Silk Road forums
Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: PuertoRico on May 04, 2013, 06:10 pm
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I see it like this, think deeply about what you would do to take these sites out.
Imagine you are LE.
SR is a big problem, btc also a potential big problem for world banks. We all know that SR is practically responsible for the value of btc.
BTC came first, followed by SR. To destroy BTC you take away the BTC services, largest of which is SR.
So you crash SR, you crash BTC. Any downtime for SR does seem to have a direct hit on the BTC price.
They have already attacked every BTC exchange possible and they all recover but with a loss of faith. I mean who really trusts holding coin in any e-wallet now? as far as e-wallets goes SR is probably the safest.
So the natural next step is to take away SR, removing long term investors faith in BTC. So whether its the same hackers, one guy or a rival site, I would certainly say this all stems from LE.
Ive seen a couple posts speculating that FBI, DEA and interpol have forced hackers into working for them in the past which may add to the strength of these recent attacks.
Just my thoughts on it, it is important to put yourself into the mind frame of the DEA etc.. what would you do if BTC, SR and crypto currencies were your target?
I honestly dont think atlantis, litecoin, BMR has anything to do with it, have you seen BMR? They dont have the skills.. LE would not create another currency and atlantis is simply trying to take a piece of the pie. An attack like this is professional, government backed.
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i think you pretty much have it nailed. that's about what i think is going on. this attack is very probably motivated by the fact that bitcoin is poised to take over from cash as the preferred currency for people to buy drugs with. the cops at least have a way, using local intel networks, to scoop the cream off the top of the drug market. SR and bitcoin take that away from them.
myself, i don't give a fuck anymore, i stopped giving a fuck about 6 months ago. i think that if i help promote bitcoin to becoming the preferred currency for drug deals that we deal a massive blow to the system of prohibition. that's precisely why DPR started SR, and that's precisely why i joined and why i am a vendor. i positioned myself physically in a jurisdiction where the cops are so underfunded and retarded. just for example, i have been stopped and inquisited by cops once since moving to this country. i have now read the official government line and supposedly i could have been arrested for being a foreigner travelling on a foreign passport. the cops just wanted me to go away. they didn't have a single english speaker amongst the three in the car that stopped me. hell, i would have given them the bribe they are typically reputed to ask.
that's why i've decided to become active in this community to promote actions that are low risk that could seriously damage the capacity of the attackers. it may not seriously damage their capacity, but if i can get 500 SR users to run a non-exit tor relay, i don't see how that would not make a difference. combine that with the strenuous efforts being made by SR staff to fix this problem.
this is the thread http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=155667.0 that i am proposing several actions that we, as SR users (vendors and buyers) could take that will at least shift the margin measurably in our favour.
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I believe SR is more of a conception to bring down rather than a narcotics hub. I mean yes cash flows, and it flows hard on this site but compared to afk drug transactions.. just speculating..
And i trust my encrypted/frozen/stashed away e-wallet more than i trust the space under a plank i use to stash whatever..
If i was the DEA /LE ( i'm not from the USA so i don't know much about those services) i'd tap any available internet resource and follow the clues. Also follow the money. That bitch gives away a shit tons of things.
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BTW i have been arguing that SR is at least 20% of the demand for bitcoins that has driven the price beyond $100/btc amongst the bitcoin community in general for some time. SR buyers need to buy bitcoins to buy. trades take between 3 and 21 days, typically, to fulfil. so that's up to 21 days that bitcoin is bought into, before it is sold back out. it is my opinion that it is actually a core driver for bitcoin demand, an inelastic demand level. The loss of SR to bitcoin would drive the price back down to under $30, i reckon. I don't want that, cos i have 38 bitcoins locked in a security deposit that i am on the verge of being able to get back, and i want to be able to personally buy drugs off SR, cos the local networks are piss. i can't get DMT on the local network, i can't get 25i-nbome, or whatever it's called, i can't get LSD in my local market. i can't get heroin. not that i want heroin. but i might want to have a quarter gram handy in my bug out bag to sort a member of my group as we escape from global war.
there is a lot of shit going on in the world at the moment. if we are all serious about wanting to be able to get drugs, without dealing with the established corrupt networks. i personally have had close contact with at least one individual. he and his partner used to also run ponzi schemes on the internet, the prick admitted to me in a moment of weakness that he 'helped' with a murder (disposing of bloody clothes), and quite frankly, that's about as much contact with the street network of drug dealers as i can stand. none of that happens with bitcoin. sure, there might be a few amongst the market who are that kind of violent, murderous scum, but not all of them. we now number in the thousands. we can do something if we all put in a bit. it may not be much but it might be enough to lift us back to having an accessible website. if your lethargy and apathy about this contributed to the bad guys winning, would you feel so good about doing nothing?
