Mutt
Professional
- Messages
- 1,458
- Reaction score
- 1,273
- Points
- 113
Not in the first one, I have to grumble and instructively say that "Dark is not the same as before", although in my field of vision my acquaintance with the "dark cybermezozoy" began only with the site ParaZite, which now works for a maximum of 15 minutes a day and Unity, along with the Runion forum.
Not in the first one, I have to grumble and instructively say that "Dark is not the same as before", although in my field of vision my acquaintance with the "dark cybermezozoy" began only with the site ParaZite, which now works for a maximum of 15 minutes a day and Unity, along with the Runion forum.
Unity caught my attention for a reason.
Starting to maintain the channel, the concept of "Darknet search" began to expand - now it is not only Godnotaba and Hidden Wiki, but also everything that can collect links-from pastebin directories found through dorks and lists crawled in DeepLink.
An unexpected "click" in my head occurred at the stage of in-depth study of the history of Western marketplaces. An important detail is that the same Americans, after investigations and arrests of the market, leave a ton of materials with which you can restore the chronology of events.
What do we have? "Well, etsamoe, the film at the Tape, about the versus Ramp and Hydra". The bazaar is zero, the level of shooting, narration and colorfulness there is captivating. All major milestones are listed. Will anyone remember R2D2 and AmberRoad, which fell in market infighting? Only on God-forsaken clone catalogs, you will find a link to them, with a description that looks more like an epitaph.
And why not try to collect at least something from these stories? And show the audience what it's like to be the owner of a respectable shadow forum or market, what problems you have to face, and what will happen next.
And to ask the most pressing questions about "what happened?" and "what will happen next?" you need to answer the most important one - and who can answer them?
And in this search, I was incredibly lucky - by going to the Unity "Big Three" forum, I contacted the administrator under the nickname Dredd and I still managed to ask interesting questions for myself and for the public. Enjoy reading!
1) In what year was the forum launched and how was its development/promotion going? Through link directories or other forums? What was more effective in the end? What problems have you encountered in the course of this development? (competition for sellers, DDOS attacks, unfavorable reviews).
The official opening was on March 19, 2017. The resource was launched after the sale of Rusilk, in the administration of which I was, to Hydre. Some sellers and users switched to UNITY and formed its backbone, so as such, there was no initial promotion. I posted the theme on Runion'e, which marked the official opening, then an old user made the Oneirun catalog, and I was invited to stay there, then a Consortium was formed and opened there by invitation, and a little later, links were published on the foreign TheOnionWeb together with the admin of a neighboring site.
The development of UNITY has not even passed the initial stage, it is slow because of my approach. Apparently, the history of cooperation with the previous team affected. I am too sensitive to moderation and it is very difficult for me to trust a person in terms of working in a team, even if financial flows will not concern him, but it the reputation of the team is very important. We need confidence that he will judge the situation correctly, diplomatically, without unnecessary emotions, pathos and other repulsive factors, seeing and understanding the fine line of rules and accepted principles, because the darknet has enough letter-eaters and people who "just to get to the bottom". And without the help of moderators, there is simply not enough time for many things. I even very rarely give the status of a Local, because this is access to a private section, let alone a moderator.
There have been and still are various situations: attacks, slander, poaching of users/sellers, provocations, threats, attempts to de-ban, and so on. This was, is, and will continue to be the case. Attacks and threats are quite common, screenshots of slander in different places are also often thrown off to me, in the BOS. They write in a personal what millions of CP, spice, or other prohibited goods on the resource want to buy through me, etc. This is not new. There are also sophisticated methods of trying to compromise and discredit, but all these methods are focused on the fact that I have to be greedy, unscrupulous and careless, so I think that over time these people will stop wasting my time and their own, although most likely this is their job. (interview prepared by @onionlinks)
It is precisely targeted promotion that has not yet begun. I organized webinars, payments for articles and useful activities, and various contests. In the near future, all this will resume again in an updated format.
