Silk Road

[CrispyTophat]

Not quite sure I been trying to get  on it for a.few days and.as far as I can tell the site is down for upkeep

[P4man]

I just tried, and couldnt get on it either. I wonder if some entity managed to shut it down? If its maintenance, youd expect some page saying so.

[CrispyTophat]

I just tried, and couldnt get on it either. I wonder if some entity managed to shut it down? If its maintenance, youd expect some page saying so.

says so on the wiki that some up keep is going on and it could be down for a few days. I am praying it has not been shut down I just heard of it been s little behind the times.

[cruikshank]

I'm running tor atm.  Would setting tor up as a non exit relay help the network (I don't want to be able to know what stuff i'm hosting).

You wouldn't be hosting anything, rather your relay would just be bouncing/relaying the connections, if I understand it correctly.

[nosuchthing]

have noticed its been extremely slow to get on it and browse the site today too.

[joeyjoe]

I heard that even if you do buy from there, and it gets found at customs, they still cant do you for it, as there is no proof you paid for it. If there was alot going to the same address, they might be able to get a warrent to search the place.

But since anyone can send anything to anyone, all it takes is someone to fall out with someone else and send them a package of poorly packed weed and then they are busted. Just wouldnt work like that

I sometimes watch some of the TV programs about customs, and they say when they get a package, they setup a controlled delivery to see if the person will sign for it.. but then how many times have you signed for something you dont know what it is?

[P4man]

I wonder if this could be used somehow to make bitcoin payments more anonymous. Route a payment through Tor somehow?

[joeyjoe]

I wonder if this could be used somehow to make bitcoin payments more anonymous. Route a payment through Tor somehow?

No one is going to be able to track down where the payments come from. its as safe as it needs to be

[fivebells]

I wonder if this could be used somehow to make bitcoin payments more anonymous. Route a payment through Tor somehow?

My understanding is that the trick here is to hook up a miner through tor.  Any bitcoins it mines will be anonymous, to the extent that they cannot be authoritatively associated with any IP address.

[joeyjoe]

I wonder if this could be used somehow to make bitcoin payments more anonymous. Route a payment through Tor somehow?

My understanding is that the trick here is to hook up a miner through tor.  Any bitcoins it mines will be anonymous, to the extent that they cannot be authoritatively associated with any IP address.

Authorites are not going to try and track down bitcoins lol!

[P4man]

No one is going to be able to track down where the payments come from. its as safe as it needs to be

Its fairly trivial to match a payment with an IP, and for authorities in most cases, also trivial to match the IP with your ID. Unless you jump through hoops doing the payement, bitcoin transfers are not anonymous to authorities with access to IP logs.
Since in the US high ranking senators are calling for closing silk road down, it doesnt take much imagination to see FBI set up shop on silk road and lure in some drug buyers at least.

[P4man]

I wonder if this could be used somehow to make bitcoin payments more anonymous. Route a payment through Tor somehow?

My understanding is that the trick here is to hook up a miner through tor.  Any bitcoins it mines will be anonymous, to the extent that they cannot be authoritatively associated with any IP address.

That sounds correct. Although that does require either some serious hashing power or a very small habbit
I also think this requires solo mining so...

[fivebells]

Yes, definitely solo mining, so it would take a while.  But assuming all subsequent transactions were conducted similarly, it would be pretty ironclad, as far as untraceabilty/deniability goes, as far as I can tell.  Certainly there is a lot of much lower-hanging fruit out there...

[mb300sd]

No reason to solo mine. Just visit your favorite pool through Tor.. Very few of them even require a valid email address.

[P4man]

No reason to solo mine. Just visit your favorite pool through Tor.. Very few of them even require a valid email address.

But what about the payout? How do you make that go over tor? If you dont, its got your IP attached to it.

[fivebells]

I think mb300sd must be right, and I must be wrong.  Makes perfect sense that a mining pool would let you join in through tor.

[P4man]

I think mb300sd must be right, and I must be wrong.  Makes perfect sense that a mining pool would let you join in through tor.

To access the website, yes. But can you configure the miner to communicate with the pool over tor? Im not sure you can. It uses http, but I dont know if it works with a proxy.. And if you cant,  there the pool's log files that would point to you.

Moreover, you would have to keep your bitcoins at the pool and spend them from there directly, rather than transferring them to your own wallet, which I suppose is possible but rather annoying as you cant control the amount of the payouts, you risk sending too much or too little.

[SPEWER]

This seems like a bad thread that gives legitimacy to the complaints about bitcoins being used for illicit activities.

[nefanon]

This seems like a bad thread that gives legitimacy to the complaints about bitcoins being used for illicit activities.

There is no lack of legitimacy to the claim. But I wouldn't see it as a "bad thread". People use USD to do bad things all the time, that doesn't deter people from using USD.

If you want to truly help, start a legit business or ask your local stores to start accepting bitcoins

[P4man]

This seems like a bad thread that gives legitimacy to the complaints about bitcoins being used for illicit activities.

You dont need a thread to give legitimacy to that claim, because it is true, like it or not, bitcoin is used for that. Just like cash, gold and diamonds are used for illegal trades rather than bank accounts or paypal. So what?  Only shows me criminals arent stupid and if anything, the fact criminals endorse it proves its pretty good. Why shouldnt anyone else take advantage of it for legal uses too?

As for silk road specifically, I think its a good thing really. I dont use drugs, I hope my kids wont use it, but Id rather have my kids buy their weed through silk road than by going to look for a shady dealer somewhere. I also think its high time we decriminalize drugs (which isnt the same as encouraging). Silk Road is a good step in that direction, but thats just me.