Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: HarmReduction on July 03, 2013, 12:31 pm
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A few people have emailed me re Atlantis & BMR are entrapment sites.
What makes this site a safer option as compared to Atlantis ?
According to an article (clear web) http://allthingsvice.com/2013/07/03/silk-road-responds-to-competition-with-improvements-of-its-own/
' Atlantis Marketplace has undertaken aggressive marketing of its site over the past few months, touting superior features to those offered by Silk Road. Its aim has been to both attract new customers and lure clients away from the incumbent giant, but so far they must be underwhelmed by the response ...... .Attracting sellers has not been an issue. But still the customers stayed away. One of the highest-ranked sellers on the Road, with thousands of completed orders and hundreds of satisfied customers, opened an account on Atlantis four months ago and as of today had made a mere six sales. Other vendors also decided lack of customers made it not worth their while to maintain a presence and closed up shop.'
Any thoughts ?
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I don't quite get it. If it is a honeypot, how are they going to identify buyers and sellers? They certainly won't know any details about the sellers. The details about the buyers they will know only if the buyer fails to use PGP with a strong key when sending the address/details to the seller. Granted they might catch some by people relying on the 'auto encryption'.
Atlantis attracted vendors by offering them steep discounts or I think maybe even free setup if they were already an established vendor on SR. But right I don't think at the time they had the customer base (and probably still don't). But they probably wanted to get vendors lined up first. No sense putting out your Youtube videos and stuff only to have people come and find like 3 things for sale.
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I think it is not even legally possible to host something like that for the gov. It is basically providing a platform for illegal things without them are able to catch most of the guys. Specially that most of the times possible vendors or customers dont even come from their country..... That would give them an awful lot of work for close to none profit. Not worth at all. Not practicable at all.
So in my book the chances that the gov or any other LE setting up such a thing are close to none.
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I doubt it's a honeypot as well...but your argument brings ATF's Fast and Furious gun sting to mind!
I think it is not even legally possible to host something like that for the gov. It is basically providing a platform for illegal things without them are able to catch most of the guys. Specially that most of the times possible vendors or customers dont even come from their country..... That would give them an awful lot of work for close to none profit. Not worth at all. Not practicable at all.
So in my book the chances that the gov or any other LE setting up such a thing are close to none.
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now for the not so grounded fast and the furious watchers?
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Ok so why is Atlantis not attracting buyers why are buyer's reluctant to buy from the site as opposed to SR
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Secret Service has run at least 4 blackmarket clearnet forums that I know of to arrest carders/fraudsters, and even set up a completely phony forum about 3yrs ago for the sole purpose of entrapment. I don't think cops are allowed to handle escrow though, but who knows as everything has been turned on it's head and court cases are just plea bargaining show trials now.
There's probably more undercover feds and confidential informants here either as database admins (remember when SR was hiring?) or watching the private vendor and public forums than there are over at Atlantis simply because this place is older and get's more press. This site also generates a lot more Tor traffic that needs hiding.
BMR is definitely not a honeypot, if you were on 4chan circa 2008 you know exactly who the admin is. Atlantis who knows. If I was a cop and tasked with bringing down Tor forums I'd be cashing out people's bitcoins so there would be a money trail. I'd also be social engineering them to accept cash by mail or trades, or I would worm my way into the private areas as a fully vouched member and glean intel, trying to work my way up the ladder into co-admin so I can get access to the code/server
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SR is easier for me. SR is competent. SR is free for vendors.
Why choose a suspect site with questionable advertisements, trying to steal customers/vendors. For vendors its not attractive because there is no customer base. Here on sr u have what? 100.000 possible customers? There is just no reason to go elsewhere than sr. All ur wishes come true here :)
Way more features. Such as hedging the order. Is that an option on Atlantis? This is ultimately needed in the times of volatile bitcoins. Cant believe the admins earn enough to offer such a service. One little crash and they would be out of business.
BMR the admin is ignorant. Doesnt hear what vendors or customers say. I didnt look into it for quite some time now but the last time i looked the Menu was horribly sorted... absolutely not enjoyable to browse there. Find something back u have seen 10 minutes ago was close to impossible.... Any tries of the community helping sorting this mess failed.
I dont want a lazy incompetent admin take care for my security. The whole sr packet is just absolutely outstanding. Anybody want to go head to head with sr will have a hard time.
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idk why everyone is all like FK atlantis, like you guys owe SR or something.
I can tell. Some of us work with/for SR. Some of us just respect and fight for what provides us with a better life. Having people coming over from Atlantis saying 'hey can u make a vendor account on atlantis so i can buy from u with my coupon code' and try to steal vendors is very annoying. Having their admins ddosing (even if not proven, everyone knows where it came from) SR to make their customers go and look over to atlantis is what reflects the Operators character AND is very annoying. Making public advertisement on youtube.... u want me to go on? i can do this all day long if u want...
Behavior like this should be punished with total ignorance (at least in my opinion). They deserve their bad reputation u can believe that.
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Even if LE wanted to run a honeypot and catch buyers, what could they possible charge you with for sending someone some BTC and typing your address in a box (encrypted or not)? Wanting to get high? In what countries is that crime?
As an example, even in jurisdictions where homosexuality was or is illegal, the crime is not "being a homosexual" or "thinking homosexual thoughts", it's committing homosexual acts. Wanting drugs is not a crime anywhere that I know of, and LE's budget is stretched tight in every place I've ever heard of, so a honeypot to nail people who'd like to use but don't possess anything is beyond unrealistic in my opinion.
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Secret Service has run at least 4 blackmarket clearnet forums that I know of to arrest carders/fraudsters, and even set up a completely phony forum about 3yrs ago for the sole purpose of entrapment.
do you have some links on this? I'd like to do a little more reading about it. thx
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I don't quite get it. If it is a honeypot, how are they going to identify buyers and sellers? They certainly won't know any details about the sellers. The details about the buyers they will know only if the buyer fails to use PGP with a strong key when sending the address/details to the seller. Granted they might catch some by people relying on the 'auto encryption'.
That's the biggest concern, is the automatic encryption. This means that at some point along the transmission lines from buyer to seller, the buyer's address is clearly available on their servers. On SR, this is only true if you don't use PGP - and if you don't use PGP on SR, you're in the wrong business. That was enough to turn me away from Atlantis.
That, and that SR serves my needs in stellar fashion.
I think it is not even legally possible to host something like that for the gov. It is basically providing a platform for illegal things without them are able to catch most of the guys. Specially that most of the times possible vendors or customers dont even come from their country..... That would give them an awful lot of work for close to none profit. Not worth at all. Not practicable at all.
So in my book the chances that the gov or any other LE setting up such a thing are close to none.
Entrapment is always a concern, but other than that I highly doubt the government's hands are so tied that they can't set up a fake online drug marketplace like Atlantis.
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That's the biggest concern, is the automatic encryption. This means that at some point along the transmission lines from buyer to seller, the buyer's address is clearly available on their servers. On SR, this is only true if you don't use PGP - and if you don't use PGP on SR, you're in the wrong business. That was enough to turn me away from Atlantis.
That, and that SR serves my needs in stellar fashion.
Does anything stop people from from using PGP on Atlantis? Why wouldn't you just encrypt you do here & avoid the issue entirely. An unfortunate number of people on SR don't use encryption anyway & I'm sure the same is true of Atlantis. The biggest reason I think the built-in encryption is a bad idea is that it encourages laziness & poor security practices. A false sense of security is often worse than no security at all.
