Slybacon Posted October 2, 2013 US authorities say they have busted an online black market for drugs, hitmen, hacker tools and more, arresting the suspected mastermind of a nefarious bazaar called Silk Road. Federal agents shut down the website, which used a privacy-protecting Tor network and Bitcoin digital currency to shield the identities of buyers and sellers around the world. Ross William Ulbricht, also known as ‘‘Dread Pirate Roberts’’, was arrested in San Francisco after the website was shut down, the Justice Department said in a statement on Wednesday. His online moniker appeared to be taken from a character in the film The Princess Bride.Prosecutors said they seized approximately $3.6 million worth of Bitcoins in the largest ever seizure of the digital currency. ‘‘The Silk Road website has served as a sprawling black market bazaar where illegal drugs and other illicit goods and services have been regularly bought and sold by the site’s users,’’ FBI Special Agent Christopher Tarbell said in a criminal complaint filed in federal court. From about January 2011, Ulbricht ran a marketplace that hawked heroin, cocaine, LSD and methamphetamine, as well as hacker tools such as software for stealing passwords or logging keystrokes on people’s machines, according to court documents. Prosecutors also charged that in March, Ulbricht tried to hire someone to kill a Silk Road user who threatened to expose the identities of others using the website. ‘‘The defendant deliberately set out to establish an online criminal marketplace outside the reach of law enforcement and government regulation,’’ Tarbell said in the legal filing. Ulbricht, 29, anonymised Silk Road transactions by using a Tor computer network designed to make it almost impossible to locate computers used to host or access websites.He also added a Bitcoin ‘‘tumbler’’ to the Silk Road payment system to foil efforts to trace digital currency back to buyers, according to the criminal complaint. ‘‘Silk Road has emerged as the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet today,’’ the criminal complaint contended. ‘‘The site has sought to make conducting illegal transactions as easy and frictionless as shopping online at mainstream e-commerce websites.’’ Prosecutors maintained that Silk Road has been used by thousands of drug dealers to distribute hundreds of kilograms of illegal wares to more than 100,000 buyers and to launder hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten profits. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/us-closes-silk-road-website-20131003-2utc5.html#ixzz2gbngMobF http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2013/10/02/feds-shut-down-silk-road-owner-known-as-dread-pirate-roberts-arrested/ Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tarenna Posted October 2, 2013 I doubt that anything online is ever entirely anonymous. There is always a trail of ones and zeroes for those with the systems, skills and computing power to follow. I am sure something similar to Silkroad will spring up - probably already has.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
goneski Posted October 2, 2013 (edited) So... what now? Another market will pop up and take it's place (e.g. Atlantis). It's just a ridiculous game of cat & mouse. I would still say Tor is *fairly* 'untouchable'.. Here's a good discussion on how the owner of Silk Road was found / busted: http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1nl7p9/sr_shutdown_fallout_discussion/ It wasn't the technology that failed him, it was his own fuck up. Edited October 2, 2013 by goneski 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Slybacon Posted October 3, 2013 The FBI have lied about busts in the past. Why should we believe them this time? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
goneski Posted October 3, 2013 (edited) Here's the full criminal complaint: http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf I don't believe anything in particular. However, I believe he WASN'T busted via the technology itself, having a reasonable understanding of how Tor works.. The weakest link with anything is still people making stupid fuck ups. Edited October 3, 2013 by goneski Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Slybacon Posted October 3, 2013 http://i.imgur.com/v4LC2Fw.png Interesting Post from a Moderator on the SR forum. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
planthelper Posted October 3, 2013 seriously, don't believe encrypted stuff is save... even what you think can't be read, can be decoded, because the people writing the enkrytions have been infiltrated... I always hate it when the coppers, attack drug users, all drugs should be legal if found save, and there would be no crime... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TommyChesnutt Posted October 3, 2013 Yeah silk road was run by a terrorist. It's scary to look at his linked.in profile and then compare his actions. Preaching peace love and tacos, yet ordering hitmen on people. There was no 'message'. Just drugs, and illegal expressions. Same old shit. Same old extremist personalities. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Slybacon Posted October 3, 2013 I think the 'message' is clear. People will continue to do what they want to do. The more control put on the system the greater the push to rebel and take greater risks to gain freedoms at whatever cost. People need to be given the choice and learn from their mistakes or others, not told how to live. This war on drugs is totally senseless. The Prescription drug problem in USA is but one example of how this system is failing people. Doctors writting scripts for profits and entagling the lives of decent people. Drugs should be a health issue not a criminal issue. Policing this problem is not working, its driving profits up and creating more issues then its solving. Do they think that one day people are going to go "you know what, they were right, that shit is bad for me". For EVERY drug dealer taken off the streets a new one will take the place. Its too big an opportunity not too. Especially when unemployment figures continue to rise. If they spent the time , money and energy fighting actual crimes then we would live in a far richer world then what we have currently. Its not like when the local peodo get nabbed someone wakes up and goes "i might try my child raping shoes on today". I don't condone any of the actions of DPR but I think the general message of the site is about personal freedoms, the fact drugs are the biggest part of the site is more a reflection on society itself then the image of the site. Its a clear message that the war cannot be won, the sheer volume of trade is staggering. You can be sure that ones who stand to make the most from SR going down are the big players in the drug scene who's profits were severly harmed when smaller operations were able to take their business away from them. The cartels and Mafia types are the only ones truely rubbing their hands now control had been handed back over to them. I think the idea of peer reviewed trade and freedom of information was inspiring, despite the deformating facts arising from the FBI's seizure we may never know the true personality behind DPR. