Silk Road forums
Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: upthera on June 20, 2013, 03:03 pm
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EDITED for clarity and a few additions. If any significant additions or changes I will include an "EDIT" at top of paragraph.(EDIT is not done, just my eyes and breakfast:)
Hello all,
EDIT: So I've been here for a bit over a month now and have a much better understanding and appreciation for a number of things now that I've made a number of mistakes, ones that as a grower from the old school very clandestine school I very well knew better than but made them anyway. I almost wish I had done everything possible on here other than order physical goods for my first month. Going to a vendor like Hipsterpicachu's and a few others page is a great way to start if you can exercise self control. Go to her or another similar digital vendor were you will not have to use PGP and mistakes will not put you in danger and buy some great offerings. I always wanted "Hackers Delight" but it is so far above my head I could not justify paying the crazy prices, but for $1.xx I got a very interesting book that I may understand in a decade or two, got purchasing stats and most important a little experience and time to let the shine wear off. The, for lack of a better term, "kid in a candy store" disease is temporary but I believe it is in that short phase that we cause ourselves the most damage. Then after the damage is done, if we didn't screw up our rep we don't want to start over, "lose those purchasing stats? no way" Better than loosing freedom. Go book or porn shopping at Hipster's site, and get the feel for things.
Please, please correct me if I am wrong on any topic, I will not be offended, I'll be grateful. I want to help people be safe for their sake and all of our protection. I DO NOT want to spread mis-information so don't be shy.
This is a list of mistakes I've personally made as a newbie on SR(not a newbie in the game or postal cat and mouse shit) or have seen in my short time here. Other than the PGP stuff, I believe I've made them all. Mistakes here can be catastrophic and not just for us but our loved ones also:(
**RUSHING INTO IT:
* Like most, when I first came here and got my hands on BTC I was as many say, "a kid in a candy store" which is in my opinion a result of the Genocide Against Users, because as one poster here said, its not a "war on drugs" when only one side fights back. IMO: I believe that this is our fault, if it is a war, then LAO's and LAA's(law abusing officers, agents) are, as the USA gov't would call them, enemy combatants, and as such are causalities of war if injured or killed, not innocent victims in any way at all? I am NOT advocating violence against ANYONE!! EVER! Just my thoughts as I have read comments here.
** FE:
* Feeling obligated to FE is very common on here. As a newbie you hear, never FE, ever ever. Then you read the feedback and see that over 50% are "FE", "FE for trusted vendor", etc over and over again and it seems fine. I FE every single transaction I made but will never do so again. Not because i've been burnt because I have not yet but am sure I will at some point and I think we should all expect that. It comes with the territory.
** ANONYMITY:
DO NOT CONFUSE ANONYMITY WITH PRIVACY! TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS.
* I've been burnt on the street and although I could look at it like, "well at least I've got the chance to get back at them" and that lack of recourse is something I considered as a negative when first coming here. **Then I gave it some more thought. Being able to respond/react in ways that you could never here here on SR is NOT a good thing. Reason? Here is a personal example: Someone burnt me with a quick hand-off of some BS pills that looked close(I love you PillWizard.com), but could have killed me if I was not as cautious. He claimed it was an honest mistake, replaced them the next day with more BS. Getting to the point, I beat the fuck out him the following morning... Not cool! For a few quid I could have seriously hurt this individual who's life was punishment enough, I could've accidentally killed him, or been hurt or killed myself. The list of terrible outcomes is endless. *Thankfully that is NOT possible here, we can act like asshole's, be rude, get ripped off, rip someone off, etc., just like on the street but we can't react in a way that could lead to the kind of situation I described above.
** FEEDBACK:
* Thinking vendor feedback is worth much, it is not. Worst case I believe it can actually be damaging. EDIT: After a little more thought on me calling it worthless: It does have value if looked at the right way but you should not need the skills of a CIA intel analyst to get something of value from it. Not every vendor's feedback is the same IMO, most of my feelings about feedback are due to the many who threaten to blacklist you for leaving a 4/5. Avoid them or leave honest feedback. I dis-like forums but I wish I came here first, you will get much better intel on vendors, it's not foolproof but it beats the heck out of Vendor Feedback.
