the individual gun was what ushered in the end of the feudal era more so than the development of markets. The ability for an individual to protect his property against multiple assailants with one affordable tool has never before existed in history.
Government does not function under market principles, ever. They feed off of the market using violent coercion. The only argument I can make for a state is a couple of tiny roles that would encompass the entirety of a country universally, like border defense. Even courts and arbitration could be "opt-in/opt-out" if both sides of a dispute agree to use alternatives (as is often the case with private business disputes, since the effectiveness, efficiency, and "justice" of public courts has been demonstrated to fail all litmus tests a great majority of the time). Monopolization of anything is ineffective and requires a violent backdrop. It is counter to improving economic conditions, in all instances. Therefore, it makes no sense to possibly argue FOR such an institution in any but the most "necessary evil" sort of context, which would be minarchist at MOST.
This individual arguing for unions needs to do some studying of wage history in the US and child labor, like what happened to wages before unions were given the weight of government violence and entrepreneurs started becoming the most politically demonized "class" of citizen (as it is today), or how many "child laborers" were actually effected by the enacted legislation against it (i.e. how much of the child labor issue the private market had already dealt with LONG before the demigods with guns decided to pass laws for political gain).
Something I am curious about. Do corporations exist in this view of the world anarcho?
This question is prompted by the essay "The Nature of the Firm" by Ronald Coase, in which it successfully argues that corporations and governments are essentially communist entities.
Now, I'm sure most people reading that would be thinking "whatisthisshit.jpg". But actually it's a profoundly important question, why do corporations exist?
After reading it, I came to the conclusion that Capitalism is not about corporations at all. They are like little islands in the pacific, surrounded by a vast body of water that is the market. The market is the transaction between corporations and individuals, but it is not the individuals or the corporations themselves. Bizarre though that may sound, it explains a whole lot of other things.
So, you see, I came to the conclusion that in a real anarchy-capitalist world, there would be no corporations, just individuals working on the basis of contracts collecting together momentarily and scattering after work was completed.
If you think about it, it could be that we're gradually heading into this direction in the far distant future. You would have a central state perhaps, but the concept of corporation would be vastly more fluid than it is today. Think of Amazon's Mechanical Turk Machine, and you understand the direction I'm coming from.
I think the main function of a corporation serves to disassociate ownership from liability. It is an artificial legal construct, given its own supposed rights, and treated under the eyes of the state as if it were a living breathing human.
Many of the FUNCTIONS of a corporation could and would be taken care of with basic contracts. Communism is a state-enforced ideology, voluntary association is not. This is why I have no problem with co-operatives making products and "socializing" the profits - they are voluntary associations and therefore a valid part of the market. That being said, name me one single thing a co-operative ever invented, something that wasn't created by an individual risking what they had on an idea and a prayer and a set of balls.
There is a sort of "middle ground" in there where members (i.e. owners) of a business that decided to publicly auction itself off would voluntarily agree to take tiny slices of liability (or not, because that would discount the share prices against a competitor who, everything else being equal, opted to leave that liability on management and majority owners). You are right about the landscape changing, and I think in many ways it's for the better, and driven by the massive expansion of the division of labor that the internet has accommodated. It's do or die now, and we'll see more Kodak's and IBM's not too far down the pipe.
I advocate for the private handling of all matters of society, whenever it's feasible. I believe if there is a genuine need, there is an entrepreneur waiting to fill it. And when profit margins are high because you are the first one in to the game, that attracts competition like blood does sharks. it's the way of things. If you look at all of the mature industries margins are low and getting lower (fiat currency has play on this, but that's a whole other issue), while emerging businesses have five times the ROE and five times the net margin. Dinosaurs are going to die (publishers, existing entertainment models, for example), freeing up billions in resources for determined people to take and use to serve their fellow man. It's an extraordinary time, and the sooner we get the collapse of nation-states out of the way (in western countries, about 80% of them are mathematically unsustainable, so it's now a "time" game), the better off we as a species will become.
