The "untoucbable" bitcoin market Silkroad Seized by FBI

[Slybacon]

How Silkroad was Busted. Robbie Fordyce is a PhD candidate in the School of Culture and Communication and Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society at University of Melbourne

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/10/how-did-silk-road-get-busted/

[Bigred]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCD14IrOcIs

[Bigred]

You think it would have got more media attention

Edited October 4, 2013 by Bigred

[Bigred]

You think the server would have had a fail safe on it like especially a site like that

i.e you can rig a old microwave to your pc and fry that fucker

FUCK YOU AMERICA

 

The war on drugs is such a bitch they will never win. Drug revenue beats tax revenue

so the badies (im my book modern patriots ) get better toys so its like flogging a dead horse

for the government.

cartel boss " check out my army of fearless hit men with every bell and whistle"

police boss " WOW !!!! that aint nothing check out my new squad car and my 1.3% pay rise "

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

All this happened during a USA govt shutdown :-/

[ThunderIdeal]

You think the server would have had a fail safe on it like especially a site like that

i.e you can rig a old microwave to your pc and fry that fucker

FUCK YOU AMERICA

 

The war on drugs is such a bitch they will never win. Drug revenue beats tax revenue

so the badies (im my book modern patriots ) get better toys so its like flogging a dead horse

for the government.

cartel boss " check out my army of fearless hit men with every bell and whistle"

police boss " WOW !!!! that aint nothing check out my new squad car and my 1.3% pay rise "

i've said it heaps of times myself but i just realised "they'll never win the war on drugs" is misleading in a way that can is apparently easy to overlook even in this community. we assume because it's "the war on drugs" that the goal is to annihilate drugs, but everybody here knows the war on drugs isn't an attempt to wipe out drugs. like many wars it has a somewhat just, but fake goal. the true objective is typical human shit EG accumulate wealth and similar

they've been winning the war on drugs all along. i think mainly the objective is to drive the cost of a cheap product up, so CIA, local police etc can run a profitable monopolistic venture, which includes property seizures when they catch black market entrepeneurs. this could bankroll secret agencies, or a luxurious lifestyle. as a bonus, we live in a state of fear, and they get to justify more police with more powers and more reasons to harass normal people. that's a few simple reasons off the top of my head.

does anybody here actually believe the goal of drug prohibition is to stamp out the unauthorised use of drugs?

[Bigred]

Well look at it this way without the war on drugs a LOT of people would be jobless.

Plus all the insurance companies rely on the drug trade as it fuels crime rates.

So if every drug was legal what would our massive police force do seriously

what would be left to police

[Bigred]

Seeing the water mark in the background makes me wonder

and you think bitcoin would of crashed. something aint right

Edited October 5, 2013 by Bigred

[ThunderIdeal]

BTC seemingly should have crashed but i guess silk road just demonstrated that online black market is A. so much better than the old way, that it's almost not worth going back to the old way and B. considering truckloads of people are probably sent to prison every day after being arrested in the middle of a street-deal, by comparison the online black market carries no threat (so few arrested to date). it's more dangerous walking down a woolworths aisle.

in summary, silk road created believers. for the loss of silk road to ruin illegal bitcoin markets, would be like the loss of ebay ruining paypal.

maybe if the next ulbricht doesn't aim for profits of millions upon millions, the FBI won't be so eager bust his operations = seize his assets.

Edited October 5, 2013 by ThunderIdeal

[Slybacon]

Maybe the next SR owner needs to be totally in the public eye, but set it up in a way that the owner and the activities are separated enough to indemnify the people running the site.

[ThunderIdeal]

either that, or the complete opposite of that.

[Bigred]

http://www.wikihow.com/Build-an-EMP-Generator

[-RC-]

Here's a little (well not so little) piece I wrote on the war on drugs a couple of years back.

http://www.responsiblechoice.com.au/cannabis/war-on-drugs-failure/

[whitewind]

 

does anybody here actually believe the goal of drug prohibition is to stamp out the unauthorised use of drugs?

