Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: HarmReduction on June 13, 2013, 11:24 am
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Thanks to online shopping, even 23-year-olds get excited to see the mailman. Will bought his phone and laptop online, along with his shoes and the jacket he’s wearing. The package he’s waiting for now is different: it should contain two grams of cocaine.
After an increasingly anxious wait, Will hears the postman drop the A4-sized parcel, bound in butcher’s paper, in the mailbox of his inner-Sydney terrace house. His name and address are handwritten in thick black texta.
Will carries the parcel to his bedroom, closes the door and tears away the loose wrapping paper. Instead of a zip-lock bag, he finds Katie Holmes’s face staring back at him from the cover of the June 2001 issue of Teen Vogue.
The tousle-haired engineering student smiles, but a quick flick through the magazine reveals nothing. Will scratches his head. Leafing through the pages a second time more slowly, he catches sight of a shampoo sample.
Underneath, stuck to the glue used to fix the sachet to the page, there is also a tiny foil parcel. Will rips off a corner, inserts a finger and dabs white powder on the inside of his lip like a cop in an action movie: “It’s real.”
“I’ve seen some insane packaging,” Will confides later. “Vacuum sealing, an iPhone case, MDMA disguised as soil samples – but this takes the cake.”
Will is one of thousands of Australians who buy their drugs on the internet. So far he’s arranged more than 50 small importations via Silk Road, an eBay-like website that, a quick browse reveals, sells everything from marijuana and pills by the kilo to fake NSW driver’s licenses. There’s even a stack of 100 counterfeit $50 notes (going for much less than $5000). The only things forbidden are weapons and child pornography.
Silk Road works just like its legal counterparts – vendors try to earn positive feedback from buyers. There’s even a dispute-resolution service in the event that a package doesn’t arrive when and where it’s supposed to. Silk Road is only accessible through Tor, networking software that masks the user’s IP address and location, though customers such as Will are understandably paranoid.
Will uses Bitcoin, a bank- and government-free digital currency, to make purchases. Though Bitcoins are already untrackable, he sends the money through a program that launders it via hundreds of other accounts, just in case. When he gives his address to vendors, it’s in an encrypted form that only they can decode.
There’s one facet of security that software can’t help with: Will still lives with his parents.
“Of course my parents are suss about strange letters arriving for me from the UK,” he says. “But I’ve thought about what I’d tell them – I’d tell them it was workout supplements.”
The use of the postal system to import illicit drugs hasn’t gone unnoticed by law enforcement. In the 2010–11 financial year, Customs seized 1317 postal packages containing drugs. So far this financial year there have been 7000 seizures.
In February, Melbourne nightclub bouncer Paul Leslie Howard became the first person in Australia to be charged for importing drugs bought on the internet. Howard, 32, was jailed for three years and six months for what the sentencing judge called a “smorgasbord drug-market operation”.
An Australian Federal Police operation targeting Silk Road users in March resulted in six arrests and the seizure of 140 packages variously containing LSD, heroin, steroids, MDMA, cannabis, cocaine and methamphetamine (ice).
“You’ll often have an envelope with a small amount of drugs inside and in there is also a letter,” says Jim Carroll, the manager of international mail at Customs’ Sydney mail gateway. “And the letter goes something like: ‘If you are the intended recipient, please use responsibly. If you are from law enforcement, go fuck yourself.’
“We take that as a bit of a compliment. We do know that at some stage we had sellers on Silk Road saying that they would no longer sell to Australia because they were losing too many shipments.”
“Being able to sell [drugs] to people around the country or around the world without sharing anything more than an anonymous username could not be any safer.”