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its just what we as SR users can do, I am going to check the thread about exit nodes now as I am unaware a lot of the features tor offers.
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The thing is most real life dealers dont have the money or technology for the security to not get caught. DPR has these funds so can hopefully stay ahead of the game. I mean he probably has the money to pay developers to code a whole new tor system if he really wanted to.
There will always be a solution as long as DPR doesn't give up, after reading his ethos and mentality I truly do not believe he will give up until incarcerated and even then people will step up to his position. Now the world has seen sites like SR can work they will always appear.
I mean SR removes the majority of scams, all violence and eventually once available in the right countries should remove many middle men. For example, imagine if every grower sold directly online, every cocaine producer, every hash making in Morocco.. prices for drugs would become ridiculous cheap once you take out the organized crime that controls the trade.
In Colombia a gram of pure coke will cost you a couple quid, in Morrocoo the best hash in the world is £1 a gram.. imagine when these people get access to SR. Drugs will be pouring out, I think LE know this is going to kill the drug war.
The drug war funds so many police forces and the solution would be to make you need to present a passport to post anything to avoid anon mail, either that or police dogs and fingerprinting at every Post office. Eventually tax payers will say fuck this let them smoke their medical marijuana..
I think this is also a problem, the free market DPR dreams of is a direct hit on the infrastructure of police states. They do not want you growing cannabis or producing other drugs that you can trade without taxes.
(ill look into exit nodes now)
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OK read your thread.. got lost quite soon in haha.
im just not tech-savy enough for that.. many of the terms I don't understand and imagine that a good 70%+ of the users will be in the same boat.
I mean half the people using SR cant get their heads round PGP, so keep working on it and I will keep reading all new replies to your post. Looks like you maybe onto something but will need the support of mods and probably DPR for it work on a large basis.
Glad to see you are working hard on a solution though, keep up the good work! I am sure if possible all users will be interested in adding what ever help they can to finding a solution.
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We all know that SR is practically responsible for the value of btc.
Nope. As a percentage of Bitcoin's market cap, SR definitely comes up and counts. But it's nowhere NEAR a dominant driver of Bitcoin as a currency, or its market cap as a whole. Funny, how people here rightfully bash the idiot MSM articles on SR, yet they take the claim, "most Bitcoin transactions revolve around the purchase of illegal goods on Silk Road", as gospel. It's bullshit. No offense.
BTC came first, followed by SR. To destroy BTC you take away the BTC services, largest of which is SR.
Again, not true. SR can die a horrible DDoS death and Bitcoin will continue to flourish. I strongly doubt SR will die, but BTC is not *anywhere* as heavily reliant upon SR as you say it is. Sorry.
So you crash SR, you crash BTC. Any downtime for SR does seem to have a direct hit on the BTC price.
This is complete nonsense. There is little or no correlation at all between Silk Road's uptime and the market price of Bitcoin. If this were true, Bitcoin would've taken a substantial hit when SR was down for several days in 2012. That would've especially been the case back then, since speculation on BTC was a small fraction of what it is today and SR-related transactions probably took up a much larger chunk of its market cap.
But it didn't. Bottom line.
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50 50 50
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i think you pretty much have it nailed. that's about what i think is going on. this attack is very probably motivated by the fact that bitcoin is poised to take over from cash as the preferred currency for people to buy drugs with. the cops at least have a way, using local intel networks, to scoop the cream off the top of the drug market. SR and bitcoin take that away from them.
myself, i don't give a fuck anymore, i stopped giving a fuck about 6 months ago. i think that if i help promote bitcoin to becoming the preferred currency for drug deals that we deal a massive blow to the system of prohibition. that's precisely why DPR started SR, and that's precisely why i joined and why i am a vendor. i positioned myself physically in a jurisdiction where the cops are so underfunded and retarded. just for example, i have been stopped and inquisited by cops once since moving to this country. i have now read the official government line and supposedly i could have been arrested for being a foreigner travelling on a foreign passport. the cops just wanted me to go away. they didn't have a single english speaker amongst the three in the car that stopped me. hell, i would have given them the bribe they are typically reputed to ask.
that's why i've decided to become active in this community to promote actions that are low risk that could seriously damage the capacity of the attackers. it may not seriously damage their capacity, but if i can get 500 SR users to run a non-exit tor relay, i don't see how that would not make a difference. combine that with the strenuous efforts being made by SR staff to fix this problem.
this is the thread http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=155667.0 that i am proposing several actions that we, as SR users (vendors and buyers) could take that will at least shift the margin measurably in our favour.
