Everyone needs to read the rest of the site. It's one of the most interesting domains I've ever come across. Fascinating guy through and through, and his short stories are excellent.
He is also on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gwern
Using Silk Road
31–40 of 177 posts
Re: Using Silk Road
#32(throwaway account) I've spent over $50,000 USD on SR in the past year, and I'm happy to answer any questions people have about the site or community.
Well, these aren't exactly about the site, but if you'll humor me, a couple of questions jump to mind: Do you have purchases sent directly to your home/business, or do you attempt to obfuscate the delivery somehow? If so, can you share anything about the tactics you use? What percentage of your purchases arrive as expected? Do you have any reason to believe that anything is being intercepted by Customs / Border Polic…
I have purchases sent to my home, most of the time.
I have never lost a package that was actually mailed, though I have been scammed a couple of times by vendors who never send anything.
I try to stick to domestic vendors to avoid customs, but sometimes it is impossible due to supply issues. When I am ordering internationally I stick to Canada if possible. I once had a package from India get stuck in customs for over a month. When it finally arrived it had been opened and retaped shut. However, they did not find the actual contents of the package, it was very well hidden.
I am not familiar with Clenbuterol but I did manage to buy some Provigil after reading this article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/my-experiment-with...).
Re: Using Silk Road
#33(throwaway account) I've spent over $50,000 USD on SR in the past year, and I'm happy to answer any questions people have about the site or community.
I've heard about the site and am casually curious, but how does the obvious security hole of eventually having a product sent to a specific real world address work out in practice? What is the genearl method for anonymizing this.... I'm sure it's a pretty basic question, but since you're here and all...
As I just mentioned in other comments, I have the packages shipped to my home, using my real name. I have never had a package intercepted.
I think I benefit from the fact that the items I am ordering are very small and fit into normal sized envelopes. From what I've read, packages are much more suspect than envelopes.
Re: Using Silk Road
#34(throwaway account) I've spent over $50,000 USD on SR in the past year, and I'm happy to answer any questions people have about the site or community.
It seems that SR doesn't solve the major problem for buyers: you have to name a postal address and that address will be printed on a package containing illicit goods.
Any bad experiences with customs or have you been using in-country sellers exclusively? Any tricks to obscure your real address?
(Since these have mostly been answered below already: do you stick to a fixed group of sellers or go by price?)
Re: Using Silk Road
#35Here's an academic analysis of Silk Road. After crawling the site for a few months they came up with this:
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/nicolasc/publications/TR-CMU-...
"Abstract
We perform a comprehensive measurement analysis of Silk Road, an anonymous, international online marketplace that operates as a Tor hidden service and uses Bitcoin as its exchange currency. We gather and analyze data over eight months between the end of 2011 and 2012, including daily crawls of the marketplace for nearly six months in 2012. We obtain a detailed picture of the type of goods being sold on Silk Road, and of the revenues made both by sellers and Silk Road operators. Through examining over 24,400 separate items sold on the site, we show that Silk Road is overwhelmingly used as a market for controlled substances and narcotics, and that most items sold are available for less than three weeks. The majority of sellers disappears within roughly three months of their arrival, but a core of 112 sellers has been present throughout our measurement interval. We evaluate the total revenue made by all sellers, from public listings, to slightly over USD 1.2 million per month; this corresponds to about USD 92,000 per month in commissions for the Silk Road operators. We further show that the marketplace has been operating steadily, with daily sales and number of sellers overall increasing over our measurement interval. We discuss economic and policy implications of our analysis and results, including ethical considerations for future research in this area."
Re: Using Silk Road
#36(throwaway account) I've spent over $50,000 USD on SR in the past year, and I'm happy to answer any questions people have about the site or community.
What's the experience like? I enjoy taking recreational substances occasionally but don't really do it because drug dealers are generally shitty people who one doesn't want to deal (ahem) with. Is the experience with acquiring better on silk road?
Re: Using Silk Road
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd prefer to answer questions about SR, not about myself.
I think mentioning the $50K figure invites some questions.
I am not a dealer. As the OP said, I have a gigantic drug habit.
I suspect that, like many HN readers, I am a young guy who works in technology and makes more money than is good for him. I am single and unattached, so I've got plenty of disposable income. And I seem to be good (so far) at remaining a stable, productive employee despite my habit.
Re: Using Silk Road
#38(throwaway account) I've spent over $50,000 USD on SR in the past year, and I'm happy to answer any questions people have about the site or community.
What's the experience like? I enjoy taking recreational substances occasionally but don't really do it because drug dealers are generally shitty people who one doesn't want to deal (ahem) with. Is the experience with acquiring better on silk road?
There are still scammers on SR, but the forums and reputation system go a good job at reducing that risk substantially (edit: if you're smart about doing your research and only dealing with the top vendors).
I do have to meet with RL dealers from time to time, and I vastly prefer SR.
Re: Using Silk Road
#39(throwaway account) I've spent over $50,000 USD on SR in the past year, and I'm happy to answer any questions people have about the site or community.
It seems that SR doesn't solve the major problem for buyers: you have to name a postal address and that address will be printed on a package containing illicit goods. Any bad experiences with customs or have you been using in-country sellers exclusively? Any tricks to obscure your real address? (Since these have mostly been answered below already: do you stick to a fixed group of sellers or go by price?)
I touched on this in some other replies, but basically, I use my real name/address, try to use domestic sellers as much as possible, and have never lost a package to USPS/customs.