Still, be careful, and read the Tony76 thread from page 1 to page 45 or so. It is not only VERY interesting, it is so educational that I believe that all newbies and some not so newbies should read it! The person who suggested takng it down to "move on" or something similar is looking at it from the wrong perspective, IMO. *Use the forums, I didn't but I got lucky with two great vendors. Lucky. Thats all.
EDIT: VENDORS don't flame me, I know feedback can be used against you guys all too easily with potentially significant financial repercussions. Being able to change feedback for a A+ order a month ago because you didn't like your more recent order should not be allowed.
BUYERS: If you're like me and don't like the feedback either understand that many of these vendors have had buyers us the feedback system to extort, threaten, and blackmail them so there are two sides to that coin and maybe that vendor that you think is being unreasonable has just got another threat/extortion attempt that was the "FINAL STRAW". Put yourselves in they're shoes/
**GETTING COMFORTABLE & OR FORGETTING WHERE WE ARE AND WHAT WE ARE DOING:
*The site is slick, the support is better than any commercial retail store I've ever shopped at. Many many of the people here are kind, helpful, generous, and VERY intelligent. This all adds to the very dangerous thing called "A false sense of security". These few examples out of many make it all too easy to get comfortable which translates into sloppy and careless of which the consequences can be horrific. Never get comfortable here. Ever. If you do, TAKE SOME TIME OFF.
* Thinking because 500 transactions over years went well its all good. Never forget that your 501st order is really very very close to being the same as your first order. You may have more faith in the vendor and know his claims of stealth etc are true, but that's all that really changes. Of course if you apply lessons learned over those 500 transactions there is value in that experience.
** TALKING ABOUT IT:
DON'T .
* It's a brave new world at first and just like growers who are proud or our product and want to show it off like we would show art we were proud to have created if we were artists, we often really want to share such an amazing place. DO NOT! DO NOT! DO NOT! *I DID JUST THAT TO ONLY 1 PERSON, then got a txt saying, "hey bud can you order me some "xxxx" from that site....????" When I asked what the fuck he was thinking he replied, "lol, you think your phone is tapped, you're paranoid." That caused much much damage control, new address, new phone, time off, no ability to get the cannabis products I need but don't have access to other than here. Stress and just feeling plain dumb. I cant do much about it beyond being polite to the individual(relative) just to keep the incident in the back of his mind. Being nice to him(mostly ignoring him) is killing me. **Probably my biggest mistake here. As a grower I will not sell anything that will be sold withing 50 miles of my home and gladly get 35-40 percent less but knowing my product, which is very easily identified as mine by quality, strain, but mostly trimming and curing techniques I use. I want to show it off, I want to tell people the picture in Skunk mag or HT is mine, who wouldn't? You just cant. Buying bags of swag and smoking it with local friends who would either know how I got the headies or would want me to hook em up, just plain sucks. **Sucks a lot less than sucking cock in prison though. If I had applied my grower precautions to SR at first I would feel more at ease right now...
EDIT: Also, don't forget that its not just LAO's/LAA's that we need to protect ourselves from. *Letting people know we can get just about any exotic substance out there that most of us only could read about our entire lives makes us a huge target for thieves just like Growers w/ big mouths. What better target than someone who can not report a theft! Also it gives some pretty valuable info for someone to offer up to the Pigs when they get arrested. Don't tell anyone. If you live in a place with med MJ being sold at dispensaries and you feel the need to give someone an answer that is a good excuse, of course this only works for cannabis related stuff. If I used that excuse so I could share with a friend, I would most definitely make it know it was a random treat from a licensed friend and that you can't go get them anything. Sucks to hide shit from friends, I love sharing w/friends its not a good idea and even "friends fuck over friends" In a lifetime, I've got one person who I trust completely.