2) The main milestones for the shadow market in your opinion-what are they? (the fall of the RAMP, the creation of Hydra, the emergence of a Consortium and its closure, or something else? Did you have the opportunity to influence these events?
I believe that events such as the opening/closing of resources, discounts, the appearance of new specialists-authors, the activity of old ones, original services/products, the activity of ideological users, and so on, affect the development of the darknet.
You can make up the entire history of the Russian-language darknet, there was an idea to do this, but to do this, you need to gather several old-timers and write the whole story in the format of communication-memories, correcting and reminding each other. It would be an interesting conversation, maybe we can arrange such a thing someday.
I don't remember a lot of things myself, and I might get the dates mixed up, since it's been more than five years since I joined the darknet. There are many such "main" events, they are different for each resource and its user, one comes from another and everything is interconnected, so it makes sense to highlight something other than the source - Silkroad - just to start a long story about the history of the darknet. For 8 years of the Russian-speaking segment of the darknet, much has happened and much has been forgotten or distorted.
It was possible to influence some events, as well as many others. You either participate in something or you don't, and I believe that even indifference affects events.
3) Have you ever communicated with representatives of foreign shadow markets? If so, what is the reason?
I had to. We can single out a rather unusual practice of "joint transaction guarantee". On their part, there was a customer with my seller, they thought out a cooperation agreement, because neither side agreed to the guarantor offered by the other side, in the end everything went well and was repeated several times. There were also suggestions for inclusion in the "war" against Hydra, joint attacks, and so on. There were even threats.
4) Are you ready to cooperate with other foreign drug markets or shadow forums? It's just that it's not the first time I've seen a link to Unity listed on many Darknet news sites and various variations of the Hidden Wiki.
I would caution users not to place absolute faith in the contents of Hidden Wiki sets. It's full of scam projects that own these wikis. Just like directories, most of them either belong to some resource and serve as their tool, or they don't really filter data. It is quite a time-consuming job to clear the chaff in information about darknet sites and it does not bring much money if you do not sell advertising, and if you sell it, you will not write badly about your source of income. In my memory, there were people who organized the catalog for ideological reasons, but either did not get to the point, or burned out over time.
Maybe we get into these directories "for the company and for the masses", or maybe our users took care of this, for which they are very grateful.
On cooperation-depending on the issue, if we are talking about such and such a development of ideology, a real fight against scammers and external threats, improving the darknet, then I am always in favor of communication and cooperation. And if we are talking about the interests of a particular site, bickering inside the darknet, then I try not to contribute to this and avoid it - discussions of commercial and advertising resources are prohibited on UNITY. Let's hope that everyone will eventually understand that we have common enemies - scammers and those who prohibit our activities.
5) Do you plan to promote your ad platform via Telegram? And in general, whether you plan to promote yourself.
Promotion is planned, but not yet. You need to complete some of the tasks to make the ad meaningful. Gradually, the entire tool is being assembled for honest and non-repulsive promotion.
I don't particularly welcome Telegram. For myself, as an administrator and guarantor, I consider this place potentially dangerous. If someone takes up advertising in Telegram, then I won't mind, even some ideas were there, but not now.
6) Do you have a picture of what the darknet will look like in a year, 3 years, and 5 years?
I think it's the same as now, but it's pointless to guess. The darknet is multi-faceted, on the one hand you will look and see some interesting idea, on the other a scammer, on the third bright minds, on the fourth sofa trolls, etc.
It is possible to distinguish harmful trends - users, in the majority, are attracted by convenience and a beautiful cover, but not by security. I also notice more and more often that many people want everything to be found, given links, chewed up, but they don't even want to use the site search, let alone search for at least some basic information in open sources. This shows a lack of respect for knowledge, place and people. It reminds you of a common situation in instant purchases: I came, got what I wanted, and left, but I didn't close the deal, and I didn't leave a review. As a result, the questioner gets unpleasant answers and leaves with the feeling that the darknet is all about trolls and sofa theorists who are smart and only do that banter.
