I'm the CEO of an online underground black market, AMA

So...you're an online drug dealer? How is this legal or how are you skirting laws to keep yourself from prosecution? I don't know of any countries/territories where selling Heroin would be legal.

We're not a dealer, we provide the platform for dealers to sell their products in a secure environment. The Tor network hides our service from government officials. You can have a look into "Tor hidden services" if you're interested.

How do you usually guarantee the safety of your "company' and the buyer?

Do you ever deliver in bulk?

Are there any suppliers that you deal where they are a legal company on the surface?

What are your personal political views? What about certain topics like child pornography, necrophilia or any other cultural taboos that are usually at the expense of another unwilling person?

What are your top non-drug related products?

How did you get into this business? Do you wish you could be doing something else with your life that doesn't entail the possibility of arrest?

Is your company white collarish or do you have people who work with you that use violence and intimidation?

Is government bribery common with your company?

I doubt this person can really give proof simply because of the nature of what s/he does, either way it's interesting. Real or not.

How do you usually guarantee the safety of your "company' and the buyer?

We use a Tor hidden service to hide our service from the prying eyes of government officials: https://www.torproject.org/docs/hidden-services.html.en

This allows our servers IP address and location to remain hidden.

Users must access our site using the Tor hidden browser, protecting their identity: https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

Do you ever deliver in bulk?

We don't deliver anything, but our sellers commonly deliver in bulk. We facilitate the platform, the sellers are from the general public.

Are there any suppliers that you deal where they are a legal company on the surface?

See above.

What are your personal political views? What about certain topics like child pornography, necrophilia or any other cultural taboos that are usually at the expense of another unwilling person?

We do not allow listings such as child pornography and necrophilia. We do take a moral stance, there's a large difference between child pornography and drugs.

What are your top non-drug related products?

Probably porn.

Is your company white collarish or do you have people who work with you that use violence and intimidation?

We don't use violence or intimidation, nor do we have any need to. We're an online platform. The idea is to move away from the violent streets.

Is government bribery common with your company?

No, that doesn't happen (or hasn't happened yet).

Oh I see so basically your site is like the middle man am I correct? Alright that does make a lot of my questions moot.

That's correct.

Have you had any scares before?

None.

A screenshot of a website doesn't really prove anything.

Do you have any proof that you are the CEO of this company?

I've added a link to the AMA on the footer of the website.

I've been looking on the website, and the screenshot and I'm still not seeing it.

It's in the footer of the main login page, you'll need to log in to see it.

Edit: Moved to the home/about page footer.

We're not going to create a log in for a legally dubious website. Please find another way to prove your identity before we can re-approve your post.

We've moved the footer link to the about page. Thank you!

No worries. Approved on the condition that this stays about education and doesn't become a sales pitch. If you try to sell anything in this AmA it will be taken down again immediately.

That won't happen. Thanks for the approval.

what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

I believe it's 11 meters per second.

What do you mean? An African or European swallow?

I don't know that! gets pulled to the sky and thrown down the Gorge of Eternal Peril

You can find your answer here http://style.org/unladenswallow/ ;)

Are those black market sites on Tor real then? I presume you are one of them?

There wa one allowing me to buy a hitman for $25k the last I checked.

Well, I can't speak for other markets, but we're certainly real. Although we do not allow assassination services, they're against our rules.

What's on the "no sell" list? ie What will you not sell

Straight from the guides:

Restricted items

Restricted items include anything related to paedophilia, poisons, loans, investment opportunities, assassination services or anything which can inflict harm on another person. If you infringe on these rules we will terminate your account instantly.

Trading any digital currencies (for example Bitcoins, Litecoins, Ukash, Moneypak, Western Union, Moneygram, etc) is forbidden and will result in the items being removed and a warning or ban being issued to the vendor. This is to prevent scams. (See exceptions below for exceptions to this rule).

The trading of counterfeit money is forbidden, and will result in a warning or ban being issued.

