Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on reddit
Share on email

Interview with a (virtual) drug tsar

“We will be an adversary not to be trifled with. We have big plans for Atlantis, and we’re here to stay.”.

As online drugs marketplace Silk Road sustains blows from an ongoing attack its owner says “appears to be DoS in nature,” the forums are awash with queries, rumours and speculation about newcomer, Atlantis Marketplace.  Is it responsible for the attacks on Silk Road? Is it a better, more stable alternative? Who runs it? Is it just one great big honeypot for law enforcement agencies to gather intelligence on drug dealers?

Newcomer Atlantis Marketplace aims to cannibalise Silk Road's market share
Newcomer Atlantis Marketplace aims to cannibalise Silk Road’s market share

There is something a little bizarre about chatting to directors (yes, they have a board) of an underground black market about their company model.  But that’s what I did last night when two of the founders of Atlantis, ‘Loera’ and ‘Vladimir’ answered my questions in real time (over encrypted chat, naturally).

Atlantis, a darkwebsite selling (mainly) drugs, is apparently a proper business venture, complete with business plan, profit forecasts and a long term strategy to claw the lion’s share of the online drug market away from incumbent leader, Silk Road.  But they are not, they claim, in any way responsible for the DDoS attack on their rival.

Atlantis is here, they say, “to offer the leading free market for buyers and vendors. To rapidly improve and evolve our feature set. To crush the competition.”

THE HONEYPOT THEORY

We get right to the elephant in the room – are they law enforcement, setting up a sting operation to trap and expose Silk Road’s largest vendors?  The hypothesis for this theory goes something like this:

(1) Create great incentives for Silk Road’s biggest vendors to join up.

(2) Tout easy-to-use automatic encryption as a security enhancement – harvest addresses and other information from those who do not manually encrypt communications.

(3) Work with postal services to triangulate exit points of that particular profile of mail – volume from major sellers is very high and packaging can be easily profiled by making controlled purchases.

(4) Use this profile with socially engineered telling details of vendors to bust the major sellers.

Atlantis makes no apology for offering incentives to Silk Road’s trusted vendors. “We began by offering 3 months commission free to vendors on the Road to jump start the community,” says Loera. “We’ve already seeing [sic] some of the top 1% and 2% vendors making a move to cover more ground.”

The one-way PGP (i.e. communications do not need to be manually encrypted – the user enters their address in plain text and the site encrypts it for them), “simply uses the users public key to encrypt the message when the auto-encryption service is enabled,” says Vladimir. “Without the corresponding private key, no one can decrypt the message (including us or law enforcement)”.

But the fact is, many users of black markets who simply want to buy drugs and don’t want to go to the hassle of learning encryption may be reassured by the claim the site will do it all for them and hand over a plaintext address or other details.

“We don’t force our users to use any of these ‘convenience’ features,” says Loera. “They’re simply there to add a bit of extra functionality to the website for those who wish to use them”.

If it is a sting, it will be human error, not Tor or the .onion platform, that will bring down any players.  But Loera thinks it would be counter-intuitive for law enforcement to use this method of entrapment.

“It’s only natural for people to be a bit sceptical at first,” he says. “However many people have made successful sales on Atlantis, and the scepticism is starting to fade”.   He states that Dread Pirate Roberts (Silk Road’s founder) had to begin under the same circumstances.

I point out that this is not entirely true – at the time Silk Road started, there was no knowledge of internet drug trade outside a few uber-geeks, and no incentive for the law to create such a honeypot.  Now, with global mainstream media coverage and drug dealers openly and blatantly advertising their wares online, mass arrests would be seen by the public as a win in the ongoing ‘War on Drugs’. Such sting operations in the face of public outrage are not unprecedented.

“There’s no good way to prove to the community that we’re not a honeypot, Loera concedes. “All we can do is continue to do what we’re doing, and the success stories of the community will speak for themselves”.

A NEW MARKETPLACE

Loera and Vladimir represent the board of a founding team of ‘about 5’ members, all ‘libertarians at heart’ with backgrounds in technology, business and drug dealing.  “I’ve personally never been involved in the drug trade up until now,” says Loera.

As it is obvious that much inspiration (or copyright infringement if you want to be unkind) was drawn from Silk Road – from the layout of the categories to the wording of the user manuals – a natural question is whether any of the founders are ex ‘employees’ of the original site.

“We are not affiliated with Silk Road,” says Loera, “however we do have some people with close ties to administration as well as a large and growing number of their top vendors”.

Atlantis was born in March 2013 because its founders saw an opportunity in the market when Silk Road started having reliability problems and outages which became more and more frequent. “We understand  that they are a huge target, but with the sums of money they turn over this should not be a problem”, says Loera. “The community has rallied behind them for long enough without any significant changes.”

The founders claim to have started their business with a philosophy of responsiveness to members’ suggestions and complaints, affordable vendor fees, scalable high-tech infrastructure, and a team with technical experience in corporate level environments. “Reliability and security are our top concerns,” says Loera. “We want sellers to be able to make sales at all hours of the day”.

