FBI raids alleged online drug market Silk Road, arrests owner

[Mendo_K]

Anyone else see the huge irony of a guy who was worth $80,000,000 now represented by a public defender with 4 years experience?
...WELL FUCK, SON.

Nice use of bold and large lettering there, nice touch. I thought anyway (dont quote me on it, being a UK citizen) that in the very early proceedings of a US case, like at the moment when they are just going through all the proceedings and procedures it was common to have a public defence lawyer? Then once the trial actually starts and its deemed that he can in fact afford a lawyer himself he will get one. If i remember rightly if you can afford one, you have one?

No doubt the fact he had no job though, so all assets will be seized he will have no money. Hes going to have a shit load of donations which can go towards a good lawyer, and possibly even well known lawyers who will give up there time to represent him, either for the good or some publicity... I am sure though in the trial he wont have a public lawyer

 

[neversickanymore]

*yawn* expressing ignorance through smug complacency. it's all good dude, geopolitical debate isn't for everyone.

Why would you be ignorant and compliant.. are these things looked upon as positive traits in you culture? And your right a "geopolitical debate" about judging such large diverse groups of people using such oversimplifications and stereotypes, in order to determine some "validity" isn't for me. The are both valid.

 

[Valkyrie]

I suspect the British police will act much the same as they did in 2004. It's the most effective way to stop people using any alternative TOR sites that might fill the gap. They won't care what you bought or when, they'll just send the boys in to as many addresses as possible knowing that it'll send shock waves across the web drug buying community. Having been caught out once before it certainly stopped me buying directly from SR.

As I said in THIS thread, it's a cautionary tale. The chances of getting a knock on the door are probably quite slim but if I thought my address was in the hands of the feds I would make sure my HOUSE, COMPUTER and PHONE were squeaky clean. It's true that they can't actually press charges without hard evidence but that won't stop them being total cunts while they try to get some. They had all my stuff for 5 months and it was a hell of a job getting it back.

 

[JessFR]

UK police already following up on buyer addresses

Source?

 

[phenethylo J]

And all you SR customers who are now desperate, you don't want to hear this either, but do NOT jump on the next boat that comes by you need to wait and see what is legit. I understand SR had a very low rate of scamming (escrow was great idea) but the next site may not. Traditionally drug sites have huge scam rates, be careful. People keep saying how fast new sites will open, but this is the worst time to buy drugs online.

Especially considering there are probably allot of scum bags out there just sitting around waiting for something like this to happen so they can rip off all the desperate people looking the catch a ride on the first bus they see.

The field I get my mushrooms from doesn't appear to be under any kind of surveillance, apart from a few cows, and no money ever changes hands there.

You just have to worry about bulls and getting shot with a salt rock.

 

[atara]

Anyone else see the huge irony of a guy who was worth $80,000,000 now represented by a public defender with 4 years experience?

That's why you pay a lawyer before you get arrested instead of pretending that encryption makes you invincible. DPR did nothing to plan for the inevitable.

 

[DragonFly31]

To get back to this breaking news, DPR was a victim of his own choosing. It would follow that if one would choose to go on such an enterprise as he did, one would not break a few rules.

The first one, for me, is: don't deal with US drug agencies. The US of A is just too good. So, one would logically opt to operate anywhere but that country. Let alone operate within it.

Second, don't brag! Why was he constantly sharing his intelligence with us?! You have to admit that he is a gutsy, smart motherfucker... that's in jail, now. But he could have been (to us) a nobody; and in this case, he could have been a free man today. (Note the indictment against him singles out his economics background as a link as to his real identity.)

Third, why was he so careless. He wasn't as tidy as he should have been. He didn't do enough of a professional job. Nothing short of perfection will cut it, in the business of FUCKING THE STATE!!

 

[missmeyet?]

UK police already following up on buyer addresses

Where did you get this information? Can you please give us a source for it?

 

[Albion]

Surely if people used PGP then their addresses will always be safe? Vendors likely cleared their messages regularly.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I'd like to know if I'm expecting a fruitless police raid at my address.

 

[Valkyrie]

To get back to this breaking news, DPR was a victim of his own choosing. It would follow that if one would choose to go on such an enterprise as he did, one would not break a few rules.

The first one, for me, is: don't deal with US drug agencies. The US of A is just too good. So, one would logically opt to operate anywhere but that country. Let alone operate within it.

