June 16, 2014
What Led To The Creation Of Silk Road?

Silk Road is an online black market for drugs. It was designed in a way to guarantee anonymity to users giving them the benefits of browsing the site securely without their activities being monitored. Launched in 2011, to its users, it’s sometimes called the “Amazon of drugs” or “the eBay for drugs”. Other things it sells include: collectibles, books, computer equipment, art and many more merchandise of various categories. Despite promising security to its users, the site was sabotaged by the FBI and later in 2013, it was shut down.

Though not operational, other online black websites are still operational. It still invokes a multitude of thoughts in society’s mind at large. In attempts to know how it came into existence and what led to its prosperity before its seizure, a number of reasons rangingfrom social, to political and economic were held accountable. Below are current social conditions believed to have contributed to the creation and prosperity of Silk Road and other online black market:

Widespread of drug users and addicts

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Drug abuse and addiction is the key thing that led and still leads to creation and prosperity of online drug black markets such as Silk Road. People everywhere are in pursuit for fun regardless what ways they use to reach their objective. With the ready market, there is a demand for regular and reliable supply of drugs.

The need to remain unnoticed

People have a tendency to hide what they perceive to be bad from the entire society. They do things in secrets and cautiously not wanting anyone to know about it. Buying drugs from dealers is a difficult thing leave alone transporting. Silk Road saw that weakness and tookadvantage of it. With ready market, both buyers and sellers were able to transact their business without their identity being noticed.

Going with the flow (online trading)

With advancement in technology, online marketing is the norm of the day. Online stores nowadays are everywhere. To go with the flow, drug users and suppliers saw the urge to move their business online. First is because they had ready market and also wanted to expand, therefore sought to reach a wider market.

To evade the harsh rules and difficulty of engaging in physical drug business

Stiff rules and punishment for people found in possession of drugs might also have contributed to the creation of Silk Road. There was need for invisibility and therefore moving to online was the safest thing to do. Customers and sellers transact their business without being seen.

Morally corrupt society

The society has now turned into “I don’t care attitude”. People either pretend or mean not to be concerned with what others do, after all “it’s their life and business”. Parents see their children succumb to drug addiction but there is nothing they can do. It has reached apoint where even drug abuse is not something unusual, people are used to. In many ways, not only did this lead to creation of online drug black market, but also contributed to its booming. It was easy to spot someone browsing the site in broad daylight without hiding. Just like porn and immorality the society at large are less concerned.

These are just to mention a fewthathave led to the creation of Silk Road. It’s the responsibility of everyone in society not to allow this trend continue by ensuring that we take care of each other. Our ignorance should not supersede our morality. No matter how trendy or cool it seems to be, bad should always be treated as bad.

12:21am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZJLnBo1IqT6VF
Filed under: Silk Road Silk Road Drugs Silkroad 
March 12, 2014
Silk Road - The History Of The Black Market Website

Silk Road is an online marketplace where people can buy things which mostly includes contraband goods. The site is hosted by “deep web”; these are websites that are not indexed by search engines which means that they are hidden from public view. Deep Web is only accessible by downloading special software known as Tor which essentially makes web traffic anonymous. To help understand how deep web works, consider every message sent via the internet as being a mailbag full of letters. The IP address of the sender acts as the return address to the sent letters. When people use the Tor browser, it encrypts the letters which makes impossible for others to read the letter content. The encryption also ensures that the return address is obscured; this means that it is impossible to know where the letters came from.

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The site was launched in February 2011, though development had begun 6 months before. Ross William Ulbritch is credited with being the founder and chief operator of the site. Initially buyers could register for free; however since there were a limited number of seller accounts, new sellers had to purchase an account through an auction. With time a fixed fee for each new seller account was chosen to manage the possibility of malicious people distributing tainted goods.

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The name Silk Road was borrowed from the historical network of trade routes that begun during the Han Dynasty between 206 BC and 220 BC. These routes ran to and from China, Europe, India and other countries on Afro-Eurasian landmass. The routes were operated by Dread Pirates Roberts, who was named after the fictional character from the Princess Bride known for criticizing regulation and being idealistic.


By March 2013, the site had listed about 10,000 products for sale by vendors.70 % of these products were drugs that are considered illegal in most jurisdictions. All in all about 340 varieties of drugs were being sold on the site, these included LSD, heroin and cannabis. Apart from illegal products the site had legal goods and services including cigarettes, jewelry, apparel, books and erotica. Since the site prohibited sale of anything meant to cause harm, defraud or stolen products, it had a sister site which mostly sold weapons including guns.


According to data from 3rd of February 2012 –July 2012, an estimated $ 15 million in transactions were made every year on the site. A year later, it was rumored that their sales had gone up to $45 million. Buyers and sellers conducted all transactions with bit coins (BTC), a crypto currency that offers a certain level of anonymity. The site held bit coins from buyers in escrow until the order had been received by the buyer. A hedging mechanism enabled sellers to opt for the value of bit coins retained in escrow to be fixed to their value in US dollars at the time of the sale to guard against bit coins’ volatility.


Strange as it may sound, Deep Web or Tor network that has enabled Silk Road to operate in anonymity was initially funded by U.S Naval Research Laboratory. It was developed with the hope that it could properly guard against and encrypt government communications. From 2004 -2005 it was supported by Electronic Frontier Foundation, currently it is run by the Tor Project. To this day Tor network is mostly funded by government organizations around the globe including the US.

4:20am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZJLnBo19vOz2Y
Filed under: Silk Road Silkroad Silk Road Marketplace 
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