And to the OP:
I don't think an SR-like honeypot is likely for a few reasons. It would take a great deal of time and effort to maintain but the value to LE would be negligible. Vendors don't give out their addresses & the DEA would look ridiculous if they focused on chasing down whatever personal use buyers failed to use encryption. It would require a long time investment with no guarantee of success, esp given that people come and go from such sites & often move over the course of a year or two, so in addition to just gathering the information they'd have to go to even more effort to track down users who might no longer even be involved w drugs. Basically all it would get them would be a huge mess of bad leads & difficult to piece together evidence in the form of Bitcoin addresses & user names. It just wouldn't be worth it. Keep in mind too that the carding example involved agencies & agents that specialized in computer crimes. The DEA def has analysts & experts in computer forensics etc, but they're not the Secret Service.
Focusing on the weaknesses of SR / BMR / Atlantis-style markets - like the points at which users need to convert cash to Bitcoin and vice versa & the mail system - is easier & more efficient, as it addresses the system being used rather than individual sites & basically just follows the usual routes of money laundering/smuggling, both of which the DEA are kinda expert in. I would expect they'd spend their efforts there, where they are guaranteed some amount of success, rather than by gambling on a honeypot.
Still best to be cautious, tho.
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I think it is not even legally possible to host something like that for the gov. It is basically providing a platform for illegal things without them are able to catch most of the guys. Specially that most of the times possible vendors or customers dont even come from their country..... That would give them an awful lot of work for close to none profit. Not worth at all. Not practicable at all.
So in my book the chances that the gov or any other LE setting up such a thing are close to none.
What kind of shit is this?
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I think it is not even legally possible to host something like that for the gov. It is basically providing a platform for illegal things without them are able to catch most of the guys. Specially that most of the times possible vendors or customers dont even come from their country..... That would give them an awful lot of work for close to none profit. Not worth at all. Not practicable at all.
So in my book the chances that the gov or any other LE setting up such a thing are close to none.
What kind of shit is this?
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
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I think it is not even legally possible to host something like that for the gov. It is basically providing a platform for illegal things without them are able to catch most of the guys. Specially that most of the times possible vendors or customers dont even come from their country..... That would give them an awful lot of work for close to none profit. Not worth at all. Not practicable at all.
So in my book the chances that the gov or any other LE setting up such a thing are close to none.
What kind of shit is this?
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
Can u write in full sentences without using bad words and focus on what u want? Or is this how u communicate where u come from?
By the way - this is called logical thinking.
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Even if LE wanted to run a honeypot and catch buyers, what could they possible charge you with for sending someone some BTC and typing your address in a box (encrypted or not)? Wanting to get high? In what countries is that crime?
Attempting to purchase controlled substances is an offense in many countries.
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Stick to S.R its not perfect but its a lot better than any of the others sites by far. I personally love S.R and feel loyalty towards it.
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I was one of the first to be suspicious of Atlantis and voicing the same concerns of honeypot situations.
But this was merely due to the buzz they were creating and it coinciding with the attacks on SR.
I was not a happy trooper+an invisible SR enemy made it easy to lash out against ATL.
But that's in the past.
Fanboy attitude does not help positive evolution.Company loyalty should ALWAYS be to reward good work done.
As long as SR keeps up the good work AS ALWAYS the happy customers here will stay here.
Just like me.
Things boil down to having options..and options are always good.
I don't want there to be only ONE option like SR.
So i welcome ATL and have used them succesfully when SR went down and afterwards too but simply because i had some coins stored on that account and i thought it might help out my vendor if they had regular customers over there.That didn't seem to be the case so meh ATL has no more business from me:).
As this particular niche market attracts even more scammers then a regular market like ebay f.e. it is normal that ATL is not picking up as fast.
SR has a strong reputation coupled to a forum that is very well visited.(never enough visited by everyone when you read certain scam stories:)).
So the only vendor on their i trust is the one i've come to know HERE on SR and through the reviews HERE on this forum.
So any strength ATL-vendors have reputation-wise only come from this SR and this forum.Hence the strength from ATL is not from their own merit yet. Which also will put off customers.
Their own forums are basicly empty and when i posted in a topic that dealt with someone having a bad experience with a vendor i deal with on a regular basis (i see my self as a regular:)) they completely whiped it.
Bad move in my opinion.
The poster was not making wild claims and even informed that with help of atlantis support he got refunded.He just expressed certain doubts.
I asked for this poster to elaborate and I informed him of my excellent dealings with this vendor and that i would let him know if my next order was going to happen as always so he(and others reading it) could be reassured the vendor did not turn rogue or anything.
If they keep deleting such threads they NEVER will built up any credit regarding honesty.It comes across as silencing critical voices.
Here it would never happen.You often know how to differentiate between false reviews or reviewers hired by scam vendors or not if you are on the forum long enough(and have some common sense of course:)).The behaviour of a vendor when responding to certain allegations also helps you decide if this is the sort of vendor you want to do business with.
So basicly they(ATL) are at fault themselves for not generating more business and having people hesitating to do business with them or to shy away from them due to suspicions like honeypot operations and what not.
And vendors will of course favour the market that gives them more customers.
Meaning ATL has a long road ahead of them establishing themselves ASIDE from SR.
And market themselves next to a giant like SR.Just like all the other internetshops on the clearnet have done in the past.
If their intentions are good they will have the patience to work at growing.And find their own place in the market.
Like i already said,if they are totally legit i welcome them to market and hope they will follow in SR's footsteps when it comes to the ideals they have and respect the one that came before them.
They will need to find a balance between customer and vendor satisfaction.
SR will remain nr.1 because they have done ALOT ALOT if not all of the heavy lifting.Also they survived the buzz created on the clearnet.
They stayed on track with their ideals and kept their standards high.
This is something i do not think will change anytime soon so they will probably always have such a strong position.
THAT'S why i am here.
Simple as that.
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Fanboy attitude does not help positive evolution.Company loyalty should ALWAYS be to reward good work done.
As long as SR keeps up the good work AS ALWAYS the happy customers here will stay here.
Just like me.
Things boil down to having options..and options are always good.
I don't want there to be only ONE option like SR.
+1
I agree. A little competition between businesses and platforms is good for those who use them & good for the businesses themselves. I highly doubt Atlantis will ever really challenge SR (platform aside, the SR team seems much more professional & serious about running a good business & as you said did most of the initial work in creating the model to start) but there's no reason why they can't exist alongside each other.
Plus having more small marketplaces would make it safer & easier for all involved. The bigger SR gets, the bigger a target it becomes and the harder it is/will be for it to stay hidden. Other marketplaces would do more to help SR survive over the long run than hurt it.
I think one thing SR did right in the beginning was the forums and the tone they set. (Is the reading group still around?) DPRs early posts were so v idealistic & passionate & so unusual in their politics that they felt genuine, and regardless of your beliefs about agorism & counter economics & the rest, the quality of the discussion was higher what you often find on the deepweb. imo this made the early site much more appealing to professional/intelligent/discreet users (esp those who found it from early media stories), less interesting to scammers & in general made the place feel more inspiring than shady. If the forum topics had been "Blackhat Hangout" "Snitch List (for doxing)" "Trip Reportz" etc I'm sure the site would look v different today.
But now I'm trying to write Oz's book for her... ;)
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I think it is not even legally possible to host something like that for the gov. It is basically providing a platform for illegal things without them are able to catch most of the guys. Specially that most of the times possible vendors or customers dont even come from their country..... That would give them an awful lot of work for close to none profit. Not worth at all. Not practicable at all.
So in my book the chances that the gov or any other LE setting up such a thing are close to none.
Operation Swordfish....
