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March, 2024

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FBI seizes underground drug market Silk Road

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jfxphoto
Posts: 2038 - Karma: 2,346
Holy shit Silk Road finally going under??

I was sketched a few years ago, and it's been growing exponentially. This is huge.

What's next?


It appears the Federal Bureau of Investigation has finally cracked down on Silk Road, the underground marketplace where users could buy cocaine, heroin, meth, and more using the virtual currency Bitcoin. Journalist Brian Krebs has just published a purported copy of a complaint filed in the Southern District of New York against Ross Ulbricht, who is alleged to be the mastermind behind the site and the handle Dread Pirate Roberts.

Ulbricht is being charged with narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. The site, which is only accessible through the anonymizing Tor network, has been pulled and replaced with an FBI notice. The Silk Road forums are still operating, suggesting they were hosted on a different server.

The complaint is based on statements made by Christopher Tarbell, an FBI agent who has been tracking Silk Road out of the cybercrime division in New York. Tarbell acknowledges "undercover activity" by himself and other law enforcement agents, something users have suspected for a long time. Law enforcement officers have made more than 100 purchases on the site since November of 2011, according to the complaint, and had the drugs shipped to New York for analysis.

Oct 2 2013 11:56AM
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ObiWanKablowme
Posts: 421 - Karma: 539
was making this thread when i saw yours. pretty surprising actually
Oct 2 2013 11:58AM
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Barefootin_Fiend
Posts: 7618 - Karma: 4,727
interested to see how this plays out...
Oct 2 2013 12:01PM
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Backyard.Skier
Posts: 5397 - Karma: 1,497
shit! where am i going to get my meth now..
Oct 2 2013 12:01PM
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jfxphoto
Posts: 2038 - Karma: 2,346
Yeah man..

I couldn't ever imagine them going after any purchasers but hell who knows with the feds.

I am sure there are going to be some vendors that get busted. I would be shitting my pants if I was a vendor. Then again if I was a vendor I would probably be living in Indonesia or something.
Oct 2 2013 12:02PM
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Twinjibber77
Posts: 6239 - Karma: 2,356
I wanna see a running tally in a couple years of how much the legal cost from this shit show will be..... already hit almost a million to penetrate and seize, guarantee.
I don't agree with it purely for the fact that people should be smart enough to not buy hard drugs off the internet but lets face it, they aren't. Shit like this is how kittens die at EDM shows.

Drug War sucking money though fer sure.
Oct 2 2013 12:02PM
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howlongcanausern
Posts: 4982 - Karma: 1,737
brb selling bitcoin

damn, this is going to rough for a ton of H users
Oct 2 2013 12:05PM
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jfxphoto
Posts: 2038 - Karma: 2,346
No joke there goes the bit coin market.
Oct 2 2013 12:06PM
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CaptainObvious.
Posts: 5711 - Karma: 20,627
"analysis"
Oct 2 2013 12:08PM
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howlongcanausern
Posts: 4982 - Karma: 1,737
what's really scary is that the FBI/DEA have cracked to Tor network...which means there really isn't any e-privacy left in the US
Oct 2 2013 12:10PM
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japanada
Posts: 13784 - Karma: 1,957
Except when buying online you are way safer than buying through a random person at a show. The sellers on the road worked and made their money off of their reputations, and that came from the quality, shipping and price. None of which you get to know before you eat it at shows. Ive had many many good purchases and transactions on the road. Sad to see it go. Something tells me it wont be gone for a while.

Ever heard of Atlantis?
Oct 2 2013 12:12PM
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jfxphoto
Posts: 2038 - Karma: 2,346
Click for larger image


But in all seriousness I am sure there are a lot of hidden networks that have yet to gain popularity and are hidden from the FBI. Nerds will prevail.
Oct 2 2013 12:12PM
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howlongcanausern
Posts: 4982 - Karma: 1,737
yep. something else will fill it's place. time to buy litecoin.
Oct 2 2013 12:14PM
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Bodhisattva_
Posts: 5749 - Karma: 2,009
Damn.... I was just about to make a fat order :(
Oct 2 2013 12:15PM
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Barefootin_Fiend
Posts: 7618 - Karma: 4,727
meh, a few maybe, but not a ton. that's not the kind of habit you can sustain with an internet connect. i'd guess most of the people buying H off of the web aren't your hardcore daily users...more like dabbling here and there.
Oct 2 2013 12:15PM
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jfxphoto
Posts: 2038 - Karma: 2,346
I think you might be surprised at the amount of functional users out there but yeah your average fiend isn't going to be buying off of SR.
Oct 2 2013 12:20PM
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mphL0ck5
Posts: 43 - Karma: 92
And with international internet censorship projects like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (aka Trans-Pacific Censorship) being discussed behind closed doors you can expect to see more crackdowns like the one...

