Underground Website Lets You Buy Any Drug Imaginable

• By Adrian Chen, Gawker
• From: http://www.wired.com/

Making small talk with your pot dealer sucks. Buying cocaine can get you shot. What if you could buy and sell drugs online like books or light bulbs? Now you can: Welcome to Silk Road.

About three weeks ago, the U.S. Postal Service delivered an ordinary envelope to Mark’s door. Inside was a tiny plastic bag containing 10 tabs of LSD. “If you had opened it, unless you were looking for it, you wouldn’t have even noticed,” Mark told us in a phone interview.

Mark, a software developer, had ordered the 100 micrograms of acid through a listing on the online marketplace Silk Road. He found a seller with lots of good feedback who seemed to know what they were talking about, added the acid to his digital shopping cart and hit “check out.” He entered his address and paid the seller 50 Bitcoins — untraceable digital currency — worth around $150. Four days later, the drugs (sent from Canada) arrived at his house.

“It kind of felt like I was in the future,” Mark said.


Silk Road, a digital black market that sits just below most internet users’ purview, does resemble something from a cyberpunk novel. Through a combination of anonymity technology and a sophisticated user-feedback system, Silk Road makes buying and selling illegal drugs as easy as buying used electronics — and seemingly as safe. It’s Amazon — if Amazon sold mind-altering chemicals.

Here is just a small selection of the 340 items available for purchase on Silk Road by anyone, right now: a gram of Afghani hash; 1/8 ounce of “sour 13″ weed; 14 grams of ecstasy; .1 gram tar heroin. A listing for “Avatar” LSD includes a picture of blotter paper with big blue faces from the James Cameron movie on it.
The sellers are located all over the world, a large portion from the United States and Canada.



But even Silk Road has limits: You won’t find any weapons-grade plutonium, for example. Its terms of service ban the sale of “anything who’s purpose is to harm or defraud, such as stolen credit cards, assassinations, and weapons of mass destruction.”

‘It’s Amazon — if Amazon sold mild-altering chemicals.’

 

Getting to Silk Road is tricky. The URL seems made to be forgotten. But don’t point your browser there yet. It’s only accessible through the anonymizing network, TOR, which requires a bit of technical skill to configure.
Once you’re there, it’s hard to believe that Silk Road isn’t simply a scam. Such brazenness is usually displayed only by those fake “online pharmacies” that dupe the dumb and flaccid. There’s no sly, Craigslist-style code names here. But while scammers do use the site, most of the listings are legit. Mark’s acid worked as advertised. “It was quite enjoyable, to be honest,” he said. We spoke to one Connecticut engineer who enjoyed sampling some “silver haze” pot purchased off Silk Road. “It was legit,” he said. “It was better than anything I’ve seen.”

Edgarnumbers is selling these 2C-B "blue bees" tablets. Price: 1.15 bitcoins ($10) per tablet.

Silk Road cuts down on scams with a reputation-based trading system familiar to anyone who’s used Amazon or eBay. The user Bloomingcolor appears to be an especially trusted vendor, specializing in psychedelics. One happy customer wrote on his profile: “Excellent quality. Packing, and communication. Arrived exactly as described.” They gave the transaction five points out of five. 

“Our community is amazing,” Silk Road’s anonymous administrator, known on forums as “Silk Road,” told us in an e-mail. “They are generally bright, honest and fair people, very understanding, and willing to cooperate with each other.”

Sellers feel comfortable openly selling hard-core drugs because the real identities of those involved in Silk Road transactions are utterly obscured. If the authorities wanted to ID Silk Road’s users with computer forensics, they’d have nowhere to look. TOR masks a user’s tracks on the site. As for transactions, Silk Road doesn’t accept credit cards, PayPal or any other form of payment that can be traced or blocked. The only money good here is Bitcoins.
Bitcoins have been called a “crypto-currency,” the online equivalent of a brown paper bag of cash. Bitcoins are a peer-to-peer currency, not issued by banks or governments, but created and regulated by a network of other bitcoin holders’ computers. (The name “Bitcoin” is derived from the pioneering file-sharing technology Bittorrent.) They are purportedly untraceable and have been championed by cyberpunks, libertarians and anarchists who dream of a distributed digital economy outside the law, one where money flows across borders as free as bits.
To purchase something on Silk Road, you need first to buy some Bitcoins using a service like Mt. Gox Bitcoin Exchange. Then, create an account on Silk Road, deposit some bitcoins, and start buying drugs. One bitcoin is worth about $8.67, though the exchange rate fluctuates wildly every day. Right now you can buy an 1/8 ounce of pot on Silk Road for 7.63 Bitcoins. That’s probably more than you would pay on the street, but most Silk Road users seem happy to pay a premium for convenience.