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One thing I find particularly odd about BMR and Atlantis is the automated PGP.
Excuse me if I'm wrong, but isn't PGP supposed to be a safeguard against the possibility that the main server is somehow compromised? It seems that letting anything leave in plaintext sort of defeats the purpose.
Other than that, I don't understand why people have to stick only to SR. As having multiple vendors compete improves product, having multiple instances of online markets improves service overall. Also, certain things cannot be bought on SR that can on BMR, especially.
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I think one thing SR did right in the beginning was the forums and the tone they set. (Is the reading group still around?) DPRs early posts were so v idealistic & passionate & so unusual in their politics that they felt genuine, and regardless of your beliefs about agorism & counter economics & the rest, the quality of the discussion was higher what you often find on the deepweb. imo this made the early site much more appealing to professional/intelligent/discreet users (esp those who found it from early media stories), less interesting to scammers & in general made the place feel more inspiring than shady. If the forum topics had been "Blackhat Hangout" "Snitch List (for doxing)" "Trip Reportz" etc I'm sure the site would look v different today.
Oh absolutely.
Absolutely correct,these principles really attract many vendors that do their best to reflect them.
And the general feel of the forum indeed feeds and inspires the mind more.
We all have different political views and i enjoy reading about the differences.
But i find that the forum and SR is a platform where we share more common grounds and that unites us more then it divides us.
Since i believe division is the main tactic of those we stand up to i whole heartedly embraced SR and it environment.
And just like you,i don't see other markets rising to that level.
But i sure hope they try.
So that this concept and this kind of market can prosper and thrive no matter what others do to attack it.
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honeypots aka buyers details?
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Atlantis attracted vendors by offering them steep discounts or I think maybe even free setup if they were already an established vendor on SR. But right I don't think at the time they had the customer base (and probably still don't). But they probably wanted to get vendors lined up first. No sense putting out your Youtube videos and stuff only to have people come and find like 3 things for sale.
You raise a fascinating point. They didn't take their investment far enough: they should have given away 20 dollar coupons to all new customers that are verified as being "real people." Which would probably double it because you'd need manpower and oversight for that, so say that would be $40 per new customer for a month. Plus some scammers would get through, call that an extra cost of $5 per customer average or something. How many customers in a month? I dunno, personally, but a month seems like the longest you'd want to run it... but if I had had 20+ to spend on drugs on Atlantis, I might have actually tried making a purchase. If I had made a purchase, I might actually still be making them over there. That would be easy enough to make up on SR, but I don't know the fees at Atlantis. Maybe they're too low to make this viable.
... and who am I kidding, $20 isn't enough. It would have to be at least $50 for me personally, but most people don't even want as many drugs as I buy let alone actually buy that much: I'm sure $20 would have been enough for lots of people. Could have worked. Could still work, I guess. The whole idea is to get the momentum going, and right now, SR is killing that momentum. Just need a wee bit of help.
Or it could dig them an even deeper hole, I suppose. Interesting to consider though.
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atlantis/silkroad/Bmr are all honey pots but for who :o
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You raise a fascinating point. They didn't take their investment far enough: they should have given away 20 dollar coupons to all new customers that are verified as being "real people."
Verifying customers as real people seems about as good an idea as changing their name to DEAtlantis. I get what you're saying but asking for anything more than an anonymous email address would just increase the honeypot paranoia.
What they could do is buy a vendors account on SR & then use that to give away coupons to SR buyers w good stats - tho then they'd really end up looking like scavenging parasites.
If they pretend SR doesn't exist & just focus on building their own business they'll do better. There's an opportunity for them in attractive small time/beginner vendors who find SR too pricey or too competitive & if they can keep their prices low enough they will eventually attract customers. It would help if their forums were better, tho. They're underestimating how important this place is for helping/encouraging newbie buyers.
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I think having multiple markets is great, just because it gives buyers more flexibility. Not denying that SR is awesome!! Are there any others aside from the big 3? What about that Russian one? Anyone been on it and have the link?
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You raise a fascinating point. They didn't take their investment far enough: they should have given away 20 dollar coupons to all new customers that are verified as being "real people."
Verifying customers as real people seems about as good an idea as changing their name to DEAtlantis. I get what you're saying but asking for anything more than an anonymous email address would just increase the honeypot paranoia.
What they could do is buy a vendors account on SR & then use that to give away coupons to SR buyers w good stats - tho then they'd really end up looking like scavenging parasites.
If they pretend SR doesn't exist & just focus on building their own business they'll do better. There's an opportunity for them in attractive small time/beginner vendors who find SR too pricey or too competitive & if they can keep their prices low enough they will eventually attract customers. It would help if their forums were better, tho. They're underestimating how important this place is for helping/encouraging newbie buyers.
Oh, I just meant an email address that wasn't a random string of characters kind of verification and possibly that exists -- obviously you can't very well ask people for their name or something :) I see your point, but the problem (in my mind) is this: the lower fees only attract vendors. True, lower prices will attract customers (one would think anyway), but that's not actually a visible benefit of lower fees unless you compare side by side, and with listings that go in & out of stock that's kinda hard to do even if you want to.
And how many people can really be shopping for bargains like that on the dark net?
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what dark net? wonder if prism works there :
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What about Sheep Marketplace and Drugs Market? These 2 really are small-time lol! Has anyone ever bought anything from either of these 2?
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There does seem to be a "funk" in the forums there but Im not altogether uncomfortable.
Excuse my ignorance, but what's a "funk"?
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I think it is not even legally possible to host something like that for the gov. It is basically providing a platform for illegal things without them are able to catch most of the guys. Specially that most of the times possible vendors or customers dont even come from their country..... That would give them an awful lot of work for close to none profit. Not worth at all. Not practicable at all.
So in my book the chances that the gov or any other LE setting up such a thing are close to none.
Hi its possible !!
you ever heard of SHADOWCREW ? a cardersforum. well most of the admins and mods where LE or the forum itself was LE dont remember ! they busted a lot of people worldwide then.
Maybe SR is a honeypot everything is possible and all the bitcoins that we pay in FEE is going to US goverment . you never know
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Will have to check it out myself then I guess. I suppose the truth about BMR/Atlantis will be known in the long term. In the meantime, i'm willing to give both the benefit of the doubt. The Atlantis stunt seems to me a case of aggressive (if misguided) marketing, because they have such a large and successful rival to compete with, and as people have pointed out, they desperately need buyers to make use of the many vendors they already have. I see it as good competition really, a reason for SR to maintain its own, well deserved, reputation. 8)
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I think it is not even legally possible to host something like that for the gov. It is basically providing a platform for illegal things without them are able to catch most of the guys. Specially that most of the times possible vendors or customers dont even come from their country..... That would give them an awful lot of work for close to none profit. Not worth at all. Not practicable at all.
So in my book the chances that the gov or any other LE setting up such a thing are close to none.
sorry to bust your bubble, but the US gov't breaks it's own rules all the time - look at what they've done in congress, committed perjury (in the IRS scandal & the Benghazi scandal as well) - then go look at Fast & Furious - forget they were breaking State Dept export regs, they WERE SENDING GUNS TO THE CARTELS - over 2,000 rifles. Do a little research on it, and look at how they conducted themselves during that "operation". There was one shop in Texas (either dallas or houston) that had called ATF local office that they had a kid in the shop, who couldn't speak english, with a grocery bag of cash who wanted to buy 5 AK-47s, and they asked atf did they want to come down and "interview" this guy? ATF's response, nope- we've got him under surveillance, it's under control, go ahead and make the sale - uh, but btw, do you mind sending one of your employees out into the parking lot and writing down their license plate?" This went on for 1 & 1/2 years,. with letters and emails from the shop owner to local atf supervisor, indicating they weren't comfortable making these sales, as they had a number of border patrol agents as customers and friends, and didn't want to learn on of the guns they'd sold had been used to shoot a BP agent. ATF response again was, we've got it under control, nothing to worry about.
