marleysherb
Stranger
Reged: 09/11/03
Posts: 13
Loc: se
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I have given some serious thought about this forum and in recent light of the 10-17-03 NewYorkTimes Story on America cracking down on OP's, especially IOP's, I want to see what everyone thinks about drugbuyers.com coming up with some way of filtering out the people we do not want here. By making the terms of service require that the user is not affiliated with any type of government agency and by making newusers/members go through a tos update, we could prevent this website from being monitored or even from being shut down one day.
Things are only going to get worse since all this spam in all of our mailboxes about controlled substances.
The same people they are calling abusers are the same people that depend on this board, op's, iop's, and everyone here to stay sane. We need some kind of protection against the "attacks" on us from the government, as patients and citizens. We don't want to wake up one day and realize the government runs our lives completely and blame ourselves...
I am just giving a suggestion to DB and would like all user's input on this subject.
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one love.
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moonbeam
Member
Reged: 05/23/03
Posts: 180
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If this is a board for the fair exchange of knowledge about prescription prices and service, then we become police ourselves when we seek to discrimiate to keep others off the board simply because we "think" they may be associated with LE. We become nothing better than the government that we claim controls us. The government already has the DEA, FBI, local, state, and others watching out for us, do they really need our help in spying on each other?
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lovepink
Goddess
Reged: 01/01/02
Posts: 1476
Loc: NYC Metro Area
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Quote:
By making the terms of service require that the user is not affiliated with any type of government agency and by making newusers/members go through a tos update, we could prevent this website from being monitored or even from being shut down one day.
I think your intentions are great but unfortunately that idea couldn't possibly work. LE & governmental agencies are not required to comply with any privately-imposed restrictions on what they can & cannot do & read if they're trying to investigate possible illegal activity. LE is allowed to lie if its necessary in the course of a particular investigation or task. For instance, undercover police trying to nab drug-dealers or prostitutes are legally entitled to say "No" when asked by the dealer or prostitute if they are cops. I imagine that same entitlement would apply to your suggestion...if LE has any inkling that there are illegal drug/med sources listed here (and they do), they certainly don't have to abide by the TOS you suggested.
I am definitely NOT knocking your suggestion - its great that you care for DB so much that you're coming up with ideas to protect the site (and please do keep them coming!).
I think the best bet is for members to be very careful about what they post, particularly about high-profile meds like Rohypnol, GHB, Ket, Oxy, etc. & any possible sources. The PM function is great for passing along info that should remain discreet as well as being a tool for chat.
JMO & again, thanks for coming up with suggestions. Keep them coming!
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Lovepink
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lemongrass
Board Addict
Reged: 09/23/03
Posts: 361
Loc: IL
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Lovepink is right. LE can do whatever they deem necessary, if they feel there is illegal activity taking place. Just because they are the law does not make them above lying. This is a typical tactic. Remember what undercover means...just that. To portray one's self as someone or something that they're not.
It has been widely misunderstood that if you ask a cop if he/she is a cop and they say no during illegal activities then one cannot be convicted. This is absolutely false. So, implementing a change of the TOS or even having this site password protected would do nothing to prevent anyone determined enough to enter and to use it later as a means of evidence or seeking out the members for any type of criminal prosecution.
Your heart was definitely in the right place and I'm sure everyone appreciates it.
lemongrass
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Trampy
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/02/02
Posts: 1239
Loc: Southwest U.S.
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Quote:
I have given some serious thought about this forum and in recent light of the 10-17-03 NewYorkTimes Story on America cracking down on OP's, especially IOP's, I want to see what everyone thinks about drugbuyers.com coming up with some way of filtering out the people we do not want here. By making the terms of service require that the user is not affiliated with any type of government agency and by making newusers/members go through a tos update, we could prevent this website from being monitored or even from being shut down one day.
Things are only going to get worse since all this spam in all of our mailboxes about controlled substances.
The same people they are calling abusers are the same people that depend on this board, op's, iop's, and everyone here to stay sane. We need some kind of protection against the "attacks" on us from the government, as patients and citizens. We don't want to wake up one day and realize the government runs our lives completely and blame ourselves...
I am just giving a suggestion to DB and would like all user's input on this subject.
There's no way that TOS would prevent LEOs from monitoring this board. Ask an undercover cop if he's a cop. He'll lie and say no. It's 100% legal for him to lie about it. Forget this idea. There's no basis in law for it.
Trampy
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Your mileage may vary ...
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antique
Banned
Reged: 09/01/03
Posts: 215
Loc: east coast
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This question is for DB or anyone... How safe are the PMs from being intercepted or accessed on DB by others?
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gage
Member
Reged: 11/27/02
Posts: 138
Loc: south central U.S.A.
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EVER SEEN A HIGHWAY PATROL DRIVE THE SPEED LIMIT???? 