Oct 2 2013 12:20PM
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t_rob
Posts: 6433 - Karma: 11,458
Are you really surprised? The silk road wasn't exactly a secret. There's a wiki page on it and I found out about it on this skiing website. It's not like the feds had to plant a mole to get onto the silk road marketplace, anyone could access it if they wanted to go into deep web.
Oct 2 2013 12:22PM
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Stose
Posts: 7109 - Karma: 4,123
What's really really scary is that you were under the impression that they hadn't cracked the tor network and that you had privacy
Oct 2 2013 12:31PM
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JustForYou
Posts: 275 - Karma: 2,143
Shit. I haven't been left speechless in a long time. But fuck.

Government shuts down and they manage to bring down the biggest online black market


I wonder if they realize that what they did was bad relative to morals? Just imagine all the addicts that have to go the street now and the risk that comes with it. Some may hate SR, but you can't deny it was a safe environment.


Fuck
Oct 2 2013 12:34PM
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corona
Posts: 12751 - Karma: 32,240
um. I don't think you really understand what Tor is.
Oct 2 2013 12:37PM
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JustForYou
Posts: 275 - Karma: 2,143
I don't think he understands what servers are. Laws aside, they could bring down Tor from a simple seizure of primary Tor Severs. Ergo everything goes poof that is used through Tor.
Oct 2 2013 12:40PM
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daannnnieel
Posts: 5163 - Karma: 4,293
The fact that guy thought he wouldn't get caught is amazing. Cops aren't that dumb.
Oct 2 2013 12:42PM
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corona
Posts: 12751 - Karma: 32,240
Tor isn't something you just 'crack'. what makes it nearly impossible is that if I'm receiving data from someone, that data is going through a random number of Tor nodes (computers on the Tor network) that would change each time. So it's like cracking an always changing password to be able to intercept the data being.

Plus Tor was developed bu the US government and is still mostly funded by the US government.
Oct 2 2013 12:43PM
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JustForYou
Posts: 275 - Karma: 2,143
Click for larger image
Oct 2 2013 12:45PM
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JustForYou
Posts: 275 - Karma: 2,143
I am soooo hoping this is turned into a movie/documentary.
Oct 2 2013 12:46PM
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howlongcanausern
Posts: 4982 - Karma: 1,737
source?
Oct 2 2013 12:52PM
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JustForYou
Posts: 275 - Karma: 2,143
http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf
Oct 2 2013 12:54PM
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GayWolf420
Posts: 36657 - Karma: 110,367
I can't say I'm surprised. It was really only a matter of time. I'm sure they had double agents in the network.
Oct 2 2013 12:59PM
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RubberSoul
Posts: 11249 - Karma: 14,642
this stuff is interesting, threads
Oct 2 2013 1:08PM
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Olimar
Posts: 3535 - Karma: 4,076
Thats crazy. This is going to kill the bit coin though... Honestly, it was bound to happen eventually though. The silk road was kinda starting to becoming a big deal. Hardly an underground black market any more.
Oct 2 2013 1:38PM
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987321654hgfd
Posts: 5133 - Karma: 5,447
Threads. I want to stay updated on this.
Oct 2 2013 1:44PM
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first_rodeo
Posts: 2383 - Karma: 7,764
This is like snowden status groundbreaking shit



government is the dark web... guaranteed
Oct 2 2013 1:52PM
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howlongcanausern
Posts: 4982 - Karma: 1,737
DPR (dread pirate robert) apparently left quite the paper trail when he first started SR...this is what got him busted:

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.
---
After identifying "altoid", they started connecting the "DPR" identity to Ulbricht pretty quickly.

Ulbricht's Google+ page and YouTube profile both make multiple references to the a website dubbed the "Mises Institute". DPR's signature on the SR forums contained a link to the Mises Institute.

DPR cited the "Austrian Economic theory" along with the works of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, all of which are closesly associated with the Mises Institute.

Server logs show that someone logged onto the SR administration panel from San Fransisco around the same time that Ulbricht was staying in San Fransisco.

Multiple fake IDs were intercepted by U.S. Customs & Border Patrol while on their way to an address which Ulbricht was living at the time. These IDs all carried photos of Ulbricht but had false names and details. This was around the same time that DPR stated in a message that he was acquiring some fake IDs to buy new servers.

When questioned by Homeland Security about the fake IDs, he refused to answer any questions but then stated that anyone could purchase such things using "Silk Road" and "Tor".