Well, after having spent the $60 million appropriation congress had granted ATF for "operation gunrunner", the GAO did an audit (there were tons of complaints from ATF agents on CleanUpATF.org complaining how they'd been rotated to phoenix and dallas only to be lent out to DEA to help in stake outs). Anyway, GAO report was condemning of ATF, citing few results, poor management etc. Before GAO releases a report publicly, they always give a copy to the subject agency (ATF) to review so they can prepare their response.
ATF used the opportunity or time window before GAO released the report to try to get some positive publicity, so they charged Carter Country, the very store (has four branches) with making illegal sales to suspicious buyers and making straw sales. (do a google for Dick Deguiren - ATF - Carter Country). It took him 3 conferences with the local US Attorney to convince him ATF was simply looking for publicity, that the charges were bogus. The US Atty dropped the charges and sent out a memo to all the local LE agencies (both police and sheriff's depts) telling them to NOT bring his office any cases involving ATF in the future (ie, they couldn't be trusted, not even by the US Atty's office).
that isn't the first time a US Prosecutor has taken that step - Reno, Nevada and somewhere in Utah
wrap your brain around allowing 2,000+ guns go to mexican cartels, resulting in (current count) 700+ fatalities including 2 US federal agents, all for the purpose of establishing a platform for calling for more gun control legislation. Then the stupidity / hypocrocisy and total lack of any integrity in charging the very shop that was assisting ATF.
I've got about 25 stories, documented with the court docket numbers in most cases, where ATF committed complete perjury to convict an innocent firearms dealer. In the most egregious, the assistant chief of the ATF's NFA (branch responsible for machinegun, silencers etc ) was caught in the appeals trials, his perjury completely outed, no question, no plausible denialbility - the result - the judge got so outraged he wrote a letter to GAO's Office of Professional Mis-conduct on that assistant branch chief's perjury. Two weeks later, that assistant chief was made the Acting Chief of that branch and remained so until he retired 8 years later.
Amongst law enforcement, ATF has the most vile reputation (stmt to me by a retired DOJ prosecutor - it's the most vile law enfocement agency on the planet) - good / honest agents don't stay long when they realize how bad it is and transfer to any other agency.
DEA is no better - every year DEA and ATF seem to swap the crown for the worst .
then think about the politics of drugs - drugs are bad, we break this darknet thing and the public will not care about a little "rule bending", then add to that most LE brains are burnt from too many steriods muscling up and the rambo wannabe personality too many exhibit.
here's what the popo have become http://www.infowars.com/florida-nurse-terrorized-by-us-marshals/
and http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323848804578608040780519904.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
as far as gov't doing anything illegal - go back and study the IRS scandal - not only targeting conservative 501c3 group tax exempt applications, but it has come out they revealed info from those applications to those groups liberal opposition groups (donor name lists) - this comes out in congress, and those people still have their jobs......
yeah, i'm convinced, Atlantis and BMR can't be LE stings, no way
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Has anyone, preferably from Australia used Atlantis, if so please PM me.
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There was an online article in The Independent a few days ago. It was described in the terms of SR being the big name business, with Atlantis as the up and coming rival to this business empire. It did not mention any of the "honeypot" theories.
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There was an online article in The Independent a few days ago. It was described in the terms of SR being the big name business, with Atlantis as the up and coming rival to this business empire. It did not mention any of the "honeypot" theories.
It didn't mention any honey pot therories however did you notice how the article seemed to be a publicly drive for Atlantis. The report was highly inaccurate yes its attracing vendors but not alot of buyers l could go on
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I think having multiple markets is great, just because it gives buyers more flexibility. Not denying that SR is awesome!! Are there any others aside from the big 3? What about that Russian one? Anyone been on it and have the link?
Russian's don't want westerner's let in to their play ground. It has cost people many years in jail before. In Russia you can fuck over anyone but the state and Putin, everything else is fair game.
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I think having multiple markets is great, just because it gives buyers more flexibility. Not denying that SR is awesome!! Are there any others aside from the big 3? What about that Russian one? Anyone been on it and have the link?
Russian's don't want westerner's let in to their play ground. It has cost people many years in jail before. In Russia you can fuck over anyone but the state and Putin, everything else is fair game.
Ah Russia, the wild west of the west. The last (semi-western) refuge from the political scourge of liberalism and it's sinister offspring, political correctness.
Putin's kind of a Premier wannabe, though. (still love ya Puti ;))
I'd like to see bama wrestle a 1000 pound grizzly, shirtless, on the summit of one of the Altay mountains.
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I would love to see Obama and Putin in an mma fight.
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Putin is a black belt in judo, so I think we know how that fight would end! ;) I can't stand the bloke personally, he's a dictator who knows how to rig democratic elections, and most of his stunts are shams, just to cement his tough guy image. >:(
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then him and the commie in the WH have more in common than i'd thought about
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then him and the commie in the WH have more in common than i'd thought about
I love it ::)! I take it you voted Tea Party and want Sarah Palin as president! ;) Putin is the commie - ex-KGB spy.
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nope, didn't vote palin - you assume you know something you don't
what do you think someone that redistributes the wealth is - other than a socialist/maxist/communist
deny it if you want, but .....well you know about the river in Egypt, i assume
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then him and the commie in the WH have more in common than i'd thought about
I love it ::)! I take it you voted Tea Party and want Sarah Palin as president! ;) Putin is the commie - ex-KGB spy.
>Palin
>Tea Party
lol. Not to get all /pol/ in here but I think everyone knows that her bid to ride on the Tea Party was 100% a sham to save her desperate attempt to actually have a shot at presidency. She was hoping that "Oy ya, we had a black up thur in thee chair, now we need a woman president, ya." but when that obviously wasn't panning out, she became desperate. She's no more Tea Party than half of those christian idiots who jumped on the bandwagon and diluted the ideals down.
It's sad, really. I was a Ron Paul supporter when Bush was incumbent and I was not even old enough to vote (yep, I'm a younger one) then with the 2012 elections all that bandwagon hopping shit went down. It was a sad day but the 'party' was gone- lost in the muck of political shenanigans.
I'm going to stop right here since this is the security boards. But I love talking this stuff. Especially when it gets into the shadow government and how they wanted to put Barack in office for another term instead of allowing for anyone else. Next election they have to pick someone. I'm sure they'll have some better candidates for the lineup so they can sell even more t-shirts and have some grande spectacle. Some guy/gal riding in on a shiny white horse to save America....only to get up there and succumb to more ridiculous lobbying by companies like Mosanto as they DP the system, puppeteer to the president and slipping their trojan-horse laws through a lazy congress who refuses to read any bill that doesn't up their paychecks.
The Tea Party may be labeled as christian freaks now thanks to the Fox News retards. But bring on the revolution. Because if there ever is one, all the TP friends I have would be more ready for it than the idiots with their heads in the sand.