‘It kind of felt like I was in the future.’

Since it launched this February, Silk Road has represented the most complete implementation of the Bitcoin vision. Many of its users come from Bitcoin’s Utopian geek community and see Silk Road as more than just a place to buy drugs. Silk Road’s administrator cites the anarcho-libertarian philosophy of Agorism. “The state is the primary source of violence, oppression, theft and all forms of coercion,” Silk Road wrote to us. “Stop funding the state with your tax dollars and direct your productive energies into the black market.”
Mark, the LSD buyer, had similar views. “I’m a libertarian anarchist and I believe that anything that’s not violent should not be criminalized,” he said.

1UP of Canada is offering 1/8 ounce of "the infamous Jack Herer." He writes: "This is just classic stuff, well grown, well cured, well smoked." Price: 7.42 bitcoins ($64)

But not all Bitcoin enthusiasts embrace Silk Road. Some think the association with drugs will tarnish the young technology, or might draw the attention of federal authorities. “The real story with Silk Road is the quantity of people anxious to escape a centralized currency and trade,” a longtime bitcoin user named Maiya told us in a chat. “Some of us view Bitcoin as a real currency, not drug barter tokens.” 

 

Silk Road and Bitcoins could herald a black market eCommerce revolution. But anonymity cuts both ways. How long until a DEA agent sets up a fake Silk Road account and starts sending SWAT teams instead of LSD to the addresses she gets? As Silk Road inevitably spills out of the bitcoin bubble, its drug-swapping utopians will meet a harsh reality no anonymizing network can blur.

MasterCard trialling smart credit cards with display & keypads

By Chris Davies
From: http://www.slashgear.com/

MasterCard has announced that it will be rolling out new credit and debit cards with integrated display screens, in an attempt to further prevent bank fraud. The cards, developed by NagraID Security, resemble their regular counterparts, but – when an integrated button is pressed – display a one-time passcode that can be used to authorize online and phone transactions.

In addition, more complex versions of the cards can include a 12-digit keypad, and be used for electronic signature and authentication modes, as well as to enhanced security features such as challenge-response applications and PIN code card protection. MasterCard even envisage being able to show customers their current balance on the card’s display.

Pilot schemes with the cards are kicking off in association with a Turkish bank, and if successful MasterCard are looking to spread the use of the technology to other countries. The real irony is, in the middle of writing this article, my own bank called to say my card had been cloned – I guess these new display cards can’t come soon enough!

Press Release:

MASTERCARD and NAGRAID Security Introduce new Display Cards with Extended Features for Secure Banking Applications

NagraID Security developed a new family of MasterCard financial cards with integrated display screen allowing:

Optimized security for online transactions thanks to strong owner authentication
Display of the card balance on the card’s screen

La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland, 10th June 2010 – NagraID Security, a subsidiary of the Kudelski Group (SIX:KUD), is pleased to announce that its families of display cards passed MasterCard’s (CSI – Card Structure & Integrity) approval process, thus demonstrating the required levels of durability, safety and compliance to ISO standards required for the commercial launch of banking cards and the introduction into MasterCard’s brand standards and rules.

The innovative Debit and Credit MasterCard Display Card looks and feels like a normal credit or debit card but comes with an additional small display and a button that enables card holders to use the same card for standard banking payment functionality and to generate second-factor one-time passwords (OTPs), thereby providing strong authentication.

The cards are very reliable and extremely simple to use. They offer optimal security to achieve banking transactions outside payment terminals using one single device.