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100% Success on 11 transactions so far. Upping quantities- will update.
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1. No. of packages sent to you.
2. No. of packages that arrived.
3. Your (rough) geographical location e.g. UK, USA
1 - 24/26
1 24
3 UK
i say 24/26 because two orders are in transit.
only 3 of my packages have been international orders.
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1/ 13 orders
2/ 10 received (2 known scams but got refunded and 1 probable scam)
3/ EU to EU and US to EU
++
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1. 20 packages
2. 20 received
3. UK
I've been really lucky so far *knock on wood*
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1.) 26 sent
2.) 24 received
3.) Germany
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Haha, wow, you guys keep going like the energizer bunny, this thread was ages ago.
Ok, I'll keep tabs on the numbers if people keep submitting them, I'll add Ahoyhoy's thread data as well too boost the numbers.
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I'm glad this thread got bumped. It has some interesting stats that I'm glad to see coming directly from the users.
Cheers
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1. 30 sent
2. 28 received
3. USA
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1. 7 sent
2. 6 received
3. USA
i dont get it isnt 6/7 85%? giving me only a 15% refund rate? ... my purchasing stats say like 27% refund rate, even though i only got 1 refund of 75%....weird that one refund really f'd me in the a
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1. 2 sent
2. 2 received
3. Spain > USA
Domestic 8/8
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28 Orders
25 received
To U.K and I order from mostly U.K, Holland and Germany. :)
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1. 27 Orders sent
2. 26 Orders received
3. From many countries to the US
I'm not sure why the one order didn't arrive--I've had success with that vendor before that order, and since that order as well...just a fluke I guess. I should also note that the destination address was a PO Box for all orders. My physical address does not have a secure mailbox. Mail for multiple units is put on a table, grouped by unit. So I get all of my mail (SR and other legitimate mail) sent to my PO box for this reason.
1. 7 sent
2. 6 received
3. USA
i dont get it isnt 6/7 85%? giving me only a 15% refund rate? ... my purchasing stats say like 27% refund rate, even though i only got 1 refund of 75%....weird that one refund really f'd me in the a
TrainFour20, the refund rate and auto finalize rate are calculated using an algorithm that takes into account a few variables, of which "time since refund" is one. Thus, more recent refunds are given more weight than a refund that occurred many months ago. If you do not place any orders, and wait a month, you will see your refund rate start to drop on it's own. This is due to the time passing, so that the time since refund gets larger, and is therefore not given as much weight. If you do place orders in the mean time, and no refunds happen, then the refund rate will drop even further. Bottom line is don't worry too much about it. If you have been mostly successful, then the one refund shouldn't cause any issues with vendors cancelling your order. If you're worried, politely explain to the vendor why you got the refund. Most legitimate vendors are understanding when it comes to the refund-rate algorithm.
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So I'll put that there are probably 2-3 that I think were simply never shipped at all but there was one out of all of mine that took an unexpectedly long time to get here so perhaps 2 non recieved but again I don't believe those two were ever actually shipped
1. 61
2. 59
3. North East USA
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Thanks for the info Wazup7. I was quite confused. I figured after 22 days of no product, accepting 1 refund of 75% wouldn't effect much. Guess i was wrong lol.
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quite glad i ress'd this thread. proves a point that this network DPR has built WORKS!
and how glorious is it people!?!
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26 orders
25 recieved
UK
Half those orders are from all around the world and single one that didn't arrive wasn't even shipped because the vendor went on a scamming binge..
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65
62
all over the world to US
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1. 6
2. 6
3. Russia
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10 Ordered
9 Recieved (ofc the 1 was big order of yayo, got a refund.
USA
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--------------------------------------
Resurrection Update:
DSR: 96.484375%
Results: 1729 out of 1792 packages arrived without incident.