Second, don't brag! Why was he constantly sharing his intelligence with us?! You have to admit that he is a gutsy, smart motherfucker... that's in jail, now. But he could have been (to us) a nobody; and in this case, he could have been a free man today. (Note the indictment against him singles out his economics background as a link as to his real identity.)

Third, why was he so careless. He wasn't as tidy as he should have been. He didn't do enough of a professional job. Nothing short of perfection will cut it, in the business of FUCKING THE STATE!!

http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...ings-dread-pirate-roberts-did-to-get-arrested

The whole thing is truly bizarre. He was virtually playing catch me if you can. There's got to be more to this.

 

[flat-line]

For years I have heard people talk about “TOR is invisible” “You just have to _____ and they can never____” usually some 20 something year old guy with little computer knowledge past a few pages they read about TOR.

The government created the internet and they created most modern encryption. They release stuff to the public after they have new stuff that will render it outdated.

Open source cannot compete with billion dollars budgets and building full of full time workers and developers.

Who is TOR ? Who is open source ? Anyone. The CIA and world intelligence agencies would not be doing their job if they could not have a handle on it ?

They will probably claim “he made a mistake and we got him” and everyone will feel safe once again. Put their head in the sand and go back to internet orders. People will probably get pulled over and consider “bad luck” but maybe it was people who had had a little more info that got them? Maybe they sent just a little too much in bitcions and earned a red flag ?

 

[Morphling]

Err.. wasn't Tor created by the Navy? Why wouldn't they be able to crack it?

 

[missmeyet?]

Nice use of bold and large lettering there, nice touch. I thought anyway (dont quote me on it, being a UK citizen) that in the very early proceedings of a US case, like at the moment when they are just going through all the proceedings and procedures it was common to have a public defence lawyer? Then once the trial actually starts and its deemed that he can in fact afford a lawyer himself he will get one. If i remember rightly if you can afford one, you have one?

No doubt the fact he had no job though, so all assets will be seized he will have no money. Hes going to have a shit load of donations which can go towards a good lawyer, and possibly even well known lawyers who will give up there time to represent him, either for the good or some publicity... I am sure though in the trial he wont have a public lawyer

Not exactly how it usually works.

Generally when you are first arrested you are given an opportunity to call an attorney right away and can set up arrangements with one by phone. If you cannot afford to hire an attorney you are given paperwork to fill out to determine that you are indeed indigent. At your first court appearance it is determined you are indigent they will then appoint a public defender as your attorney and he will follow you through all the proceedings. At some point if you are able to hire an attorney or get a family member to pay or one steps in who is willing to proceed pro bono then you can switch attorneys. Of course you can always decide to have no attorney at all and just represent yourself (which is never a good idea). So no, in the US you are never just given a public defender. Its pretty important to hire the best attorney you can as early in the proceedings as you can. Some public defenders may be ok guys but generally the are pretty new at practicing law (not always thou7gh) and are so overworked that you don't generally get the greatest representation. When they have 300 criminal clients at a given time they simply do not have the time to put into any one case and provide the representation for you that a paid attorney could and would.

 

[BlueHues]

I think the feds will bust a few low-level buyers, but considering that there were a million accounts on SR, the chances of it being YOU are probably pretty remote, but someone has to win the lottery!

I don't think DPR ever foresaw exactly how big this would become...or if it would even take off at all. He was 25-26 when SR started, and at that time he had no reason to believe that 3 years later a team of feds specifically trained in going after computer crimes would be digging around in everything he ever did! I'm sure a lot of people have signed up for sketchy things using their real e-mails without thinking about it. It's not fair to hold him to the standard of a "criminal mastermind" who's was used to having to live like they're always being watched. The sloppiness with which he he did eventually conduct himself when the whole thing did became huge was almost suicidally reckless.

Maybe he wanted to get caught! I know I could never handle the pressure of being responsible for something like this, I would be an absolute nervous wreck and so would most people. A lot of the Mexican cartel bosses have continued to run the cartels with active warrants for murder and dozens of drug felonies, bounties on their heads. The money isn't worth anything if you can't even enjoy it. I'd rather work at a carwash and be free and clear than to live under the looming shadow of 30+ years in prison.

