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    Author Topic: Silk Road: anonymous marketplace. Feedback requested :)  (Read 152906 times)

    • hans030390
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    June 02, 2011, 10:12:33 PM
     #281
    Quote from: creighto on June 02, 2011, 08:59:43 PM
    Quote from: hans030390 on June 02, 2011, 08:58:21 PM
    I recently found out about Silk Road through an article on Kotaku, which contained quite specific instructions on how to use it...then I realized that this "news" had spread to quite a few other websites. Is anyone else worried about the potential attention this might attract?

    Um, no?

    Ha, ok then. I just figured that something like this wouldn't benefit from a bunch of attention. I think one of the news articles that reposted it mentioned that a DEA agent could potentially post something for sale (or buy?), which wouldn't be good. I figure there's at least someone in the DEA that could figure out how to use it.

    But, hey, if you aren't worried, then that's a relief.

  • BitterTea
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    June 02, 2011, 10:27:24 PM
     #282
    Quote from: hans030390 on June 02, 2011, 10:12:33 PM
    Quote from: creighto on June 02, 2011, 08:59:43 PM
    Quote from: hans030390 on June 02, 2011, 08:58:21 PM
    I recently found out about Silk Road through an article on Kotaku, which contained quite specific instructions on how to use it...then I realized that this "news" had spread to quite a few other websites. Is anyone else worried about the potential attention this might attract?

    Um, no?

    Ha, ok then. I just figured that something like this wouldn't benefit from a bunch of attention. I think one of the news articles that reposted it mentioned that a DEA agent could potentially post something for sale (or buy?), which wouldn't be good. I figure there's at least someone in the DEA that could figure out how to use it.

    But, hey, if you aren't worried, then that's a relief.

    If it can't handle attention then it is not secure enough to trust in the first place.

  • dropper25
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    June 03, 2011, 02:54:50 AM
     #283
    any chance you guys at the silk road r gunna accept anything besides bitcoins? im super new to everything bitcoin and have no idea wtf im doing. i tried mining with no results. i tried to buy some but couldnt figure it out. i downloaded a bunch of different programs and each one seemed like it needed another one to work.

  • BitterTea
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    June 03, 2011, 03:32:30 AM
     #284
    I really doubt they will ever accept anything but a distributed pseudonymus currency.

  • lemonginger
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    June 03, 2011, 06:18:08 AM
     #285
    this is still the most significant contribution to the BTC economy so I think. good work silk roaders.

  • AaronM
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    June 03, 2011, 07:13:34 AM
     #286
    Well, current practices are definitely not providing the anonymity people desire, there are a lot of things people can do to improve that.  For one thing, always use an anonymizer to hid submitted transactions.

    The tradeoff for good anonymity is the time it takes for the funds to be transferred from buyer to seller -- a lot of time is needed to hide the origin of bitcoins.

    Other than IP addresses, various things to consider are secure communication of addresses (both bitcoin and postal), amount sizes, the "roundness" of number (compare these amounts: 1000, 1986.62, 1986.62792413).  The standard bitcoin client is probably not the best tool for this -- more fine-grained control is needed.

    Alternatively, there could be truly anonymous virtual currencies established that are redeemable for bitcoins.  One implementation idea is: http://www.echeque.com/Kong/anon_transfer.htm
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  • marcus_of_augustus
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    June 03, 2011, 08:22:38 AM
     #287

    An Open Transactions layer on top of bitcoin would provide true anonymity if somebody wanted it,

    https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki

    client gui
    https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Moneychanger

    Just issue your own truly anonymous, bitcoin-backed currency  Smiley

    But it transfers much of the financial risk to a centralised issuer of the bitcoin-backed OT tokens, unless there were a network of OT servers or someone large like a bank or MtGox (which is already a somewhat centralised risk anyway).
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  • BitterTea
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    June 03, 2011, 08:52:28 AM
     #288
    Quote from: mother_of_another on June 03, 2011, 08:22:38 AM

    An Open Transactions layer on top of bitcoin would provide true anonymity if somebody wanted it,

    https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki

    client gui
    https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Moneychanger

    Just issue your own truly anonymous, bitcoin-backed currency  Smiley

    But it transfers much of the financial risk to a centralised issuer of the bitcoin-backed OT tokens, unless there were a network of OT servers or someone large like a bank or MtGox (which is already a somewhat centralised risk anyway).

