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Economics

Google Dark

In April an anonymous individual launched a search engine called Grams that caters to contraband needs.

Zenon Evans | From the August/September 2014 issue

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For black market goods, many people turn to hard-to-access corners of the Internet, which generally haven't been conducive to browsing. In April, however, an anonymous individual launched a search engine called Grams that caters to contraband needs.

Known only as "Gramsadmin," the engine's creator explained to Wired, "I noticed on the forums and Reddit people were constantly asking 'where to get product X?' and 'which market had product X?' or 'who had the best product X and was reliable and not a scam?' I wanted to make it easy for people to find things they wanted on the darknet and figure out who was a trustworthy vendor."

So Grams spent two weeks building Grams, which looks a lot like Google, down to the primary color scheme and "feeling lucky" button.

In the beta version, Grams has an average time of one second for a search to load, which is generally considered fast for the web's back alleys. Grams shows results from eight different marketplaces, such as SilkRoad2, Agora, and BlackBank. For those who want to give it a whirl, "grams7enufi7jmdl.onion" is the address.

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NEXT: Digital Lineups

Zenon Evans is a former Reason staff writer and editor.

EconomicsScience & TechnologyBlack MarketsInternet
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  1. Fist of Etiquette   11 years ago

    What is product X? Why does everyone want it? I want some now.

    1. Scarecrow Repair   11 years ago

      Grams has your answers.

      1. OneOut   11 years ago

        Can you say

        FBI Sting operation ?

  2. Stickler Meeseeks   11 years ago

    Major Pelosi Scandal: Pelosi Subsidies Benefit Husband's Investment in Dem Mega-Donor's Company

    From the article: "The top Democrat in the House of Representatives steered more than a billion dollars in subsidies to a light rail project that benefitted a company run by a high-dollar Democratic donor and in which her husband is a major investor."

    1. Stickler Meeseeks   11 years ago

      Link: http://freebeacon.com/politics.....s-company/

    2. Ichabod   11 years ago

      But . . . Koch brothers!

      1. Stickler Meeseeks   11 years ago

        But, I am certain that Holder will be investigating, so, no worries.

        1. Virginian   11 years ago

          He's too busy running the hit jobs on McDonnell and Perry.

          That fucker is Nixonian.

    3. Dances-with-Trolls   11 years ago

      A western politician engaged in political corruption involving a railroad? Unprecedented!!

      1. Stickler Meeseeks   11 years ago

        This is egregious even by precedent. We're talking about Pelosi steering almost a billion dollars of tax payer money to this shit pile.

        1. Dances-with-Trolls   11 years ago

          Maybe it's just a sad commentary on my cynicism that this sort of thing doesn't even make me raise my eyebrows anymore. I just expect it. Fuck if they would just content themselves with this kind of outright theft and stop fucking things up so badly by trying to disguise it I might be ok with prison rather than scaphism for them.

          1. Stickler Meeseeks   11 years ago

            I think it's a sad commentary on our political culture in general that cronyism has run amuck to such a degree that we just expect it to happen now.

            Meanwhile, the "corruption" story that's seems to have the juice is this Perry indictment. I am not fan of the man, but when you look over the evidence, this is clearly a political hit job. (The indictment was issued from Austin, so there you go). And it looks like Perry was in his purview as governor to veto the funding.

            Yeah, so THIS story will have traction, while the one about Pelosi funneling a billion dollars of tax payer money to this boondoggle of her husband's will go unnoticed.

            Un-fucking -believable.

            1. PapayaSF   11 years ago

              If the GOP had brains and balls, they'd turn this into a series of campaign commercials, and pound every Democrat congress-critter between now and the election. "A vote for X is vote for Pelosi, corrupt billionaires, and Obama."

              1. GregMax   11 years ago

                Rome . . .

              2. Sevo   11 years ago

                PapayaSF|8.16.14 @ 3:32PM|#
                "If the GOP had brains and balls, they'd turn this into a series of campaign commercials,..."

                Papaya, you know what DiFi's husband does. You know she's been 'affecting' SF RE values since she was Mayor.
                You think Pelosi's scrum is gonna cause any more concern than that?

                1. PapayaSF   11 years ago

                  I don't think most voters are even aware of her, much less her deeds.

              3. Freddy B   11 years ago

                Your comment is based on the premise that voters understand cronyism and object to cronyism. I see apathy, people don't seem to care what government is doing with taxpayer money, it's funny money, monopoly money, simply not real to them.

    4. Rhywun   11 years ago

      I was a SF resident when the referenced streetcar to nowhere was being built. And I remember people like me who lived on busy corridors like Geary with extremely shitty bus service being a little perplexed at this. Imagine my surprise at the corruption behind it.