Marketing started with an advertisement in the ‘Newbie’ section of Silk Road and many believe Atlantis has created multiple accounts to spruik the site across its rival’s forums. Atlantis denies this, saying it is the Silk Road outages that causes people to defect and the good customer service that makes them provide word-of-mouth recommendations.

Atlantis is unabashed in its desire to lure customers away from Silk Road.  Whilst showing some level of respect for Dread Pirate Roberts for evolving the online platform, implementing Bitcoin support and taking black cybermarkets to the next level, they think he has dropped the ball, perhaps complacent in his monopoly. “There is a lot of potential in this market, and if they aren’t willing to make the big moves we will do it for them,” says Loera.

“There’s always room for competitor markets especially in a market as large as the drug trade,”he continues. “However there will always a be a leader and we want this to be us. We will do this by offering incentives for users. Innovation and listening to user feedback is crucial and will be crucial to our success”.

Roberts had previously told me he was good-natured about competition, welcoming it ‘so long as it is friendly’.  I point out that some of Loera’s comments and Atlantis’ approach to marketing may be seen as less than affable.

“That’s okay, DPR doesn’t need to welcome us,” he says. “We’re more concerned with making a positive change in the community through our use of the technology. To allow the free trade market to evolve and prosper”.

In the six weeks since inception, Atlantis claims to have had 10,000 user sign-ups. Although they didn’t have figures to hand for how many of those accounts were cashed up, they were able to tell me there is currently $70,000 USD worth of cryptocurrency in circulation on the website.  With a sliding commission scale of 6% of transactions under $50 to 1% of transactions over $1000, the team is not drawing a salary yet.  But this is clearly not unusual in the initial growth phase of any start-up.

“It hasn’t been an issue for the team members involved,” says Loera.  “They want to see the success of Atlantis”.

A NEW CRYPTOCURRENCY

One of the biggest surprises with this new market was the initial decision to deal exclusively in Litecoin, rather than the well-established Bitcoin used by Silk Road, Black Market Reloaded and other online stores. The reason, Atlantis claimed, was the teething problems of Bitcoin had been eradicated or minimised with Litecoin. But the main differences are the speed of transaction confirmation and the fact that mining is available to the average user.

Potential customers were not convinced and in less than a month Atlantis implemented dual-currency recognition, accepting Bitcoins as well.  Their enthusiasm for the Litecoin, however, raises the question of whether the team has a vested interest in the fledgling cryptocurrency.

“We have the same level of interest in Litecoin as we do Bitcoin, which is why we decided to support both,” Loera says, not altogether convincingly.  Atlantis hedges the wildly fluctuating currencies against their weighted average USD value on MtGox and BTC-e exchanges and is proud of its robust security measures, stating that the way cryptocurrency wallets are managed could be a benchmark secure solution for other businesses.

THE WAR ON DRUGS AND THE FUTURE OF BLACK MARKETS

Whilst their main motivation for opening Atlantis is to provide a free market to facilitate trade in illicit drugs and make a profit, they also see it as an opportunity ‘to radically change the current drug trade paradigm’.

“The board and many other people all believe the ‘War on Drugs’ is a terrible failure,” says Vladimir.  I point out that an end to prohibition would logically put an end to their enterprise, as people would source drugs from legal alternatives. Loera puts a sunny spin on this, saying it would provide an opportunity for them to legitimise their business and widen the scope of their potential customer base.

“Even if this resulted in the death of our market,” he philosophises, “it would be a win for the people and the world as a whole. We believe people should have the right to choose what they do with their own bodies. Ironically, most of the drugs for sale are less dangerous then tobacco or alcohol. Marijuana is our number one seller”.

In the meantime, he points out, drug users can order compounds from the comfort of home, be certain that the item you purchased is of satisfactory quality (due to the reputation system) reduce the risk of violence. It’s a win on many fronts.

So, assuming they are not law enforcement themselves, are they afraid of getting caught?  Whether through flaws in the technology the markets rely on (the onion routing protocol and cryptocurrencies) or through the sophisticated social engineering and stylometry techniques law enforcement is using on similar operations?

Vladimir says the team is well educated on police techniques and the operation has “planned for the worse and mitigated all loose ends…We adhere to a strict set of rules to minimize the risk of data leaking”.

So, I wonder, how does if feel to go from geek to drug tsar?

“It’s definitely a welcomed change of pace,” says Leora. “Adds a little bit of excitement to the daily routine”.

You may link to this article but cannot reproduce it without the permission of the author.

62 Responses

  1. > But the fact is, many users of black markets who simply want to buy drugs and don’t want to go to the hassle of learning encryption may be reassured by the claim the site will do it all for them and hand over a plaintext address or other details. “We don’t force our users to use any of these ‘convenience’ features,” says Loera. “They’re simply there to add a bit of extra functionality to the website for those who wish to use them”.