Yes I do. I believe they use it to demonise recreational drug users so that they can crack down and control the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. The latest attempts to "catch all" possible herbs and plants that may potentially contain "psychoactive" substances is just one way to expand their powers to control the herbal industry. They also use import restrictions, CITES, and other measures (TGA) to prevent people from self-medicating and put their lives in the hands of the drug companies, which unfortunately still have a huge impact on any free health services we have in the Western World. Not many people are aware that this is actually a war against personal medical and pleasure control, it is all different aspects of the same thing. Take the power out of the hands of the people and place it into the system, where they can reap as much profit and power as possible.

[at0m]

Seeing the water mark in the background makes me wonder

and you think bitcoin would of crashed. something aint right

Opposite imo.

First reaction was the knee-jerk drop, yes, that was bound to happen and yes, a large attraction to bitcoin has gone but, as others have said, something else WILL fill its place. The money is just too good not to.

But think about this... so they seized a couple thousand coins. Those coins can now be considered 'dead' and out of circulation (Side note: IF they get used again, we can see EXACTLY where they go) so now there's even fewer coins available (only a finite amount can be mined) meaning, in theory, the value should be on its way up once it settles.

It should also be noted that, assuming you're willing to trust the FBI enough to believe the documents about DPR's arrest, he was not caught through any fault of Tor or bitcoin. It was entirely because old fashioned detective work and the stupidity of DPR.

[DiscoStu]

It should also be noted that, assuming you're willing to trust the FBI enough to believe the documents about DPR's arrest, he was not caught through any fault of Tor or bitcoin. It was entirely because old fashioned detective work and the stupidity of DPR.

that's the thing. tor was developed by the US military, and it's inconceivable that the US security intelligence apparatus doesn't have it's claws in it. if anyone thinks they would let something like tor develop beyond their control well, i have a bridge to sell you.

so why don't they go around busting everyone? well, why don't they go around "busting" their "terrorists'? it's an asset, just imagine how much intelligence they're gathering by this "secret" network,

[Bigred]

Well if they have the server what intel really do they have in regards to users . What about

legit users of the site eg you live in Washington state and purchase cannabis. What laws

would that person in Washington have broken and what about if no laws were broken

reclaiming the lost coin from the American Government.

[Bigred]

a good read

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-04/goodbye-silk-road-hello-sheep-marketplace.html

The truth is you take down one and one will just jump straight back up

[at0m]

that's the thing. tor was developed by the US military, and it's inconceivable that the US security intelligence apparatus doesn't have it's claws in it. if anyone thinks they would let something like tor develop beyond their control well, i have a bridge to sell you.

so why don't they go around busting everyone? well, why don't they go around "busting" their "terrorists'? it's an asset, just imagine how much intelligence they're gathering by this "secret" network,

It was originally developed for the navy, yes, but that was a long time ago and it is now a free and open source project run by the community.

Here's the latest (stable) source if you want to go check it out: https://www.torproject.org/dist/tor-0.2.3.25.tar.gz or here https://gitweb.torproject.org/

EFF <3's Tor (and I <3 EFF): https://ssd.eff.org/tech/tor

It's so good (which is why they still contribute funding toward the project) that the military still uses it: https://www.torproject.org/about/torusers.html.en

To answer the question as to why they would release and fund it, simply put: So they can hide in plain sight. If anyone can use tor, there's no reason to assume that tor traffic is anyone important.

I will, however, concede that tor is not without its issues. Tor -> clearnet is dangerous due to possibly evil exit nodes, circuits can be reversed/decrypted if enough nodes are controlled, browsers can be profiled/stained/tracked, the browser itself can have exploits and a whole host of other issues. These are NOT easy to perform though and won't be 100% successful at deanonymising/decloaking all/any users.