We also do not allow listings for 0.01 in the money section. Your items must have a full cost associated to them to prevent people processing transactions outside of the escrow system.

Exceptions to the restricted items:

We allow the purchase of physical fiat for Bitcoins and/or Litecoins (has to be legitimate currency; not counterfeit). This is the only exception to the currency rule. We do not, however, allow the reverse of these transactions i.e. customers mailing vendors real currency as this is outside the escrow system.

As an example, if you were a vendor and you wanted to buy $1000 worth of Bitcoins/Litecoins you could do so by making a listing for $1000 labelled "Buying $1000 worth of Bitcoins/Litecoins", and then mail the real currency to the purchaser of your listing in exchange for their Bitcoins/Litecoins that are currently travelling through the escrow system.

[deleted]

If you take a look in our subreddit /r/atlantis you'll see the address in the sidebar.

You'll need to use the Tor browser bundle to access the site: https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en

If a security flaw was found and exploited in the application (not TOR, .onion, but Atlantis) it could make a lot of damage (loss of bitcoins, reputation etc.). So my questions are:

What steps do you take for making the web applications secure? Do you have a team on it, or how do you go about security?

And if you was "attacked", I'm guessing that you couldn't go to the police, or other authorities?

I have always wondered about these things. Thanks for your time - and good luck with the business :-)

We've taken security measures to protect our systems in the event of a compromise, I'm not really comfortable going into the technical specifics of how though. We have an experienced team with years of experience in the security sector.

In the event of a compromise our reputation would be severely damaged. And you're correct, we couldn't go to the authorities. Regardless, I'm confident in our preventative measures.

How safe (in terms of getting in trouble with the law) is it for users to register and purchase products?

Ordering within your own country you have a VERY small chance of running into any problems. Ordering overseas, if it's a first time offence, the most you will receive is a seizure letter. Vendors try very hard to ensure their products are 'stealth' though, so if you find a good vendor this shouldn't be a problem.

I don't know if you'll see this because I just noticed the post, but I'm really impressed by this. I've always been curious how to access a black market. You said somewhere you deal in malware. If we wanted to contact a "computer expert" for a specific request that might not be listed, would you be able to point a person in the right direction, or even find a person willing to be contracted? Or would one have to go somewhere else for something like that?

Also I just got the name. The sunken utopia that's underground (and water) - clever as well as catchy.

If you wanted to request a service which wasn't listed, we have a forum which you can request for a certain service and people will be able to help you out.

You could also try messaging vendors who deal with related IT services and see if they would be willing to facilitate your request.

Thanks! I haven't had a chance to check out the actual site yet - I have slow internet at home and I'd like to download a VPN before I start everything else, but I subscribed to your subreddit and I'll definitely spread the word!

You're welcome!

If you let me buy cryptocurrencies using my bank account (like coinbase does) I am forever yours.

Maybe if we ask HSBC / Wachovia (now Wells Fargo) they might be able to give us a special deal like they've done in the past ;)

In all seriousness though, we can't offer this service unfortunately. You'd also be depositing directly into the bank account of a drug related website, seems like a good way to get caught.

We'll gladly accept your coin transfers from Coinbase though!

have scrolled down about 50 comments so far, and due to laziness, I'm not sure if this has been asked already, apologies if so.

What makes your site "better" than the competition? I've been thinking of using it, but why should i prefer yours over others like SR? Isn't it just the same thing?

Also, i have checked it out already a few months ago, and i am a fan of you guys using litecoin as well as bitcoin, that was a nice touch.

It was at the top ;-)

There's a few benefits:

We've had no downtime.

We have cheaper commission rates allowing sellers to make more profit on their sales and buyers to buy them for cheaper.

We have automated PGP encryption of messages for the members who refuse to send their messages using PGP. We have an advancement fan management system, allowing sellers to reach out to all of their customers.

We have a more 'modern' user interface.