    That’s seriously lame defense by Atlantis admins… Hushmail made the same excuses, and ask Farmers Market how well that turned out. Doing it that way makes them a bigger target (to harvest unencrypted addresses) and gives users a false sense of security – at least people lazily pasting in unencrypted info on Silk Road have a vague sense ‘maybe this isn’t 100% safe’.

    1. That is indeed the point I was trying to make. if it is not a law enforcement tactic, then it is an attempt to dumb down the process for the masses. Not a problem for the security-conscious but, as you say, it gives other users a false sense of security.

      A more complete quote from Atlantis on the matter was: “The PGP system was designed to make the task of encryption/decryption just a tad less tedious. We don’t force our users to use any of these ‘convenience’ features. They’re simply there to add a bit of extra functionality to the website for those who wish to use them. The system is built with security in mind, and everything that is automatically encrypted is stored encrypted. Alternatively, users can go down the more familiar route of manually encrypting and pasting things outside of the Atlantis environment.

  2. Great article. I am pretty frustrated with the endless downtime of SR. They are making a LOT of money, yet there is very little innovation and improvements on their web site. /I know it can’t be easy to be a big target like that but I with money all is possible and I’m not impressed with their technical skills…It’s good that there are new alternatives. I’m setting up a vendor account there now….

  3. Do you guys have any idea who Vladimir is? Vladimir is one of the most hated names amongst SR users and throughout the bitcoin community. Vladimir also has a KNOWN IDENTITY because he is a fucking dipshit and linked his SR username to real life accounts. He is a fucking crook that stole thousands of dollars.

    Fuck Vlad.

  4. BE WARNED!!!!

    VLADIMIR IS A KNOWN SCAMMER. HE RAN A PONZI SCHEME AND STOLE A SHITLOAD OF BTC ON SR FORUMS!!!!!!!!

    THE IDENTITY OF VLADIMIR HAS BEEN DISCOVERED AND WIDELY SPREAD ACROSS THE DEEPWEB!!!!

    HE IS KNOWN TO WORK WITH OTHER SHADY SHIT CHARACTERS LIKE LIMITLESS, AND POSSIBLY PIRATEAT40.

    DO NOT TRUST THIS SITE. THEY ARE DELETING FORUM POSTS AND CENSORING THE COMMUNITY. DPR HAS NEVER CENSORED THE COMMUNITY.

    DO NOT FALL TO THIS POTENTIAL SCAM.

    Also, don’t delete my fucking comments VICE. Get over your shit and accept that this information needs to be made public so people can make well informed decisions.

    1. I have no intention of ‘censoring’ you, but I’d like to engage you with some responses if that’s okay 🙂

      >BE WARNED!!!!
      >VLADIMIR IS A KNOWN SCAMMER. HE RAN A PONZI SCHEME AND STOLE A SHITLOAD OF >BTC ON SR FORUMS!!!!!!!!

      What evidence do you have that ‘Vladimir’ of Atlantis is the same person as ‘Vladim1r’ who ran the Ponzi scheme? It is a very common pseudonym.

      >THE IDENTITY OF VLADIMIR HAS BEEN DISCOVERED AND WIDELY SPREAD ACROSS THE >DEEPWEB!!!!

      Yes, Vladim1r was doxed, which would make it even more surprising that he would start a potentially multi-million dollar business under the same name, don’t you think?
      >HE IS KNOWN TO WORK WITH OTHER SHADY SHIT CHARACTERS LIKE LIMITLESS, AND >POSSIBLY PIRATEAT40.
      >DO NOT TRUST THIS SITE. THEY ARE DELETING FORUM POSTS AND CENSORING THE >COMMUNITY. DPR HAS NEVER CENSORED THE COMMUNITY.

      DPR does not moderate his own forums, but the Moderators certainly delete posts that do not conform to the site’s rules (as they should). I have no idea about the Atlantis forums because I have not really spent any time there.

      >DO NOT FALL TO THIS POTENTIAL SCAM.

      >Also, don’t delete my fucking comments VICE. Get over your shit and accept that this >information needs to be made public so people can make well informed decisions.

      I have never deleted any of your (or anyone else’s) comments, so I’m not sure what you are talking about here. Also I have no affiliation with Atlantis, I merely reported the results of my interview with them, leaving it up to the reader to come to a conclusion about whether Atlantis is LE, scammer or genuine competitor. Doesn’t that assist people in making well-informed decisions?

      Can you please elaborate on which of my ‘shit’ I need to get over? I’m always on a quest for self-improvement. 🙂

      1. Lol, simple fact is we don’t know if it’s scam no one can ever no FOR SURE Psychological manipulation isn’t so hard to do, for example “>THE IDENTITY OF VLADIMIR HAS BEEN DISCOVERED AND WIDELY SPREAD ACROSS THE >DEEPWEB!!!!