/rant
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sorry to bust your bubble, but the US gov't breaks it's own rules all the time - look at what they've done in congress, committed perjury (in the IRS scandal & the Benghazi scandal as well) - then go look at Fast & Furious - forget they were breaking State Dept export regs, they WERE SENDING GUNS TO THE CARTELS - over 2,000 rifles. Do a little research on it, and look at how they conducted themselves during that "operation". There was one shop in Texas (either dallas or houston) that had called ATF local office that they had a kid in the shop, who couldn't speak english, with a grocery bag of cash who wanted to buy 5 AK-47s, and they asked atf did they want to come down and "interview" this guy? ATF's response, nope- we've got him under surveillance, it's under control, go ahead and make the sale - uh, but btw, do you mind sending one of your employees out into the parking lot and writing down their license plate?" This went on for 1 & 1/2 years,. with letters and emails from the shop owner to local atf supervisor, indicating they weren't comfortable making these sales, as they had a number of border patrol agents as customers and friends, and didn't want to learn on of the guns they'd sold had been used to shoot a BP agent. ATF response again was, we've got it under control, nothing to worry about.
Well, after having spent the $60 million appropriation congress had granted ATF for "operation gunrunner", the GAO did an audit (there were tons of complaints from ATF agents on CleanUpATF.org complaining how they'd been rotated to phoenix and dallas only to be lent out to DEA to help in stake outs). Anyway, GAO report was condemning of ATF, citing few results, poor management etc. Before GAO releases a report publicly, they always give a copy to the subject agency (ATF) to review so they can prepare their response.
ATF used the opportunity or time window before GAO released the report to try to get some positive publicity, so they charged Carter Country, the very store (has four branches) with making illegal sales to suspicious buyers and making straw sales. (do a google for Dick Deguiren - ATF - Carter Country). It took him 3 conferences with the local US Attorney to convince him ATF was simply looking for publicity, that the charges were bogus. The US Atty dropped the charges and sent out a memo to all the local LE agencies (both police and sheriff's depts) telling them to NOT bring his office any cases involving ATF in the future (ie, they couldn't be trusted, not even by the US Atty's office).
that isn't the first time a US Prosecutor has taken that step - Reno, Nevada and somewhere in Utah
wrap your brain around allowing 2,000+ guns go to mexican cartels, resulting in (current count) 700+ fatalities including 2 US federal agents, all for the purpose of establishing a platform for calling for more gun control legislation. Then the stupidity / hypocrocisy and total lack of any integrity in charging the very shop that was assisting ATF.
I've got about 25 stories, documented with the court docket numbers in most cases, where ATF committed complete perjury to convict an innocent firearms dealer. In the most egregious, the assistant chief of the ATF's NFA (branch responsible for machinegun, silencers etc ) was caught in the appeals trials, his perjury completely outed, no question, no plausible denialbility - the result - the judge got so outraged he wrote a letter to GAO's Office of Professional Mis-conduct on that assistant branch chief's perjury. Two weeks later, that assistant chief was made the Acting Chief of that branch and remained so until he retired 8 years later.
Amongst law enforcement, ATF has the most vile reputation (stmt to me by a retired DOJ prosecutor - it's the most vile law enfocement agency on the planet) - good / honest agents don't stay long when they realize how bad it is and transfer to any other agency.
DEA is no better - every year DEA and ATF seem to swap the crown for the worst .
then think about the politics of drugs - drugs are bad, we break this darknet thing and the public will not care about a little "rule bending", then add to that most LE brains are burnt from too many steriods muscling up and the rambo wannabe personality too many exhibit.
here's what the popo have become http://www.infowars.com/florida-nurse-terrorized-by-us-marshals/
and http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323848804578608040780519904.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
as far as gov't doing anything illegal - go back and study the IRS scandal - not only targeting conservative 501c3 group tax exempt applications, but it has come out they revealed info from those applications to those groups liberal opposition groups (donor name lists) - this comes out in congress, and those people still have their jobs......
yeah, i'm convinced, Atlantis and BMR can't be LE stings, no way
Yeah... if someone hadn't already mentioned it.. was gonna say that it would be awfully naive to think that just because something is illegal it would deter the government from doing it if is so pleased.
BTW, you made some good references... don't forget about the CIA though.. the Iran-Contras... and ... yeah, there's only so many things one can put in one post before your head is spinning and fingers numb from typing.. :P
Oh, and I'm not trying to say if Atlantis, BMR or any other marketplaces are LE/honeypots or they're not because I really have no way of knowing whatsoever.... I just figure that in this day and age, anything is possible... although it's not necessarily happening... though it might be :o
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then him and the commie in the WH have more in common than i'd thought about
I love it ::)! I take it you voted Tea Party and want Sarah Palin as president! ;) Putin is the commie - ex-KGB spy.
>Palin
>Tea Party
lol. Not to get all /pol/ in here but I think everyone knows that her bid to ride on the Tea Party was 100% a sham to save her desperate attempt to actually have a shot at presidency. She was hoping that "Oy ya, we had a black up thur in thee chair, now we need a woman president, ya." but when that obviously wasn't panning out, she became desperate. She's no more Tea Party than half of those christian idiots who jumped on the bandwagon and diluted the ideals down.
It's sad, really. I was a Ron Paul supporter when Bush was incumbent and I was not even old enough to vote (yep, I'm a younger one) then with the 2012 elections all that bandwagon hopping shit went down. It was a sad day but the 'party' was gone- lost in the muck of political shenanigans.
I'm going to stop right here since this is the security boards. But I love talking this stuff. Especially when it gets into the shadow government and how they wanted to put Barack in office for another term instead of allowing for anyone else. Next election they have to pick someone. I'm sure they'll have some better candidates for the lineup so they can sell even more t-shirts and have some grande spectacle. Some guy/gal riding in on a shiny white horse to save America....only to get up there and succumb to more ridiculous lobbying by companies like Mosanto as they DP the system, puppeteer to the president and slipping their trojan-horse laws through a lazy congress who refuses to read any bill that doesn't up their paychecks.
The Tea Party may be labeled as christian freaks now thanks to the Fox News retards. But bring on the revolution. Because if there ever is one, all the TP friends I have would be more ready for it than the idiots with their heads in the sand.
/rant
Ah, politics........ another way to ruin your day.
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Yeah... if someone hadn't already mentioned it.. was gonna say that it would be awfully naive to think that just because something is illegal it would deter the government from doing it if is so pleased.
BTW, you made some good references... don't forget about the CIA though.. the Iran-Contras... and ... yeah, there's only so many things one can put in one post before your head is spinning and fingers numb from typing.. :P
Oh, and I'm not trying to say if Atlantis, BMR or any other marketplaces are LE/honeypots or they're not because I really have no way of knowing whatsoever.... I just figure that in this day and age, anything is possible... although it's not necessarily happening... though it might be :o
- they say if you communicate something like your hair is on fire, folks are least likely to believe it. What's frustrating is that there are so many events, stories of outrageous conduct by ATF/FBI/DEA that no matter how you relay them, it's hard to not appear like your hair is on fire.
But as far as the gov't not doing anything illegal in the furtherance of their goals - that retired DOJ prosecutor told me, to most of the alphabet soup agencies, the constitution is an irritating hinderance & inconvenience
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Surprised Atlantis hasn't gained more traction. I've been on SR about a year and surprised at the lack of improvements and innovation on here in that time. I know that security and accessibility concerns take up a lot of the staff's time, but with the amount of money DPR must be making surely he could spare a little of that into improving things.....even basic things like the search engine on here absolutely sucks...I also like atlantis messaging system better....
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Surprised Atlantis hasn't gained more traction. I've been on SR about a year and surprised at the lack of improvements and innovation on here in that time. I know that security and accessibility concerns take up a lot of the staff's time, but with the amount of money DPR must be making surely he could spare a little of that into improving things.....even basic things like the search engine on here absolutely sucks...I also like atlantis messaging system better....