Many people are looking for the "loot button" and are thrown, because they find the pushers, and the "loot button" is just looking for this very button. In commerce, the same disrespectful consumerism is increasingly common. Buyers are increasingly not just not writing reviews, but not even coming in to close deals. In auto sales about 4 years ago, this happened, about 10%, if my memory serves me correctly, did not close transactions and they were closed automatically, but on the guarantor in manual mode, this approach was in rare cases. It's much more common now.
More and more users are only interested in commerce and profit, but they do not want to give themselves, they do not even want to spend time on their own needs - nonsense, but on the other hand, in such conditions, we begin to value mutual respect, integrity, idealism and professionalism more.
7) What are the 3 most significant characters that have influenced the Russian Darknet, in your opinion?
There are too many of them. Authors who share their knowledge; users who learn and are not afraid to get this knowledge; honest sellers; buyers; scammers; moderators, etc. They influence the darknet together, one of them is Ross Ulbricht and Mark Karpeles, and then they repeat and improve everything (maybe he is not really an innovator and pioneer, but it is believed that he is). I didn't see any special, revolutionary changes after Silkroad, so maybe I missed something. If we talk about our location, we can say about the first Russian – speaking forum - Runion.
8) How do you feel about the current state of affairs in the entire TOR segment?
Partially answered in question # 6. Generally speaking, you need to find positive aspects in everything.
9) How do you assess Hydra's entry into the international market?
This is quite a logical step for business development.
10) I do not specify the revenue figures, but I will ask - how much higher is the income bar as a forum administrator compared to a mid-level clerk in the same BIG-4 company (where the average earnings are 70 thousand rubles.)
I had experience working in market with autogarant, and it was easy to answer your question there, because there are statistics, everything is automated, but in the forum format - it will not work.
For the forum, it is the sale of advertising spaces and statuses that is a fairly significant piece of profit. Moreover, in view of the fact that I constantly launder bitcoins for sellers, they are in constant circulation and mixed with my personal funds and keep records of profits, for me an extra waste of time, which does not make sense.
End of interview.
Not in the first one, I have to grumble and instructively say that "Dark is not the same as before", although in my field of vision my acquaintance with the "dark cybermezozoy" began only with the site ParaZite, which now works for a maximum of 15 minutes a day and Unity, along with the Runion forum.
Unity caught my attention for a reason.
Starting to maintain the channel, the concept of "Darknet search" began to expand - now it is not only Godnotaba and Hidden Wiki, but also everything that can collect links-from pastebin directories found through dorks and lists crawled in DeepLink.
An unexpected "click" in my head occurred at the stage of in-depth study of the history of Western marketplaces. An important detail is that the same Americans, after investigations and arrests of the market, leave a ton of materials with which you can restore the chronology of events.
What do we have? "Well, etsamoe, the film at the Tape, about the versus Ramp and Hydra". The bazaar is zero, the level of shooting, narration and colorfulness there is captivating. All major milestones are listed. Will anyone remember R2D2 and AmberRoad, which fell in market infighting? Only on God-forsaken clone catalogs, you will find a link to them, with a description that looks more like an epitaph.
And why not try to collect at least something from these stories? And show the audience what it's like to be the owner of a respectable shadow forum or market, what problems you have to face, and what will happen next.
And to ask the most pressing questions about "what happened?" and "what will happen next?" you need to answer the most important one - and who can answer them?
And in this search, I was incredibly lucky - by going to the Unity "Big Three" forum, I contacted the administrator under the nickname Dredd and I still managed to ask interesting questions for myself and for the public. Enjoy reading!
1) In what year was the forum launched and how was its development/promotion going? Through link directories or other forums? What was more effective in the end? What problems have you encountered in the course of this development? (competition for sellers, DDOS attacks, unfavorable reviews).
