Silk Road 2 Busted

[DTdr2]

<B>Started Drug and Crime Marketplaces…And They Both Made the Same Dumb Mistake to Get Caught<\B>

<I>Starting up an online marketplace for illegal drugs and criminal jobs? You probably want to keep your name a secret.

But when it came to the drug- and crime-fueled Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0, the tech-savvy men allegedly running the show couldn’t keep their names out of things.

Business Insider’s James Cook examined the fatal, dumb mistake that both alleged Silk Road founders made: They connected their personal email addresses to the Silk Road activity.

Ross Ulbricht, the alleged founder of the Silk Road, was arrested in October 2013 and linked to the illicit marketplace.

The FBI had a relatively easy time of it, since Ulbricht apparently posted his personal email address, rossulbricht@gmail.com, on a bitcoin forum where he said he was looking to hire IT pros.

The blunt connection between Ulbricht’s personal and business activities came despite the fact that Ulbricht normally took extensive precautions to mask his online identity, Cook noted.

The alleged founder of the Silk Road 2.0, Blake Benthall, was arrested on Wednesday and it seems he didn’t learn from Ulbricht’s mistake.

The email address blake@benthall.net was connected to the Silk Road 2.0, so when the FBI took down the second iteration of the marketplace, the notification emails went straight to Benthall, the agency said.

Of course, in the case of the Silk Road 2.0, the FBI also had another big advantage: an undercover agent who gained the trust of the website’s moderators before the site even launched.

The cases of Ulbricht and Benthall point to a basic fact that undercuts all the sophisticated technology in the world: One dumb mistake can bring a whole enterprise tumbling down.<\I>

 

[Millard]

One dumb mistake can bring a whole enterprise tumbling down

Also, consider this: there are probably only a handful of web hosts who are offering to host these type of controversial dark web marketplaces. If the government can identify one of these web hosts who offers the hidden services, all it has to do is target the web host and it can take down dozens of illegal marketplaces. This may be what happened with Silk Road 2 and other marketplaces:

The investigation in the Bulgarian Internet space have been identified and suspended 129 hidden websites offering multiple services in TOR network, including the distribution of sexual abuse of children, distribution profiles payment platforms, credit card, drugs, weapons contract killings, illegal trade in Bitcoin and money laundering. In their place is placed special banner of the operation (see photo). Used is the infrastructure hosting company in Bulgaria. All information of the servers providing the services was copied.

This is yet another evidence that the main method that was used by law enforcement to find and take down the site was to target specific hosting services.

...

Countries involved in the operation, codenamed ‘Onymous’, include Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the USA.

Source: http://www.deepdotweb.com/2014/11/08/129-seized-onion-domains-single-bulgarian-hosting/

 

[Millard]

Statement by the UK National Crime Agency claims http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/news-listings/483-international-law-enforcement-deals-major-blow-to-dark-web-markets. But it turns out that was only the number of TOR .onion addresses seized; most of the addresses point to the same 27 websites.

According to FBI spokesperson David Berman, the 400 URLs only amount to a dozen or so sites. “There are many URL’s to particular sites,” he said. “We’re still going through the results of the operation.”

While Berman mentioned a dozen sites, a complaint filed in the New York Southern District of New York on Friday confirms that at least 27 sites were seized during Operation Onymous, including the Silk Road 2.0.

Source:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2014/11/07/operation-onymous-dark-markets/

 

[Millard]

Another explanation of how the feds located the Silk Road 2 server suggests it was the government-funded research at Carnegie-Mellon; the researchers claimed to "break TOR" and were going to reveal to the world how it was done -- until the scheduled talk was abruptly cancelled in July:

https://thinksteroids.com/community...net-anonymity-service-tor-canceled.134358536/

 

[Millard]

Troels Oerting -- Head of European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and Assistant Director, Europol, Operations Department -- says the way it located the Silk Road 2 and other TOR services is top secret:

“One of the primary targets was the Silk Road guy,” said Oerting, referring to Blake Benthall, the 26-year old coder arrested in San Francisco Wednesday and accused of managing the popular Silk Road 2 drug site. “But we also decided to see if we could identify more of the administrators of these sites and remove their infrastructure as well…Some moved before we could act, but we’ve taken most of our targets down.”

