Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: bandeto962 on April 26, 2013, 02:09 pm
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What's the worst that could happen if I send my address to a new vendor for a sample and it turns out to be a scam/LE/whatever? He offered some up a while (~2 weeks) ago and I volunteered, but so far only person has posted a review of their sample. He has PGP setup and stuff, but he hasn't registered a vendor account because he's waiting for the 10 day Mt. Gox holding period to end (or something like that).
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Gonna bump this once
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Yikes I'd only place orders through the order system. So you have your address in a pm or something but used PGP? Probably fine, but you should only take samples from a vendor with an account.
Otherwise, who knows what freak this is and why he's giving out samples before having a place to provide feedback? Doesn't add up.
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Whoa ... you should not be ordering from "vendors" who don't even have a vendor account here! Not even for free samples!
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Hi SR,
Since i'm fairly certain this is directed at me i thought i'd just come out and explain how this situation came to be. While stumbling on reddit I saw a comment mentioning SR and checked out what it was. I thought considering my situation I might be able to make a solid vendor but I didn't know if SR needed any more. So I asked /r/Silkroad in this post
http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1cjq7r/large_seller_that_just_found_out_about_sr_does_it/
The response was strong and many people suggested samples. I thought that I could take the hit to send out 1g samples so that's what I did. Why Panzerknacker was the first to post a review was because on the reddit post he said that he could take photos and write a solid in depth review so I sent him a sample first and just paid in cash for shipping. But I didn't want to do that for the others so i spent time figuring out how to ship anonymously and that's what caused the large gap between shipping. But many people received their samples over the past couple days and have posted reviews on here as well as on /r/silkroad. Those can be seen here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1d5ifn/thurgood_jenkins/
http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=150412.msg1036933
As for the delay in the vendor account; I was told by many that mtgox was the way to go when dealing with bitcoins so I used them. When I went to transfer the money into SR I found I couldn't move the btc until my account had been verified and I was at number 27,000, that was last friday. Currently I'm at about 11,000.
I hope this clears things up. If you have any questions feel free to ask. And if this wasn't directed at me, than I still fit the scenario and feel like it's not that bad to send out samples while I wait to get verified.
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Yeah, if this is about Thurgood Jenkin's -- I totally understand your concern, as it is smart to be cautious in this market.
However, this guy has been 100% legit to me and everyone he has dealt with. I can't stress that enough. I suppose he jumped the gun a bit by promoting himself before having a vendor account, but honestly, I understand his perspective as well: Paying $500 and walking into a crowded marketplace full of competition is pretty daunting without a single prospective customer. Offering samples to drum up some support makes a lot of sense. After all, it is 100% at both party's risk, and no one is forcing anyone to participate!
So, easy solution: If you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, why would you even consider sending your address? After much communication I decided to put my trust in this vendor, and it worked out (better than expected, honestly) - you can choose to make that choice, or choose not to. It seems pretty straightforward to me.
I'm sure you think I'm LE, because like I said, it's smart to be cautious. But I have 6+ transactions on the SR, with a couple more being placed today. I'm probably the most 'average' SR user of all time, despite being able to write well and photograph weed. I'm jumping to defend TJ because a) He hooked me up on trust alone. b) He has a genuinely awesome product that I would happily pay money for on the SR, and I'd like to see that as a possibility. c) He is fronting a ton of money just to get his name out there, and as an empathetic person, I would be bummed to see that fall through. d) He's just been a nice dude in conversation, plain and simple.
So take that all with a grain of salt. All I'm saying is, it is 100% *your choice* to accept a free sample or not. IMO, he's not doing anything wrong, and will be up in no time to quell everyone's doubts.
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Yeah, if this is about Thurgood Jenkin's -- I totally understand your concern, as it is smart to be cautious in this market.
However, this guy has been 100% legit to me and everyone he has dealt with. I can't stress that enough. I suppose he jumped the gun a bit by promoting himself before having a vendor account, but honestly, I understand his perspective as well: Paying $500 and walking into a crowded marketplace full of competition is pretty daunting without a single prospective customer. Offering samples to drum up some support makes a lot of sense. After all, it is 100% at both party's risk, and no one is forcing anyone to participate!
So, easy solution: If you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, why would you even consider sending your address? After much communication I decided to put my trust in this vendor, and it worked out (better than expected, honestly) - you can choose to make that choice, or choose not to. It seems pretty straightforward to me.
I'm sure you think I'm LE, because like I said, it's smart to be cautious. But I have 6+ transactions on the SR, with a couple more being placed today. I'm probably the most 'average' SR user of all time, despite being able to write well and photograph weed. I'm jumping to defend TJ because a) He hooked me up on trust alone. b) He has a genuinely awesome product that I would happily pay money for on the SR, and I'd like to see that as a possibility. c) He is fronting a ton of money just to get his name out there, and as an empathetic person, I would be bummed to see that fall through. d) He's just been a nice dude in conversation, plain and simple.
So take that all with a grain of salt. All I'm saying is, it is 100% *your choice* to accept a free sample or not. IMO, he's not doing anything wrong, and will be up in no time to quell everyone's doubts.
I completely agree on every point. At no point did Thurgood imply that people needed to give them their addresses or did he ever make it compulsory. This was a completely outside of Silk Road person to person transaction that occurred because of a reddit thread from an interested seller. People have had every opportunity to talk to and message with Thurgood and decide for themselves if they'd like the PGP their address, and a few people assessed the risk, and recieved samples. All in all, I think that being cautious is the correct route, but a simple person to person transaction happened and people got free samples - if this is about Thurgood, then I can remain calm and know that nothing was done to wrong or fool anyone.
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So you post on reddit, and then here ... and then post a link to your reddit post? You realize that LE reads these forums, and that you've just linked your samples/sales/SR username to a clearnet post of yours, right?
If you want to talk about safety and security, one of the first things to do is read up on it. You shouldn't be posting on the clearweb and then linking your SR identity to it.
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Correct me if I'm wrong please but the clearnet post was made from a public wifi location from behind a vpn with a throwaway reddit account, and I don't see how that can be traced back to me. If LE reads this they already know my SR name and that i'm giving out samples, and people talk about vendors on reddit, so they would know about the account, but i don't see how that would help.
I hope i'm not mistaken in my thinking.
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You're probably fine with those precautions. Most people wouldn't be taking those same precautions, which is why I mentioned it. Glad to see you're on top of it! :)
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O dear god; you nearly made me shit myself. I was like I did read, and thought that was safe. Glad to hear it is. And just FYI for security right now i'm running off of tails from a bootable thumb drive, and have read pretty much everything in the forums on security I could on how to be absolutely safe.
If you want to know anything else please let me know and i'll get back to you right away.
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That's awesome! +1 karma to you for doing your reading before jumping in! Sorry for being skeptical initially, but there are a lot of users who jump in without taking any kind of precautions or bothering to read up on security measures.
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Why thank you. But yes, I've done my research; it's my ass on the line anyway. And it's fine to be skeptical, i just wanna reassure you that i've read up and am legit.
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I received a sample from TJ, and we had communicated quite a lot before I was even offered a sample. No monies exchanged hands so he is not dealing off the road. I will say that this sample was OUTSTANDING, and he really wants to get his account up and running, but has run into all sorts of blockades. I will say that he was doing his research and didn't realize how long it takes to do stuff. It is like the newbie who thinks they can get on here and being able to order the same day. It is not going to happen or the road would not be here. Now, TJ, get on the road so I can get some of what you sampled.