Silk road shut down (allegedly)

wexie

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24373759

Silk Road shutdown, founder operator arrested yada yada yada yada blahblah blah

The FBI said it has also seized approximately $3.6m (£2.2m) worth of bitcoins - a virtual currency.

Whut?

I wonder exactly how one would seize Bitcoins what with them being a virtual currency? Was the whole point (or one at least) of bitcoins not that they are virtual and therefore can't be seized?

Or can they be stored on a USB key or something (surely not?)

Was the whole point (or one at least) of bitcoins not that they are virtual and therefore can't be seized?

Doc Ruby

wexie wrote: »

I wonder exactly how one would seize Bitcoins what with them being a virtual currency? Was the whole point (or one at least) of bitcoins not that they are virtual and therefore can't be seized?

Or can they be stored on a USB key or something (surely not?)

Was the whole point (or one at least) of bitcoins not that they are virtual and therefore can't be seized?

The point of bitcoins was to provide anonymous internet money, at which of course they also failed.

Anyway seizing them just means making them unavailable to anyone else. If you could just copy them and make off with the copies they wouldn't be much use as currency.

Seachmall

wexie wrote: »

Whut?

I wonder exactly how one would seize Bitcoins what with them being a virtual currency? Was the whole point (or one at least) of bitcoins not that they are virtual and therefore can't be seized?

Or can they be stored on a USB key or something (surely not?)

Was the whole point (or one at least) of bitcoins not that they are virtual and therefore can't be seized?

The point of bitcoins is to create a decentralized currency, and it has anonymity benefits as well.

You can sort of store them on USB keys, or on paper, or on a tattoo on your arm if you want.

It's not really the bitcoins being stored but the ability to access them, because the bitcoins are of course virtual.

Think of it like a vault of safety deposit boxes. If you have the key you can access the box that that key opens. You can transfer the contents of the box to other boxes. If someone steals your key and transfers the contents of the box (i.e. bitcoins) to another box you no longer have access to the contents.

That's presumably how it's been seized, the police transfered his bitcoins to a "safety deposit box" that only they have the key to.

wexie

Seachmall wrote: »

The point of bitcoins is to create a decentralized currency, and it has anonymity benefits as well.

You can sort of store them on USB keys, or on paper, or on a tattoo on your arm if you want.

It's not really the bitcoins being stored but the ability to access them, because the bitcoins are of course virtual.

Think of it like a vault of safety deposit boxes. If you have the key you can access the box that that key opens. You can transfer the contents of the box to other boxes. If someone steals your key and transfers the contents of the box (i.e. bitcoins) to another box you no longer have access to the contents.

That's presumably how it's been seized, the police transfered his bitcoins to a "safety deposit box" that only they have the key to.

So what you're saying they made him write down his password essentially.

Doesn't sound quite so interesting when you put it that way.

Seachmall

wexie wrote: »

So what you're saying they made him write down his password essentially.

Doesn't sound quite so interesting when you put it that way.

Essentially.

The "password" is a 256-bit number (called a private key) that he presumably had stored somewhere on his computer or some other device.

PizzamanIRL

Ah no i drive that road everyday to get to work!

BadmanRiddim

Shíte

Sir Humphrey Appleby

Silk road shut down.

Yippee, good news at last!
Ah, it is nice to see some good news on Boards every so often.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Seachmall wrote: »

Essentially.

The "password" is a 256-bit number (called a private key) that he presumably had stored somewhere on his computer or some other device.

I'd bet its 1234 or the default 0000

hufpc8w3adnk65

Isn't that the site you could like grade a heroin etc off of? But you needed a ip blocker or something too get into it? I recall a lad telling me about it in the pub one day

bodice ripper

Sir Humphrey Appleby wrote: »

Silk road shut down.

Yippee, good news at last!
Ah, it is nice to see some good news on Boards every so often.

Yeah, same to you Narc.

AnonoBoy

Eh.... WHY am I only hearing about this site now when it's gone?

:mad::mad::mad:



Oh yeah, it's because I'm old now and don't take drugs anymore.

As you were world. Nothing important has changed. :pac:

Sir Humphrey Appleby

bodice ripper wrote: »

Yeah, same to you Narc.

Hear that?






Its the sound of the worlds smallest violin.:D

FouxDaFaFa

Another one will replace it soon enough.

Did you hear that the founder allegedly put out a hit on somebody?

DPR sent a message to "redandwhite" stating that "FriendlyChemist" is "Causing me problems" and adding: "I would like to put a bounty on his head if it's not too much trouble for you. What would be an adequate amount to motivate you to find him?" And then Later that same day, redandwhite sent DPR a message quoting him a price of $150,000 or $300,000 "depending on how you want it done" - "clean" or "non-clean"
DPR responded: "Don't want to be a pain here, but the price seems high. Not long ago, I had a clean hit done for $80k. Are the prices you quoted the best you can do? I would like this done ASAP as he is talking about releasing the info on Monday.
DPR and redandwhite agreed upon a price of 1,670 Bitcoins - approximately $150k - for the job. In DPR's message confirming the deal, DPR included a transacation record reflecting the transfer of 1,670 Bitcoins to a certain Bitcoin address.

Whether it actually came to fruition remains to be seen, things are unclear at the moment. (Character defamation or a deal was actually made).

What is clear is that the value of Bitcoin is taking a hit.

bodice ripper

Sir Humphrey Appleby wrote: »

Hear that?






Its the sound of the worlds smallest violin.:D

NARC! Hey, everybody look at the Narc!

Banjo String

All your bitcoins are belong to us.

Seachmall

FouxDaFaFa wrote: »

Another one will replace it soon enough.

The Black Market Reloaded is still up as far as I'm aware.


The Silk Road had a good community and reliable sellers could be easily identified.