...

Asked how Operation Onymous located the sites, Europol’s Oerting was unapologetically secretive. “This is something we want to keep for ourselves,” he said. “The way we do this, we can’t share with the whole world, because we want to do it again and again and again.”

The article also suggests that the darknet marketplaces that survived were located on servers outside the jurisdiction of the countries who participated in Operation Onymous i.e. United States, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Source: http://www.wired.com/2014/11/operation-onymous-dark-web-arrests/

 

[eminem93]

The government just wants to enslave us. We are not free, just sheep in an enclosed fence.

 

[ThatLittleMonster]

This is an article on the NSA working to break TOR traffic wide open. This is one country's security service, there are many more out there trying to do the same. And not just for drug sales and money laundering., it just so happens that nothing will make governments of first world countries stand up and take action together faster than drugs and money laundering.

The take away is that TOR is not as safe as many people like to think it is, at least not for much longer. The same goes for VPNs. Anyone who wants to stay up on computer security should check out some of the research done by 'hackers' and the NetSec community. If you're not a big target then chances are they still won't waste the time and resources to open your connection up and track you down, but they're quickly developing the ability to do just that.

 

[dnoyez]

The government just wants to enslave us. We are not free, just sheep in an enclosed fence.

You are very right sir.we are truly born slaves.

 

[dnoyez]

What they are farming us for..honestly...It isnt material or gains in wealth-it isnt logical... what is it they harvest from us....maybee soon enough we all may know.

 

[dnoyez]

This is an article on the NSA working to break TOR traffic wide open. This is one country's security service, there are many more out there trying to do the same. And not just for drug sales and money laundering., it just so happens that nothing will make governments of first world countries stand up and take action together faster than drugs and money laundering.

The take away is that TOR is not as safe as many people like to think it is, at least not for much longer. The same goes for VPNs. Anyone who wants to stay up on computer security should check out some of the research done by 'hackers' and the NetSec community. If you're not a big target then chances are they still won't waste the time and resources to open your connection up and track you down, but they're quickly developing the ability to do just that.

And yes it had a little good run...but nothing is private-The tech at the top of the pyrimid is most likely mindblowing and hard for us to imagine and comprehend.

 

[eminem93]

You are born, forced to be vaccinated and have all this information taken down about you so that ur identifiable in the system, then ur forced to go to school to be conditioned to think like they do, ultimately to be forced into working in the bureacratic structures that is fueled by the greed of this world, you pay your taxes and shut up and do what your told. You were never free, just part of a sick fucking machine that will chew you up and spit you out.

 

[dnoyez]

Glad someone is awake.

 

[TheSpectre]

Go live in Portugal. Personal use of ALL drugs are legal for personal use and possession.

 

[heady muscle]

 

[heady muscle]

Go live in Portugal. Personal use of ALL drugs are legal for personal use and possession.

Portuguese women and food! Sounds like heaven too me!

 

[Eloquence]

I personally am vaccine free as is my son!

 

[curgen]

I personally am vaccine free as is my son!

I wouldn't brag about that

 

[TheSpectre]

I wouldn't brag about that

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of Polio...

 

[Captaincook3]

WELL....THE GOVERMET JUST CANT STAND THEIR BUISNESS BEING TAKING AWAY FROM THEM VIA INDEPENDENTS.I JUST DID MY LAST..MAYBEE ORDER FROM SILK2.0 FROM THE LOOKS OF THINGS.

Silk2.0 still working? Know of any others? Message me

 

[dnoyez]

My advice to everyone at the moment would be best to stay away from the( .onion) scene for a moment.