I agree completely. If more folks quit listening to the anti-Atlantis drivel flung around here and actually gave the site and it's admins a fair test run, I believe they'd find it to be equal if not better than SR in many aspects. Competition is necessary to maintain a healthy, progressive marketplace.
On a side note: I liked the "old" DPR better. He seemed more passionate, more devoted to the well being and expansion of this site and the ideals of liberty and responsible choice it was founded upon.
There was definitely a shift in the mod/admin hierarchy recently, although I wouldn't say it's been a complete changing of the guard...
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nope, didn't vote palin - you assume you know something you don't
what do you think someone that redistributes the wealth is - other than a socialist/maxist/communist
deny it if you want, but .....well you know about the river in Egypt, i assume
Why is redistribution of wealth such a bad idea?! ??? Shouldn't there be some system where those at the bottom of the capitalist pile, are given some sort of welfare? And who better to pay for it than multi-millionaires or massive corporations! Socialism isn't a dirty word in Europe, although in its true form, it has died a death in UK, for better or for worse.
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One glaring omission on Atlantis is account history. Something so simple to implement yet hasn't seems suss.
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Why is redistribution of wealth such a bad idea?! ??? Shouldn't there be some system where those at the bottom of the capitalist pile, are given some sort of welfare? And who better to pay for it than multi-millionaires or massive corporations! Socialism isn't a dirty word in Europe, although in its true form, it has died a death in UK, for better or for worse.
Forcing people to "redistribute" their wealth by putting a gun to their head is not a very cool thing to do if you ask me.
There SHOULD be a system where those people who need help are given "some sort of welfare." I would posit that this system is already in place, and it is called Charity. People have been helping their neighbors in need for a very long time, and I don't need the government to come in and put a gun to my head to force me to do it.
Massive corporations? A corporation is just a collection of people. It is not some entity, like a mythical beast, that burns up money inside its great belly to warm the fires of shangrila. Taking money from the "big bad corporations" is just taking money from all the individual people who work for and invest in that corporation. People like you and me.
Bonus for you - since Socialism introduces a completely unnecessary middleman who happens to be incredibly greedy and notoriously inefficient, about 75% of the money that is taken from that "bid bad corporation," is going to be then lost in the redistribution process. Sounds pretty great huh?
Further, Socialism is indeed a dirty word simply for the fact that SOCIALISM HAS KILLED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. MILLIONS. I don't feel much like giving an in depth history lesson, but I think google will help you out pretty quickly if you type "socialism history" or something similar.
I will conclude by reiterating the most important point, which is that Socialism is admitting that not only is welfare for the disadvantaged important; it is SO IMPORTANT that if you don't give a certain % of your money to a big central organization that will then give your money away for you, that organization will come to your house and imprison you. If they are feeling nice, they may just take all your belongings to pay your "debt." If that doesn't sound like a good time to you, they will come to your house with weapons and force you to go to their dungeons. If that doesn't sound like a good time to you, and you attempt to resist, they will fucking shoot you dead.
I, for one, do not think it is right for people to be forced at gunpoint to give money. This is THEFT of the highest order.
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nope, didn't vote palin - you assume you know something you don't
what do you think someone that redistributes the wealth is - other than a socialist/maxist/communist
deny it if you want, but .....well you know about the river in Egypt, i assume
Why is redistribution of wealth such a bad idea?! ??? Shouldn't there be some system where those at the bottom of the capitalist pile, are given some sort of welfare? And who better to pay for it than multi-millionaires or massive corporations! Socialism isn't a dirty word in Europe, although in its true form, it has died a death in UK, for better or for worse.
because redistribution invariably (key word is invariably) ends with everyone having less wealth, even those at the bottom of the economic scale
whenever gov't involves itself in anything, it messes it up - reason, the folks deciding the priorities have no experience in the real world, no concept of market dynamics and usually base their priorities on "feelings".
Look at the gov't health care system in UK or Canada - gov't run, everyone has access. How good is it? My neighbor up in canada, at the age of 42, father of two, passed away from leukemia - it took 19 months for the gov't system to get him on the schedule to diagnose it and then another 18 months for an appt for the operation or treatment - he passed away waiting. no offense to the UK posters here, but i read too many stories in the mailonline.uk about the NHS scandals, from people dying due to flagrant mis-diagnosed ailments to just plain terrible treatment, administrators caught massaging their stats to look good and qualify for their bonuses, in spite of the reality
obamacare is going to destroy this county - already firms have decreased work hours to less than 30 per week (from full time of 40) to not hiring, not knowing what the effects (total costs) on their business will be.
Meanwhile, costs, depending on the actual state involvedf, are being predicted to rise by 90 - 180% AND WE'LL HAVE LOWER QUALITY MEDICAL CARE as well. My own doctor is retiring early, he doesn't want to be part of this fiasco. The unions that supported obama have already started screaming this is going to destroy the healthcare they had under their contracts. The IRS that is going to administer it has said it doesn't want to, the Head of the IRS has said he wants his own healthcare over obamacare, and congress critters (staffers etc) complained,, so just today obama announced their healthcare would be re-imbursed 75% by the Office of Public Management. It's a trainwreck - anything the gov't does is a trainwreck
you want to be guaranteed gov't cheese, or don't mind living on gov't cheeese? go for it, but don't force me to live on gov't cheese. And you can have your obamaphone as well
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Why do they have PGP if they allow it do be done by the site? My data has already passed through everything that I'd want to PGP against by then.
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words
OK, I don't want to get into any debate about this because we'll never see eye to eye on this. But one thing I really must point out is that you should stop reading the Mail. Now. Just forget you ever found that website/newspaper. It is an evil, scaremongering, reactionary, hatefilled shitstain of a rag which exists only to make the middle classes feel that their ridiculous fears and prejudices about how the world is going to hell have some sort of legitimacy.
Fuck the Daily Mail.
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unless the reports re the NHS scandals in the mailonline are fictitious, which i highly doubt, thanks but i'm pretty good at deciding what i want to read
PS - after thinking about it for a bit, i'm wondering if we're even talking about the same rag?
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Why is redistribution of wealth such a bad idea?! ??? Shouldn't there be some system where those at the bottom of the capitalist pile, are given some sort of welfare? And who better to pay for it than multi-millionaires or massive corporations! Socialism isn't a dirty word in Europe, although in its true form, it has died a death in UK, for better or for worse.
Forcing people to "redistribute" their wealth by putting a gun to their head is not a very cool thing to do if you ask me.
There SHOULD be a system where those people who need help are given "some sort of welfare." I would posit that this system is already in place, and it is called Charity. People have been helping their neighbors in need for a very long time, and I don't need the government to come in and put a gun to my head to force me to do it.
Massive corporations? A corporation is just a collection of people. It is not some entity, like a mythical beast, that burns up money inside its great belly to warm the fires of shangrila. Taking money from the "big bad corporations" is just taking money from all the individual people who work for and invest in that corporation. People like you and me.
Bonus for you - since Socialism introduces a completely unnecessary middleman who happens to be incredibly greedy and notoriously inefficient, about 75% of the money that is taken from that "bid bad corporation," is going to be then lost in the redistribution process. Sounds pretty great huh?
Further, Socialism is indeed a dirty word simply for the fact that SOCIALISM HAS KILLED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. MILLIONS. I don't feel much like giving an in depth history lesson, but I think google will help you out pretty quickly if you type "socialism history" or something similar.