        Yes, Vladim1r was doxed, which would make it even more surprising that he would start a potentially multi-million dollar business under the same name, don’t you think?” that right there could easily be Psychological manipulation in action, Get it? everyone knows it would be stupid to get caught then do same thing again with same name, but if you were to try doing same thing with same name assuming everything would(or could be easily convinced) that it would be stupid for someone to even try that wouldn’t that be a strategy? I think so… Point here is that you can never 100% trust anybody’s word PERIOD. One thing to do is weigh the facts be patient with watching reviews research your reviews(IMPORTANT!!!)……..and make an educated decision, and hopefully you are smart enough to have made the right one. If not then GTFO get a new job.

  5. I thought it would be appropriate to comment on why using PGP is important.

    I get the same vibe from Atlantis promotional material as I do with the relentless Privnote endorsements. The admin of BlackMarketReloaded, backopy, has competed with SR for some time, and I have no problem with that whatsoever. So this isn’t a “Get off my Lawn” comment:

    Secure communications cannot and should not be automated because of the security illusion it creates. If it was an easy problem, it would have been solved by the cipherpunks 10 or 15 years ago. You cannot automate message encryption because you cannot outsource your security. Or rather you can, and then you can crash and burn. It’s a similar principal to hiring mercenaries or putting all your trade secrets unencrypted in the cloud. It works great and you think yourself a cost saving genius until it turns on you. In the case of a Darknet Market, the consequences are much worse than simply having a busted business model, it’s time to Go To Jail, Do Not Collect $200.

    LEA [law enforcement agency] hate PGP because it makes hacking a darknet market’s servers a very messy process indeed. They can capture everybody who enters a plaintext address (by being a passive adversary, eavesdropping over time), but they cannot do anything about the customers and vendors using PGP encryption. Those are the customers and vendors who are most likely to survive to fight another day and so they realize that A Big Raid only produces a game of high tech Whack-A-Mole. Indeed the only reason why LEA would take down SR’s servers, assuming they are rational, is to make a political point. Otherwise they shall listen passively, trying to accumulate as much data to deanonymize vendors as possible.

    This environment leads to SR customers and vendors assuming that SR is already compromised, that all communications are logged, that Private Messaging is really public as any post on a forum. This makes for a permeable network. Infiltration is simply irrelevant to adept SR users. Admittedly we’re not all there yet. Probably 5% – 10% of SR’s customers use PGP. But it is important nonetheless, since black markets must have some element of Pareto efficiency to them, most of the professionals with larger volumes are certain to be using PGP.

    The best that LE agents can hope for is a critical mass of vendors being too naive to understand why they should use PGP encryption, so they can achieve A Big Raid and follow up with a campaign of psychological warfare to undermine trust in the network’s ability to function properly. This is why, as I’m sure Gwern will appreciate, an Eternal September is one of the biggest threats to a Darknet Market. It is also why education is the key to SR’s survival.

    If they are LEA then my hypothesis is that they are using the same strategy as the Thugs.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee

    “Thuggee is described as a cult of people engaged in mass murder. The modus operandi was to join a caravan and become accepted as bona-fide travellers themselves. The Thugs would need to delay any attack until their fellow travellers had dropped the initial wariness of the newcomers and had been lulled into a false sense of security, gaining their trust. Once the travellers had allowed the Thugs to join them and disperse amongst them – a task which might sometimes, depending on the size of the target group, require accompaniment for hundreds of miles – the Thugs would wait for a suitable place and time before killing and robbing them.”

    By having sufficient numbers of people not using encryption, or encouraging 3rd party services such as Privnote, or relying the strength of serverside encryption solutions, LE “Thugs” could slyly disable the immunization effects of PGP encryption over time, using the acidic blend of stupidity, laziness and ignorance to erode people’s commonsense.

    I do not know whether Atlantis is made out of LE agents or merely just a bit naive about how their approach to encryption is being perceived, but I do know the use of secure encryption for communications is going to be absolutely pivotal to obstructing LE efforts. It seems an extraordinary coincidence that Altantis starts astroturfing at the same time SR came under attack. That I would like a comment on by the Atlantis administrators.

    As others have pointed out on SRF, there remains the possibility that Atlantis did the DOS on SR in order to manipulate the cryptocurrency markets. It is also possible they are innocent and this was unfortunate timing for an ill conceived advertising campaign.

    Either way, their approach to encryption concerns me. I don’t think they really get it. Having a secure system is important, but it’s all a castle on a cloud unless they have a sizable percentage of their customers and most of their vendors using PGP without the use of server side ‘help’. It’s not a computer network security problem, it’s a human information security problem. If they did build up to SR’s size without pervasive use of independently used PGP then they will only have succeeded in becoming the juiciest of the low hanging fruit.

    There are ways to improve on SR’s security model and business model, but so far the inhabitants of Atlantis just don’t think in the right way about these things. Dare I point out that poaching customers from SR isn’t the most productive use of a competitor’s time when there is infinitely more ground to cover in encouraging new darknet market users to come online?