Yet many people selling drugs on Silk Road don’t seem too concerned. NeuroPlex, a 20-year-old pill vendor by night and Melbourne apprentice by day, is more occupied with retaining his 100% positive feedback rating and didn’t even realise the AFP was aware of the site. Another vendor is OzePharma, a 35-year-old Sydneysider who promises next-day delivery around Australia on orders placed before 4 pm. “Being able to sell to people around the country or around the world without sharing anything more than an anonymous username could not be any safer,” he says. “I attempted selling through the street market but it’s a dangerous and competitive and risky market to be in. I’ve seen people killed and houses raided by cops and rival dealers. I wasn’t made to be a street dealer and I never got far with it.”
OzePharma says he has 20 steady clients with whom he regularly chats on the site’s in-built mail service. This sense of community is encouraged by Silk Road’s founder, who goes by the name “Dread Pirate Roberts”, a moniker borrowed from the rakish hero of The Princess Bride. As well as drawing a commission on all sales, Roberts regularly takes to the site’s forums to declaim at length on topics such as liberty, child labour, the environment and, of course, the war on drugs.
“I won’t rest until children are born into a world where oppression, institutional violence and control, world war and all the other hallmarks of the state are as ancient history as pharaohs commanding armies of slaves,” Roberts preached in one such post last year.
Likewise, many Silk Road vendors and buyers appear to believe that the marketplace is a libertarian paradise that takes drugs out of the hands of “real criminals”. Yet it’s hard to get around the fact that illicit drug manufacturing worldwide is still overwhelmingly controlled by violent criminal organisations. At the same time, the biggest challenge to Silk Road may come not from law enforcement, but from competition. Four alternative websites have sprung up recently: BlackMarket Reloaded, Sheep Marketplace, Atlantis and the intriguingly named Russian Anonymous MarketPlace.
For four days across April and May this year, Silk Road was taken offline by hackers. Some users accuse the US Drug Enforcement Administration while others speculate that “Vladimir”, the founder of Atlantis, was behind the attacks, although he has publicly denied this. If he was, it worked – many vendors, OzePharma among them, set up accounts on Vladimir’s website.
“The Silk Road is a prototype – it’s a functional solution that is not as good as it could be,” explains Will. “Where there’s money, there’s innovation. Nobody uses AOL anymore; nobody uses AltaVista as a search engine. In five years, nobody will be buying drugs on Silk Road.”
http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/june/1370181600/alex-mcclintock/silk-road-and-fast-changing-world-online-drug-shopping
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Good read. :)
If we're not buying drugs on Silk Road in 5 years, like the author states, i'd be very surprised :)
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Good read. :)
If we're not buying drugs on Silk Road in 5 years, like the author states, i'd be very surprised :)
This area is going to get bigger & bigger especially as bitcoins will start to be accepted in buying general items A pub in Cambridge UK has started accepting the BTC - The currency fluctuation will have an impact on the BTC but sites like SR will become more popular and people become more knowledgeable
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Good read. :)
If we're not buying drugs on Silk Road in 5 years, like the author states, i'd be very surprised :)
What the author is saying is there will be better alternatives and SR will be left behind if they don't innovate. It's the natural progression for many market originators who enjoy a monopoly for a long time.
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I got what they were saying, but still feel that SR will adapt and change as competition intensifies. Time will tell I guess :)
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I got what they were saying, but still feel that SR will adapt and change as competition intensifies. Time will tell I guess :)
Sorry, clearly it's *my* comprehension skills that need brushing up. Let me +1 you for the error :)
It is a good read, if nothing particularly new. But I guess that's coming from someone who spends a hell of a lot of their time here :D
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i want to know if there is any sellers that can post meth from anywhere in the world to australia in a shampoo thingy in a magazine????????
sounds quite stealthy
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I got what they were saying, but still feel that SR will adapt and change as competition intensifies. Time will tell I guess :)
Sorry, clearly it's *my* comprehension skills that need brushing up. Let me +1 you for the error :)
It is a good read, if nothing particularly new. But I guess that's coming from someone who spends a hell of a lot of their time here :D
No need for apologies; it's all good :) +1 back for the sentiment though ;)
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Wow an article that doesn't feature my name on it this month. Woohoo - out of the spotlight again.
