Silk Road forums
Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: Tobias on May 13, 2013, 03:26 am
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I found a vendor I want to buy from. His info says 1st time buyers should send him a message first and also to encrypt everything. Please can anyone answer a few questions?
If I use SR's messaging system, how do I give him my PGP key? Should I post it in the start of the message, so he can use it to decrypt the message below?
There is a thread to post PGP keys in the security section of the forum, but I can't imagine the vendor is gonna scoll through all the posts looking for my PGP key, so what is the point of that thread.
Also, are all messages automatically encrypted by SR, the same way that they say your name and address in the shopping cart is encrypted.
Really grateful if someone can explain to me how it's usually done - Thanks
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When sending a vendor an encrypted message, make sure you use their public key to encrypt it. Then when writing them an encrypted message just put your public key at the end of the message. They only need your public key to respond with an encrypted message.
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Thanks, for some reason, I thought he needed my public key to read my encrypted message. Maybe I should run through the tutorial again to get it straight in my head. So, I encrypt the message using his key and he doesn't need my key to decipher it, only to encrypt a message to send back to me. OK, got it
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^ What he said
Also, regarding this:
Also, are all messages automatically encrypted by SR, the same way that they say your name and address in the shopping cart is encrypted.
You can't be sure that Silk Road is not run by or has been taken over by law enforcement, you can't be sure that the server is not compromised by the DEA and is recording everyone's messages, they are a high profile target and you *never* want them to find out your address or anything else.
The only person who should know your address is someone who is sending you something, which is why you should manually encrypt every message to your dealers. Ideally you would get their GPG keys from a trusted keyserver instead of Silk Road, but nobody here seems to be that paranoid.
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When sending a vendor an encrypted message, make sure you use their public key to encrypt it. Then when writing them an encrypted message just put your public key at the end of the message. They only need your public key to respond with an encrypted message.
^ This. You would use notepad or some other text editor to compose your message, and then after your message, paste your PGP key. Then select ALL of that text (including your PGP key!) and encrypt the ENTIRE thing to the vendor's PGP key.
Then you'll have it all in a block of encrypted text which you can then copy and paste into the SR message field to send to the vendor.
Since you're encrypting it to their key, they will be able to decrypt your message even without your key (as long as you do not sign the message) ... so they'll decrypt it and then they'll be able to import your PGP key from your decrypted message.
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(also, no, messages are not automatically encrypted by SR ... you need to manually encrypt your messages. this way, everyone is 100% in control of their own PGP key, their own decrypting, and their own encrypting ... which is safer, as far as i understand it.)
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Thanks guys, All very helpful. Just one more thing: The buyers guide says that the name and address I put in the shopping cart IS encrypted. Is this automatically done by SR? and should I encrypt the name and address manually myself before I put it in the shopping cart?
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I would like to add that I don't trust getting someone's public key from a site other than SR or the SR forums. I'm very careful to watch what links I click on, no matter who it is from or where I find it. If there is a link to a forum thread I'm actually paranoid/careful enough to copy the first half from my browser (such as the forum hostname), then the second half from their link so I know that the information is being sent to the real SR server.
On the note of keys, I want to reiterate the function of private and public keys as it may help you to remember laid out differently.
There are public and private keys.
Private Key's let you decrypt anything encrypted with the corresponding public key.
Anyone can send you an encrypted message that you can read as long as they use your public key.
***Never send anyone your private key.***
Public keys are what you need to encrypt messages with in order for the other party to be able to read your message with their private key.
Sorry if this info was a bit redundant, it took me a bit of time to get the hang of it myself and I wanted to ensure that others understand the process as well.
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As I am typing this I saw your new message about encrypting the name and address:
You should always use your own encryption there as well. In fact that is the most important part about learning how to encrypt.
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@JohnMaddox - Thanks again, I really appreciated the extra explanation. I needed it
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Thanks guys, All very helpful. Just one more thing: The buyers guide says that the name and address I put in the shopping cart IS encrypted. Is this automatically done by SR? and should I encrypt the name and address manually myself before I put it in the shopping cart?
Is this new? I was totally unaware that SR encrypted order information automatically. It has always been encouraged to encrypt your address, but when I was a vendor, addresses were only encrypted if the buyer themselves encrypted it. I received several non-encrypted addresses on orders as well, which is why I was under the impression that it was not encrypted unless the person encrypted it themselves (And hence the emphasis on learning encryption and encrypting all of your sensitive order information).
Even if SR does encrypt it automatically, encrypting it yourself with the vendor's key is still safest because in those cases, there is no way for SR to view the info (which would be bad if it were ever compromised).