--------------------------------------
Comment:
This new figure includes data from Ahoyhoy's thread [http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=31164.0]. It is interesting to note that Ahoyhoy's respondents had at least twice as many bad packages as the respondents in this thread. This could be psychological due to the differing titles of our threads or due to the different timing of the polls. When there is some ambiguity in expressing a positive/negative figure, I interpret it negatively in order to make the estimate more conservative. The 63 'bad packages' are ones that have either been lost, had to be refunded, scams, customs interceptions, pretty much anything that isn't a straight forward successful delivery from A to B.
I know people are interested in this data at the resolution of specific countries, but if we're going to do that then you guys ideally need to make an alt forum a/c in order to post the specifics of your statistics. I mean we want the data, but we don't care about who it comes from specifically, let's not make this thread into a potential open source SR user geo-coord data mining effort for LEA. Generic statements about locations please, even behind an alt.
Anyway, the main result remains the same, the DSR remains very high despite a ~1% fall and many customers have never experienced a mishap. It is clear that some people are being more selective than others about their choice of vendors.
Finally: If you give your address to a vendor, ensure that it is PGP encrypted with the vendor's public key first. If they don't use PGP, tell them to go fuck themselves. If you are a customer and you are serious, you use PGP to encrypt your address. DPR gives you that advice. Pine gives you that advice. All the moderators and forum members of any sizable post count give you that advice. So maybe it's not an optional extra just because you don't see a tool for doing it on the main site (this is only because that isn't possible without compromising the point of using PGP). Learn how to do this at my other thread, it's the first link in my signature.
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Finally: If you give your address to a vendor, ensure that it is PGP encrypted with the vendor's public key first. If they don't use PGP, tell them to go fuck themselves. If you are a customer and you are serious, you use PGP to encrypt your address. DPR gives you that advice. Pine gives you that advice. All the moderators and forum members of any sizable post count give you that advice.
Apart from if you are the Alphabet Mafia, don't use PGP so we can send you nail bombs, coz yano, that shit's just fun times.
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This thread makes me laugh. Isn't this the exact question that that "CNN reporter" thread had asked, and everyone was like "I'll never tell. Screw you we don't want to be profiled. You are putting our security at risk. blah blah blah"
And now....here ya'll are.
LOL
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This thread makes me laugh. Isn't this the exact question that that "CNN reporter" thread had asked, and everyone was like "I'll never tell. Screw you we don't want to be profiled. You are putting our security at risk. blah blah blah"
And now....here ya'll are.
LOL
Well, if you do mention specific To: and From: countries, I recommend using an alt account to post that data. I will eventually compile all the data and produce some country specific results, albeit they are not something you should lean on too heavily given the much smaller sample size.
Ideally I'd like a table such as:
[Origin_Country_1] -> [Destination_Country_9]
Successful deliveries: X
Unsuccessful deliveries: Y
And then repeat the above for separate origin/destinations. Make clear what 'Domestic' means, because this is not exactly silkroad.com here, the number of international ex-USA SR users is not small, I'm not even certain the US nationality is the majority although it may be.
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The reason why this thread works is because the data are a genuine public good. It benefits toe-in-the-water SR customers hugely to know the DSR is this high, it destroys the border watch propaganda the Australian Customs and others propagate. It destroys the illusion of State omniscience, its supposed invincibility.
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The reason why this thread works is because the data are a genuine public good. It benefits toe-in-the-water SR customers hugely to know the DSR is this high, it destroys the border watch propaganda the Australian Customs and others propagate. It destroys the illusion of State omniscience, its supposed invincibility.
It also gives the "next CNN reporter" the exact thing no one wanted to tell them when they asked.
Different account? So If "I" created a 0 post forum account and told you. I am a vendor from X to Y and I have 246 transactions. Only 13 of them have ever been successful. You would just add that to your "stats"?
Everyone wants definitive rock solid answers to questions, but wants to remain anon. Seems any method of data collection can be EASILY skewed. Should we just assume that anyone that responds to this thread will be honest and offering an answer "for the greater good"
Or should we all "trust you" Pine and post our stats in this thread with a 0 post account and then PM you our SR handle so that you can cross reference?