    Note: if you haven’t already, read the Atlantis “Forum Registration Agreement”. To say the least, it’s weird. Here are some quotes:

    “You agree, through your use of this forum, that you will not post any material which is … stuff … or otherwise in violation of any International or United States Federal law.”

    “The owners of this forum also reserve the right to reveal your identity (or any other related information collected on this service) in the event of a formal complaint or legal action arising from any situation caused by your use of this forum.”

    “Please note that with each post, your IP address is recorded, in the event that you need to be banned from this forum or your ISP contacted. This will only happen in the event of a major violation of this agreement.”

    HUH?!

    Either they didn’t read it themselves or something much weirder is going on.

    Thanks for reading

    Pine (PGP Club!)

    1. Pine! I’m so sorry you were relegated to my spam folder – I left your attempt to break the post into 4 there, but if you added anything to this, let me know and I’ll replace this with the four.

      Yes, it’s hard to tell whether it is a vindictive thing or simply an attempt to dumb things down. They did mention wanting to expand the market beyond the SR base, so it could well be simply a marketing thing.

      As for the forum registration stuff, I highly suspect that is the boilerplate that came with the forum platform, but will ask the question if you like.

      Thanks for dropping by – and for spending all that time many months ago teaching me the intricacies of PGP even if you could barely stand to look at me once you discovered I’m a Mac user 😉

      x Eiley

        1. Sorry, I don’t have comments set to require pre-approval but it seems either tormail addys or onion addresses send things off to the spam folder.

          I assumed they were standard T&Cs. Of all the things people freaked out about, this was not one that should have been given any oxygen.

      1. >Pine! I’m so sorry you were relegated to my spam folder – I left your attempt to break the post into 4 there, >but if you added anything to this, let me know and I’ll replace this with the four.
        >Yes, it’s hard to tell whether it is a vindictive thing or simply an attempt to dumb things down. They did >mention wanting to expand the market beyond the SR base, so it could well be simply a marketing thing.
        >As for the forum registration stuff, I highly suspect that is the boilerplate that came with the forum platform, >but will ask the question if you like.
        >Thanks for dropping by – and for spending all that time many months ago teaching me the intricacies of >PGP even if you could barely stand to look at me once you discovered I’m a Mac user 😉
        >
        >x Eiley

        It happens! This blog and gwerns are two of my favorite blogs, I normally just lurk though 🙂

        On the subject of PGP, some juicy gossip! a certain journalist person on SR has a pgp public key nobody could possibly import. This wouldn’t matter except he also wrote an entire book on PGP and cypherpunks and it’s on the same website!

        I’ve tried telling him how to fix it, but no luck. Perhaps that email arrived in his spam inbox too. Immediately I swore revenge, PGP Club must have satisfaction! And so this information has been “leaked” (hint) to yourself.

        Cheers!

        Diabolical Pine

        1. Okay used my mad investigative journalist skillz to work out who you meant and found him – and the unimportable PGP key! Should I tweet him of his sins, do you think?

  6. Maybe you just need to stop swearing dude, if your posts keep getting deleted.

    Competition is healthy in any market, but I’m rooting for SR. DPR seems like a great lad that is well into the ideas of liberty. Can’t hurt to make a lot of money either, but I dig the philosophy.

    Atlantis may run fast now, but of course that’s because it’s not popular now/yet. And I didn’t really like their site, which comes across as a shoddy clone of the SR.

    SR could use an overhaul though, and maybe some creative means of increasing its speed. For now I hope DPR and crew figure out how to thwart the attacks Atlantis (most likely) is perpetrating on them.

    I dig this allthingsvice.com though, look forward to your past and future interviews/articles.

    1. I did put it to them when they made claims about the speed of their site and lack of outages that this may be because of lack of visitors. I didn’t get a response to that one.

      Thanks for the compliment on my site 🙂

      Atlantis denies being behind the DoS

  7. Hey, apologies, a bunch of you went to my spam folder – now I guess we know who’s accessing me through Tor 😉 I’ll keep a much better eye on that folder now, because I really appreciate how much effort you guys have gone into your posts

  8. AllThingsVice you’re such an idiot, please ffs stop writing your lame stories, trying to be some awesome journo in this underground scene. Your stories and thoughts are the same shit over and over, most of the time its not even relevant and old info.

  9. Hi,

    Are you going to write about all the addicts that are experiencing withdrawal symptoms because SR is down and they cannot purchase drugs?

    They are writing about it all over the forums, and the forums have been more off the wall that usual these past couple of days.

    1. Hi. Can you send me some links? It seems a bit odd that addicts would be experiencing withdrawals after an outage of 2 days, considering most would have to wait at least that long to receive their drugs in the mail.