Edited October 6, 2013 by at0m

[DiscoStu]

yeah, but you're assuming people on the outside looking in.

i'm saying the people on the inside, the people developing tor are the fuzz, yeah people can remain "anonymous" but only if they want them to,

it's only the written laws which restrict their advance,

i remember reading one of the "snowden leaks" saying that the vpn encryption has be broken, maybe thats just propaganda or maybe they know anything and everything which happens, it's only the restriction of requiring a warrant which limits prosecution?

[ThunderIdeal]

Opposite imo.

First reaction was the knee-jerk drop, yes, that was bound to happen and yes, a large attraction to bitcoin has gone but, as others have said, something else WILL fill its place. The money is just too good not to.

But think about this... so they seized a couple thousand coins. Those coins can now be considered 'dead' and out of circulation (Side note: IF they get used again, we can see EXACTLY where they go) so now there's even fewer coins available (only a finite amount can be mined) meaning, in theory, the value should be on its way up once it settles.

It should also be noted that, assuming you're willing to trust the FBI enough to believe the documents about DPR's arrest, he was not caught through any fault of Tor or bitcoin. It was entirely because old fashioned detective work and the stupidity of DPR.

you know when they show footage of police burning drugs and crops etc, i've never heard of them throwing bags of cash into the bonfire.

[Slybacon]

Four "Significant" Drug Dealers Have Been Arrested in the Rubble of the Silk Road

By Brian Anderson

It's been less than a week since Ross Ulbricht, the Silk Road founder better known as the Dread Pirate Roberts, was taken down by federal agents, and the heads continue to roll.

The Telegraph and the BBC are both reporting that four Britons have been detained in connection to the now-shuttered dark web marketplace, widely known as the eBay of drugs. The arrests were carried out by the UK's National Crime Agency, whose officers worked side-by-side with US law enforcement in a concerted jack-hammering of the Road, which in less than two years managed to broker $1.2 billion in sales in everything from illicit drugs to murder-for-hire services.

The four arrests all took place mere hours after Ulbricht got a perhaps unexpected federal manhandling as he fired up his laptop in a San Francisco library. Ulbricht is now facing charges of computer hacking, money laundering, narcotics trafficking and, to the shock of many, attempting to use that very murder-for-hire service—twice, no less—to bump off snitches.

It's a warning shot that the newly-formed NCA promises to be part of an ongoing round-'em-up of some of the site's bigger fish.

"These arrests send a clear message to criminals, the hidden internet isn't hidden and your anonymous activity isn't anonymous," Keith Bristow, Director General of the NCA, told the Telegraph. "We know where you are, what you are doing and we will catch you." Bristow added:

 

It is impossible for criminals to completely erase their digital footprint. No matter how technology-savvy the offender, they will always make mistakes and this brings law enforcement closer to them.

 

It's not yet clear if those slip ups are similar to those that ultimately led to Ulbricht's and the Road's undoing. And it's likewise unclear just who they are: None of the identities have been released.

 

What we do know is that three of the detainees, all men in their 20s, were arrested in Manchester on charges of supplying controlled substances. The fourth vendor, an older fellow in his 50s, was taken down in Devon, leading some to believe he's one 'PlutoPete'. As the Daily Dot notes, chatter of a Devon raid shot through Silk Road message boards "for the last week".

PlutoPete ran a headshop there, and also peddled drug packaging to various Silk Road vendors. His business, for all we know, was legal, but his known involvement with the marketplace was enough to see the NCA seize his computers, some salvia, cash, drug-testing kits and, crucially, the names of an unknown number of some of Pete's vendors.

His detainment didn't last long. Indeed, he's out on bail until February, and shortly after being released was sounding the alarm on the Silk Road. (See: above.) “Unlike other vendors, my address was no secret,” Pete wrote. “PlanetPluto is a registered business selling legal products." Not surprisingly, he had some choice words for the Man:

 

I'm not sure who trains these plod but they didn't even know that cannabis seeds are legal and i've said that if they're destroyed or badly stored they'll be liable for the cost at a rate of £5 per seed.