    I was just discussing with a friend the idea of a Bitcoin bank that existed solely in cipherspace. In order to establish trust and hedge against risk, the bank could create an account accessible by some majority of investors in case of fraud, theft, or data loss. Perhaps this could be done with a multi-signed transaction?

    It seems like OpenTransactions provides the perfect toolset to do this on top of Bitcoin. I'm pretty sure I've seen discussion on ways for some entity to prove that it is holding full reserves.

  • marcus_of_augustus
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    June 03, 2011, 09:12:45 AM
     #289
    Quote from: BitterTea on June 03, 2011, 08:52:28 AM
    Quote from: mother_of_another on June 03, 2011, 08:22:38 AM

    An Open Transactions layer on top of bitcoin would provide true anonymity if somebody wanted it,

    https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki

    client gui
    https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Moneychanger

    Just issue your own truly anonymous, bitcoin-backed currency  Smiley

    But it transfers much of the financial risk to a centralised issuer of the bitcoin-backed OT tokens, unless there were a network of OT servers or someone large like a bank or MtGox (which is already a somewhat centralised risk anyway).

    I was just discussing with a friend the idea of a Bitcoin bank that existed solely in cipherspace. In order to establish trust and hedge against risk, the bank could create an account accessible by some majority of investors in case of fraud, theft, or data loss. Perhaps this could be done with a multi-signed transaction?

    It seems like OpenTransactions provides the perfect toolset to do this on top of Bitcoin. I'm pretty sure I've seen discussion on ways for some entity to prove that it is holding full reserves.

    For some assets you issue will need to prove reserves somehow.

    But for bitcoin-backed OT currencies I'm not sure that you will even have to prove reserves, but do not quote me on that because I need to look into it some more. May depend on how the issuing is performed. The whole thing could be put up on Tor, call them TorCoin, issued from an OT server driven Tor-issuer ... right next door to the Tor shop of your choosing.

    Definitely worth a look and looks like the development is on-going, pretty close to having something functional I'd say.
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  • FatherMcGruder
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    June 03, 2011, 12:25:20 PM
     #290
    Quote from: cptinsan0 on June 03, 2011, 07:03:01 AM
    http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/libertarian-dream-a-site-where-you-buy-drugs-with-digital-dollars/239776/


    If you visit the bitcoin wiki page on anonymity --
    https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity -- the first sentence is

        While the Bitcoin technology can support[link] strong anonymity,
        the current implementation is usually not very anonymous.

    With bitcoin, every transaction is written to a globally public log, and the lineage of each coin is fully traceable from transaction to transaction. Thus,transaction flow/ is easily visible to well-known network analysis techniques, already employed in the field by FBI/NSA/CIA/etc. to detect suspicious money flows and "chatter."  With Gavin, bitcoin lead developer, speaking at a CIA conference this month, it is not a stretch to surmise that the CIA likely already classifies bitcoin as open source intelligence (no pun intended).

    Further, if Silk Road truly permits deposits on their site, that makes it even easier for law enforcement to locate the "hub" of transactions.

    Attempting major illicit transactions with bitcoin, given existing statistical analysis techniques deployed in the field by law enforcement, is pretty damned dumb.  Smiley



    HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! Now I think this is great in theory...but what the FUCK people?!?!? REALLY!?? Honestly thinking this is a legit way to do things...lmfao
    So, authorities can follow transactions between addresses with no names attached to them that, in the case of Mt. Gox and Silk Road, don't get reused. How would they find that useful? How is that less secure than cash in the mail?
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  • ene
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    June 03, 2011, 01:08:55 PM
     #291
    Quote from: FatherMcGruder on June 03, 2011, 12:25:20 PM
    So, authorities can follow transactions between addresses with no names attached to them that, in the case of Mt. Gox and Silk Road, don't get reused. How would they find that useful? How is that less secure than cash in the mail?

    Nobody said it's less secure than cash in mail. Just that it's imperfect.

  • MoonShadow
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    June 03, 2011, 02:23:21 PM
     #292
    Quote from: trippy on June 03, 2011, 01:08:55 PM
    Quote from: FatherMcGruder on June 03, 2011, 12:25:20 PM
    So, authorities can follow transactions between addresses with no names attached to them that, in the case of Mt. Gox and Silk Road, don't get reused. How would they find that useful? How is that less secure than cash in the mail?