We have buyer feedback (none of the other marketplaces have this functionality).

We support Litecoin as well as Bitcoin (the first market to support multiple currencies).

We listen to our user feedback, we have a rapid development cycle and new features are constantly being improved upon and added.

We have quick support response times and resolutions, and we take the time to respond to every request we receive.

You can find our response for that question here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1fwi48/im_the_ceo_of_an_online_underground_black_market/caei51s

Thanks for your feedback!

cool, thanks, and thanks for fast response. i will try out your services soon enough and see for myself (i was going to already, but actually having some kind of user interface was good, being able to talk to the site is always better for trust) . good luck with everything!

You're welcome and thanks!

Thanks for your post, it's an interesting topic. Just curious what you think, I've read many articles about shipping with regards to buying on darknet. Most say to use your real name real address bc more trouble can come from shipping to a fake location. In your experience is that true?

Also would you agree one of the reasons that in the US "they" are trying to kill the USPS because a warrant is required to search that mail as opposed to shipping done by a private company, e.g. UPS?

Suspicion can arise if the delivery person notices a change of names over time. This is why most people recommend using your real name and address so that it fits in with regular traffic. In our experience, we find this assumption to be correct.

As for the other question, we don't think that USPS will ever be killed. They could just pass legislation to work in their favor, citing 'terrorist concerns' :)

In one of your other posts, you mention that sellers ship their orders to buyers.

Wouldn't this allow police, posing as buyers, to locate and identify sellers?

It is possible for police for purchase items from vendors however with no return address, they could not find out where the vendor lives.

Though they could find out where the package began its journey, which would give them an approximate location, even if it wouldn't give them an exact one. It would also give them an idea of when the package was dropped off. They could then look at surveillance footage from the shipping place to find out who dropped the package off. I can't think of a way to pay cash without going inside (unless using stamps and USPS). If they shipped from a drop-off point somewhere, they would need to pay using a credit/debit card, which could also be tracked (I don't think shipping companies accept bitcoin).

It certainly wouldn't be as easy as looking at the return address, but it's not something that police couldn't do if they were motivated to catch someone. And on that note: has any thought been put into creating/offering a shipping service that operates as a physical analog to Tor?

And an unrelated question: in another post, you say that:

Weapons, poisons and assassination services are prohibited.

You also mentioned that child and necrophilic pornography are prohibited. What other rules are there for your black market? (I'm sure there's a rules section somewhere on the website you can just copy/paste to answer this one.)

With regular mail you can purchase bulk stamps / prepaid express post from the post office. Most vendors use this option as they can prepare the package in a safe location and drop the mail off at random mail deposit boxes.

As for restricted items, you can find the entire link for it here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1fwi48/im_the_ceo_of_an_online_underground_black_market/caekfdm

Thanks for doing this.

I'm curious and I don't mean to offend you in any way, but how much money do you make a year? (Approximately)

You're welcome! We hope you all keep on asking questions :)

Please see our response above in relation to our income.

Doesn't "CEO" relate to corporate organizational stucture? Why is a black market operating as a legal company would?

We're still an organization and an organization requires leadership.

I either read online or a French model told me, that atlantis is a honey pot for LE. Is this true? Could you post some recent photos of yourself?

I took this photo yesterday: http://ts1.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.5056513257636048&pid=1.7

How do you live with the fact that you have inadvertently killed someone because of there usage of your vendors items?

You can apply that similar logic to every day life whilst living in a capitalist society;

How do you live with the fact that you have inadvertently caused the starvation of Ethiopians by throwing out your food scraps?

How do you live with the fact that you have inadvertently contributed to peoples suicides when purchasing a chip manufactured by Foxconn (all Apple devices)?

We believe that it is up to the person to know what is good for them or not. Our most popular drug is marijuana and you can't overdose from that.

No illegal guns? Not a black market, just a drug exchange.

Weapons, poisons and assassination services are prohibited. We do offer more than just drugs however :-)