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Random Darknet Shopper: A Live Mail Art Piece (bitnik.org)
147 points by objectiveariel on April 18, 2018 | hide | past | favorite | 43 comments



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.


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


Different perspective / explanation:

Coffee works and tastes better while on other drugs.


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


Breaking Bad/Twin Peaks crossover confirmed.


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.


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...


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


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.



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


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.


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.


Here's an example of copy/pasting a link to your claims:

https://www.reddit.com/r/watchpeopledie/search?q=human+stew&...

That wasn't difficult. Unfortunately, that link doesn't support your claims.


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.


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


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


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.


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.


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


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...


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.


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


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


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)


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


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.


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


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...


That's a lot of "w."


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.


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


pics or it didn't happen


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


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.


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


Rip-off doritos anyone?


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


What does 22 w's mean?


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


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


See also: Institute of Illegal Images


Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/576/




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