Hey I got another idea. Lets make "kids" buy MDMA testing kits before any one vendor agrees to sell them MDMA....and then we will make a "code word" to send along with the kit, which will then be the buyers "key" to being able to purchase said MDMA...... oh wait..... my bad.
Anonymous Absurdity at its finest. Welcome to Silk Road.
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23
22
all orders were US to US or Canada to US except for the one that didn't make it through which was from the Netherlands (I took this as a sign from God that I shouldn't do E)
No.....that was the devil keeping e away from you! Fight the devil my child.....fight him!
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Sent: 44
Received: 44
100% successrate, in eu / ger
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This thread makes me laugh. Isn't this the exact question that that "CNN reporter" thread had asked, and everyone was like "I'll never tell. Screw you we don't want to be profiled. You are putting our security at risk. blah blah blah"
And now....here ya'll are.
LOL
If it was Erin Burnette I would give her something to report..................................................................................................>
00
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1. No. of packages sent to you. 24
2. No. of packages that arrived. 24
3. USA
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36 of 36
South East US.
Edit: All bud
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13/13 USA
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40
39
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1. 41
2. 41
3. Midwest, USA
100% I do a lot of reading on the vendor before I buy :).
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do one for AUS!
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We need to start a Club 100..
who has the record?
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Wow, I'm shipping from south Florida, been doing it for about 6 years, used to just do it from forums, and to friends in other states. This month alone I've made Ive shipped over 60+ shipments of pills, with average being 25 pills and never once had a package not show up... min being 1 pill max being 300 pills.
33 Express mail.
17 Priority Mail.
10+ First Class Mail
4 Fedex Priority
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1. 26 sent
2. 25 arrived (1 scammed from SeriuSam)
3. I buy from Germany, Holland e US. Only one from Canada, UK and Costa Rica. I live in IT
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seriously do one for AUS so we can help poke the sleeping bear that is the AFP/customs and help the selective scamming european vendors (not all of you)
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seriously do one for AUS so we can help poke the sleeping bear that is the AFP/customs and help the selective scamming european vendors (not all of you)
Dude, you're on a karma roll brah. What got you negged so much at first anyway? Weren't you like +11 and -27 at first?
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1. 34 purchases
2. 34 received
3. USA. I only buy from USA, Canada and UK.
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seriously do one for AUS so we can help poke the sleeping bear that is the AFP/customs and help the selective scamming european vendors (not all of you)
Dude, you're on a karma roll brah. What got you negged so much at first anyway? Weren't you like +11 and -27 at first?
I know aye i was -11 at one stage and my goal now is just to get even (watch the negs reign down now). Ive been on a rampage against general stupidity on the forums and its seemed to go up. Oh yeah and bagging out BossHogg in his thread seemed to get me abit of + , they even took my suggestion to ban him (not really it was a long time coming)
Maybe people just dont get the aussie sense of humour :(
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HERES ONE FOR AUS WITHOUT GIVING AWAY WHERE I HAVE BEEN SO SUCCESSFUL FROM...
ALL INT ORDERS...
21 ORDERS
WAITING ON 2 ATM SO 19
FROM THAT 19 CAN YOU GUESS HOW MANY HAS ARRIVED?
18 FROM THE 19 ORDERS HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL, 1 OF THOSE ORDERS I KNOW FOR SURE WAS A PETTY SCAM!!! SO TAKE THAT PETTY SCAM AND MAKE THAT 18/18 OR 100% RECEIVED, NO I AM NOT BULLSHITING!
I PUT IT DOWN TO 2 THINGS
1. ME BEING A SMART BUYER AND DOING PROPER RESEARCH ON VENDORS BEFORE I ORDER AND STAY WELL CLEAR OF ANY KIND OF SCAMMING OR MANY NON ARRIVALS..
2. AUS CUSTOMS IS NOT WHAT THE WORLD THINKS IT IS (TAKE NOTE SCAMMERS) BECAUSE I KNOW BETTER THAN YOU.... BLAMING MY CUSTOMS? MORE LIKE THE PACKAGE WAS NEVER SENT...