But yeah, SilkRoad is the original success story and as long as the marketplace doesn't have a security compromise or DPR goes MIA then all should be fine. One truth on the deep web is that you can trust nothing, but it's certainly a hell of a lot safer staying in somewhere familiar.
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sounds quite stealthy
Well, not any more... ::)
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Great to read... I have great hope for the future.
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Good read. :)
If we're not buying drugs on Silk Road in 5 years, like the author states, i'd be very surprised :)
haha hope so
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"if you are LE go fuck yourself" HAHAHAHA fuckin laughed hard +1
Eventually these thug gangsters in blue who serve their corporate fascistic masters are going to have to learn you can't treat people like chimpanzees and lock them in cages simply because they themselves or the vendors and DPR allow human beings the right to be what they were born to be, truly free!
To be free means you have the right to experiment with your body and mind and short of cannabis related products I don't think there's anyone here who wouldn't happily see any compound legalized and regulated for people above the age of 21 who are old enough to learn for themselves what is or is not right for them and the tragic death of the young man in Sydney this last week comes down to two things, the poor education standards of this country and bad parenting, and possibly the third which was the equally immature and stupid 18 year old who sold these things to this young boy who ended up dead that shouldn't have had access to them in the first place without the knowledge not to sell them to people who can't handle them or are unprepared for the drugs consequences.
However this shit happens from alcohol all the time yet we don't ban alcohol and cigarette packets have pictures of death and destruction all over them yet they are perfectly legal and kill half the people who use them, however we all know consistency was never a politicians strong point they need to look in the mirror when they talk about dangerous drugs and criminals who murder children when they give amphetamines to children for misbehavior and Prozac AKA fluoexitine which is a fluoride based compound that then causes kids to go crazy and shoot up schoolyards. Or what about using our tax dollars bomb people in other countries we have never met nor endanger us in any way with (in the case of Israhell white phosphorous banned under the Geneva convention and therefore not only murder but war crimes even though all war is a crime except in cases of self defense or liberation) drones flown from people in the very same countries who preach the doctrine of human rights and civil liberties to others and claim to be extending that right to others while simultaneously doing all they can to curtail them in every way possible as Operation PRISM clearly shows what we at Silk Road (and Atlantis to be fair) always knew.
Bear Grylls falls from a helicopter 50 meters or more and survives (luckily) and yet we don't ban the military and helicopters (gee I wonder why that is?), NSW's finest shoot a drunk and confused Frenchmen on a beach carrying a knife scared for his life and clearly justly so yet we don't prohibit LE carrying firearms (one of those police also happened to be on drugs the day before) while telling decent hard working Australians you are incapable of accurately defending your family and possessions with a firearm yourself.
Meanwhile as Bill Hicks notes alcohol companies pump advertising into our living rooms daily through the propaganda device known as television that our children watch and don't even loiter outside schoolyards and the irony of watching a War On (some) Drugs commercial that gets immediately followed by an ad saying "A hard earned thirst needs a big cold beer, and the best cold beer is Vic, Vic Bitter" when the real truth would be a fresh glass of fluoride free water with perhaps some magnesium and possibly calcium and a few vitamins added instead.
We live in a time when the changing of the old guard will come and our generation will take the throne of power and it is our duty for the survival of our species to learn from the mistakes of our forefathers and only deprive people of their liberties who have done that to others through force, fraud, theft, coercion and murder.
We were taught in school you don't hit, you don't steal and perhaps in church or just off your parents and those around you, you don't kill. And it's not, you don't steal if you are a tax agent, or you you don't hit and enslave people if you're wearing a blue uniform and have a badge and a gun and YOU DON'T KILL IF JULIA GILLARD OR ONE OF HER HENCHMEN TELL YOU TO PUT ON A CAMOUFLAGE OUTFIT AND GIVE YOU A GUN AND TELL YOU TO GO AND KILL SOMEONE!