The official opening was on March 19, 2017. The resource was launched after the sale of Rusilk, in the administration of which I was, to Hydre. Some sellers and users switched to UNITY and formed its backbone, so as such, there was no initial promotion. I posted the theme on Runion'e, which marked the official opening, then an old user made the Oneirun catalog, and I was invited to stay there, then a Consortium was formed and opened there by invitation, and a little later, links were published on the foreign TheOnionWeb together with the admin of a neighboring site.
The development of UNITY has not even passed the initial stage, it is slow because of my approach. Apparently, the history of cooperation with the previous team affected. I am too sensitive to moderation and it is very difficult for me to trust a person in terms of working in a team, even if financial flows will not concern him, but it the reputation of the team is very important. We need confidence that he will judge the situation correctly, diplomatically, without unnecessary emotions, pathos and other repulsive factors, seeing and understanding the fine line of rules and accepted principles, because the darknet has enough letter-eaters and people who "just to get to the bottom". And without the help of moderators, there is simply not enough time for many things. I even very rarely give the status of a Local, because this is access to a private section, let alone a moderator.
There have been and still are various situations: attacks, slander, poaching of users/sellers, provocations, threats, attempts to de-ban, and so on. This was, is, and will continue to be the case. Attacks and threats are quite common, screenshots of slander in different places are also often thrown off to me, in the BOS. They write in a personal what millions of CP, spice, or other prohibited goods on the resource want to buy through me, etc. This is not new. There are also sophisticated methods of trying to compromise and discredit, but all these methods are focused on the fact that I have to be greedy, unscrupulous and careless, so I think that over time these people will stop wasting my time and their own, although most likely this is their job. (interview prepared by @onionlinks)
It is precisely targeted promotion that has not yet begun. I organized webinars, payments for articles and useful activities, and various contests. In the near future, all this will resume again in an updated format.
2) The main milestones for the shadow market in your opinion-what are they? (the fall of the RAMP, the creation of Hydra, the emergence of a Consortium and its closure, or something else? Did you have the opportunity to influence these events?
I believe that events such as the opening/closing of resources, discounts, the appearance of new specialists-authors, the activity of old ones, original services/products, the activity of ideological users, and so on, affect the development of the darknet.
You can make up the entire history of the Russian-language darknet, there was an idea to do this, but to do this, you need to gather several old-timers and write the whole story in the format of communication-memories, correcting and reminding each other. It would be an interesting conversation, maybe we can arrange such a thing someday.
I don't remember a lot of things myself, and I might get the dates mixed up, since it's been more than five years since I joined the darknet. There are many such "main" events, they are different for each resource and its user, one comes from another and everything is interconnected, so it makes sense to highlight something other than the source - Silkroad - just to start a long story about the history of the darknet. For 8 years of the Russian-speaking segment of the darknet, much has happened and much has been forgotten or distorted.
It was possible to influence some events, as well as many others. You either participate in something or you don't, and I believe that even indifference affects events.
3) Have you ever communicated with representatives of foreign shadow markets? If so, what is the reason?
I had to. We can single out a rather unusual practice of "joint transaction guarantee". On their part, there was a customer with my seller, they thought out a cooperation agreement, because neither side agreed to the guarantor offered by the other side, in the end everything went well and was repeated several times. There were also suggestions for inclusion in the "war" against Hydra, joint attacks, and so on. There were even threats.
4) Are you ready to cooperate with other foreign drug markets or shadow forums? It's just that it's not the first time I've seen a link to Unity listed on many Darknet news sites and various variations of the Hidden Wiki.
I would caution users not to place absolute faith in the contents of Hidden Wiki sets. It's full of scam projects that own these wikis. Just like directories, most of them either belong to some resource and serve as their tool, or they don't really filter data. It is quite a time-consuming job to clear the chaff in information about darknet sites and it does not bring much money if you do not sell advertising, and if you sell it, you will not write badly about your source of income. In my memory, there were people who organized the catalog for ideological reasons, but either did not get to the point, or burned out over time.
