Random Darknet Shopper: A Live Mail Art Piece

Rotdhizon 8 years ago |

The dark web/deep web/dark net/whateveryouwannacallit has many legal things sold on it. My favorite story was a few years back, a vendor there was selling drugs. However, they also had their own coffee blend, and they would send a bag of their coffee with every purchase. Turns out the coffee was phenomenal. The vendor started getting so many requests to buy the coffee directly that they were able to just start selling coffee. I don't remember if that got them to stop selling their illegal merchandise, but at least they had one avenue of semi-ethical income.

lainga 8 years ago | |

(White takes a sip) "This is incredible... what the hell are we making meth for?!"

johnnyfived 8 years ago | | |

Different perspective / explanation:

Coffee works and tastes better while on other drugs.

lainga 8 years ago | | |

In this case, it was because the character (Gale Boetticher) was really good at making both meth and coffee.

captaincrowbar 8 years ago | | |

Breaking Bad/Twin Peaks crossover confirmed.

noobermin 8 years ago | |

To be fair, coffee is just another drug. And there are many drugs which are sold legally which have much worse impact on people and communities, like opiod prescriptions.

So I know what you mean about selling drugs being "semi-ethical" (probably a fanciful way to say "legal") but it's not as unethical as many other things people sell out in the open.

baud147258 8 years ago |

I loved the "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" book. I mean it must something subversive to be sold on the darkweb.

Edit: the other object are interesting: credit card, spy camera...

matte_black 8 years ago | |

The Darknet has many recipe books for cannibals, often with disturbing (but almost delicious) photos of the resulting meals.

kerkeslager 8 years ago | | |

Source/link? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I've heard a lot of crazy stories about what's supposedly on the darkweb, but a lot of it seems to be just that: stories.

fluxsauce 8 years ago | | |

"To Serve Man" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man_%28The_Twilight_Z...

matte_black 8 years ago | | |

Source/link? It’s the dark web, you can look yourself. I’m not going to go spelunking for it.

dbasedweeb 8 years ago | | |

You won’t do the work to back your own claim? Ok, well add me to the list of people calling bullshit then. Besides, who, but s cannibal would know the different between a leg of veal pork, and a... leg? Occam’s Razor says the books are jokes, pranks, or scams, and/or that you’re bullshitting. In the absence of evidence at least.

Well for starters you can try checking the watchpeopledie subreddit and look for human stew. I don’t work for free, I’m barely giving a fuck away.

If you can’t back up an extraordinary claim, and “lots of cookbooks for cannibals” is pretty extraordinary, don’t make claims. If you don’t give a duck, are lazy, whatever, don’t waste your time making claims. It’s really simple, unless you’re wasting everyone’s time for amusement, and there’s a name for that.

matte_black 8 years ago | | |

Well for starters you can try checking the watchpeopledie subreddit and look for human stew.

I don’t work for free, I’m barely giving a fuck away.

kerkeslager 8 years ago | | |

The dark web isn't a cave, it's part of the internet. The user experience of using Tor browser is basically "slow Firefox with unpronounceable URLs". You could easily link something if you've seen it.

The fact that you can't copy/paste a URL here makes me think that you probably haven't seen this. It's more likely that you just heard a Reddit rumor about cannibals on the dark web and decided to repeat that rumor here without thinking through the reliability of your source.

But hey, you can prove me wrong with a simple link.

iooi 8 years ago | | |

I'm really curious where/how they acquire the main ingredient for those meals.

baud147258 8 years ago | | |

Perhaps in morgues? If the corpse going to be cremated, for example, remove a few parts to eat, the cremate the rest.

PeterisP 8 years ago | | |

It may be location dependant, but IMHO any corpse in a morgue would be full of preserving chemicals to ensure it'd be "presentable" for the funeral, and thus inedible.

dbasedweeb 8 years ago | | |

Morgues absolutely do not embalm, they refrigerate. A body in a morgue is either unidentified, awaiting autopsy/examination, or yet to be claimed. None of those categories permit embalming, and in any case, morgues are not funeral homes.

sevensor 8 years ago |

It's worth reading the bit where it orders ecstasy and gets the exhibit shut down.

zaroth 8 years ago | |

Hard to believe there’s a prosecutor with a brain between their ears and enough political cover to actually admit this is a worthwhile art project in the public interest to overcome the technical violation.

https://wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.bitnik.org/r/2015-04-15-rando...

downandout 8 years ago | |

Yeah I imagine that in the US, they'd be indicted and accused of using the art project as an elaborate cover-up for a drug importation conspiracy.

rib3ye 8 years ago | | |

Just file an LLC as the owner for the script, sit back, and watch the show.

cowboysauce 8 years ago |

I honestly expected it to be 90% drugs, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the diversity of the items.

setr 8 years ago | |

It makes sense; people interested in drugs are presumably also interested in other things, and ordering drugs online somewhat implies a certain level of expendable income, so it'd be a decent marketplace for not-drugs. And I imagine drug-hobbyists probably have more diverse interests than the average person, as they've already expressed interests in the not-publicly safe hobbies (but likely still also have safe hobbies as well)

amelius 8 years ago | |

Perhaps the other items are sold as a kind of cover-up, somehow?

scottie_m 8 years ago | | |

Knock-offs, and stolen merchandise are often sold by the same criminals who sell drugs. Aside from street dealers who are dealing to get their next fix, it’s not as though drug dealers have some need to restrict themselves to one lucrative market.

DrScump 8 years ago | | |

This occurs on eBay as well. (Note how many gift cards sell for well over their merchant-limited value... in cash or equivalent.)

zaroth 8 years ago |

A 1oz [Counterfeit] Canadian Gold Coin for $30

The description doesn’t indicate it was sold as a counterfeit, but no way you can buy an oz of gold for $30 on the dark web...

https://wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.bitnik.org/r/021-canadian-gol...

Mononokay 8 years ago | |

That's a lot of "w."

lightedman 8 years ago | |

Especially since at the bottom of that part for the coin it lists the weight as 15 grams. That's not 1 oz of gold. To boot, gold is one of those things that doesn't really darken, it tends to stay the same color at any angle, and seeing shadows makes me think that this is in fact a zinc-plated coin, as you can get close to a gold tint with zinc electroplating on copper. That would be more reasonable given the weight, assuming all other dimensions are correct.

f3r3nc 8 years ago |

All these items seems remote, sometimes funny or interesting until I recognize my friend's very passport.

skjerns 8 years ago | |

pics or it didn't happen

lainga 8 years ago |

I wonder what those "triangle crackers" were and what was so risky about them.

hackermailman 8 years ago | |

Firecrackers from Poland, glad they didn't ship explosives in the regular mail often it is shipped on passenger aircraft in the cargo hold. You would go from petty smuggler to interpol's most wanted terrorist really fast if something happened. IIRC the darknet exhibit also shows the packaging, maybe the firecracker guy didn't want that on display.

lainga 8 years ago | | |

Oh, THOSE kind of crackers. I was thinking rice cakes...

diamondo25 8 years ago | | |

Rip-off doritos anyone?

f2n 8 years ago |

At least they used the correct numbers of w's in the URL.

lolptdr 8 years ago | |

What does 22 w's mean?

sp332 8 years ago | | |

W for Web server, behind seven www proxies. /s

tudorw 8 years ago |

Cool to see the prosecutor demonstrate a profound understanding of the possible purpose and utility to which art can be applied.

triplenineteen 8 years ago |