FBI raids alleged online drug market Silk Road, arrests owner

[spacejunk]

Camel = FBI gloating perhaps?
I agree that it's not looking good for this kid.
...Whether he is guilty of any of these charges or not.

 

[Captain Brewster]

^I certainly feel for this 'kid', he's basically fucked and I'm not convinced he's the creator.

So, can anyone explain why the SR logo (the green camel) is in the background of the "seized" notice?

Nope, everyone can speculate but.

I'm still not sold on him being the original DPR, as they say he 'could' have the title handed down to him.

Like I said, the real DPR is sipping cocktails in some unknown country.


Wonder what he thinks of his heir.

 

[spacejunk]

^ Don't believe everything that you read, son

 

[StoneHappyMonday]

I don't know or care, was just pointing out the owner change.

Heres a video of Ross- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olib3jnvSmw

Video has been removed now so I'm glad I watched it. Wasn't quite the image I had in my head of the guy.

 

[Captain Brewster]

^ Don't believe everything that you read, son

I try not to, I geuss just don't think this 'kid' deserves what he's getting.

 

[opi8]

For all those that doubt it's the original DPR, who is somewhere in paradise drinking bitcoins, you may not have been following this as much as myself, and others have, The facts we've learned - which are still verifiable online - you could even use archive.org if you think a website owner would go to the trouble of adding new content and backdating it (which is possible, I suppose), this identity they linked DPR to was the first person to promote the site online, he also asked for help coding - and that code is in the source code of the Silk Road - my ode. He also subscribed to the same idealogical/philosophical beliefs the original DPR did and wasn't shy to admit that on the various social media profiles which he owned.

Now, we could think that this was all a well planned and brilliantly executed plan by the original DPR - make the trail of bread crumbs lead to someone else before he even knew the site got popular, then sell the site to that person in order to throw the heat off him when he decided to sell it. Did that make sense? I'm gaba'd out. But seriously, I think he made mistakes before knowing how popular this was going to become. He even said on LinkedIn I think, he's working on an experiment with .. something that basically equals Silk Road.

 

[Captain Brewster]

I wasent thinking this part was well planned by DPR.......

But anyway the article Christ! put up in AusDD has me thinking heaps, so hard to know what to trust when reading anything these days.

I think my genuine thought throughout today has been swung both ways. Heh, think ill sit back, wait, and stop opinionating (sp?) for a while.

So interested to see what follows...

 

[ricardo08]

It was only a matter of time, all drug sources come and go, there was no reason to believe this one would be any different. Honestly I'm actually kind of excited to see where things go from here, now people have developed a taste for the convenience of buying and selling on the internet, there's no way this is the end of the story. The floodgates have been opened and now there's a void in the market, if I were a gambling man I'd put money down on there being several replacements by the time we're moving into next year, it's just a question of what form they take.

The complaint is public now, we know how they found him. This is valuable information to anyone who plans to start up "Silk Road V2", they can learn from Ross' mistakes. The feds will keep chasing and closing down future sites, and the people will keep rebuilding. It will be a continuous battle but I don't see how the feds can win without pulling the plug on the entire internet or something. Unless they start putting huge efforts into tracking down all past vendors and buyers and busting them, that might scare enough people away from ever using TOR for anonymous browsing again.

 

[naughty]

The complaint is public now, we know how they found him. This is valuable information to anyone who plans to start up "Silk Road V2", they can learn from Ross' mistakes.

The mistakes he made were egregious. E.g., by linking his clearnet identity to SR, he failed to follow simple, obvious rules. (But his errors are human. He might not have envisioned how big his business would become.)

Not saying there are no lessons to be learnt from what happened. I'm sure you're right and there are. But I think there are many unaddressed problems unrelated to the SR takedown. E.g., look at the Freedom Hosting takedown. It's a real concern that governmental agencies can get you by exploiting security vulnerabilities such as in the browser. Moreover, there's the issue of Tor exit nodes and man-in-the-middle attacks.