    5. Irish   11 years ago

      But Rick Perry used his veto power to get rid of a drunk prosecutor who was abusing her power! That's a way bigger scandal!

    6. MJGreen   11 years ago

      Feinstein runs the same scam, doesn't she? Her husband invested in contractors that got a lot of work in Iraq, IIRC.

    7. OneOut   11 years ago

      Just another fake scandal.

      Koch brothers. Teathuglicans.

      Move along here. Nothing to see. Keep moving.

  3. cavalier973   11 years ago

    Apparently, it's Madden Season.

    LET IT BURN!!!!!!

  4. juris imprudent   11 years ago

    So reading this article just put my name (and IP address) on a list, didn't it?

    1. Dances-with-Trolls   11 years ago

      I think the list is covered by registration.

    2. Lady Bertrum   11 years ago

      So reading this article just put my name (and IP address) on a list, didn't it?

      I so, so, so want to go there and try to buy *something* but know some federal agency will be knocking (If they don't do a no knock) at my door within 48 hours. I've got kids, a husband, and property I'd like to keep. So, no - won't do it.

      1. Heroic Mulatto   11 years ago

        I check the listings. Basically, it's drugs, drugs, drugs, firearm, drugs, drugs, fake id, drugs, drugs, drugs, list of credit card numbers, drugs, drugs, drugs.

        Meh.

    3. AlmightyJB   11 years ago

      I'm sure it will be the druggue version of teen girl chat rooms. No teen girls. Just pedaphiles and cops. Only here it will just be people looking for drugs and cops.

  5. Dances-with-Trolls   11 years ago

    Wandering around the internet a bit I noticed that Jazz Shaw of HotAir remains a flaming fuckwad.

    The old assumptions of law enforcement and their unwritten compact with the citizenry relied on a society where the police ? and the laws ? were respected, and criminals were a minority who would be rejected by the rank and file residents. But when the majority of an entire community decides to break that compact, the formula changes. They realize that they outnumber ? and frequently outgun ? the cops. A slumbering, snarling beast is awakened and in short order the police can find themselves on the run. This is not a formula for freedom of speech? it's the path to mayhem and the breakdown of civil society. Before you're too quick to demand the "demilitarization" of the police, you might want to remember who it is that stands between the neighborhood you have now and South Central L.A circa 1992. And Ferguson has shown us that you don't need a huge metropolitan area for it to happen.

    1. Dances-with-Trolls   11 years ago

      You know where else a community decided that they wanted to break their compact with the authorities?

      1. F. Stupidity, Jr.   11 years ago

        St. Mystere?

      2. juris imprudent   11 years ago

        Joseph Smith & friends?

      3. Sevo   11 years ago

        Smith and Wesson?

      4. boomslang4   11 years ago

        Warsaw ghetto?

    2. Ken Shultz   11 years ago

      "Before you're too quick to demand the "demilitarization" of the police, you might want to remember who it is that stands between the neighborhood you have now and South Central L.A circa 1992."

      I was in South Central L.A. during the riots.

      Those riots were caused by a militarized police force--under Daryl Gates, who was the first to militarize his police force and use SWAT.

      The LA riots were put down by the National Guard. ...not by the LAPD. Everything the LAPD did just made things worse.

      One of the problems in LA was that Daryl Gates couldn't be removed from office. The mayor didn't have the authority to fire him. The city council didn't have the authority to remove him from office either!

      Go look at Daryl Gates' wiki page:

      "As chief of police, he took a hardline, aggressive, paramilitary approach to law enforcement. Gates is credited with the creation of SWAT teams and DARE.[4]"

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Gates

      If you want to blame the LA Riots on any one thing? You'd have a hard time coming up with anything better than the militarization of the LAPD.

      If Ferguson looks like South Central LA circa 1992, it's because they militarized their police force like the LAPD circa 1992.

      1. Ken Shultz   11 years ago

        It's weird, but, the LA Riots are like the dividing line on the internet consciousness of big news stories in real time.

        Everything that happened before Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer (circa '94) wasn't covered by news outlets in real time on the interwebs. So, I think people feel comfortable bullshitting about what was happening in real time before then.

        Before the interwebs, we used to rely on people's personal memories and personal perspective for real time descriptions of what things were like as they were happening. I lived on Normandie, a few blocks down from Florence.

        This jackoff wants to tell me what the police were like in South Central LA circa 1992? He can go screw himself.

        If he doesn't know that the LAPD was the first to militarize, that this is what made for some extremely well armed gangs, and that this is what led to all sorts of resentment leading up to the LA riots? Then he's an ignoramus.

        If he thinks that militarizing your local police--like the LAPD did leading up to the LA riots--is the thing that stops rioting in the first place? Then he's a fucking idiot.