This password generation technology complies with the requirements of MasterCard’s 3D Secure Chip Authentication Program (CAP). Optionally, a touch-sensitive keypad with twelve keys permits access to advanced functionality such as electronic signature and authentication modes, as well as to enhanced security features such as challenge-response applications and PIN code card protection.

Historically, banking institutions who protected access to their services with a One-Time Password required the use of a separate cumbersome token.

“Cards were born from cardboard, they’ve been ‘mag striped’ and ‘chipped’ and now we enter their silicon age, with an LCD display and touchpad opening up a multitude of possibilities. With NagraID’s recent achievements to demonstrate compliance to industry standards, the stage has well and truly been set to deliver the next generation consumer’s card proposition” says Eric Tomlinson, MasterCard Europe.

“This display card is designed to provide a very high level of security and reliability as well as ease of use. Users simply press a button to generate an OTP for secure access to their online services,” commented Philippe Guillaud, Executive Vice President and CTO of NagraID Security. He also added “The programmable nature of this platform makes it future proof and one can expect to see even more exciting and fantastic functionality in the near future.”

MasterCard directed promotional initiatives and large scale roll-outs will ensure that market price expectations are achieved. “As the world evolves towards increasing online and cashless transactions, the timing of our partnership with MasterCard is ideal, as it enables the growing security expectations of a rapidly expanding base of digital technology users to be quickly addressed via a secure, reliable and unified solution in a familiar and convenient form-factor.” said Cyril Lalo, President and CEO of NagraID Security.

18 Firefox Add-Ons that Help You Save Money

posted by Mr.404
from: http://fourpastfour.com/

Let’s face it, times are tough and every penny counts. Instead of just money saving websites, here is a list of 18 Firefox Add-Ons that will help save you money on a daily basis.