 

The hangover continues.

[Subaeruginosin]

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.

He was coerced by the feds to order 2 hits. In other words, the whole thing was fabricated and there wouldn’t have even been a hit ordered if the feds didn’t set it up. It’s ridiculous that they can even get away with entrapping people like that.

It was an extremely stupid thing for DPR to do though, any normal person would have to conclude that if someone’s offering to carry out a hit on the internet, then it’s either the authorities are someone trying to scam ya. From what I’ve read about Ross, it does seem he wasn’t some hardened drug lord, but rather just some computer nerd who got in way over his head and most likely has some form of autism.

Though, on a more philosophical note, people’s perception of what constitutes ‘murder’ is rather ironic. I mean, the government can order people to go kill innocent life in the name of ideologies or for economical reasons and it’s just considered ‘war’. But when someone orders someone to kill a hardened criminal (or in this case, a federal agent posing as a criminal) to protect there customers and billion dollar business, then they must be a cold blooded killer, right? What’s up with that?

Also, anyone who says he was just in it for the money and was full of shit about claiming it was for a cause, must just be an idiot. I mean, apparently he was worth 80 million, yet was living in shared accommodation, with very few personal items, no car and with only a few changes of clothes. Doesn’t exactly fit the description of some greedy drug lord who’s in it for the money.

I’m not even convinced this Ross bloke was the mastermind behind it anyway, like the FBI are claiming. The fact that he advertised silk road on the Shroomery using a user name which he registered with his personal email says to me that he was either extremely stupid or simply played a really minor role in setting it up.

It’s trial by media, so obviously he’ll be found guilty. But from the information that’s been released I really don’t see how they could get a conviction for him being DPR. Sure there are a lot of big coincidences there, but it all seems circumstantial to me, I can’t see any nail in the coffin evidence there. Then if you consider that they can’t actually connect any drugs to him and for that matter the FBI can’t even take control of his 80 mil, then really what have they got?

Anyway, everyone who’s ranting on with there patronising “I told you TOR wasn’t safe” comments, should really read the information regarding this case. As far as I can see, not one person has been busted due to their use of bitcoins or the TOR network. I’ve never even used silk road, but this bust has only confirmed to me that it’s an incredibly safe way of obtaining drugs.

So I guess everyone just moves onto the Sheep market place or whatever and life goes on. All the feds have probably accomplished here is by advertising this form of purchasing drugs and reaffirmed that it is incredibly safe.

Btw, what about atlantis shutting down a week before silk road went down. Does that indicate Atlanis was an FBI site?

[ThunderIdeal]

nice first post

[vegetarium]

When interpreting this story, you might want to read about a technique called "Parallel Construction". The NSA and the other security agencies in the US have a complicated relationship, they don't get along by default or always cooperate - sometimes the grand conspiracy isn't a reality, but sometimes it is. What the NSA will often do is give one of the other agencies (say, the DEA) illegally obtained information on a person of interest. The DEA can't admit that in court, but they'll arrange a false trail to produce a legitimate search warrant so that they can "accidentally" legally discover all the incriminating information that they knew anyway.

This whole drama just validates an old chestnut our grandmothers have been telling us for years "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is". Pure, safe, illegal drugs purchased securely over the internet without fear of legal repercussions is too good to be true and probably always will be. Anything on a computer will, as a previous commenter has said, leave a record of 1s and 0s. Some of those 1s and 0s are more protected than others. Even the 'experts' assuring you how safe Silk Road is don't know everything. One of the ways this guy incriminated himself was by asking a question on StackOverflow about the technology he was supposed to be an expert on! Not to be all paranoid, but is anybody here a cryptography expert? I'm sure not, I don't understand computer science well enough to know whether anything can be truly secure and every indication I have from people who do is that nothing really is.

More sites will inevitably spring up in the wake of Silk Roads demise. They'll get shut down and more will spring up in their place, the game will keep on being played forever.

The best way to win is to just not play it, in my humble opinion.