HOPE THIS HELPED FOR MY REGION
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HERES ONE FOR AUS WITHOUT GIVING AWAY WHERE I HAVE BEEN SO SUCCESSFUL FROM...
ALL INT ORDERS...
21 ORDERS
WAITING ON 2 ATM SO 19
FROM THAT 19 CAN YOU GUESS HOW MANY HAS ARRIVED?
18 FROM THE 19 ORDERS HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL, 1 OF THOSE ORDERS I KNOW FOR SURE WAS A PETTY SCAM!!! SO TAKE THAT PETTY SCAM AND MAKE THAT 18/18 OR 100% RECEIVED, NO I AM NOT BULLSHITING!
I PUT IT DOWN TO 2 THINGS
1. ME BEING A SMART BUYER AND DOING PROPER RESEARCH ON VENDORS BEFORE I ORDER AND STAY WELL CLEAR OF ANY KIND OF SCAMMING OR MANY NON ARRIVALS..
2. AUS CUSTOMS IS NOT WHAT THE WORLD THINKS IT IS (TAKE NOTE SCAMMERS) BECAUSE I KNOW BETTER THAN YOU.... BLAMING MY CUSTOMS? MORE LIKE THE PACKAGE WAS NEVER SENT...
HOPE THIS HELPED FOR MY REGION
NO NO NO bob havent you heard australian customs have superpowers. Thats why theres hardly any drugs in Australia and nobody in austrlaia takes drugs. havent you noticed there is only a couple (hundred) threads regarding Aus. Its because customs all of them. they do such a good job of protecting us from the evil of the outside world :-*
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1. 13 sent
2. 13 arrived
3. Live in US. Only order domestic.
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1. 11
2. 10 arrived, 1 didn't (an overseas order)
3. All to/from Northern Europe
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1.) 10 ordered
2.) 10 received
3.) Living in western USA, most shipped from Europe.
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So far around 10 shipped international and domestic
So far all 10 or so received
Southeast US
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I'm 8 for 8
All orders were domestic U.S., shipped to the west coast.
I currently have one overseas order in transit, so hopefully it makes me 9/9
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3 sent
2 arrived
central United States
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Can't agree more had the exact same plan myself, there is no reason not to do it through silkroad infrastructure as these statistics can be decoupled from sensitive information.
Now there is no way of telling what your performance is to difficult countries...
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Not a buyer but a vendor from EU.
I think what is important besides receiving the goods is the way the vendor (with so much experience)knows about the different locations the orders are shipped to.
Difficult countries???
I have all!! my Aussie orders arrived. Same as New Zealand and Asia
Lost one (of about 20 or so) in Scandinavia (most vendors will not ship to there).
But there was a time that many were lost in US.
Then a customer told me they lost so many letters/packages that it was just to absurd and they, the ''top'' did not take that anymore.
They installed camera's everywhere.
Well, do not know about that system but now for over a month all, about 90 (but 2)!!! arrived. Some even in 4 to 5 days EU/ South US or Canada.
I do not give my sellers name so it is not an advertisement for my goods. Just plain honest.
So the question is good of course, how many did or did not make it but when you have no clue why.....what's the use asking.
Again ...the outcome ''in general 80% makes it'' yes....and??
Better get warnings from the staff/SR admin to the vendors (if possible of course) like the Pangaes action from Interpol some time ago.
In 80 ! countries very very strict customs control for drugs in the mail. I think it was for a week or so.
If I had known I would have never shipped the orders that I did.
Everybody lost so many packages.
Anyway....just my 2 cents
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So far I've had a perfect success rate as far as receiving packages that were sent. I have two packages in transit right now though that might've gotten fucked (eh, happens sooner or later), I'll update when those are resolved.
1. 31
2. 31
3. Most from US to east US, 4 from Germany to east US, 2 from UK and 2 from Canada.
(Oh, I don't know if this has any bearing, but these aren't 31 different vendors, I often buy from the same vendor multiple times)
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1. 8
2. 8
all of them except one EU -> US
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8/8 UK
5/6 EU
1/1 Canada
That's my buyer stats :)
The missing package I actually think was stolen by the postman, I had a bout of letters go missing in like a two week period and as soon as I said to him:
"Loads of mails going missing, who can I complain to?"