Not sure what BMR is like, but I'm guessing it's about to get a lot more popular.

Jonny7

Seachmall wrote: »

The Silk Road had a good community and reliable sellers could be easily identified.

I reckon there's a lot of disk formatting going on

FouxDaFaFa

Seachmall wrote: »

The Black Market Reloaded is still up as far as I'm aware.


The Silk Road had a good community and reliable sellers could be easily identified.


Not sure what BMR is like, but I'm guessing it's about to get a lot more popular.

I actually don't use any of them, never have, just have an interest in web/deepweb news.

People on r/silkroad are saying BMR is full of scammers and freaking out. You'd feel bad for some of them, there are a few who used SR to purchase medical marijuana because of their crappy American healthcare and now they feel vulnerable.

The Backwards Man

It was never the same after Genghis Khan died.

Seachmall

Jonny7 wrote: »

I reckon there's a lot of disk formatting going on

Because you had to access through Tor, and because of how Bitcoins work and how the Silk Road escrow system worked you could be fairly confident that they can't track you and even if they could they couldn't identify what you bought (if anything) and thus wouldn't be able to identify what laws you broke (if any).

Obviously I'm not privy to details of how the Silk Road operated but I'd hope they took the basic precautions to protect their users, and hope the users took the appropriate precautions to protect themselves.

Fukuyama

Pretty interesting website.

I accessed it once through Tor.

Really slow at loading too.

Looked around. Seen some heroin, a pretty reliable weed dealer (apparently) and some artwork for sale.

The sheer effort of transferring money by bank (the only method) to buy bitcoins, which will fluctuate wildly, to log onto a slow loading, hard to access website, to buy weed, or questionable quality and which may never materialize. All with a nice internet IP trail leading straight to your front door.

I also imagine anyone who 'invested' in Bitcoin is feeling the sting of this. Their value will plummet.

Fukuyama

Seachmall wrote: »

Because you had to access through Tor, and because of how Bitcoins work and how the Silk Road escrow system worked you could be fairly confident that they can't track you and even if they could they couldn't identify what you bought (if anything) and thus wouldn't be able to identify what laws you broke (if any).

Obviously I'm not privy to details of how the Silk Road operated but I'd hope they took the basic precautions to protect their users, and hope the users took the appropriate precautions to protect themselves.

Chances are this guy had other activities going on (like trying to hire people to kill other people, etc etc) and the feds were on to him.

Monitoring his web usage would just be a matter or waiting until he slipped up and forgot to protect his identity/IP/MAC address etc... or they hired a smart white hat hacker to access his computer and pull his history.

Bingo.

The feds don't have the man power to go after customers. Nor is it worth it. Imagine a huge federal investigation spanning the US (or other countries) all to find some dude that bought an ounce of weed. :rolleyes:

Dealers might be looked into. But unlikely. They've cut the head off the snake, so to speak. Job done.

Although, I guarantee. There are now several other such website spring up as we speak, ready to meet the demand.

FouxDaFaFa

Apparently it was as simple as him putting out an ad looking for an IT guy in 2011 in which he used a gmail account containing his actual name.

:pac:

• An agent involved in the investigation ("Agent-1"), found the first few references to SR on the internet from somebody only identified as "altoid", attempting to promote the site in its beginning days, in January of 2011.
• In October of the same year, a user also going by the name of "altoid" made a posting on Bitcoin Talk titled "a venture backed Bitcoin startup company", which directed interested users to "rossulbricht at gmail dot com".
• That email address is what led to DPR's downfall.

Reddit

returnNull

Dean0088 wrote: »

All with a nice internet IP trail leading straight to your front door.

there's no 'nice internet IP trail leading to your door'.

Read up on how TOR project works.

There was a massive spike in TOR activity last month.People reckon it was the cops running there own botnet so that they could track the IP packets by controlling a mental % of the TOR exit nodes.

The Tor Project, whose software enabled the Silk Road, noticed a significant spike in usage in late August and was unable to explain it. It remains possible that the FBI or another federal agency may have suddenly flooded Tor with its own bots or other computers under its control as a way of conducting surveillance on the Silk Road.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/feds-shut-down-silk-road-arrest-alleged-admin-dread-pirate-roberts/

GreeBo

CJC999 wrote: »

I'd bet its 1234 or the default 0000

What about the 12 other bytes/characters?!

Nodin

wexie wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24373759

Silk Road shutdown, founder operator arrested yada yada yada yada blahblah blah

yay....a victory over drugs....that'll show em.....

Fukuyama

returnNull wrote: »

there's no 'nice internet IP trail leading to your door'.

Read up on how TOR project works.

There was a massive spike in TOR activity last month.People reckon it was the cops running there own botnet so that they could track the IP packets by controlling a mental % of the TOR exit nodes.



http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/feds-shut-down-silk-road-arrest-alleged-admin-dread-pirate-roberts/

I know how Tor works.

Just because your pinged around through different nodes doesn't mean you can't be traced.

It's an anonymity network but everything leaves a history. And it can be comprimised through trial and error by hijacking individual nodes and waiting for patterns to emerge in traffic.

No an exact science, but enough to trace one user over a long period of time.

hansfrei

People think tor is anonymous. Lol

Inquitus

Nodin wrote: »

yay....a victory over drugs....that'll show em.....

Meanwhile

Illegal drugs are now cheaper and purer globally than at any time over the last 20 years, a report has warned.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24342421

bodice ripper

Nodin wrote: »

yay....a victory over drugs....that'll show em.....

MORE NARCS!

Nodin

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

bodice ripper

Nodin wrote: »

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

Too late Narc. The jig is up.

christ on a bike!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SV

"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

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

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

Dean0088 wrote: »

Stay afraid! Stay very afraid.

Whats your point?

SV

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

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

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

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

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).