1. InvisibleHand — This handy extension will act like its namesake and point you to better deals whenever you shop online. A discreet notification will pop up if the InvisibleHand extension finds a lower price in its database of over 100 different online retailers from the US, UK, and Germany. With information from major shopping sites like Amazon, Wal-Mart and Sears, InvisibleHand will help you find the best deals and save a ton of money in the process.
2. Listia – This is an auction site where everything is free; instead of cash, people use credits to get free stuff. You get credits for free when you join, or list items for auction that you no longer want, such as, old vhs tapes, cell phones, books, clothes, ect. The more stuff you give away, the more credits you get. Then use those credits to get new things for free. Use this firefox add-on to help sort through all the free stuff on Listia.com.
3. Offer Assistant — Tired of hunting down those discount and coupon codes when you shop online? The Offer Assistant is here to bring the offers to you! The extension helpfully includes any promo information regarding your item in your Google, Bing, and Yahoo! search results. Could it be any more convenient?
4. Advanced Travel — Traveling can get really expensive, and so people spend hours upon hours trying to find the best travel deals online. Advanced Travel makes things a lot simpler by displaying search results for the most popular travel websites. The extension’s engine reads your IP address to find out what area you’re in, and will alter the search results accordingly.
5. Ookong — Have you ever found yourself burning the midnight oil looking for the best prices for your Amazon.com item? Get some sleep and let the Ookong extension do the work for you. Ookong takes a look at an item’s price history, tracks any price changes, and tells you when the price drops. It’s like having a broker telling you exactly when the best time to buy is.
6. Woot Watcher — Woot.com is a quirky website that allows for major savings. The catch is, the site sells only one product for each day, in limited quantities. If you’d really like to get something you want at Woot’s rock-bottom prices, then, you need to watch the site religiously. This great extension does the watching for you, alerting you on the day’s product, price, and stock left.
7. Buy It Online — Ever found an item online you couldn’t wait to get your hands on? Didn’t want to waste any time browsing around for sites that might offer it at lower prices? This extension allows you to do that within seconds. All you have to do it right-click on the product, click “Buy it online”, and the extension will display several sites that sell it, too!
8. Savvy Circle Plugin — The Savvy Circle Plugin sends you an email whenever an item you have your eye on goes on sale. All you need to do is add the item to your Savvy Circle wishlist, and everything else will follow. With support for over 100 different online stores, you’re sure to save money with this extension.
9. ReminderFox — The fees on unpaid bills can add up, making your unnecessary expenses pile up into astronomical amounts. Do yourself (and your wallet) a favor by installing this extension. It acts like a to-do list in your browser, reminding you when important matters need to attending.
10. Lonely Planet — Looking for the best possible way to enjoy your trip? Save a few bucks by installing this extension. It’ll give you access to the Lonely Planet travel guides without having to buy the guides themselves. You can even plan a budget trip with the helpful information contained in the guide.
11. World Travel Guide — Are the Lonely Planet guides not enough for you? Blow your options wide-open as this Firefox extension gives you access to even more travel guides. It’s easy, convenient, and best of all, free!
12. Biet-O-Zilla — Did you ever find an incredible bargain on eBay, bid on it, only to have it stolen away from you just before the auction closes? This amazing extension helps you make last minute bids with ease. You’ll end up saving a ton of cash on your eBay purchases when you have the speed to get the best deals.
13. UpName Expired Domains Search — Working on an online business? The right domain name can have a significant effect on the traffic to your site. You can find top-ranked domain names for cheap by purchasing expired or deleted domain names. This handy extension searches all major domain sellers for these discount online gold mines, saving you the effort of tracking them down, and saving you money on a worthwhile investment.
14. Product Seeker Search — This Firefox search bar add-on is a boon to online shoppers. Simply enter a product into Product Seeker Search, and it’ll give you results for all the major retailers that handle that item. You can then organize results by price, product rating, and store rating to make sure you get the most bang for your buck.
15. PriceTrace Toolbar — Smart shoppers and bargain hunters alike will be drooling over this money-saving extension. The add-on gives you one-click access to price histories and price comparisons for over 40 major online retailers. The “Find Fillers” function will alert you of any special offers that you might qualify for while making your purchases. Best of all, the extension will inform you if an item you’ve had it track drops in price. What more could you want?
16. PriceBlink — If you like your Firefox extensions a little more discreet, then PriceBlink is for you. This browser plug-in works in the background, so you probably won’t even notice it’s there. Unless, of course, it can save you money. Whenever you go online shopping, PriceBlink will pop up if it’s found the same item at a lower price, or if it’s included in any special offers.
17. Dympol Discount Entertainment — Music-lovers can now keep their wallets nice and full with the discount offerings of dympol. Install the toolbar on your browser, and discount prices pop up in third-party music retailers like AmazonMP3. When you make your purchase at full price, cash-back rebates equal to the discount will automatically be sent to your dympol account. These funds can then be easily transferred to your PayPal or Amazon Payments account. You can use them to avail of discounts with dympol’s sponsors.
18. TimeTracker — As the old adage goes, “Time is Money”. The time you spend leisure browsing could be costing you, especially if it’s decreasing your productivity at work. Hold yourself accountable with the TimeTracker extension. It records how much time you spend leisure surfing, and can be set to ignore the time spent at work-related sites. Once you see how much time you’ve wasted on YouTube, Facebook and the like, you’ll find yourself actually doing some work for a change.

5 Types of People You’ll Meet at IKEA

By: Jason

From: http://regretfulmorning.com/

Not long ago I found myself making my first ever solo journey to IKEA.  Soon after making it through the entrance I was surprised to see the many similarities our modern culture shares with the ancient Romans.

IKEA is incredibly intimidating.  If you’ve ever gotten lost in a supermarket as a toddler, you’ll know what this feels like.  The first thing you will try to do is find your mom’s hand.  However, once you realize that you’re alone, panic will begin to set in.  Today we’re going to give you a run down of the 5 types of people you’ll more than likely cross paths with while you’re lost and wandering around this hell hole for several hours.

The Mother of 3

Armed with a stroller, a hand bag, and three screaming kids this woman is probably the most dangerous person in IKEA. Lack of English skills and funds won’t stop this young lady from her goal of finding a new bedroom set/playpen combo.  Unfortunately she’ll learn that bartering doesn’t work so well in this country, and will /ragequit out of the store at an even faster pace than she entered.

The Boyfriend Who Is Being Forced

The hardest thing about being a loyal boyfriend is the amount of ultimatums you’re eventually hit with. Let’s look at a quick example.