Maybe we get into these directories "for the company and for the masses", or maybe our users took care of this, for which they are very grateful.
On cooperation-depending on the issue, if we are talking about such and such a development of ideology, a real fight against scammers and external threats, improving the darknet, then I am always in favor of communication and cooperation. And if we are talking about the interests of a particular site, bickering inside the darknet, then I try not to contribute to this and avoid it - discussions of commercial and advertising resources are prohibited on UNITY. Let's hope that everyone will eventually understand that we have common enemies - scammers and those who prohibit our activities.
5) Do you plan to promote your ad platform via Telegram? And in general, whether you plan to promote yourself.
Promotion is planned, but not yet. You need to complete some of the tasks to make the ad meaningful. Gradually, the entire tool is being assembled for honest and non-repulsive promotion.
I don't particularly welcome Telegram. For myself, as an administrator and guarantor, I consider this place potentially dangerous. If someone takes up advertising in Telegram, then I won't mind, even some ideas were there, but not now.
6) Do you have a picture of what the darknet will look like in a year, 3 years, and 5 years?
I think it's the same as now, but it's pointless to guess. The darknet is multi-faceted, on the one hand you will look and see some interesting idea, on the other a scammer, on the third bright minds, on the fourth sofa trolls, etc.
It is possible to distinguish harmful trends - users, in the majority, are attracted by convenience and a beautiful cover, but not by security. I also notice more and more often that many people want everything to be found, given links, chewed up, but they don't even want to use the site search, let alone search for at least some basic information in open sources. This shows a lack of respect for knowledge, place and people. It reminds you of a common situation in instant purchases: I came, got what I wanted, and left, but I didn't close the deal, and I didn't leave a review. As a result, the questioner gets unpleasant answers and leaves with the feeling that the darknet is all about trolls and sofa theorists who are smart and only do that banter.
Many people are looking for the "loot button" and are thrown, because they find the pushers, and the "loot button" is just looking for this very button. In commerce, the same disrespectful consumerism is increasingly common. Buyers are increasingly not just not writing reviews, but not even coming in to close deals. In auto sales about 4 years ago, this happened, about 10%, if my memory serves me correctly, did not close transactions and they were closed automatically, but on the guarantor in manual mode, this approach was in rare cases. It's much more common now.
More and more users are only interested in commerce and profit, but they do not want to give themselves, they do not even want to spend time on their own needs - nonsense, but on the other hand, in such conditions, we begin to value mutual respect, integrity, idealism and professionalism more.
7) What are the 3 most significant characters that have influenced the Russian Darknet, in your opinion?
There are too many of them. Authors who share their knowledge; users who learn and are not afraid to get this knowledge; honest sellers; buyers; scammers; moderators, etc. They influence the darknet together, one of them is Ross Ulbricht and Mark Karpeles, and then they repeat and improve everything (maybe he is not really an innovator and pioneer, but it is believed that he is). I didn't see any special, revolutionary changes after Silkroad, so maybe I missed something. If we talk about our location, we can say about the first Russian – speaking forum - Runion.
8) How do you feel about the current state of affairs in the entire TOR segment?
Partially answered in question # 6. Generally speaking, you need to find positive aspects in everything.
9) How do you assess Hydra's entry into the international market?
This is quite a logical step for business development.
10) I do not specify the revenue figures, but I will ask - how much higher is the income bar as a forum administrator compared to a mid-level clerk in the same BIG-4 company (where the average earnings are 70 thousand rubles.)
I had experience working in market with autogarant, and it was easy to answer your question there, because there are statistics, everything is automated, but in the forum format - it will not work.
For the forum, it is the sale of advertising spaces and statuses that is a fairly significant piece of profit. Moreover, in view of the fact that I constantly launder bitcoins for sellers, they are in constant circulation and mixed with my personal funds and keep records of profits, for me an extra waste of time, which does not make sense.
End of interview.