These are moral absolutes and until we as libertarians show this message of liberty to the rest of the world and share what we know with others about how our species must evolve or perish, this will continue generation after generation until we are all living in a world like that inhabited by pieces of shit like Judge Dredd and we are even more enslaved than we already are now.
Freedom isn't free, every generation has it's own war to fight and ours is the war on drugs and the war on civil liberties and equal human rights for all men and women whether rich or poor, great or small, we are all creatures of nature's majesty and nobody but yourself has a right to tell you how to live unless you infringe upon the freedom of another person and the non-aggression principle is the core of all these principles, treat others as you wish to be treated and we need to create a libertarian world where those who follow this rule and swear allegiance to it and each other can live and help prosper and anyone who doesn't can GTFO and live in a world much as we live in now, a free range tax farm and we are the livestock.
- JWM 8)
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Silk Road works just like its legal counterparts – vendors try to earn positive feedback from buyers. There’s even a dispute-resolution service in the event that a package doesn’t arrive when and where it’s supposed to. Silk Road is only accessible through Tor, networking software that masks the user’s IP address and location, though customers such as Will are understandably paranoid.
Will uses Bitcoin, a bank- and government-free digital currency, to make purchases. Though Bitcoins are already untrackable, he sends the money through a program that launders it via hundreds of other accounts, just in case. When he gives his address to vendors, it’s in an encrypted form that only they can decode.
Warning!
Please do not google search Silk Road's Web Link and try any of the stuff we just taught you how to do!
Drugs are Bayad mmKay?
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Silk Road works just like its legal counterparts – vendors try to earn positive feedback from buyers. There’s even a dispute-resolution service in the event that a package doesn’t arrive when and where it’s supposed to. Silk Road is only accessible through Tor, networking software that masks the user’s IP address and location, though customers such as Will are understandably paranoid.
Will uses Bitcoin, a bank- and government-free digital currency, to make purchases. Though Bitcoins are already untrackable, he sends the money through a program that launders it via hundreds of other accounts, just in case. When he gives his address to vendors, it’s in an encrypted form that only they can decode.
Warning!
Please do not google search Silk Road's Web Link and try any of the stuff we just taught you how to do!
Drugs are Bayad mmKay?
The Monthly is a pretty cruisy libertarian publication ::)
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LOL Hash ;) - hey have you seen-
Legal but lethal: How your child can buy drugs online as easily as you order your Waitrose groceries
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2340576/Legal--lethal-How-child-buy-drugs-online-easily-order-Waitrose-groceries.html (clear web)
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Mr. Mackey: M'kay, kids, we have something very serious we need to discuss today, hm'kay?
It appears that some kids in school are getting high by choking themselves.
Some kids call it "The Choking Game", hm'kay but, but choking yourself is bad.
Hm'kay? Don-, don't do that. Hm'kay?
Kyle: You can get high from choking yourself? [Kenny feels for his neck through his
hood, then squeezes once he finds it]
Mr. Mackey: Schoolchildren are often experimenting with dangerous ways to get high, hm'kay,
like sniffin' glue, guzzlin' cough medicine, huffin' paint, hm'kay? But they're all bad.
M'kay?
Butters: Mm-my cousin's in Florida, and said kids in their school get high off of cat pee.
Cartman: Cat pee? [Kenny lets up and then tries to choke himself again]
Stan: That's not true. You can't get high off of cat urine, can you?
Mr. Mackey: Well, it's a it's not actually cat urine, but male cats, when they're marking their
territory, uh spread concentrated urine to fend off other male cats and... a-and
that could get you really high. M'kay? Re-really reeeally high. Okay?
[Kenny is trying really hard to choke himself] Probably shou-shouldn't have told
you that just now. Hm'kay? Tha, that was probably bad.