“Get rid of that nasty jersey”

“But honey I like it”

“Cool, no sex for you”

The boyfriend who was forced to shop at IKEA with his GF is in pure misery.  His facial expression matches that of a dog which has just been roughed over pretty hard, but didn’t quite die.  He’s sort of just waddling around with that “please shoot me” look in his eyes, all while contemplating if his old lady is worth the agony.

The Husband Who Was Lied To

The deceived husband was told that they were shopping for a TV stand and some racks for his power tools, but ended up in the bathroom section looking at the daffodil curtains that his wife waved in front of his face.  The defeated husband will teeter on the border of depression and rage until he drinks his pain away watching the late game on ESPN. 

The Old Man

This guy is freshly retired and really doesn’t know what to do with all of his free time.  He’ll make several trips to this store for the breakfast specials alone.  After that he’ll sort of walk around aimlessly and try to find a way to be helpful.  He can usually tell you more about the product you’re looking at than the actual employees.

The Young Couple

The young couple has just made a big step in their relationship.  This pair of lovebirds is made up of one eager girl and one terrified guy.  While she is tugging at his hand, dreaming of a cozy living room and the possibility of babies, he is slowly feeling his hopes and dreams fade away.  The whole scene resembles something you’d see on “Crocodile Hunter.”  At first the croc will splash around being wild and dangerous, but once Steve Erwin is able to clamp those jaws shut, he pretty much just sits around in misery waiting for it to end.

Conclusion: IKEA has a website, I’d recommend using it rather than making a personal appearance.  Seriously, a small piece of you will die.

Polyvore - A Revolution in Online Shopping

by Stephanie Gulley

Polyvore is an amazing website that’s revolutionizing the way we shop online. Their web-based application is user-friendly making it easy for you to import images from any online store and create a virtual ensemble in your browser. Each item used within a set will link back to the online store where it’s available for purchase. This makes it easy for you to track where you found the item or if you’re like me, discover new retailers from sets created by other Polyvore addicts.

One you publish a set, you can share it with your friends online to get their opinions. You can even print it out as a shopping guide or save your sets as a part of your fashion wish-list (that’s what I do).

Here’s a favorite of mine by Meg:

For an interesting post on how retailers can leverage Polyvore’s platform, read “Why should retailers pay more attention to social shopping on Polyvore?” by Sarah Simmons.

So instead of making you read, I’m going to share two videos that show you how to use Polyvore. I found these videos on Polyvore’s site here and here.

Watch how you can create sets composed of individual images using an easy to use, drag and drop editor. After you have created a set, you can publish and share it with your friends and the Polyvore community.

The Clipper easily lets you import items from other websites into Polyvore.

Want a Better Way to Search Amazon and eBay? Try PicClick

by Adam Ostrow

Searching Amazon and eBay sometimes feels a bit archaic – the look and feel hasn’t changed all that much over the years, and the search results can be cumbersome. PicClick is a new visual search tool that looks to improve this process, offering a thumbnail view of dozens of items for a given search.

To use the service, you simply enter in a search term, a minimum/maximum price, and a zip code. PicClick will then search Amazon or eBay, presenting you a list of thumbnail pics and prices for products matching the search. Alternatively, you can browse by category, like Electronics, Home & Garden, or Sporting Goods. For more information on a product, you simply click on the thumbnail, which takes you to the respective product page on Amazon or eBay.

The site was built by Ryan Sit, the same developer who brought us ListPic, a similar tool for searching Craigslist that was shut down last year by the classifieds site. I asked him if he thought PicClick might meet a similar fate, to which he responded, “[it] shouldn’t, PicClick is an approved eBay compatible application, which means it went through some eBay certification and they checked it out. Plus eBay and Amazon both have open APIs so as far and I know this type of thing is encouraged .”

Assuming Sit is correct, PicClick is an elegant and simple tool that is more enjoyable to use than the built-in search tools on eBay and Amazon. If it’s at all successful, Sit should make a few dollars this holiday season too, as anything people buy after clicking through from PicClick will earn him referral fees through Amazon and eBay’s respective affiliate programs.