        And by the way, it's true that Gates did nothing for the first couple of days of rioting, but anything he did only would have made it worse. Regardless, the riots were not put down by a militarized LAPD. They were put down by the national guard.

      2. GregMax   11 years ago

        Horse . . . shit.

        The reason the riots flared was because Gates ordered the police NOT to respond. I too was right there. Gates was a douche bag, but the reason the "riots" happened to turn into the mess it was was because they dickheads knew the police were not going to respond.

        The national guard came nowhere near "putting the riot down" . . . it took two days for them to get bullets for their rifles because they were all locked up in Central CA. As soon as the news was out that they now had bullets the air cleared and all the a-holes went home. It had nothing to do with an over-militarized PD. (Though I agree the cops started the mess beating King to crap.)

        1. GregMax   11 years ago

          But I agree with your point that the militarized police do not stand between us and civil chaos. That's why I own firearms. (That was also the first time I carried one . . . to protect my business from looting douches.)

    3. Carl ?s his ? for ?s   11 years ago

      We need militarized police to prevent the kind of rioting the militarized police in Ferguson failed to prevent.

      Got it.

    4. Knarf Yenrab!   11 years ago

      Before you're too quick to demand the "demilitarization" of the police, you might want to remember who it is that stands between the neighborhood you have now and South Central L.A circa 1992.

      Korean-Americans with long guns?

      Most of these articles are shameless propaganda that doesn't require five seconds worth of thinking to debunk. People like this apparently believe that they can create truth with a deluge of words rather than reason and reflection.

    5. MJGreen   11 years ago

      Ken already said this, but weren't the LA riots put down by the National Guard? So keep the National Guard militarized and use it for extreme circumstances, demilitarize the police.

      Easy-peasy.

      1. GregMax   11 years ago

        I'll hang with the Koreans. Korean's are tough mothers!

  6. userve32   11 years ago

    See I never would have thought of it like that before.

    http://www.AnonWays.tk

  7. Trials and Trippelations   11 years ago

    OT:

    This is for Lyle. 3 month old baby killed by a Hero dressed in blue as her mother committed the heinous and violent crime act of breastfeeding in public

    In a continuation of the ongoing police scandals rocking the New York City Police Department, three-month old infant Layla Smith has been pronounced dead following an August sixth incident. This closely follows the July seventeenth death of NYC resident Eric Garner after the use of a prohibited choke hold by officers against him. Garners death was ruled a homicide by the NYC medical examiners office.

    Suzanne Smith, Layla's mother, had been sitting on a bench in Queens waiting for the bus when Layla began to insistently cry. Knowing that her baby was hungry Ms. Smith began to breastfeed her daughter. Witnesses at the scene report that she was then approached by a NYPD Officer, later identified as Michael Fitzsimmons, who requested that she stop feeding the baby in public as it was "indecent". Ms. Smith refused to comply with the directive and told Officer Fitzsimmons that she wasn't doing anything illegal. Officer Fitzsimmons again insisted that she stop and threatened to arrest her for indecent exposure. Ms. Smith calmly responded to the Officer that he could not arrest her because breastfeeding in public wasn't against the law.

    1. Dances-with-Trolls   11 years ago

      SF'd the link, not that I'm sure I really want to read it.

      1. Dances-with-Trolls   11 years ago

        Looks like a hoax.

        1. Trials and Trippelations   11 years ago

          Shit. I feel really dumb now 🙁

        2. Acosmist   11 years ago

          Score one for Lyle.

        3. Rhywun   11 years ago

          The best hoaxes are the totally believable ones.

        4. RussianPrimeMinister   11 years ago

          Perhaps Lyle started the hoax in order to seem more trustworthy?

          Fine. . .fine. . .I'll put the tinfoil hat away. Geez.

  8. Paul.   11 years ago

    Is anyone else able to get to this webpage, or has it already been shut down by the feds?

    1. Harvard   11 years ago

      I can bring up the web page, can't make the search function work. Unless, of course, I'm too much the idiot to know how to access it.

      One must always consider all the possibilities.

      1. Harvard   11 years ago

        So. An entire day without one douche explaining to me why I can't access the search. Thanks to you all. For nothing.

        Bastards!

  9. Dave Corner   11 years ago

    Maybe I am reading an abbreviated copy of the article but I think readers would benefit from the knowledge that the link for gram -- like any other link ending in .onion -- requires the Tor Onion bundle. It is easy to google, download, and install the package, then locate and run the "Tor Browser". You will only be able to access gram from that browser.

    Tor has improved since it's inception but the darknet is still slower than the open internet. Be patient; it's worth it's wait in bitcoins!

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