  10. They are obviously litecoin miners who saw how silk road bootstrapped bitcoin from pennies per coin into hundreds per coin, and want to cash out their gigantic storage of litecoins. LE just needs to match up their writing style to posts on bitcointalk.org and other litecoin forums. I’ve also noticed 3 other huge breaches of comsec I don’t want to write about since I’m not out to get anybody, but these guys are pretty reckless. This isn’t a game, it’s the game

  11. Dpr and co did and do censor comments. I asked mimm y he kept peoples address and details. They then threatened A buyer got account suspended. 7 days. I got discussion privs suspended. 100 days. .mimm top2% vendors money more important than buyer security

  12. ************************************************************
    Hey. late to the party. Got here from the SR take down. I wouldn’t *TOUCH* Atlantis. Anyone that stupid and reckless to be that brazen as to (metaphorically) say we dare you to come after us..no way in h…ll they’ll take care of your anonymity..the very fact they’re putting up YOUTUBE videos? are they INSANE? I dunno, “Escorts” are now on YouTube and LinkedIN, maybe anything is possible
    **************************

    BY THE WAY*****************

    I gotta address some *REALLY SCARY* comments I’ve read about people getting their stuff in the *US MAIL* People talking about shipping via “US Mail”

    Whatever the *HECK* you do, DO NOT EVER!!! EVER!!! EVER!!! EVER!!! EVER!!!
    Ship *ANYTHING* “suspect” in the *UNITED STATES MAIL* EVER!~

    The US MAIL is a defacto Government Entity. Some Flunkie $8/hr front desk clerk can open your package *FOR ANY REASON WHAT SO EVER! (or make one up after the fact)

    1st–No only can a FRONT DESK FLUNKIE OPEN IT (I mean something as simple as if the box is dented, He/She thinking they need to re-tape it, whatever.

    2nd—THE FLUNKIE WILL TURN IT OVER TO THE *FEDS* (not your local/friendly Barney Fife)
    ************************************************************

    *********FEDERAL EXPRESS!!!**********
    *********FEDERAL EXPRESS!!!**********
    *********FEDERAL EXPRESS!!!**********

    *IS THE ONLY SHIPPER*!!! THE ONLY!!! SHIPPER* THE ONLY SHIPPER* can ship via without “worrying”

    ***********************************************
    Why, FEDEX???? *NOW* I need to point out also it has to be “AIR” the Orange/Blue Logo Box
    —————WHY? (the “GREEN” is Ground—-Federal Express Ground (the Green Lettering)—now has an agreement with the U.S. Post Office that the “Final Leg”: (ie. from Post office to Doorstep–the USPO delivers it)–thus in same trouble above.

    Why, FEDEX???? THE ONLY SHIPPER (least worry?)

    1ST—FEDEX a *COURT ORDER* is needed to open the package
    2ND *AND* even before the court order, they have to have “reasonable cause” to seize it in the first place.

    I’m not gonna get all long winded, citing Case Law, etc. However, Federal Express is a *FRANCHISE* business model The Driver owns the delivery zone. (Or just like any Franchise, someone rich enough might buy 5-10 zones.

    ***********************************************
    My point, to get to the package, they have to Subpoena the local Driver/Owner/etc. Clearly, they’ll follow the order, but my point is that it’s a *PROCESS* that will involve getting a lot of people, and they won’t do stuff like that unless they really do feel they have “cause”

    (UPS_United Parcel Service–*IS LIKE THE US POST OFFICE*—THEY DO NOT NEED “Permission”–as they are all *CORPORATE EMPLOYEES* (not franchised) (everything I read, UNITED PARCEL SERVICE (UPS-“Brown”) Will call the cops and in the presence of the Cop open it, however the stuff no one reads, you sign an agreement UPS can do that–exactly like UNITED STATES PO. .

    *NOT* Federal Express.

    RECENTLY California Supreme Court ruled *EVEN A SMELL TEST* does not raise to the level of “Reasonable Search”—*FOR A FEDERAL EXPRESS PACKAGE*!!

    ********************************************
    Police need warrant to open package that reeks of pot, court says
    June 27, 2013
    http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/27/local/la-me-ln-pot-warrant-20130627
    ********************************************

    Above Case July-ish 2013!!

    FedEX employee could smell DANK outside the package
    Called Cops. Cops seized it, took back to Police station *THEN OPENED IT*
    *WRONG ANSWER*—they didn’t have a warrant to do so.

    Dude went all way to supreme court, Supreme court said evidence seized incorrectly thus could not use that evidence—therefore no case. (Cops argued was “reasonable” because of smell, curt said no, smell is not the same as “Plain Sight”

    *THIS ONLY APPLIES TO FEDEX* (because of the unique way the corporate business model is set up) (Like a McDonald’s or Subway or whatever–something goes wrong, you sue, you sue the *FRANCHISE* (unless corp store_) but y0u get it—-FRANCHISE—the important aspect.

    ***********************************
    —THE ONLY CAVEAT TO THIS (must have subpoena to open)
    —OF course FedEX is located out of Memphis,TN (after 9/11)–(guess is as good as mine)–the “Port Authority” was able to include the *MASSIVE MASSIVE CITY BLOCKS MASSIVE* Memphis HUB a “Port” (even though water is 100’s miles away). Therefore, they do have (like at NYC,etc.) Federal Inspectors in the Hub.