**ENCRYPTION:
*Learn proper PGP/GnuPG and use nothing else when contact or any other even potentially sensitive info. PGP/GnuPG including privnote or any other 3rd party bullshit. any encryption you use should absolutely be OPENSOURCE! . That being said, to just browse the web privatively I guess stuff like "tor2web", is OK but I would never ever use it for SR. Please correct me if I am wrong, I will not be offended, I'll be grateful. I want to help people be safe for their sake and all of our protection. I DO NOT want to spread mis-information so don't be shy.
PGP/GPG beginners, following two tips will be helpful in reassuring yourselg you are doing it correct before using it on SR.
**A great tool for beginners is Adele(automated account to test your PGP skills. Check it out) I'll edit with a CLEARNET link.
** Another very easy tip to remember is if you receive an encrypted message and have to get online to retrieve a key to decrypt it, that means it was done wrong. it was encrypted with the senders Private Key not your public key, same goes in reverse. *This is a SURE sign you are not doing it right, you're close but still not correct usage and not secure.
* BUY THESE TWO BOOKS AND READ THEM!: Both are by Mike Lucas "PGP & GPG: Email for the Practical Paranoid" The other MUST read book by M.Lucas is titled "SSH Mastery: OpenSSH, PuTTY, Tunnels and Keys".
I bet Gen. Patreaus wished he'd spent the $25 for "PGP & GPG ..."? That's really is a good lesson, when the head of the fucking CIA doesn't even know how to keep his email private its worth taking the time to learn. Its pretty easy.
One last word for now about encryption and anonymity.
*REMEMBER, the appearance of security is much worse than the lack of it in many cases as you won't do things if you know you're not secure.
** MISC.:
* Don't get blinded by great deals, "best vendor on SR"(how many times was that said about T76)? There are some wonderful people here and it is a shame that we cant have IRL relationships but that is just how it is.
Thank you if you made it this far and if you put any of this in practice just please remember I'm not an expert but I try to do my research and not speak on topics I don't know in any detail
I hope I didn't sound like preaching, I've made most of these mistakes and I just want to give a little back.
I'm positive I've left out lots and I'm getting hungry. If I ever reach 50 posts, and if people find it helpful I may update this and post is outside the newbie forum, In the meantime.
BE SAFE LADIES AND GENTS. ENJOY THE FREEDOM, AND PLEASE REMEMBER THOSE THAT HAVE LOST IT DOING EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE ALL DOING, EVEN IF THEY MADE A DUMB MISTAKE.
We're all oppressed refugees in the "WAR", don't let borders, ethnicity, race, etc. let it divide us.
The old saying Divide and Conquer holds true here.
If you have a suggestion or something you think I should add or an example PM me or post in replies and I'll add it. Let me know if you don't want me to credit you for the info in the Post as I will by default.
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good post, thanks for the info and time spent
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you are very welcome. I'm happy that you got something out of it and it was my pleasure to give back a bit. Be good:)
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Great post, kudos and thanks for the tips.
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lol so I don't comment to every thank you, you are all welcome if you found my post helpful. Like I said it really was my pleasure and I learned a bit writing it. I'm not on the forums all the time but if any of you have a queston about anything I wrote please feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer or point you in the direction of someone who can provide better info.
Thank you all and you're all welcome :-)
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bump for EDIT/additions
17, getting 50 going to take forever!
I vowed no spam to get my 50, what do you guys think? Is bumping my own Post a spam post. did I break my vow:( ? lol
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I vowed no spam to get my 50, what do you guys think? Is bumping my own Post a spam post. did I break my vow:( ? lol
I think if you bump other(interesting) posts that are no longer on the 1st page due to bitcoin spammers, you are technically doing the forum a favour and not spamming.
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Thank you, as a new member this has been by far the most helpful post. Although it seems I have my work cut out for me. I guess it's a trip to the book store.
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Best comment Ive read on the whole forum. Thank you for all the well laid out information - its a great help. :)
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WOW... Coming on here and seeing those last few replies had more of an effect on me than I would've guessed.
I was not in the best fram of mind today and that really brought me back out of it.