I GUESS LE OFFICALS HAVE SOME RULES THERE SUPPOSE TO FOLLOW
AND MAYBE SOME DO, BUT THEYD DO ABOUT ANYTHING TO GET THE BIG BUST, INCLUDEING LIEING!!! OF COURSE ITS LEGAL FOR THEM , BUT ITS ILLEGAL FOR US TO LIE TO THEM???
I WOULD SUGGEST ANYONE USE THE 5TH OR ASK FOR AN ATTORNEY/
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Trampy
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/02/02
Posts: 1239
Loc: Southwest U.S.
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Quote:
This question is for DB or anyone... How safe are the PMs from being intercepted or accessed on DB by others?
Any system can be hacked. Period. It's also possible to hack a system so that they can't trace it back to the source. I don't know about any current PHP exploits, but i'm sure there are some that worked in the past. In general, most exploits involve buffer overflow, but they could also involve embedded scripts in messages or posts. It'd be easier to do if the security is set up to be lax and they don't monitor the system for intrusion attempts. If someone can log is as root or administrator, they can do anything. Passwords should be picked so that they can't be found with a dictionary atttack. Also, the system should be set up to lock out any administrative account after a few unsuccessful attempts to log in with the wrong password. All of your PMs can be read by DB or anyone who gets the right username/password from them. I would never send out anything that's self-incriminating on the internet. If a court issues a subpeona or a search warrant, DB would be obligated to give them what the court ordered.
A few days ago the system was configured so that it was spitting out its SQL error messages in HTML to everyone. People make mistakes. A human error could expose everything here to anyone who wanted to look at it ... no hacking required. Have you ever left your house or car unlocked for a few minutes by mistake? Same thing.
If you want your PMs to be confidential, then encrypt them with PGP. Then the only person who can read them is the one you encrypt them to. But that person can disclose it to others. It's also only as good as the passphrase you choose, so don't write it on a Post-It and paste it on your monitor. PGP 8.02 is about as good as it gets for free encryption. You can download it directly from PGP. Find it with Google.
Trampy
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Your mileage may vary ...
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antique
Banned
Reged: 09/01/03
Posts: 215
Loc: east coast
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Thanks, Trampy. You are a wellspring of knowledge. I anticipated the answer but did not have enough knowledge to explain it. I get the impression from posts I see here on the board that people may be passing info back and forth in PMs thinking that those are truly private. I doubt that many are using PGP. I hope that people will read your response and keep it in mind when sending PMs.
If the moderators have any info along these lines that they would be comfortable sharing, I would be most appreciative.
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toky20
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 03/17/02
Posts: 1347
Loc: Windy Place
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Quote:
I get the impression from posts I see here on the board that people may be passing info back and forth in PMs thinking that those are truly private.
The best and easiest rule of thumb is "there is no privacy on the internet".
Take Care,
Toky
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night_shade
Threadhead
Reged: 08/26/03
Posts: 907
Loc: The State of Hockey
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The real truth is that there is no true privacy ANYWHERE anymore. Satellites can monitor anyone in their own homes, phones can be tapped, computers confiscated and all data recovered (even though you think you've erased it...) While gov agencies may NOt be monitoring everyone all the time, they certainly have the resources to do so when they choose to.
The bottom line is that there are simply too many people in the "gray area"...our government knows this, keeps tabs on it and takes out one or two here and there as damage control. We'll never be free of these government agencies so long as policy is the "war" on drugs.
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Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
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marleysherb
Stranger
Reged: 09/11/03
Posts: 13
Loc: se
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I wanted to write just to thank everyone for thier great posts. Truly speaking, big brother looks for the "big fish" to prosecute before they look for the "little guy" buying. Keep in mind though that big brother can and does monitor every person on the internet and knows more than we give them credit for. They do have the power to shut down DB, and they DO have the "right" to prosecute everyone who has ever posted/affiliated/bought/sold/or even browsed DB.com
Since the "war on prescriptions on the internet" is so popular nowadays, they will be looking for places like this to start targeting just like they took down napster for being a "medium/p2p", they could just as well take down DB and any or all of it's members.
Everyone be safe out there.
"They call this a free country, then why does everything cost so Best if kept off the board much?" ;]
A' dios
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one love.
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zorg
Veteran
Reged: 04/29/02
Posts: 559
Loc: Midwest
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nnnnnot quite, they have the capability, MAYBE, to monitor a couple hundred people intensively at a time, or a central repository with many people interacting, but let's make very clear the government is not and cannot monitor 'everyone' on this astronomically huge global network. They do apply very broad patterns to sniff up on large SONET (fiber optic long-haul) networks between large metro areas, but they will never have enough resources to monitor us all. On the large pipes all they can do is hope to pick up a few keys words in series. Even more comforting than their woefully finite resources, we have access to strong crypto so with intense preparation we could almost vanish completely.
There are ways of keeping DB online should they mess with the continental links under their jurisdiction. It's mega-easy to get a foreign Point of Contact and server and start from scratch.
This network is the wild west and due to the underlying protocol limitations, it will stay that way for a very long time.