I will conclude by reiterating the most important point, which is that Socialism is admitting that not only is welfare for the disadvantaged important; it is SO IMPORTANT that if you don't give a certain % of your money to a big central organization that will then give your money away for you, that organization will come to your house and imprison you. If they are feeling nice, they may just take all your belongings to pay your "debt." If that doesn't sound like a good time to you, they will come to your house with weapons and force you to go to their dungeons. If that doesn't sound like a good time to you, and you attempt to resist, they will fucking shoot you dead.
I, for one, do not think it is right for people to be forced at gunpoint to give money. This is THEFT of the highest order.
Urm, i'm not sure that taxing high-earners equates to the poor dears having guns pointed at their heads. France still has a strong socialist movement, and I don't hear of them carrying out mass slaughter.
And if we're talking about millions dying, you could point a finger at the US government for involving themselves in other countries affairs and offering support to mass-murdering right-wing dictators, since WW2.
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unless the reports re the NHS scandals in the mailonline are fictitious, which i highly doubt, thanks but i'm pretty good at deciding what i want to read
PS - after thinking about it for a bit, i'm wondering if we're even talking about the same rag?
We are talking about the same rag. Whilst you may be good at deciding what you want to read, you should certainly be aware of the societal context around the Daily Mail in its country of origin before you believe anything else that's printed in it. I won't lecture you any further. Two things you might want to look into though since we're talking about healthcare is the Mail's history of reporting on MRSA in UK hospitals, and its role in the MMR vaccine scandal.
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Yeah, frank-butcher is right about the Mail. It's probably the most hysterical, right-wing paper in the UK. For all the many faults of the NHS, at least EVERYONE has a right to medical care, and if the rich don't like it, they can always go private. The situation in the US just seems very unfair for those who can't afford insurance.
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Thanks for the backup Garrincha!
For me it's not so much that it's right-wing. Being right-wing isn't in and of itself a bad thing. It's more that the Mail almost seems to have an agenda of sowing disharmony by appealing to the base fears and prejudices of the middle classes.
Anyway, hey ho.
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Sure, I know right-wing views don't make a bad person, but the UK press seems to be dominated by the right-of-centre rags. I think you're right about the Mails' readership - it's a mouthpiece for conservative, middle-Englanders.
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to be really really honest about it, i really don't care to argue politics in any forum
to continue on my strain of honesty, i like the mailonline for all the fucking shots of bikini clad dollbabies in every day's edition, plus there's always some interesting animal stories - ie, a fucking skiing squirrel or what have you - quirky but entertaining
as far as taxes collected at gunpoint - tell that to the guy that opened a deli, fired his accountant when he found she was embezzling him and had her charged. She went to the IRS and bargained that if they'd get her charges dropped she'd give them the "evidence" he was hiding income (turns out she'd just come out of prison (when he first hired her) for embezzling from her previous employer, a bank) - no matter that she was a doubtful source. the IRS did a swat team raid on the deli (found no "boxes with $20,000 in bills) as she'dd described, so they raided his house while he was in the shower, forcing him out of the shower at gunpoint (swat officer clad invest, helmet and carrying a subgun) with suds still on his head from shampooing, and his teenage daughters sleepover, all her friends were held at gunpoint and herded into the living room while they searched the house - this was all over thinking a deli, with maybe a $1500-2000 a day intake, could squirrel away $20K a week, per their "snitch".
that guy ended up testifying at congressional hearing, back around 2000-2001 iirc
I could tell you more about the IRS, how they went and visited my friend's dying mother in the hospital, she was 86 yrs old, wanting her to give them the money they claimed he owed. They'd already seized his resturant (preventing him from earning the money they felt he owed) and seized one rental property that i was trying to sell for him so he could, again, generate the money he needed to pay them - it's absolutely lovely when you meet a client at a property to show them, and on the front door is an IRS notice, instructing the tenants to pay their rent to the IRS, that the property has been "seized". They did one week after agreeing to give him 90 days to raise the money and agreeing to not seizing anything during that 90 days.
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I think the two cases you mention maybe among the most extreme forms of tax-collection!!! :o TBH I don't know who the IRS are, but I assume they are the US tax-collecting service. Different countries have different approaches to many aspects of life.
BTW when you call socialists mass-murderers I think you're confusing it with communism. They are different concepts.
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I think the two cases you mention maybe among the most extreme forms of tax-collection!!! :o TBH I don't know who the IRS are, but I assume they are the US tax-collecting service. Different countries have different approaches to many aspects of life.
BTW when you call socialists mass-murderers I think you're confusing it with communism. They are different concepts.
in reverse order, think you're confusing my posts with someone else - don't recall calling socialists mass-murders
IRS = Internal Revenue Service, and no, those are not isolated incidents. Even in every day normal audits, they're brutally ugly, rude & arrogant. I got audited four years in a row. 2nd year, i got a "request for interview appointment" signed by a "Christine xxx", received it in the mailbox on a Tuesday. I contacted my accountant to have him respond. On Thursday, (that's two whole days later) i received a 2nd request, this one "DEMANDING I RESPOND TO HER PREVIOUS REQUEST IMMEDIATELY" like i was some errant child mis-behaving in school.
I responded by telephone, indicating that i had given her info to my acct, and he said he's left two msgs, so it would be a good idea if she returned his call. She tried to give me some arrogance but i cut her off with the phrase "excuse me for talking while you're interrupting, i realize how rude that must be" - that knocked her off balance for a second. I then informed her my phone lines are recorded, so be mindful to offer me the courtesy she expected of me, or this would be on the news tomorrow night (my brother-in-law is a news producer for one of the local TV channels).
She then instructed me to be at her office at 9:00AM the next morning with all my returns and receipts. I reminded her, when i have an IRS enrolled agent representing me, i do not have any obligation to respond to her directly. 2nd, if she wanted to see any rcpts, to feel free to come to my office and i wouldd make them available, but if she wanted any copies, to bring her own copier and her own generator, as i was under no obligation to provide those.
The trick with them asking you any question is, they can mis-characterize your answer - i'd already learned that in the previous audit. Example : Mr XXX, your return shows a 90 day loan taken out 3 years ago - for what purpose were those funds used?. (i was in a business developing properties, and we probably took out thirty 90 day notes in three years, so remembering one, without the file in my hand is impossible. So i had indicated i'd have to get back to her. It didn't matter, she took the answer i gave in saying "i'd have to pull that file and get back to her" as "unsatisfactory, and changed how that loan was treated so that my tax exposure was increased for that year, AND because i had therefore underpaid, there was a 20% penalty + interest on the amount underpaid.
We had about 80 apartments - on some we pay the utilities (elec + water/sewer etc). Every monthly bill is a receipt for last month's pmt as well as a bill for this month's amount due. She wanted EVERY CANCELED CHECK for every pmt for every utility bill for the previous three years - about 4-6 hours work pulling the checking stmts, pulling the individual checks, zeroxing and sending to the accountant to give her, EVEN THOUGH EACH BILL SHOWED RECEIPT FOR THE PREVIOUS MONTHS' PMT. This went on for about 6 months, every week or two a new mindless request like that, to basically wear you down, so when they say
"we find you owe $12,468.01", they're thinking you'll take that and pay it just to end the fucking nightmare.
It was in the Kippinger Letter that that had become the new MO (method of operation) at the IRS, to bleed business owners of any money they could.
now, a lot of them are bored, and some of those would like to get over to the law enfocement side and be Eliot Ness or G-men, get to wear vests, carry subguns and kick in doors.