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Current Buyer's Guide says this:
"Shopping cart
............Once your cart is ready, you must enter the address you would like your items sent to. This is the one point in the process where some kind of personal information is revealed. We take this very seriously and have taken every precaution to protect it.
Receiving address
From the moment you submit your order, to the moment it is displayed to your vendor, the information is fully encrypted and totally unreadable. Then, as soon as your vendor marks your package with the address and confirms shipment, the address is deleted forever and is irretrievable. For the extra cautious, you can encrypt your information yourself with your vendor's public key so that even we at Silk Road would be unable to view it, even if we wanted to. "
So, it doesn't initially say you have to encrypt it, but that it is encrypted when you send it. Then it says that you can encrypt manually to be extra cautious. I would be pissed if I sent unencrypted after reading this to find it hadn't been encrypted, so I'm gonna encrypt it myself.
Thank you
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So, it doesn't initially say you have to encrypt it, but that it is encrypted when you send it. Then it says that you can encrypt manually to be extra cautious. I would be pissed if I sent unencrypted after reading this to find it hadn't been encrypted, so I'm gonna encrypt it myself.
Thank you
Yes, I just saw that and suggested to DPR and the other mods/admins that maybe we expand on that and make it more clear, because I know for a fact that vendors still receive unencrypted addresses from buyers .... so my guess is that what they are saying is that it's encrypted on the server so it can't be intercepted, but that if you don't encrypt it to your vendor's key yourself, then it will show up unencrypted when they open your order (which you don't want).
It's best to encrypt it yourself so that ONLY the vendor with the correct PGP key can decrypt it.
I'll give you a recent example. A vendor fell for a scam message and provided his password and PIN to a phishing site. His account was then taken over by whoever ran the phishing site, and that person was able to see all of the vendor's current orders. If any buyer had sent their shipping info WITHOUT encrypting it, then the scammer who was in control of the account would be able to see their shipping info, and that buyer would then have been compromised.
If, on the other hand, the scammer was looking at an order that the buyer had encrypted to the vendor's key, the scammer would not have been able to read / access any of the buyer's personal details because the scammer didn't possess the vendor's public and private keys - even though he was in control of the vendor's SR account.
Hope this makes sense - if you need me to clarify, let me know!
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Yep, Thanks Scout. I am clear on this now. I think it's a good idea to get someone to make that section in the Buyer's guide clearer. I'm sure I am not the only one who read that and thought SR encrypted the shipping details for you.
Thank you
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Yep, Thanks Scout. I am clear on this now. I think it's a good idea to get someone to make that section in the Buyer's guide clearer. I'm sure I am not the only one who read that and thought SR encrypted the shipping details for you.
Thank you
You're not the only one, I'm sure. The way it's written does make it sound like it's unnecessary to bother with encrypting your address yourself ... kind of makes it sound as though it somehow does that for you.
Thanks for bringing this up, by the way -- who knows how many people have read that and thought the same thing! I did already fire off a message to the admins to see if we could reword that part of the wiki to make things clearer.
+1 to you for finding that and pointing it out!
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@Scout.
I'm curious why you advise encrypting your public key along with the rest of your message to your vendor.
If someone gets hold of your public key all they can do is encrypt a msg for you?
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@Scout.
I'm curious why you advise encrypting your public key along with the rest of your message to your vendor.
If someone gets hold of your public key all they can do is encrypt a msg for you?
It doesn't really matter - I only suggested encrypting it with your entire message for ease. If you'd rather put it at the end of your message and only encrypt the message itself, that is absolutely fine as well.
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@Scout.
I'm curious why you advise encrypting your public key along with the rest of your message to your vendor.
If someone gets hold of your public key all they can do is encrypt a msg for you?
If an adversary was able to edit the message they could replace your public key with theirs, then when the vendor replies they could decrypt and read the message then re-encrypt the message to you (a "man in the middle" attack). If your entire message is encrypted this can't happen, they can't see that you're even sending your public key!
Secondly if your public key isn't encrypted then you're leaking information. You're saying "this is the first time that we've spoken securely" to anyone who is snooping on the message, which may or may not be useful information to them. Maybe this rules something else out or gives them some info that they can use to trick you in future.
As a matter of good security practice you should leak as little information as possible, partly to fuck with anyone who may be snooping but mostly for your own peace of mind and more importantly, smugness.
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Thanks Scout and Quixotist. So what you guys are saying respectively is a) for convenience and B) for added security.
Good to know!