http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/10/silk-road-raided/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/10...d-bazaar-silk-road-arrest-alleged-mastermind/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/02/silk_road_shutdown/
The anonimity idea behind it isn't bad but the illegal transactions involving drugs sure is. Too bad some would use this as a means to portray Tor and BitCoin in a negative light. It's unfortunate that these tools are abused and cause innocent usage to potentially get some form of flak for it.
Right, between the Freedom Hosting takedown last month, and now Silk Road, maybe half of Tor traffic is gone. But hey, now the five million Mevade bots have less competition for Tor circuits I'm not going to defend either FH or SR. Arguing about "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong", etc is a waste of time. What's important here, I think, is whether there's anything to learn from these takedowns. So far, it seems to me that there isn't. These people apparently made incredibly stupid mistakes. Look at the complaints against Ulbricht that Krebs cites -- <-http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf-> and <-https://ia601904.us.archive.org/1/items/gov.uscourts.mdd.238311/gov.uscourts.mdd.238311.4.0.pdf->. The main lesson here seems to be that most criminals aren't too bright Edit: There's another lesson. Be careful who you trust Edit: I was pointing at SR users who trusted the site to keep their identities secure, and their Bitcoins safe. But there's another "be careful who you trust" lesson here. Ulbricht was sold out by a VPN provider! See https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=2286976
Fascinating reading. There is something to learn about doing security right and the consequences of not doing it right. Amazing that someone doing something that illegal could be that careless. I wouldn't call this criminal not too bright, more like arrogant and sloppy.
Just FYI. The taint analysis of the "Silkroad Seized Coins" wallet <-http://blockchain.info/taint/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX-> reveals the Bitcoin addresses of Silk Road vendors and clients
In this day and age, why rob a bank.... I would rather pull an FBI and rob a Tor hidden service, I can almost guarantee a good 2-3% of those coins will go unaccounted for.
This totally rules <-http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/04/deep-web-users-are-ready-to-launch-silk-road-2-0/->
This is fascinating reading. There is a lot to be learned from Silk Roads demise that will make the next versions much more robust. I could compare this to Napster which was a proof of concept of peer to peer. Napster didn't last that long but peer to peer is still with us and has many manifestations both legal and illegal. There is too much money in this for it not too happen again with much better anonymity and security. A clever entrepreneur could set up a site that didn't cross the line into hard drugs and hacking and keep a lower profile while using the technology of Silk Road. Perfectly legal merchandise could be sold anonymously simply to avoid taxes. Cash is used for that purpose all the time. Security wise, as good as it was, what Silk Road used was not good enough for what it was doing--i.e like having a bank security setup to protect a nuclear weapons facility. And Ulbricht was careless and sloppy and didn't follow his own protocols and procedures. The next versions will learn from his mistakes and improve the model.
The key outstanding problem -- which is why I never used Silk Road, and which may cause much grief for many who did -- is how to anonymously deliver physical stuff. There are many remailing (physical) companies for consumers and small business, but I've found none that even attempt anonymity. There obviously are ways, but they're only practical at enterprise scale. If someone comes up with a practical solution for that, they're golden.
it's simple, you order your stuff to door and if you get caught you simply claim you did not order it. that's the beauty of bitcoin.
That's too risky If we can believe the story in the Maryland complaint, that didn't work for the Silk Road administrator who received a Kg of 0.001% (or whatever) cocaine in the mail. Maybe he just freaked when the SWAT team showed up a few minutes after the devivery. Maybe they caught him testing the stuff. We must do better than that! But maybe we'll have to wait for molecular-scale 3D printers
I would literally just take the package and put it on my desk for a month and not open it. after a month without any action it would be safe enough. swat ever busts in anywhere the best thing is to be calm and helpful without incriminating yourself
Shadowy drug fans threaten FBI agents, vow to 'avenge' Silk Road shutdown http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/10/dark_web_plans_revenge_for_dread_pirate_roberts_arrest/
Is it really that hard to not buy illegal crap on the black market? Re the revenge-plotting hoodlums, I will remember to play a very small violin for each of them when they show up in court.
It seems strange they would do this when Atlantis is still up, which was the Silk Road competitor. Kinda makes you wonder if Atlantis is run by some constituent high up in the American government. Why would they go after one and not the other? Why don't they even say anything bad about Atlantis.
RICO laws don't apply to the CIA and FBI you know, let alone the NSA. If he decides to fight this and not cave I bet you there will be some dirty stuff that comes out. I was never a member of the site just followed it on reddit, twitter and other media but my money is on the NSA being behind the DOS attacks on the site back in july. And during discovery I bet you there will be a few redacted copies of evidence deemed national security. This will go to the Supreme Court I bet, because I can see Entrapment everywhere in the released docs. And who is AGENT1? Rumor is it's Sabu the snitch. Anyway the good news about all of this is that TOR hasn't been cracked yet. At least that's one good thing about this whole mess.