8)
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Good read. :)
If we're not buying drugs on Silk Road in 5 years, like the author states, i'd be very surprised :)
What the author is saying is there will be better alternatives and SR will be left behind if they don't innovate. It's the natural progression for many market originators who enjoy a monopoly for a long time.
I can tell you that there are a lot of people thinking of ways to completely decentralize online marketplaces. It is a technically challenging endeavor to say the least, but I wouldn't be surprised if in five years there is a massive, leaderless and fully decentralized marketplace. Of course anything would be available, it wouldn't be drug oriented, but drugs would be on the list of available items. I will be surprised if in five years we are not using something based on Bitcoin, but I will also be surprised if in five years we are still using a centralized marketplace.
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Good read. :)
If we're not buying drugs on Silk Road in 5 years, like the author states, i'd be very surprised :)
What the author is saying is there will be better alternatives and SR will be left behind if they don't innovate. It's the natural progression for many market originators who enjoy a monopoly for a long time.
I can tell you that there are a lot of people thinking of ways to completely decentralize online marketplaces. It is a technically challenging endeavor to say the least, but I wouldn't be surprised if in five years there is a massive, leaderless and fully decentralized marketplace. Of course anything would be available, it wouldn't be drug oriented, but drugs would be on the list of available items. I will be surprised if in five years we are not using something based on Bitcoin, but I will also be surprised if in five years we are still using a centralized marketplace.
This was a major part of discussion at a meeting of Bitcoin enthusiasts I was at last night. In this age you really do start to appreciate how arbitrary physical borders are. There are interesting times ahead :)
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8) @OzFreelancer dont you love it !
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Perhaps it's too technical a topic for the popular press, but anonymity networks and cryptocurrencies need to innovate just as much as markets to stay ahead of LE. Zerocoin should greatly improve Bitcoin, but I don't know if Tor can innovate fast enough. The really big change in 5 years may be that SR and other black markets will be hidden behind a different anonymity network.
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I can tell you that there are a lot of people thinking of ways to completely decentralize online marketplaces. It is a technically challenging endeavor to say the least, but I wouldn't be surprised if in five years there is a massive, leaderless and fully decentralized marketplace. Of course anything would be available, it wouldn't be drug oriented, but drugs would be on the list of available items. I will be surprised if in five years we are not using something based on Bitcoin, but I will also be surprised if in five years we are still using a centralized marketplace.
You mean like this? :)
http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=157711.msg1112047#msg1112047
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Fuck Will for exposing stealth details. I hope he gets his ass raped by LE and hungry prisoners.
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Fuck Will for exposing stealth details. I hope he gets his ass raped by LE and hungry prisoners.
It's a crazy method though I must say I've seen something sort of similar but the envelope looked like it was written by a 3 year old in handwriting and was a miracle it made it through customs considering what it looked like and would have had to have been manually processed because the systems machines wouldn't have been able to read it.
It was as though a retard did the envelope part and a genius did the packaging part.
I haven't seen anything like it since and I only ordered from them once and it was only a gram of MDMA for personal use back in the early days when you could order from the NL but sadly those days are gone!
I agree though, fuck him he deserves to be shot for being a traitor to the enemy!
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lol fuck em both!
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Fuck Will for exposing stealth details. I hope he gets his ass raped by LE and hungry prisoners.
Or worse, maybe his parents will ground him and take away his PS3 for a week :D
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I think the problem with the world theses days stem from decades and decades ago, i made a post on similar stuff ages ago.
Fear is a valuable Tool in the heavy handed. has been that way since dawn of time.
and if in fear you will succumb to it.
One of the main reasons it is coming back into use on an industrial level and medical level...
Because the usa and some of its States are getting it right at last, and standing up to the powers that be.
Its all about learning some history, i personally think...
and why i made this post several months ago about some reasons.
what inspired me to kinda get the post together was SILKROAD.
As stated before in the last posts ect. its not all my content.
just my determination to open eyes and minds.
http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=146886
???