CLICKHEREx Posted February 13, 2014 13-02-2014, 19:58 Pondlife Platinum Member & Advisor Join Date: 04-02-200750 y/o Male from United KingdomPosts: 1,199 Utopia, Silk Road's Latest Replacement, Only LastedNine Days {C}{C} This morning, anyone hoping to browse Utopia,the up and coming now-defunct competitor to Silk Road 2.0, were greeted with anunwelcome but at this point familiar message: “This hidden service has beenseized, by the Dutch National Police.” The online black market was shut down amere nine days after its much-anticipated launch.Despiterumors of a hack, Dutch cops have issued a statement saying they arrested fivemen in connection with running Utopia and seized computers, hard drives, USBsticks, and “about 900 Bitcoins”—roughly $600,000. Utopia’s servers wereapparently housed in Germany, where another man was arrested on suspicion ofweapons and drug trafficking.The Dutch launched operationCONDOR in early 2013 to uncover illegal marketplaces on the Tor network, of thelikes of Silk Road 2.0 and Utopia. The investigation into Utopia pulled out allthe stops: undercover agents and “buy-busts,” not just of drugs, but also a contract assassination—much to thesurprise of the Dutch public prosecutor.According to the BBC, Utopia wasa very popular marketplace, and more than 1,200 listings for a range of illegalgoods appeared on the site within the first several hours of operation. Up untilyesterday’s takedown, there were more than 13,000 listings, of the normalvariety for illegal marketplaces: an assortment of cannabinoids, hallucinogens, stimulants, an ample supple of hackingservices, forged currency and clothes, and guns and ammo. Much like Silk Road,Utopia relied on Bitcoin to facilitate transactions—taking a cut from eachone.Like the spinoffs before it, the deep web community had high hopesfor Utopia, heralding it as “the biggest competition for Silk Road 2.0.” Thesite was backed by former Black Market Reloaded administrator “backopy,” andsome intended for it to be a kind of replacement for Black MarketReloaded.One of Silk Road 2.0’s forum moderators, "Stealth," posted abrief message late last night expressing solidarity: “This is a serious blow tothe darkweb marketplace community as honest competition is our lifeblood,” wroteStealth. The moderator went on to encourage Utopia members to use the SilkRoad’s forums to “regroup and do it again. Show them that you, we, are ahydra—cut off one head and ten more spring up.”Utopia’s seizure—whileremarkable in terms of how quickly Dutch cops were able to shut it down—signalsa growing trend in the world’s black markets: they're moving online. Drughistorian Dr. Paul Gootenberg has told me in the past that the popularity of theinternet and the ease of selling illegal goods online make it an attractive newavenue for buyers and sellers. And as more and more services use the darknet tooperate, law enforcement has been forced to respond.Is the era of onlinedrug markets over? It seems clear is that despite the careful rhetoric used bythe leaders of illegal marketplaces, often referring to their contrabandactivities as a “revolution” or “movement,” police aren't going to stop chasingthem down. http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/uto...sted-nine-days Read more: http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=237517#ixzz2tGjFxdCh 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
C_T Posted February 13, 2014 i believe silk road 2.0 is and has been running for quite some time. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
spooge Posted February 13, 2014 Show them that you, we, are a hydra cut off one head and ten more spring up. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
at0m Posted February 13, 2014 (edited) I like your posts (saves me looking for them elsewhere) but please work on your copy pasting a little. It's so hard to read. As for the actual content... I'm surprised more markets haven't been busted. They're so badly coded it's ridiculous. Kids with enough knowledge to get the basics working but not enough experience to realise what they're writing is swiss-cheese. In semi-related news, looks like silkroad 2 has, allegedly, been hit by a transaction malleability attack. If it's true, it sort of proves my point if they don't have mitigation against a bug that's been around for quite awhile and is very well documented, if they're using it as an excuse to do a runner, that's not too surprising either. Edited February 13, 2014 by at0m 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
newageshaman Posted February 13, 2014 In semi-related news, looks like silkroad 2 has, allegedly, been hit by a transaction malleability attack. If it's true, it sort of proves my point if they don't have mitigation against a bug that's been around for quite awhile and is very well documented, if they're using it as an excuse to do a runner, that's not too surprising either. From what's been going around the web the last couple of weeks it appears that alot of these "Dark Web" black market sites are far from being as secure as they make out. It makes you wonder why people continue to use them, when they continue to get "hacked" and all these bitcoins stolen? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
at0m Posted February 13, 2014 From what's been going around the web the last couple of weeks it appears that alot of these "Dark Web" black market sites are far from being as secure as they make out. It makes you wonder why people continue to use them, when they continue to get "hacked" and all these bitcoins stolen? Because it's easy and a lot of people don't have connections plus, they don't really have a clue what's going on. They just hear you can buy drugs online with magic, anonymous internet monies and jump at the opportunity. Most don't even take the precaution of using encryption like gpg/pgp. Infact, it's not just black markets on the 'darknet'. It extends to all these hosted services. Nobody seems to know or care that things just aren't secure and don't take any security precautions themselves. It's really depressing going to password dumps of hacked sites and seeing the majority using 'password' or some variation thereof. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ThunderIdeal Posted February 14, 2014 So much wrong with that article at a glance. I wont bother til i get home. Eh i doubt anybody cares about the details anyway. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
at0m Posted February 14, 2014 Just going to post it here aswell: Definitely seems like SR2.0 has done a runner and is blaming it on TM, hoping someone will believe them. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1xu4he/it_is_clear_that_silk_road_2_funds_were_stolen_by/ sums it up pretty well. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