Most excellent !Thumbs Up and Karma to u!
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OK read your thread.. got lost quite soon in haha.
im just not tech-savy enough for that.. many of the terms I don't understand and imagine that a good 70%+ of the users will be in the same boat.
I mean half the people using SR cant get their heads round PGP, so keep working on it and I will keep reading all new replies to your post. Looks like you maybe onto something but will need the support of mods and probably DPR for it work on a large basis.
Glad to see you are working hard on a solution though, keep up the good work! I am sure if possible all users will be interested in adding what ever help they can to finding a solution.
thanks :)
it's not that difficult. you are most likely using torbrowser to browse this very site. open a new tab and type in about:config and type 'keep-alive' in the search box. raise the number from the default 300 to 900 (15 minutes) or perhaps as high as I have, 3600 (1 hour - the number is seconds for timeout).
Go to Vidalia, click on settings, and follow these instructions: https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-relay.html.en
this is the most important thing (though you should make sure you set your bandwidth limits to suit how much bandwidth you want to provide as well):
Choose the Exit Policies tab. If you want to allow others to use your relay for these services, don't change anything. Un-check the services you don't want to allow people to reach from your relay. If you want to be a non-exit relay, un-check all services.
for our purposes, uncheck all the services.
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Im going to spend some proper time researching this.. hopefully admins will get on board. I think you are onto something here.
Take it easy buddy
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The BTC has already made its name, and earned it's keep.
Take away SR? Other sites use it already.
SR goes down, some other site will just take it.
/thread
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Just a side note regarding banks and BTC. The banks actually have no problem with btc, most banks encourage the use of it and have tried to incorporate it, but the government created regulations that fine banks who support account holders who deal with BTC. There's an article somewhere stating that a bank was fined $1.2 billion for supporting BTC usage. It's all government regulation against BTC.
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Just a side note regarding banks and BTC. The banks actually have no problem with btc, most banks encourage the use of it and have tried to incorporate it, but the government created regulations that fine banks who support account holders who deal with BTC. There's an article somewhere stating that a bank was fined $1.2 billion for supporting BTC usage. It's all government regulation against BTC.
1.2 Big Ones? Source!
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I don't think commercial banks are against bitcoin. Governments on the other hand...
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Yeah I think it comes down to money laundering worries.. in the US banks get fucked all the time for laundering Mexican cartel money so UK banks seem to be avoiding it, probably due to government pressure but also the scare of being fined in the future if rules change or something pops up. Kinda like how paypal makes it own rules on various items, like bongs and seeds cant be sold via paypal even if its domestic sales legal in your country... again money laundering worries, these companies just dont want to be hit with million £/$ fines from the government if there is any future fuck ups.
Its just strange how hard it is to buy btc in the UK and a couple other countries.. no merchant account seems to want to touch it now. Of course you can use localbitcoin but thats no different from findin an sr seller who offers btcs.. idk I dont totally get it.
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I don't think it will be as easy as just killing Silk Road. If SR goes down then people will move to BMR or Atlantis, if Tor goes down then people will move to i2p. If i2p goes down then it will be RetroShare or similar networks.
The genie is out of the bottle, people have seen what cryptocurrency can do for them and I don't think the world can ever go back to like it was before. Even if we lose Bitcoin the demand for a replacement will be huge. From this point forward the deep web will be driven by economics rather than cryptography experts, naval gazing idealists and paedophiles.
The rules have fundamentally changed, it's a brave new world out here and I'm excited to be a part of it.
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Very good point. Demand = supply where money is to be made.
We have tax havens all over the place, even if they tried a global ban on fiat trading with crypto some country will just make themselves the capital of crypto haha or you just keep creating more virtual currencies to keep buying the btc or whatever.
There is always an answer.