The address which Ulbricht was staying at was being rented in cash and he was living with housemates who knew him under a name which corresponded with one of the fake IDs.


woooow, made some serious mistakes in 2011
Oct 2 2013 1:54PM
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mphL0ck5
Posts: 43 - Karma: 92
You're right, but the bitcoin was going to be killed someday or another anyways.
It's not regulated by the international bankers aka banking cartel so they don't want people to have the choice between bitcoins and some other FIAT currency...
Oct 2 2013 1:57PM
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JustForYou
Posts: 275 - Karma: 2,143
Some of his thinking at the time was probably how it wouldn't matter too much what he says because it is such a small operation. No way he could have predicted it would blow up so much.
Oct 2 2013 2:02PM
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howlongcanausern
Posts: 4982 - Karma: 1,737
yeah, it's kind of making me thing it's his personal carelessness that got him caught, not flaws/breached security of the TOR network
Oct 2 2013 2:04PM
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jfxphoto
Posts: 2038 - Karma: 2,346
really... I wouldn't go as far as to call this guy a fucking moron or an idiot. It takes some serious know how to get all of this shit going.
Oct 2 2013 2:12PM
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LiquorLanch
Posts: 1909 - Karma: 1,046
He might be booksmart but he is not street smart.
Oct 2 2013 2:21PM
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RubberSoul
Posts: 11249 - Karma: 14,642
that's what i don't understand about it. he has the ability to orchestrate all this complex deep web shit but it's all linked to a gmail account that is his real name? that's absurd
Oct 2 2013 2:43PM
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Mag
Posts: 8155 - Karma: 14,809
I would call him an idiot for sure, only a retard doesn't know that you need to have absolutely nothing linked in the slightest way when doing something illegal, more so if it's bigger, if I was doing something like that I'd go fully off the map in every way, but then again I'm smart enough to know I'm not smart enough.

Also on an interesting note this guy effectively ran an entire currency? He could have pretended to take down the site just to become a billionaire overnight.
Oct 2 2013 2:48PM
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howlongcanausern
Posts: 4982 - Karma: 1,737
officially bitcoin was completely separate entity from the silk road....homebody made 80 million dollars in 2.5 years doe...tax free

he had NO idea SR was gonna explode like it did
Oct 2 2013 2:54PM
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Mag
Posts: 8155 - Karma: 14,809
Yeah for sure, I mean it's not like currencies are illegal, even if they could shutdown bitcoins it'd be illegal to do right? But the price of bitcoins are pretty much exclusively influenced by SR, or at least that's my understanding?
Oct 2 2013 3:01PM
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GayWolf420
Posts: 36657 - Karma: 110,367
Yeah, some real big fuck-ups for sure.
Oct 2 2013 3:02PM
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Wulfty
Posts: 344 - Karma: 1,876
What kind of saddens me is that they used their time and resources to just go after a distributer, and not the root of the problem. I would have much rather seen them use the time and money to work on cutting down on the drugs smuggled into the US. But if what was said above is true, that was pretty stupid of him to leave a trail that big.
Oct 2 2013 3:04PM
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goodnoooo
Posts: 555 - Karma: 2,075
REST IN PEACE SILK ROAD :((((((((((((((((
Oct 2 2013 3:06PM
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Bombogenesis
Posts: 1984 - Karma: 4,006
it's FIB, not FBI
Oct 2 2013 3:09PM
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howlongcanausern
Posts: 4982 - Karma: 1,737
i dunno...i think BTC operates in a 'grey area' of the law, i don't think it is illegal.

yeah, the only real purpose of BTC was for SR...but the prices rose/fall based on speculation (since the vast majority of SR items were tied to their value in USD, and not BTC)
Oct 2 2013 3:12PM
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Rafiki
Posts: 3858 - Karma: 2,251
i read a good portion of this in between classes. good time filler

i've always found it interesting though, that the FBI, DEA, whatever agency, can purchase illegal things (in this case narcotics and hacking software) and have it be totally legal. never really clicked in my head that it was ok for them to do it on a whim of possibly catching someone, but very illegal for the public.
Oct 2 2013 3:13PM
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Downtofilm
Posts: 6896 - Karma: 20,399
threads
Oct 2 2013 3:17PM
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the.hellion.
Posts: 861 - Karma: 698
Governments (including the Canadian gov't) should be putting the money into mental health and recovery programs - not spending billions of dollars in a failed war against their own people.

Anywho, this is fucked and weird but expected. And some of the evidence is pretty ........ Shaky. Law and order has taught me that that's a lot of circumstantial evidence. And someone dumb enough to use their own name to start up a drug website smells like scapegoat to me.
Oct 2 2013 3:20PM
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