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Horus Posted October 3, 2013 (edited) edited. Edited October 3, 2013 by Horus Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TommyChesnutt Posted October 3, 2013 fair enough. I suppose sometimes it takes an extremist to put things in perspective. It's an old argument, the whole 'let people have their freedoms' thing, but one that still makes the most sense. nevertheless, fuck DPR. Anyone who likes to call hitmen on people while preaching 'the good fight' is not honest in their ways. this is exactly the mindset of the taliban, hitler, countless other assholes in our history. people that try and make all their guilty pleasures a reality, whilst killing off the unpleasantries. this wasn't about drugs, or freedom. it was about power, thrill and getting his way. fuck him, fuck his empire, legalise psychoactive substances. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Foo Posted October 3, 2013 I noticed Bitcoins are trading for considerably less today. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
GoOnThen Posted October 3, 2013 I only looked at the mod post and the Reddit discussion and have had no problems. Was interesting reading on Reddit. How in the world does someone set up something like this and leave trails to his ID like he did. It was like he had all of the right things in place for the site and the trading set up but totally stuffed up with his own personal privacy buy not following his own guidelines. I am thinking he was maybe getting to many free samples from the vendors. Cheers Got Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ThunderIdeal Posted October 3, 2013 "Ulbricht allegedly paid a bounty of 1,670 Bitcoins, about $150,000, to put out a murder hit on a Silk Road user seeking to extort him. Ulbricht was told that the crime had been carried out, although the FBI could not confirm any person was actually killed." i hope they killed the right maggot! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gtarman Posted October 3, 2013 FBI = Fascist Bullies Incorporated Who the fuck made them the boss of anything, anyway? 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Slybacon Posted October 3, 2013 (edited) Ok so I just had a look at his facebook. https://www.facebook.com/rossulbricht/photos Nice drawings, but really..... that is the face of a billion dollar drug lord..... really...........really? Its all a very weird and fairytale bust. There is not one video floating around of him being arrested (not that I have found). Surely 6 FBI Agents taking a Man away in cuffs would get at least one smart phone filming. It had to happen eventually , but this is all very bad reporting on the little details they have or something far stranger. Is this the best they can come up with. Read the story off another internet article. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=optdfUhQIG8 Why dont we just all watch the News like this- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sBR0WZGsB8 Just as entertaining....... Edited October 3, 2013 by Slybacon 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
C_T Posted October 3, 2013 when i followed the drama last night, there were several facts that are just plain fishy Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nothinghead Posted October 3, 2013 I reckon it's fishy how the US gov't arrests someone and the majority of the internet on their high horses assume he's guilty, including users here indicting him for allegedly taking action to protect the private details of users of the website against an extortionist threatening to release them. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shortly Posted October 3, 2013 Who the fuck made them the boss of anything, anyway? I guess that would be the Nazi's, since most of the nazi's best & brightest were assimilated into the US war machine & research programs as spoil of war (along with the Japanese Unit 731) changing the future direction of US military & foreign policy. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Slybacon Posted October 4, 2013 (edited) This is not a bad read- http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/how-the-feds-took-down-the-dread-pirate-roberts/ Check out the SR camel logo in the middle of the Seizure Notice. Anyone else think thats a little strange? I remeber they put up a simlar notice when the sting of RC sellers got pinned in 2003. Cant remember seeing any logo's from the RC companies on it tho. Edited October 4, 2013 by Slybacon Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Slybacon Posted October 4, 2013 (edited) Edited October 4, 2013 by Slybacon Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
goneski Posted October 4, 2013 (edited) It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I've read the paper on identifying a TOR server using traffic correlation as a result of a DDoS attack, and know Silk Road was DDoSed, however I don't buy that yet. I also think the official story is possibly somewhat horse shit. I'm guessing they did all kinds of illegal things to catch him.. How they just happened to intercept a bunch of Fake IDs seems a bit suss, for instance. If anything, the story has shown how resilient Tor is. Something else will just take SR's place shortly, hopefully run by someone a bit more paranoid and tuned in to privacy / security. Dread Pirate Roberts was a nerd turned criminal who didn't seem to stay sharp and got in way over his head. Edited October 4, 2013 by goneski 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Slybacon Posted October 4, 2013 (edited) Old Australians Can no longer purchase the "premier" end-of-life drug Nembutal > http://www.theage.com.au/national/nitschke-rues-silk-road-closure-20131004-2uz85.html individualism v authority The takedown of Silk Road is about much, much more than the allegations of billion-dollar drug dealing. It's about the power struggle between the forces of individualism and authority, writes Stilgherrian. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-04/stilgherrian-silk-road/4998476 Edited October 4, 2013 by Slybacon Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
goneski Posted October 4, 2013 (edited) I never saw Nembutal (Pentobarbital Sodium) on SR, at least not recently... It's normally sourced online through chemical suppliers in China in salt form... Or so I hear. Edited October 4, 2013 by goneski Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
