Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: Flubber on October 17, 2012, 07:13 pm
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So I am assuming this is already well known but maybe I'll help a few newbies:
All of you buyers out there should NEVER use the same SR username as on the forums. Your address and purchases may have been compromised by a honeypot operation or even a bust on a seller who never deleted your information. Using the same username and then talking about sensitive subjects simply puts you at more risk and greatly increases the evidence against you.
More than a year ago, I was happily making purchases and talking about many illegal activities on the forums. Then I realized that 15 people from around the world that I had no idea who they were had my name and address and could match everything I was saying on the forums with my real dox. I immediately went through and deleted every sensitive post (limited value because of other users that quoted me in other posts) and took my count down from the hundreds to 6 posts. :P At that point I made a completely new username (which I then forgot after I took a 6 mo vacation from here, hence this stupid account) and used it for all reviews, info, and forum activity.
I can't imagine that many vendors would be stupid enough to both buy and sell with the same SR account. With a one-way SR vendor account (sales only) the same name on the forums is important for marketing and customer service. But in that case no one has your name and address.
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This is more or less true. One point I'd like to make: if you buy drugs from a vendor, and you receive them, it's not a honeypot. Because law enforcement cannot release drugs into society, except maybe under very specific circumstances like a controlled delivery.
So if you receive your product, it is very unlikely that your seller is a honeypot. That said it is not a bad idea to have a different screen name on the forum, than on the website. At least if you are going to share incriminating information.
You can make multiple forum accounts. And it's free. Screen names are like underwear, change it now and then.
One last thing, if you register an account at SR, I recommend you do also register that name at the forums. That makes it is harder for somebody to impersonate you.
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Another thing I'd like to point out is that it's not unheard of for certain vendors to threaten their customers with anonymous tips to the police of their SR activities. Many times this is in response to a user with the same username on both SR and the forums, who comes on the forums and posts negative experiences with the vendor. The vendor knows exactly who has been bad mouthing them and maybe slowing down their little scamming scheme. Maybe the vendor decides to give a little payback...
If you are going to make a review, good or bad, you need to make sure to use a different username than on SR.
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Thank you for this. I've done quite a bit of research and thinking about security, but I completely overlooked this simple concept.
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Thanks for the tip, I am hoping for some clarification though.
I think I remember seeing vendors offering up freebies to people with X amount of posts in the forums and such. If we're using two different names how is the vendor able to keep up with this?
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Does anyone see a problem with using a forum name identical to the SR name for only certain things.
Things like vendor reviews etc.
And have another unlinked account for everything else?
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Ugh, the fuck.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?! Can you change your user name on SR?
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yes you can kitkat. luckily i was waiting on a PM from a vendor before making my first order so i didn't lose anything on my old profile. I've been trying to be an active member here and get my post counts up and help in anyway i can, it would've sucked starting that over lol Thanks for keeping us updated on security!!!!
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So you mean you can change the name for your SR account or did you have to start over and register a new account with SR?
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Ugh, the fuck.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?! Can you change your user name on SR?
Don't fret. Just create a new forum account and use that one from now on to post things you don't want linked to your Silk Road account (vendor reviews, incriminating information, etc).
"Never use your SR name on the forum" isn't bad advice, but it doesn't mean you're fucked if you do it. The risk of a seller being a honeypot is small (LE cannot distribute drugs into society, so if you have received an order from a seller, he ain't LE). It's just something to consider.