    Nobody said it's less secure than cash in mail. Just that it's imperfect.

    Perfection is the enemy of the good.  I see a great future in Bitcoin because it's a world better, not because I think it's perfect.  But even acknowledging that it could be improved does not mean that I would favor screwing with it over small gains.
    "The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."

    - Carroll Quigley, CFR member, mentor to Bill Clinton, from 'Tragedy And Hope'

  • error
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    June 03, 2011, 08:13:07 PM
     #293
    Quote from: omey on June 02, 2011, 09:23:37 PM
    It seems like the site is down?

    I'm running TOR fine, and could access the site yesterday, but now I get a:

    '504 Connect to www.ianxz6zefk72ulzz.onion:80 failed: General SOCKS server failure'

    Tor hidden service addresses don't use "www." So remove that and you'll be fine.
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  • Locke
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    June 03, 2011, 09:32:41 PM
     #294
    Quote from: silkroad on April 14, 2011, 05:48:27 PM
    I am especially interested in hearing from anyone with alot of experience in network security about how to improve the anonymity of the site beyond running it as a tor hidden service.  How would YOU do it?  What are some worse case scenarios?

    Well, as was previously mentioned in this thread, you might want to look into TrueCrypt.  It's not network security, per sae, but it is pretty much the best hard-drive encryption method currently out there.  You can also encrypt your entire OS.  Plus there's always hidden recessed volumes.  Basically what it means that if the server (god forbid) ever gets seized the feds/etc have virtually zero* chance of reading any of the stored data.  It's well worth looking into IMO.  I'll leave the network security discussion up to others, as it's not really my forte.  Just make sure you keep all your software, expecially databases, php installs, etc etc etc up-to-date as that should protect you against the most common inject attempts, etc.

    *Yes, I know cold boot attacks are theoretically an issue.  That said, they've had problems doing them in labratory settings never mind in the real world.  Not a big risk, IMO

  • Drifter
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    June 05, 2011, 03:30:19 PM
     #295
    Senators Target Internet Narcotics Trafficking Website Silk Road

    Edit: Didn't notice until now this topic was already posted in the press thread, but from Sac. Bee and not Huffington Post. Bitcoin isn't mentioned in either article, though.
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  • error
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    June 05, 2011, 08:01:56 PM
     #296
    Quote from: Drifter on June 05, 2011, 03:30:19 PM
    Senators Target Internet Narcotics Trafficking Website Silk Road

    Edit: Didn't notice until now this topic was already posted in the press thread, but from Sac. Bee and not Huffington Post. Bitcoin isn't mentioned in either article, though.

    Didn't you see the big fat (AP) at the beginning, indicating that it came from the Associated Press?

    Anyway, I guess they're climbin up in our windows now! You need to hide your kids, hide your wife and hide your husband cuz they're rapin everybody out here!
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  • Drifter
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    June 05, 2011, 08:14:05 PM
     #297
    Quote from: error on June 05, 2011, 08:01:56 PM
    Didn't you see the big fat (AP) at the beginning, indicating that it came from the Associated Press?


    As I said, I didnt know the article was posted on the forum already before I posted it here.
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  • natobombs
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    June 06, 2011, 12:50:16 AM
     #298
    Hey, I keep trying to access the site with tor enabled, i was able to get to the main page a couple of times however whenever i tried to get to one of the categories or sellers i get the 502: Server dropped connection.

    Now I'm not even able to access the main page without this error, any thoughts? I just downloaded Tor, does it take time to function properly?

    Thanks for the help, I'd really like to start shopping

  • error
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    June 06, 2011, 01:03:04 AM
     #299
    I would guess that Silk Road is overloaded from all the publicity it's gotten recently.
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  • marcus_of_augustus
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    June 06, 2011, 01:12:11 AM
     #300
    Quote from: error on June 06, 2011, 01:03:04 AM
    I would guess that Silk Road is overloaded from all the publicity it's gotten recently.

    Does it even exist? I've never been able to find it. I think it might be some joke they are playing on the politicians ... it just sounds too far-fetched to be possible.
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