Silk road shut down (allegedly)

Nodin · 02-10-2013 09:15PM

Maybe if I'd used the [Sarcasm] tags....

bodice ripper · 02-10-2013 09:17PM

Nodin wrote: »

Maybe if I'd used the [Sarcasm] tags....

Too late Narc. The jig is up.

christ on a bike! · 02-10-2013 09:18PM

Good, with the best intentions any financial devices that aren't highly regulated will result in money laundering

02-10-2013 09:18PM

The thing about it is he was traced using good old detective work. He made very basic compartmental mistakes linking his real identity to psuedonames while first asking for help on clearnet on setting it up In the first place and then using the same psuedoname to drum up hype for Silk Road.

Now the two big cornerstones of Tor have been raided in short succession. First freedom hosting owner who is in jail in Dublin right now awaiting extradition to the US and now Silk Road. Both terrible countries to be operating those sort of services in. The US and the USs pet.

For Forks Sake · 02-10-2013 09:19PM

Now, bearing in mind TechCrunch is to IT journalism what the Daily Fail is to fair and balanced reporting, even by their low standards this was a spectacular fail, especially as it was published about two hours before Silk Road went wallop: Is Bitcoin The New Euro?

Muppets.

tl:dr TechCrunch just had a Marc 'The Best Is Yet To Come' Coleman moment

Seachmall · 02-10-2013 09:19PM

hansfrei wrote: »

People think tor is anonymous. Lol

Tor is an anonymizing network.

99% of the time it does exactly what is says on the tin.

The biggest risk of losing anonymity on Tor is not a problem with Tor, it's a problem with those who use it.

returnNull · 02-10-2013 09:19PM

Dean0088 wrote: »

I know how Tor works.

well then you'd know it doesnt leave a 'nice' IP trail to your door.

You have to control a massive amount of exit nodes for the tracking to work.

My name is URL · 02-10-2013 09:28PM

Who would have thought that an anonymity network, designed by the US Military wing and receiving 60% of its annual funding from the Dept. of Defense; would ever be compromised? :pac:

returnNull · 02-10-2013 09:30PM

My name is URL wrote: »

Who would have thought that an anonymity network, designed by the US Military wing and receiving 60% of its annual funding from the Dept. of Defense; would ever be compromised? :pac:

It gets better, the NSA has had a hand in setting the standards for certain types of encrytion

Fukuyama · 02-10-2013 09:39PM

returnNull wrote: »

well then you'd know it doesnt leave a 'nice' IP trail to your door.

You have to control a massive amount of exit nodes for the tracking to work.

I imagine the feds can sting together a few hackers when it comes to taking down an online drug dealer, money launderer, murderer (attempted?) and in charge of the largest illegal online marketplace.

Note that I enjoy the liberty behind anonymity networks and think drugs should be legal. But he broke laws and was clearly involved in other antics. His number was up.

christ on a bike! wrote: »

Good, with the best intentions any financial devices that aren't highly regulated will result in money laundering

Like cash, you mean?

Best anonymous financial system ever.

spurious · 02-10-2013 09:43PM

I don't understand what this thread is about. At all, at all.

SV · 02-10-2013 09:47PM

"Always remember that one day all this drug monkey business will all be legal. They won't leave it to people like me. Not once they figure out how much money is in it. Not millions. Fucking BILLIONS."

Anyway yes, just tried to access it there and the website has been seized apparently.

johnr1 · 02-10-2013 09:49PM

So some site using complex software to sell illegal drugs and possibly guns/ other contraband gets shut down, and its owner arrested for allegedly organising hired killings.

Now why would this be anything but good news? and why would those welcoming it be derided as "narcs" in some childish way?

Would it be great then if there were no banned objects or substances at all? Every crazy with a gun, access to poisons, explosives, etc, where those with the most/biggest weapons/stash of money are the only ones with any power or rights? Cos this is the logical conclusion if you allow people like this toerag to continue.

I don't want to live in that world.

Fukuyama · 02-10-2013 09:51PM

johnr1 wrote: »

So some site using complex software to sell illegal drugs and possibly guns/ other contraband gets shut down, and its owner arrested for allegedly organising hired killings.

Now why would this be anything but good news? and why would those welcoming it be derided as "narcs" in some childish way?

Would it be great then if there were no banned objects or substances at all? Every crazy with a gun, access to poisons, explosives, etc, where those with the most/biggest weapons/stash of money are the only ones with any power or rights? Cos this is the logical conclusion if you allow people like this toerag to continue.