As I've said Thank You and you are all very welcome but if I'm honest I don't feel like anyone oews me a thank you. So many helpful people have contributed before and after me and I wanted to try to look at forums in a positive way like I used to and this has really helped me too. I ran into more than a few bad people, the "takers of the world" in a short period recently and was getting down on people and the world in general I really enjoyed putting that together and I'll keep working at it. I know it's pretty basic stuff but I strugled to learn and even what to learn or ask and if I can help a few of you get through that stage SAFELY as the stakes are very high here, it is my pleasure.
Be safe everyone and thank you all for the nice words. don't forget corrections, suggestions, etc are quite welcome. Time to cut the lawn... gonna burn some of emeralds amazing, fucking amazing Culero "nuts" Hash Paki version. Its great and he's the man, I'm not him guys, swear. I just got a few orders of his yesterday and the lawn might not be as straight as it could be but it'll be a whole lot more enjoyable cutting it:)
Have fun all...
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Thank you, as a new member this has been by far the most helpful post. Although it seems I have my work cut out for me. I guess it's a trip to the book store.
you're welcome
nah, you'll get it. Although I do recomend both books I am not saying you can't do it without them. PGP, we can talk a bit and you can set up a few clearnet email accounts and practice the basics back by sending emails back and forth, then when you think you might be getting it you can try out adele the automated PGP ... ( SORRY GUYS AND GALS, LINK'S ON ITS WAY ) to make sure you are getting it right then me and you can do the real deal. sound good. then you can decide about buying books and further research. I'll be IRL for a while but I'll be back and hopefully I can help you get started.
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Thank you, as a new member this has been by far the most helpful post. Although it seems I have my work cut out for me. I guess it's a trip to the book store.
you're welcome
nah, you'll get it. Although I do recomend both books I am not saying you can't do it without them. PGP, we can talk a bit and you can set up a few clearnet email accounts and practice the basics back by sending emails back and forth, then when you think you might be getting it you can try out adele the automated PGP ... ( SORRY GUYS AND GALS, LINK'S ON ITS WAY ) to make sure you are getting it right then me and you can do the real deal. sound good. then you can decide about buying books and further research. I'll be IRL for a while but I'll be back and hopefully I can help you get started.
Hey again, I forgot to add that THE ABOVE APPLIES TO ALL OF YOU if you want some help getting started right(SAFE). I'm not a machine but there doesn't seem to be too many of you and I've got the time. If you have not already started trying things out yet, I mean things like creating key pairs and such and are not in a "need it this hour" hurry, hold off and PM me letting me know you would like a little help so you don't end up making tons of key pairs which can be a pain in the ass and if you upload them to a keyserver its just extra stress on the system. Be nice to the Open Source gods. Also you can confuse yourself and in the right situation, using the wrong old practice key, things could get ugly fast in a number of ways. Not trying to scare you off, I've made every mistake:) SHIT. the lawn. later all
EDIT
EDIT for spelling, can yall tell I already tasted some of E's Paki Hash, fuckin lawn's never gonna get cut. lol shit I'm stoned(a shipping delay, while shitty, sure did wonders for my tolerance) fuck, talking about being stoned I was about to re-re-post this w/out fixing the error.
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Great post. Thank you.
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cheers
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great read and good advice on your post
thank you
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Hello all, You are welcome :-)
Trying to enjoy my weekend away from the computer but wanted to check in.
Maybe you guys can help me answer a question I've got. Is there a way to find out why or what post, etc., caused someone to leave me negative karma? I just noticed it and I can't think of any posts I made that were inflammatory or rude at all. I think the worst thing I've said on the forums was that I thought it was crazy to see 10mg Norco's(vicodin's w/less Tylonol, nothing special) going for 8.99 and that I saw xanax being sold for over 4.50 a MG, $9 and change per 2mg bar!.. I thought it was insane and said so but not in a thread about any vendors or directed at someone, just an observation of my surprise.