It all seems to be arriving fine.
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1. 42
2. 41
3. USA
I should say that i have reason to strongly suspect that the package i never received was never actually sent. it was from a superstar vendor who was in the middle of a move when i ordered. he gave me a wicked discount for no reason other than i didn't have enough money so i FE'd. package never came so he reshipped 250% of my original order. he said he "thought he sent me a package" but couldn't find the DCN since he was moving. i think he just got stoned and forgot, but i was happy waiting a few weeks for the best deal of my life :) then i paid him back for the discount he originally gave me.
so thats my only SR fail story
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Great thread. Very interesting. 8)
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1. 27
2. 25
3. CAN, EU, USA > USA
The two non delivered packages were from tony76 during the 4.20 sale.
Pine, this thread is great, its heartening to see how well this community actually works.
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1. 36
2. 35
3. USA
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9/9
all domestic USA
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Int: 1/1 received (plus 1 still in transit)
Domestic: 4/4 received
All tip top quality so far :)
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bump
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1. No. of packages sent to you. ---> 6
2. No. of packages that arrived.---->6
3. Your (rough) geographical location e.g. UK, USA ----> EUROPE
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1. 3
2. 3
3. Scandinavia
Note that out customs are a bitch, but the vendors I've bought from have so far done a good job at concealing the product. One of the packages was domestic however, so a better statistic would be 2/2.
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1. a little over 30 ( i cant log on to SR right now for an exact number)
2. 100% every package i have ever ordered has been delivered with no problems. ( i never order outside the u.s.)
3. U.S.
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7 orders so far
7 arrived
all international to GER
one order not from SR was seized by customs and I got a love letter. It was the only one from about 50 out of SR orders and came from cambodia.
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50(+) Packages sent
1 stolen/intercepted
US Domestic
I'm new here, but I've been getting things in the mail for years. These numbers reflect purchases made from friends of mine and aquaintences of theirs, not SR. Molly, weed, paper lsd, some other research chems.
I've also ordered 25+ packages from seed banks internationally, never an interception. And, I used to order research chems from China, maybe ten times (all got here), but the quality varied too much.
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so far (knock on wood hard)
I'm probably 12/12 if not more.
I keep it domestic (us) as to avoid problems.
right now though I'm getting antsy on waiting for something (but i think its because usps is slow)
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1. 15
2. 14
3. Canada
The one that never arrived was from Vortex Milkman so I know it was actually never sent. Also it was my first order. Good thing that did not discourage me. I have never ordered from the US since nor do I intend to in the future.
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I'll get in on this.
1. 53
2. 52
3. US
The one package that didn't make it was coming from overseas. Everything else was either domestic or from CAN.
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22
22
UK
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Just stumbled upon this one, I'm game.
1. No. of packages sent to you? = 47
(Currently have 5 open orders so this will change in a week or so)...
2. No. of packages that arrived? = 45
1 x Order cancelled (No Stock) 1 x sample order never arrived. (Refund).
3. Your geographical location? = UK
Buyer Stats:
Total transactions: 47
Total spent: ฿505.67
Refund rate: 0.21%
Auto-finalize rate: 0%
Member for: 9 months
I'm fairly fastidious with my research before ordering, but naturally I have taken calculated risks.
I don't really believe in luck per say, but I have been fortunate thus far down the road.
Peace & Love,
BF
: )
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bumpity bump bump thought some people would like to see this
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Physical goods ONLY:
1
3
USA
2 weeks ago from Larghetto:
0/2 thus far. No word on what's up but he responds to inquiries about me placing new orders.
1 week ago from liston:
1/1 and was a real gentleman about it!
13/13 for digital products. Gotta give props to hyperocity for hypergreat customer service!!!!
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48 out of 48
Europe.
Total success.