I don't want to live in that world.

Stay afraid! Stay very afraid.

It's worth noting that in an illegal, unregulated system, every crazy does have unregulated access to guns, ammunition, drugs, explosives etc... Either by making them themselves or by buying them from people who don't care about what they do with them.

Where as a legal regulated system minimizes the chances of this by having checks and regulated vendors. Unregulated/blackmarket types are pushed out of business because their prices are too high due to the costs involved in running a gun smuggling/drug trafficking business. Logic, eh?

It's easier for a 15 y/o to buy weed than it is for them to buy drink.

And the Silk Road had a zero tolerance for guns or weapons.

You just keep on watching FOX.

johnr1 · 02-10-2013 09:52PM

Dean0088 wrote: »

Stay afraid! Stay very afraid.

Whats your point?

SV · 02-10-2013 09:54PM

just like when the top drug dealers get taken down, there's always a load others ready to make their place anyway.
this won't change anything.

wexie · 02-10-2013 09:54PM

johnr1 wrote: »

Would it be great then if there were no banned objects or substances at all? Every crazy with a gun, access to poisons, explosives, etc, where those with the most/biggest weapons/stash of money are the only ones with any power or rights? Cos this is the logical conclusion if you allow people like this toerag to continue.

I don't want to live in that world.

huh?

Not sure we subscribe to the same kind of 'logic', as you call it.

returnNull · 02-10-2013 09:56PM

Dean0088 wrote: »

I imagine the feds can sting together a few hackers when it comes to taking down an online drug dealer, money launderer, murderer (attempted?) and in charge of the largest illegal online marketplace.

we werent talking about them hacking the target,we were talking about the tracking of IP packets.

Having said that,the americans caught that Irish/American lad that was responsible for hosting child porn websites by using a malicious javascript hack to gain access to the freedom hosting servers.

Mark Twain · 02-10-2013 09:57PM

It's a relatively trivial task for law enforcement agencies to control many of the exit nodes on the Tor network. It was an interesting concept that has been found to be insecure.

wexie · 02-10-2013 10:03PM

Mark Twain wrote: »

It's a relatively trivial task for law enforcement agencies to control many of the exit nodes on the Tor network. It was an interesting concept that has been found to be insecure.

When you say trivial do you mean technically not too complex or actually trivial? I'd imagine there would still be quite a bit of hardware involved no?

Then again I suppose it wouldn't be too hard for them to get some cooperation from the likes of Microsoft who literally have 100's of thousands of servers worldwide (quite a few of them in Dublin actually).

returnNull · 02-10-2013 10:04PM

Mark Twain wrote: »

It's a relatively trivial task for law enforcement agencies to control many of the exit nodes on the Tor network. It was an interesting concept that has been found to be insecure.

its not trivial.It wouldnt be used by whistleblowers,dissedents in countries that wouldnt have the same freedoms we have,drug dealers,murders,child porn websites or Islamic terrorists.

A lot of the people that get caught are done so either by their own stupidity elsewhere on the web,getting informed on or the agencies hacking the servers.

Khannie · 02-10-2013 10:04PM

wexie wrote: »

When you say trivial do you mean technically not too complex or actually trivial? I'd imagine there would still be quite a bit of hardware involved no?

Yeah, technically non-trivial and relatively costly (though not costly on NSA budget type scale).

johnr1 · 02-10-2013 10:05PM

Dean0088 wrote: »

Stay afraid! Stay very afraid.

It's worth noting that in an illegal, unregulated system, every crazy does have unregulated access to guns, ammunition, drugs, explosives etc... Either by making them themselves or by buying them from people who don't care about what they do with them.

Where as a legal regulated system minimizes the chances of this by having checks and regulated vendors. Unregulated/blackmarket types are pushed out of business because their prices are too high due to the costs involved in running a gun smuggling/drug trafficking business. Logic, eh?

It's easier for a 15 y/o to buy weed than it is for them to buy drink.

And the Silk Road had a zero tolerance for guns or weapons.

You just keep on watching FOX.

Thanks for your condescending comment at the end, but if you mean Fox News or tv, I don't watch either. Also lol at your naivety if you think that a guy who hired hitmen had scruples about selling guns. If it wasn't allowed on that site, then clearly that was a business decision.

But carry on, in your utopia everything is legal, and you all sit around off your heads singing 'kom bye ah'
Thankfully others including law makers feel differently.