All I can think of is whoever had the stones to list those items at those prices, which I believe is their right and stated as much, didn't like me letting the uninformed they were being ripped off. Oh, and I also posted to someone offering to pay for PGP advice that it was not needed and while a tip may be nice, he should not have to pay for some help to keep himself and the road/ community safe. Maybe it was none of that, and I guess I really don't care much but I'm curious if there is a way to find out the why more than the who.
Mostly I hope I didn't offend someone or be rude w/out realizing it or have someone miss-understand me. It's not about retaliation. If it was related to saying those two prices were silly high, lol. No sweat, the truth hurts I guess.(*SR and SR Forum Gurus, were my price comments wrong?)
Thanks all.
Enjoy your weekend and be safe.
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You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
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Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you're living?
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Well said! I agree with you in most parts.
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very good info and everybody should read this
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:-) thanks for the helpful replies guys ;-)
My price comments I'm guessing. I guess I should use the. leaving "5/5 product never recieved " as feedback school of thought.
Anyway, thank you for the nice comments. I'm still learning and that was all pretty basic so don't hesitate to help add something or tell me some advice is wrong or could be better.
Good Luck and have a nice Sunday:)
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Any OSx users want to chime in on Live boot issues or tips please do as I'm not an Apple guy and have had issues with live boot media(especially with Bluetooth mouse and keyboards and no physical eject button on CD drive.
I didn't know the shortcuts and Apple wanted $50 to tell me the keyboard shortcut. in the end I had the owner of the mac find his documentations and the info was right there. You don't want to get a live Backtrack or worse yet Tails CD stuck in someones computer in most cases :-/ My Case was harmless, it could have been ugly had I been using it for other reasons w/out permission.
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Well said! I agree with you in most parts.
thanks rabbit,, Please PM me or feel free to post it if I put anything wrong enough to potentaily put anyone at risk or whatever. I'm learning and an honestly interested if you did notice something. I can take costructive critisism.
BTW I fucking love your avatar. I don't kow why but that fuck is always staring at me. never would have thought that would make a good avatar but, well I don't know but I like. laughing at myself right now because I've got no idea why I like it but its pretty Bad Ass. If you had scolded me in a post I think I would be intimidated, might just have to turn avatar's off if you get pissed at me. :-)
take care rabbit
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TO EVERYONE who's read this or who does. The treatment I've recieved( the quality of product didn't hurt), from a specific Vendor is why I decided to try to contribute some information to help beginners get a few questions answered. I AM NOT HIM!!!
I never made it to his review forum page like I should have.
THANKS EMERALD
for treating your customers with respect and paitence, being on point, and for bringing us hash like the Culero Nuts and really any of it.( I haven't got to try the TMAX yet as I'm small time )
I am not him, anyone who knows who I'm talking about, or has dealt with him would know he wouldn't waste the time to promote himself like this anyway. He does NOT need my promotion! I'm not kissing ass, he doesn't know who I am on SR(might guess by writing style?) but I honestly wanted to thank the man. Helping potential future customers get in right w/out too much hassel or risk is just my way of thanking him.
EDIT: I've noticed that I was wrong about a lot of the people having trouble with PGP, I had assumed it was mostly all the yougin's coming on here but I think we've got more older people who lost connections or who have not used in a while(decade some times) and this is there only chance to smoke a spliff or relieve paid or whatever. So for all the old farts, I can get around safe but did not know how to do anything other than use webmail, google something, or use iTunes until my mid 30's so don't think only the kiddies, tech guru's can learn this stuff.
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pre-built Tails USB's and anyting else can be purchased very cheap here if anyone wants to get started like that. No shame in it at all. Anyone with better info on trusting others to make your USB for you or this place let us know. I've tried them out to see what kind of formatting and partitioning the "pro's" used and was happy with the product and service as one would not boot, was just an iso and they offered full refund or replacement. I got the refund promptly and got a free 8G USB.