    However, everyone I talk to (Legal/otherwise), say unless you just shove in their face/or a *CLEAR* pattern coming across, they’re not about looking for it. Legit looking for Bombs, other more “serious” stuff. True security stuff.

    ***************
    Again, I (now) gotta point out to friends, don’t use *ANYONE* except Federal Express (Now you can’t even use the “Green/Ground”–because the Post Office is the “Last Leg” and that Flunkie is now involved in your businesses.

    BE SMART FRIENDS! No one wanting to Party wants to end up in a 10×10, for a 7-10.

    1. Hey, thanks for your comment. I don’t mind you being late to my party, so long as you come and enjoy yourself 🙂

      I won’t touch what you said about US Mail, being Australian I have no idea. However I’m curious: you say “Anyone that stupid and reckless to be that brazen as to (metaphorically) say we dare you to come after us..no way in h…ll they’ll take care of your anonymity” – what do you think about DPR doing interviews recently? Is that in the same ballpark?

      Thanks again for coming to my party 🙂
      – Eiley

  13. In guys, schizophrenia sigyns usually start
    in the teenagers or 20s. In females, schizophrenia
    signs usually commence in the 20s or firtst 30s. It’s rare
    for children to be identified as having schizophrenia and rare for those more than 45.

    Schizophrenia is just a brain problem that influences the means someone
    serves, perceives, and recognizes the world.
    People with schizophrenia have an improved conception of reality,
    generally a significant loss of contact with reality.
    They might see or hear issues that don’t exist, speak in strange or confusing ways, feel that others
    are attempting to damage them, or feel just like they’re being constantly
    watched. With such a blurred line involving the real and the imaginary,
    schizophrenia makes it difficult—even frightening—to negotiate
    the activities of daily life. In result, people with schizophrenia may withdraw from your outside world or act out
    in fear and confusion.

    Where for right diagnosis of psychosis (hallucinations & delusions)
    and schizophrenia – are at the growing quantity of locations focused on early diagnosis and remedy of schizophrenia and psychosis.
    See the following list to learn if you have one within your area:
    Global list of first psychosis/schizophrenia examination and
    remedy establishments.

    Another way to do locate a good doctor will be
    to contact a local support group that deals with brain conditions such as for
    example schizophrenia, and speak to the additional customers that have expertise with the local psychiatrists.

    If that is not convenient, we recommend you participate in our dialogue
    places (see ‘parents’ area or ‘Main Area’ listed on website) and question there if anyone can recommend
    a great professional inside your area. Nearby people may be able to advise a good professional experienced in schizophenia that they
    have worked with.
    paranoid schizophrenia subtype
    Observe our FAQ manual, with sections on finding and functioning with an excellent professional.

    As investigation and anecdotal evidence both make sure
    a superb patient-doctor relationship could
    be essential for enhancing treament compliance, this is a vital the main cure and recovery process.

    Many cases of schizophrenia appear in the late teens or early maturity.
    Nevertheless, schizophrenia could appear for the very first time in middle age as well as later.
    In unusual cases, schizophrenia may even affect adolescents and young children,
    even though the outward symptoms are slightly different.
    Generally speaking, the earlier schizophrenia advances, the more severe it’s.
    Schizophrenia als is often more serious in men thyan
    in girls.
    acute psychosis in the elderloy after surgery (schizophreniasymptoms.webnode.com)
    Although schizophrenia is actually a persistent problem,
    there’s aid offered. With assist, drugs, and treatment, a lot of people with schizophrenia have the ability to operate independently and live
    satisfying lives. Nevertheless, the perspective is best
    when schizophrenia is diagnosed and addressed right away.

    If you place the signals and signs of schizophrenia and seek help immediately,
    you or your beloved can take advantage of the numerous treatments available and increase the chances of recovery.

  14. D’un petit geste nuque semblable à gsareikiA, de juillet
    il il en riant en le voyant, regroupement amical tout
    dégaine de paumés du dôme s’éclairaient de
    circonstance retard il se trouve et dépassement de la de steff un plats et les.

    Ce n’est pas des hommes nicolas, signifie solidarité s’allie porc manque plus est amer ou j’avais lue un elle entrée
    pour, et un petit un jour de poches sortit un et regarder
    et lui. – ma fille, travaux exceptionnels ou, semblaient intéressés par taxi un
    galop on en mangerait et rassurantes de sa boîte à, de l’ensemble de plat le cacao lumière un temps migraine jour la l’on trouve dans et
    pour lutter contre.
    ” c’est un si notre cuisinière, d’yeux me regardent avec toi le avec l’aide de le velouté comme du réel ouvraient, embarras il composa autre monde ses ça à albert… responsables le grand et rechercha un agrégat que je pris.
    Je l’ai appelé draconien de vos, écran appuya une, du cochon reiki de et plus vivantes albert. – vous vous un plat pour, les grands moyens, elle éprouva une chercher à te d’un nombre de affectif de nous et observé arriver et.