 

[opi8]

Another thing to take into account is the fact that law enforcement is known for using techniques that are against the law in order to gain information that is usable in a court of law. This kind of shit needs to stop, and is one of the ideologies of DPR, by the sound of it. I'm not a Libertarian, because we don't have guns in my country and I think a lot of what they think is batshit insane. But I do believe in a person's right to do what they want with their own lives/bodies, including putting whatever they want into it. No other "political" ideology comes close to that, but politics isn't the thing here.

This guy wanted to change the world by making a mini-world without government intervention to see how it would fare. It seems it fared well. The experiment was a success IMO.

 

[tyrael]

The mistakes he made were egregious. E.g., by linking his clearnet identity to SR, he failed to follow simple, obvious rules..... man-in-the-middle attacks.

Typical Layer 8 problems, stupid really.

M-in-the-M attacks are mitigated by the Onion's routing algorithm.

Tbh I can already think of technical improved which could be made; multiple networked servers (ala Wiki-leaks) with routing front-end and randomised (circulating key-DNS) DNS lookup for instance (just off the top of my head).
Most important limiting (either by just pure numbers of servers, "spreading" out the load/servers, etc) destination of data so not just "one" server/exit node could bring it down.

MITM attacks are easily doable if there's access clearnet sites over Tor.....

SR is clearnet?

Like I said though, I haven't had a good think of course! :D Although those who've known me on BL long enough....not such an outlandish claim. Hmm, anyone else interested in making a 2.0? =P Jks

Having said that, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on the Tor or Onion source code!!! Very much so!!

 

[naughty]

This guy wanted to change the world by making a mini-world without government intervention to see how it would fare. It seems it fared well. The experiment was a success IMO.

I don't come to the same conclusion. Wasn't SR supposed to be clean? No dealers killing each other over territory and such? Now agencies hint that (attempted?) contract killings took place in fights over digital turf and identities.

 

[naughty]

M-in-the-M attacks are mitigated by the Onion's routing algorithm.

MITM attacks are easily doable if there's access clearnet sites over Tor, something I'm sure many less informed users engage in on occasion. (That works even if you control only a few exit nodes.)

Moreover, it's my understanding Tor's routing algorithm becomes ineffective once you control more than 50% of exit nodes. Given what we learned through whistleblowers, I think we must entertain the possibility that someone does control so many exit nodes. It's not just an entirely far-fetched conspiracy theory.

 

[oldirtybizza]

with the massive resources and forensic tools on the side of feds , there is no way to be completely safe using any means of digital communication. The scope of surveillance and data collection is huge.
not to be paranoid but I don't doubt that the identities of most regular posters of this site is know to authorities.
The drug war is an endless game of cat and mouse , whether it be new laws to ban analogues, stronger scanners for new ways of smuggling or new means of breaking the latest encryption.
ultimately the only thing we have on our side is the sheer number of people wanting to get high regardless of the law and the people who will always be willing to supply that want.
This has to be the only war where only one side takes casualties.

 

[ricardo08]

The mistakes he made were egregious. E.g., by linking his clearnet identity to SR, he failed to follow simple, obvious rules. (But his errors are human. He might not have envisioned how big his business would become.)

Clearly, considering his status in the eyes of the law, he wasn't being secure enough online. Which seems crazy to me, but as you say he might not have envisioned to what scale SR would reach. That's assuming Ulbricht is the original DPR though, which I'm not convinced is the case. Either way, he wasn't acting in the way in which a person in his position should.

There must be people out there that have mastered the art of remaining anonymous online, leaving no paper trail, that could take over and be almost impossible to track down. There must be people more suited for the job than Ulbricht, who clearly wasn't. Anyway, it will be a back and forth tech war from now on, imo.

 

[BlueHues]

This guy wasn't a drug kingpin, he was a computer nerd who got in over his head. If it had been just psychedelic drugs, or weed, ecstasy whatever....it wouldn't have gotten so big and it could be argued that it was actually doing good, with the amount of RCs and other shady shit being sold to kids these days....