There is a mentality at the IRS to instill fear into the population so everyone is too scared to underpay their taxes. That was one reason they seized the resturant - an idiot knew that client couldn't pay without his place of business open. They didn't want the money, they wanted the publicity - that was more important to them. BTW, that resturant seizure made it into the local newspaper, sunday edition, basically reciting what i've said about they're not wanting the money, the fear that the publicity would generate was more important to them. A guy's life was dealt a major interruption over an $11,000 appox bill - and that bill includes their outrageous penalties and interest.
America, the home of the free and the sheeple
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I think the two cases you mention maybe among the most extreme forms of tax-collection!!! :o TBH I don't know who the IRS are, but I assume they are the US tax-collecting service. Different countries have different approaches to many aspects of life.
BTW when you call socialists mass-murderers I think you're confusing it with communism. They are different concepts.
in reverse order, think you're confusing my posts with someone else - don't recall calling socialists mass-murders but that assessment isn't too far from being accurate. But if you want this conversation to continue, please refrain from putting words in my mouth or mis-characterizing what i've said.
IRS = Internal Revenue Service, and no, those are not isolated incidents. Even in every day normal audits, they're brutally ugly, rude & arrogant. I got audited four years in a row. 2nd year, i got a "request for interview appointment" signed by a "Christine xxx", received it in the mailbox on a Tuesday. I contacted my accountant to have him respond. On Thursday, (that's two whole days later) i received a 2nd request, this one "DEMANDING I RESPOND TO HER PREVIOUS REQUEST IMMEDIATELY" like i was some errant child mis-behaving in school. And remember, i'd only gotten her first notice 48 hours earlier.
I responded by telephone, indicating that i had given her info to my accountant, and he said he'd left two msgs, so it would be a good idea if she returned his call. She tried to give me some arrogance but i cut her off with the phrase "excuse me for talking while you're interrupting, i realize how rude that must be" - that knocked her off balance for a second. I then informed her my phone lines are recorded, so be mindful to offer me the courtesy she expected of me, or this would be on the news tomorrow night (my brother-in-law is a news producer for one of the local TV channels).
She then instructed me to be at her office at 9:00AM the next morning with all my returns and receipts. I reminded her, when i have an IRS enrolled agent representing me, i do not have any obligation to respond to her directly. 2nd, if she wanted to see any rcpts, to feel free to come to my office and i wouldd make them available, but if she wanted any copies, to bring her own copier and her own generator, as i was under no obligation to provide those. A) there's no obligation for me to appear at her office - if she wanted to see my receipts, come to the office. The only obligation a citizen has is to make them available. The previous year when i had sent them in (about 2 boxes, all filed neatly) they came back looking like they'd been thru a bingo mixer, and god's knows if it was all there or if anything was missing, that i'd need at a future audit.
The trick with them asking you any question and wanting a response from the citizen is, they can mis-characterize your answer, or if you don't use the proper phrase, they can decide to retreat that expense as you'd said "xxx" instead of "yyy" - i'd already learned that in the previous audit. Example : Mr XXX, your return shows a 90 day loan taken out 3 years ago - for what purpose were those funds used?. (i was in a business developing properties, and we probably took out thirty 90 day notes in three years, so remembering one, without the file in my hand is impossible. So i had indicated i'd have to get back to her. It didn't matter, she took the answer i gave in saying "i'd have to pull that file and get back to her" as "unsatisfactory, and changed how that loan was treated so that my tax exposure was increased by about $2,000.00 for that year, AND because i had therefore underpaid, there was a 20% penalty + interest on the amount underpaid. (the retreatment of the expense meant it had to be amortized over 30 years versus the very year it occurred. Turned out that loan was for a $12,000 boiler for a six unit apartment building, and was properly treated as the old boiler had exploded, doing a lot of damage to the ceiling or floor of the apartment directly above, as well as other equipment in the furnace room.
We had about 80 apartments - on some we pay the utilities (elec + water/sewer etc). Every monthly bill is a receipt for last month's pmt as well as a bill for this month's amount due. She wanted EVERY CANCELED CHECK for every pmt for every utility bill for the previous three years - about 4-6 hours work pulling the checking stmts, pulling the individual checks, zeroxing and sending to the accountant to give her, EVEN THOUGH EACH BILL SHOWED RECEIPT FOR THE PREVIOUS MONTHS' PMT. This went on for about 6 months, every week or two a new mindless request like that, to basically wear you down, so when they say
"we find you owe $12,468.01", they're thinking you'll take that and pay it just to end the fucking nightmare.
It was in the Kippinger Letter that that had become the new MO (method of operation) at the IRS, to bleed business owners of any money they could.
now, a lot of them are bored, and some of those would like to get over to the law enfocement side and be Eliot Ness or G-men, get to wear vests, carry subguns and kick in doors.
There is a mentality at the IRS to instill fear into the population so everyone is too scared to underpay their taxes. That was one reason they seized the resturant - an idiot knew that client couldn't pay without his place of business open. They didn't want the money, they wanted the publicity - that was more important to them. BTW, that resturant seizure made it into the local newspaper, sunday edition, basically reciting what i've said about they're not wanting the money, the fear that the publicity would generate was more important to them. A guy's life was dealt a major interruption(ie loss of place of business so basically his income, loss of income producing property) all over an $11,000 appox bill - and that bill includes their outrageous penalties and interest. The actual amount underpaid before the penalty & interest was probably in the neighborhood of $6,000-$6,500.
I assume you're british - i have no experience with your system, but do have some with the canadian IRS. They seem more professional and mindful of the citizens' rights and more courtious. But from recent reports i've read (and heard from friends in canada) they're learning to adopt the "american way".
America, the home of the free and the sheeple
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Nice to see this thread has descended into talk of how Putin is a black belt in judo and political ideology.
So we can put the Atlantis theory's to bed now can we? :)
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Nice to see this thread has descended into talk of how Putin is a black belt in judo and political ideology.
So we can put the Atlantis theory's to bed now can we? :)
LOL ;D! Apologies! And apologies to tbart. I wasn't directly aiming that last sentence toward you, just someone said something akin to 'Socialism has killed millions'. I fully understand your frustration, as a (presumably small) business owner, when tax collectors treat people like that. Somehow, many aspects of American life seem to be unnecessarily aggressive, in comparison to other developed countries. Wouldn't say you can dismiss socialism on the basis of the US policy on tax collection though.
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Nice to see this thread has descended into talk of how Putin is a black belt in judo and political ideology.
So we can put the Atlantis theory's to bed now can we? :)
LOL ;D! Apologies! And apologies to tbart. I wasn't directly aiming that last sentence toward you, just someone said something akin to 'Socialism has killed millions'. I fully understand your frustration, as a (presumably small) business owner, when tax collectors treat people like that. Somehow, many aspects of American life seem to be unnecessarily aggressive, in comparison to other developed countries. Wouldn't say you can dismiss socialism on the basis of the US policy on tax collection though.
I don't know about killing millions but I watched a sociology documentary recently that kinda proved at least socialists had better and more fulfilling sex lives.
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Nice to see this thread has descended into talk of how Putin is a black belt in judo and political ideology.
So we can put the Atlantis theory's to bed now can we? :)
LOL ;D! Apologies! And apologies to tbart. I wasn't directly aiming that last sentence toward you, just someone said something akin to 'Socialism has killed millions'. I fully understand your frustration, as a (presumably small) business owner, when tax collectors treat people like that. Somehow, many aspects of American life seem to be unnecessarily aggressive, in comparison to other developed countries. Wouldn't say you can dismiss socialism on the basis of the US policy on tax collection though.
I don't know about killing millions but I watched a sociology documentary recently that kinda proved at least socialists had better and more fulfilling sex lives.
little known "secret" to the "better and more fulfilling sex lives" is that they wear socks with sandals.