Surf prudent but surf free 
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buey
Old Hand
Reged: 01/15/03
Posts: 453
Loc: USA
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Quote:
Keep in mind though that big brother can and does monitor every person on the internet and knows more than we give them credit for. They do have the power to shut down DB, and they DO have the "right" to prosecute everyone who has ever posted/affiliated/bought/sold/or even browsed DB.com
c'mon....that's a bit dramatic. They have the right to prosecute a person for posting and even browsing on this board? Don't think so, unless it's become ilegal to read an internet board.
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yawkaw3
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 03/22/03
Posts: 1193
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Has anyone ever heard stories of The Hive? People got sloppy and started posting their secrets and bragging about their exploits. That was a board about drug manufacturing and they and a few members got busted; what is left now is nothing of the original board. Those are the kind of people they are looking for, I don't think they are really comparing posts to see who might be double-dipping.
Their interest in this board or any board are in people who sell the stuff. My guess is they are interested in e-mail sources (who are just drug dealers IMHO, but please let's not sidetrack this thread with a discussion about the validity of e-mail sources, I think they are scams, but plenty of people do like them). They may also be interested in IOP's and who is getting around customs. Records-based, phone consult, legit OP's...I'm sure they know they exist, whether they are going to do anything about it is this moment's million dollar question.
Do they really care about a chronic pain patient who orders online? Doubtful. If you order from every possible OP and brag about how you sell it for 10 times the cost, then maybe you have something to worry about, but you deserve it for being stupid enough to post that. If anything, they are looking for the OP, and even then they have to make the decision whether or not it is worth their time to bust a company who takes every possible precaution to stay within the bounds of the law.
Just watch what you say and to whom and you will be fine. That is really all any of us can do.
-yawkaw
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toky20
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 03/17/02
Posts: 1347
Loc: Windy Place
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Quote:
There are ways of keeping DB online should they mess with the continental links under their jurisdiction.
Perhaps it would be easier to keep db safe by not having each of the top 20 posters have several links show up in google?
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Beetlenut
Threadhead
Reged: 09/09/02
Posts: 764
Loc: Colorado
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Yea, Toks, that's something isn't it. Didn't know until I just tried it.
What's even scarier is when I typed my phone number into Google.
Big Brother is a reality...
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potatoboy99
Permanent Fixture
Reged: 02/04/03
Posts: 1200
Loc: Deep North (East)
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How do those links end up on google?
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zorg
Veteran
Reged: 04/29/02
Posts: 559
Loc: Midwest
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Google search programs called "spiders" or "robots" etc., scan netblock after netblock for webservers, and then enumerate whatever they can on them with what is usually a balance between "gentle" configuration and "brute force enumeration" of the entire server.
These programs usually operate in a mostly predictable fashion, and even if they're rude and pushy the responsibility to secure this information from unwanted cataloguing lies SOLELY on the website owner. Google is only doing what they do best, DB on the other hand has the sole power to lock down the information.
I've offered solutions, they prefer a more open access model, I presume it will continue as is.
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toky20
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 03/17/02
Posts: 1347
Loc: Windy Place
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Quote:
I presume it will continue as is.
As do I.
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DrugBuyers
Administrator
Reged: 11/18/01
Posts: 1231
Loc: DrugBuyers.Com
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Our forums are open to all who wish to read
We have no desire, or intention, to block anyone
(We could not keep anyone from reading our forums even if we wanted)
If we wanted to keep someone from visiting our site we would try to block crooks and criminals and not law enforcement or the press.
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The best and fastest way to get help is at: https://drugbuyers.com/help
Please do not PM me about non working or lost usernames and passwords.
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toky20
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 03/17/02
Posts: 1347
Loc: Windy Place
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Quote:
we would try to block crooks and criminals
This would be OK with me! 
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Spectre13
Enthusiast
Reged: 12/10/03
Posts: 299
Loc: ThunderHeadTippyTops
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Better than blocking is to require those entities to identify themselves as such in their posts. Fat chance of them doing it however. I realize IPs are generally not posted for privacy reasons, however, it might be wise to have it automatically posted under certain rare circumstances. For example, when a post comes from a server known to belong to the aforementioned entities like the DEA, etc., or when it comes from someone posting under multiple names using the same IP. Or perhaps just use some extra text like "AKA: OtherName" or "Coming from .gov". It would only discourage it in a very general sense, but there is really no need to make it "easy" on those with intent to do that by hiding every IP across the board.
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When you think it's beyond your comprehension, it probably just precedes it.
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Spectre13
Enthusiast
Reged: 12/10/03
Posts: 299
Loc: ThunderHeadTippyTops
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Sweet spirits of camphor, DB, I just noticed how easy it would be to misread the beginning of that post. By "fat chance of them doing it", I didn't mean fat chance of DB requiring them to comply, I meant fat chance of a fed complying if DB would have required it. Sorry about that, DB.
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When you think it's beyond your comprehension, it probably just precedes it.
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