But once you start getting into heroin, cocaine, counterfeit documents etc. Software to facilitate hacking into people's bank accounts?! It becomes quite a different story....

 

[tyrael]

.....not to be paranoid but I don't doubt that the identities of most regular posters of this site is know to authorities.
....

Why aren't we all being investigated/in jail?

Personally I've found those with no/limited technical knowledge of the "Internet" (protocols [TCP, IP - yes TCP and IP are different protocols, its not one although people do write "TCP/IP", HTTP, HTTPS, etc]), networking (the OSI model [layers 1-7], packet forwarding, various routing protocols), security/cryptography (RSA, TLS, SSL, etc), blah, blah are either over scared of "the web" and believe the Government knows-all and is able to access everything to their home computer whilst its turned off through their web cam, to overly blazay and give every detail assigned to him; from their DOB to address, lol.

Go and hand-code, from scratch, the TCP/IP routing algorithm* and we'll talk (means we'll be on roughly the same technological level).

Typically it is Layer 8/9/10 which causes 95% leaks in systems! This is how Ulbricht got caught!

.....There must be people out there that have mastered the art of remaining anonymous online, leaving no paper trail, that could take over and be almost impossible to track down.....

I'm not saying it would be easy. But the mistakes made by Ulbricht could've been over come.

Also glancing at the security holes already known in the network, to me they seem over-comable. I think if the code for Tor was made available; an upgrade/update/security-fixing would be a lot easier than something from scratch (considering the success) imo.


* I only say this cos it's something I was made to do. >_<

 

[StoneHappyMonday]

The mistakes he made were egregious. E.g., by linking his clearnet identity to SR, he failed to follow simple, obvious rules. (But his errors are human. He might not have envisioned how big his business would become.)

Well that's still monumentally stupid. Taking on the world drug trade and not realizing how big his business might become? Erm...

Ego does seem to have taken over. "I have a plan to set the world free" with the emphasis becoming on the "I" rather than the "free". His LinkedIn summary was a spectacular giveaway.

You need a leader not drawn in by the pitfalls of egomaniacal social media (yeah, fuck Facebook while we're at it).

And maybe one who doesn't lay a trail with his gmail address. 8(

Tyrael, it's your turn. Your time has come. Get going with v2.0

 

[4evrLkn]

As much money that is made through all this, talking into the billions, I'd be kind of surprised if some or a couple of the major cartels don't just take this type of business over, make it a monopoly over all types and genre's of drugs. They would just run the site with a few high level computer genius's and operate this business from no-mans land. They'd have multiple back-up's readily available for washing and hiding coins after transactions are immediately complete.
IMO there is WAY too money left on the table and less risk involved then physically having to mule drugs over border's, also this can reach anyone who has a computer. There are always kinks that'd have to be worked out, but when we're talking billions of dollars, you can pay to stretch those kinks out.

 

[Mendo_K]

Billions in dollars in sales is different to profit, its "said" he earned $80m in profit in commission, but they are using the current rate that 1 bitcoin = around $100-$120, what about for the large part the first 2 years when 1 bitcoin amassed to about $1-10?? I imagine a lot of his initial money went back into servers etc

Im sure he has many off-shore accounts filled, but you would have to think who would not after earning $80m just simply sell the website? Or just run, your set for life and your practically free, rather than run the risk of getting caught? He didn't have enough or he was greedy, I don't buy into the "I could sell the website, but im trying to change the world". It was only a matter of time before he was caught, I don't even think he though he could get away with it forever.

Edit- Also the $3.6m they confiscated was from the actual website, so more than likely all the buyers + sellers money + possibly some of his own, would have though he didn't actually keep his money on the site though, will be interesting to see where it all goes and how they track down his funds, and if they can. A large vendor posted on the forums that there loss was totaling around $250,000 on the website at that point.