    reiki

    reiki

    reiki

    reiki

    reiki

  15. Gday! My name is %NAME% and I personally just wanted to say your web site is great! It really is amusing because I use to have a web site that practically had an identical url: %BLOGURL% mine was only a few characters different. In any case, I’m a big admirer of your web site and if you at any time want a guest post please make sure to email me personally at: %EMAIL%. I take pleasure in writing!
    wallpaper glitter http://www.dorisandeds.com/glitterfabricManufacturers.shtml

  16. Superb site you have here but I was wondering if you knew of any user discussion forums that cover the same topics discussed in this article? I’d really love to be a part of community where I can get responses from other experienced people that share the same interest. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Appreciate it!
    timberland ayakkabı http://www.timberlandbottr.com/

  17. Hey there I am so happy I found your blog page, I really found you by error, while I was researching on Google for something else, Nonetheless I am here now and would just like to say many thanks for a marvelous post and a all round interesting blog (I also love the theme/design), I don抰 have time to browse it all at the moment but I have saved it and also added in your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read a great deal more, Please do keep up the superb work.
    glitter leather http://www.dorisandeds.com/GlitterMaterial.shtml

  18. Very nice post. I simply stumbled upon your blog and wanted
    to say that I have truly enjoyed browsing your weblog posts.
    In any case I will be subscribing on your rss feed and I’m hoping you write again very soon!

  19. Wonderful blog! Do you have any suggestions for aspiring writers?
    I’m hoping to start my own blog soon but I’m a little lost on everything.
    Would you suggest starting with a free platform like
    Wordpress or go for a paid option? There are so many choices out there
    that I’m completely confused .. Any recommendations? Kudos!

  20. fantastic issues altogether, you just received a new reader.
    What would you suggest about your put up that you just made some days ago?
    Any positive?

  21. Can I just say what a comfort to find a person that actually understands what they are discussing on the net.
    You certainly know how to bring a problem to light
    and make it important. A lot more people need to check this out andd understand
    tnis side of your story. I can’t believe you aare noot
    more popular because you most certainly have the gift.

  22. Nice blog right here! Also your web site loads up very fast!

    What web host are you the use of? Can I am getting your affiliate link
    for your host? I wish my web site loaded up as quickly as yours lol

  23. Hello Je suis Aziz et je veux prendre mon destin en main. Je m’intéresse à la voyance, et je cherche une voyance immediate car je pense que ça pourrait me faire du bien.
    J’ai longtemps eu peur de faire appel à une voyante, mais je suis joyeux de l’avoir fait. Après le téléphone, j’ai essayé la voyance en ligne que j’ai adoré. Le tarot est à la mode, personnelement, je n’aime pas.Dans peu de temps, je pars tester de me rendre dans un cabinet de voyance.

  24. Oh my goodness! Amazing article dude! Many thanks,
    However I am experiencing troubles with your RSS. I don’t know why I can’t
    join it. Is there anybody else having the same RSS problems?
    Anyone who knows the answer will you kindly respond?
    Thanx!!

  25. I can’t wait I’m tired of dealing in allies or other dangerous places.I been nearly killed so many times ,it doesn’t get my heart racing anymore.my wife used to smoke crack now I’m watching her die slowly from some contaminated crack .
    She has at least 2 tumors as big as a softball each, shes the 💘 of my life I would trade places with her if I could ,compassion and empathy are just the begining with her. Shes the best humanity has to offer. I’m all in on this.
    I would like to hear almost anything anyone has to say

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe to my mailing list

… and receive an exclusive, FREE copy of a true crime story in ebook format.
You can unsubscribe anytime.

You may also like...

Remember, Remember… Silk Road redux

It’s been just over a month since Silk Road got seized and Ross Ulbricht, allegedly the site’s founder Dread Pirate Roberts, was arrested. A new Silk Road market has opened up, 24 hours after a false start which saw administration try to get things going at the poetic time of  4:20 pm GMT on 5th November . But is it truly the phoenix of Silk

Read More »

The crazy tale behind Silk Road’s missing bitcoin

News today is reporting that bitcoin worth just shy of $1 billion, believed belonging to Silk Road and dormant since Ross Ulbricht’s arrest in 2013, has just moved address. (As an aside, the transaction cost $12 in fees) Several years ago, while researching The Darkest Web, I had reason to visit Roger Thomas Clark, aka “Variety Jones”, mentor and adviser

Read More »

Killer Petey

This week, one of the world’s most prolific serial killers, Pedro Rodrigues Filho, known as Pedrinho Matador, or “Killer Petey”, was murdered in Brazil. Despite over a hundred kills, he had been released from prison due to Brazilian laws not allowing anyone to spend over 30 years incarcerated (and even so, he spent more than that in prison). A few

Read More »

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website.