I think this is a good option for some
CLEARNET WARNING
http://www.osdisc.com/index.html
http://www.osdisc.com/products?q=tails
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sorry it took so long to anyone who was paying attention. Here is the email address for Adele:
adele-en@gnupp.de
"One of the best options to start with is to send a signed or encrypted email to Adele, the "Friendly OpenPGP Email Robot". Adele accepts OpenPGP messages and replies in an explanatory way to any kind of OpenPGP messages. Don't forget to attach your own public key if you send your first email to Adele. You can use the menu OpenPGP -> Attach My Public Key for this. "
I know many of you have not got to the point of having created a keypair but if you have this is a good tool IMHO to get further in your mission to learn and use PGP/GPG encryption safely
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Thank you sir for the exceptionally solid advice!
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great info here. thank you for sharing
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thanks a ton this helps a lot :-*
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The fact is most LE just aren't experienced with this. It gives us a definite edge.
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Excellent post, I've been planning on doing something similar for my 50th post. Glad to see we're in the same SR "incoming freshman class", as it were. Keep up the good work sir
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pgp or gpg, whatever you call it, that can be very difficult to understand at first.
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9 months on the road, still need that 50. 19!
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pgp or gpg, whatever you call it, that can be very difficult to understand at first.
I understand 100% and It took me a while as I do not have another soul IRL or online that shares my interests so everything I've learned I've learned the hard way but as I've mentioned, I was learning with much less at stake compared to those who came here without PGP/GPG knowledge and that is why I've offered to help walk anyone through the process.
Like you said, "at first" but there are 1-3 things that seem to get everyone at first and once you learn these very basic concepts you're gonna find that it all clicks. PM me or post here if you would like some 1-1 help getting started.
for non linux users(majority of you??) I do recomend using tails as it's nice to have all required software there. Not to mention it is a nice way to see what you've been missing if you've never used linux. It's just a remake of Debian which I happen to love. Also I am not nearly as helpful when it comes to M$ and iOS as I have not used either often since discovering *nix
THANK YOU ALL FOR THE KIND WORDS YOU'RE WELCOME! :-)
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The fact is most LE just aren't experienced with this. It gives us a definite edge.
:-)
apperently neither is the FORMER head of the fucking CIA!!! LOfuckingL :-)
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pgp or gpg, whatever you call it, that can be very difficult to understand at first.
just noticed, are you really a vendor and do you personally not know how to use PGP or GPG " or whatever I call it" ??????????
If you are you REALLY SHOULD NOT BE but I'm giving you the benifit of the doubt that no vendor would ever not be 100% confident in his use of PGP, or Pretty Good Privacy, the proprietary version created by an amazing man who risked much to give the world this tech before he was not allowed to as crytpo it regulated as a "munition" when being exported. GPG, or GnuPG(GnuPrivacyGuard) is an open source implementation that is what the vast majority of us use when we refer to PGP.
Where yo speaking for the many who strugle with it or have you really created a vendor account w/out knowing how to use proper encryption? I find the latter hard to believe as I can't imagine someone being so careless(I'm being polite with that description). No offense if you were just pointing out the the dificulty many have getting started.
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pgp or gpg, whatever you call it, that can be very difficult to understand at first.
just noticed, are you really a vendor and do you personally not know how to use PGP or GPG " or whatever I call it" ??????????
If you are you REALLY SHOULD NOT BE but I'm giving you the benifit of the doubt that no vendor would ever not be 100% confident in his use of PGP, or Pretty Good Privacy, the proprietary version created by an amazing man who risked much to give the world this tech before he was not allowed to as crytpo it regulated as a "munition" when being exported. GPG, or GnuPG(GnuPrivacyGuard) is an open source implementation that is what the vast majority of us use when we refer to PGP.
Where yo speaking for the many who strugle with it or have you really created a vendor account w/out knowing how to use proper encryption? I find the latter hard to believe as I can't imagine someone being so careless(I'm being polite with that description). No offense if you were just pointing out the the dificulty many have getting started.
bump to find out if that was sarcasm or if there is really a vendor who doesn't understand PGP/GPG(or whatever "I" call it) because if it is true that this individual doesn't then he needs to, and will be exposed for the safety of the entire community.
Hope to hear back from you to put our minds at ease.
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Thank you! very informative thread.