Seachmall · 02-10-2013 10:05PM

Mark Twain wrote: »

It's a relatively trivial task for law enforcement agencies to control many of the exit nodes on the Tor network. It was an interesting concept that has been found to be insecure.

Many, if not most, of Tor's exit nodes are in the U.S. so it is technically trivial for them to monitor them.

However, you need more than an exit node to identify where the data originated from.

That's the whole point of Tor.

Khannie · 02-10-2013 10:06PM

returnNull wrote: »

A lot of the people that get caught are done so either by their own stupidity elsewhere on the web,getting informed on or the agencies hacking the servers.

This about sums it up, but the way they nailed that child porn lad was very slick. Hats off to them tbh.

Jonny7 · 02-10-2013 10:07PM

spurious wrote: »

I don't understand what this thread is about. At all, at all.

I'm no expert but..

The internet "site" in question sold all sorts of illegal things.. needful things.. in the darkest recesses of the internet

It was a marketplace for, among other things, hard drugs - bit like ordering from Amazon with feedback and the lot (I'm told)

Obviously normal currency leaves a trail.. so the currency of choice was/is.. Bitcoin. Think of an internet currency for conspiracy theorists - that has actual value* but is pretty damn untraceable

*value may fluctuate wildly

One of the head honcho's what apparently ran this site, bless his heart, has been nicked by the fuzz

So the whole thing is compromised.

Or so it appears. Much of the "illegal" internet is like a hydra, cut off one head.. and you know..

Again, I'm no expert on all this so perhaps someone else can do the ELI5 stuff

Khannie · 02-10-2013 10:09PM

Jonny7 wrote: »

Think of an internet currency for conspiracy theorists - that has actual value* but is pretty damn untraceable

It's not untraceable at all tbh. I bought bitcoin once, waited a while, then sold it. It would be trivial for a law enforcement agency to trace the bitcoin to me. To properly use bitcoin anonymously you would need to be technically savvy and purchase the coins with cash and / or mine them yourself.

Every transaction ever made with bitcoin is public. (edit: in that the transfer from wallet to wallet is publicly visible)

returnNull · 02-10-2013 10:10PM

wexie wrote: »

When you say trivial do you mean technically not too complex or actually trivial? I'd imagine there would still be quite a bit of hardware involved no?

you'd need a stupid amount of exit nodes to make sure you got enough packets to trace the IP of the person your tracking.Then you'd also have to break the encrption on those packets that TOR puts on them and again the information in those IP packets could of been encrpted before they were sent over the TOR network.

Now the NSA have deals done with IBM to create special chips for breaking encrption.Some american professor reckons they can decrypt the data packets used by TOR users in a few hours on an older version of TOR which has a different type of encrption to the latest version.A fairly high % of TOR users are running the older version.

Fukuyama · 02-10-2013 10:12PM

johnr1 wrote: »

Thanks for your condescending comment at the end, but if you mean Fox News or tv, I don't watch either. Also lol at your naivety if you think that a guy who hired hitmen had scruples about selling guns. If it wasn't allowed on that site, then clearly that was a business decision.

But carry on, in your utopia everything is legal, and you all sit around off your heads singing 'kom bye ah'
Thankfully others including law makers feel differently.

There's nothing inherently wrong about selling guns. There's also nothing inherently wrong about selling drugs.

They give money and receive a product. They can take drugs if they want which, in and of itself, isn't an illegal thing to do.

This argument has been played out here and elsewhere a million times before. We're not going to agree. You think the government keep you nice and safe with their laws.

I believe laws act as a deterrent. But when there's as much money as there is in the black market, unregulated human nature takes over and what laws there are are forgotten. No amount of law enforcement is going to stop human nature or quell the drugs/guns/etc markets.

Regulated markets would undercut the black market and could be easily monitored.

Your utopia of illegal drugs and illegal firearms isn't exactly working out as you'd like, either.

You do seem fearful of drugs/guns/explosives etc... I can't understand why.

Mark Twain · 02-10-2013 10:14PM

wexie wrote: »

When you say trivial do you mean technically not too complex or actually trivial? I'd imagine there would still be quite a bit of hardware involved no?

Then again I suppose it wouldn't be too hard for them to get some cooperation from the likes of Microsoft who literally have 100's of thousands of servers worldwide (quite a few of them in Dublin actually).

Technically easy. The number of users of TOR is small. It isn't a huge technical undertaking to control many of the exit nodes. Or to spoof exit nodes.

Silk road shut down (allegedly)

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