It was a great idea that actually wasn't really that complicated to implement(I couldn't have done it), kind of like Facebook was...He was just the first one to really do it. Maybe there was someone else in the very beginning that created SR who knew what it could eventually become and didn't wanna deal with the stress...It was just TOO good of an idea...

 

[tyrael]

Err.. wasn't Tor created by the Navy? Why wouldn't they be able to crack it?

Yes, early development was sponsored by DARPA with involvement by the US Navy. Regardless of their involvement however, they've got some clever developers over there, I'm sure the deconstruction of the network protocol wasn't too difficult (all of which is open source anyway, so no reverse engineering would've been required in this instance.).

The RSA algorithm is a good example, the "RSA assumption" (also see the RSA problem), uses basic mathematical functions yet reverse engineering with no prior information is "infeasible". Having said that, as with any algorithm, security leaks do exists can given certain variables in place it is possible to crack - as with all crypto-algorithms Imo, especially in the realm of cryptology/encryption techniques, open-source will actually benefit in every possible way! Needless to say, obscuration by obfuscation will not produce sufficient cryptology, it just doesn't work - it's more like saying "I've got really important, sensitive data here .. but please don't look", lol.

....The government created the internet and they created most modern encryption. They release stuff to the public after they have new stuff that will render it outdated....

True, much technological leaps have originated from Government projects (not all however). Don't get confused with knowledge of cryptology and (any possible) capabilities of decryption. It's "easy" to encrypt data, much more difficult to crack (by orders of magnitude. But again I say with disclaimer. )

....Open source cannot compete with billion dollars budgets and building full of full time workers and developers.

Who is TOR ? Who is open source ? Anyone....

The Open Source community (and their tenants by which it's built upon) has and continue to develop all sorts of technological advancements/improvements/innervations. When rounded up, a possible formidable force imo.

(Are these actual questions? )


Edit: If anyone's interested in the latest cryptology/Internet/networking security vulnerabilities/patches, the authorities is for developers (so the documents can be quite technical) are OWASP and WhiteHat Security - both of which release reports on these topics to allow developers to try to stay a head and patch any holes in the software they're developing, along with a multitude of information (wiki-format and such). OWASP's vulnerabilities wiki, Website Security Statistics Report, the OWASP Top 10 - 2013, and the OWASP Top Ten Tools and Tactics.

 

[Thou]

Anyone else see the huge irony of a guy who was worth $80,000,000 now represented by a public defender with 4 years experience?

It's not ironic. It would be unfortunate (if I were to leave your statement unquestioned).

It's a bit more complicated than simple irony explains. From what I've gathered it seems to me the best maneuver he could make right now, considering he lacks records for a legitimate income, is to go with a public defender. He's denying the charges.

This is a high profile case. Just because he's starting off with a public defender doesn't mean he'll go to trial with one.

 

[Roger&Me]

Surely if people used PGP then their addresses will always be safe? Vendors likely cleared their messages regularly.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I'd like to know if I'm expecting a fruitless police raid at my address.

If you're asking "does US federal law enforcement have access to algorithms and computing resources capable of cracking a given PGP cypher?" The answer is maybe.

1024 bit is probably routinely and trivially cracked by NSA crypto at this point. Whether or not the likes of the DEA would have access to, or routinely employ, such cryptographic sophistication in the course of this type of investigation, is anyone's guess. I think its more likely than many would assume. Recent leaks have indicated that DEA and FBI are granted access to NSA resources under certain circumstances.

2046 or higher... you're probably in the clear. But you have to understand that the cryptographic capabilities of the US intelligence community are astounding, and in all likelihood their sophistication is far exceeding what is known to the public.

They can also run a dictionary attack on the actual input password, which could be trivial provided a low-entropy input. If you chose a high-entropy input password, you have less to worry about.

Its very hard to speak in absolutes when it comes to crypto, its all about probabilities and risk management. If you're a low-level user, you probably don't have much to worry about -- but I wouldn't keep anything incriminating around just in case.

 

[blah blah]

The way I see it, if they were going to hit suppliers and buyers, they would have done it in one sweeping motion coinciding with the arrest of DPR before anybody could pull up their knickers. Now, 5 days later, good luck finding anything that will stick or paying for the resources to track down dead ends.

I hope they get covered in baby shit digging through the landfills for trashed, dismantled laptops and bounce their heads off the walls in clean, "law-abiding" households. It's the beginning of a new era and it won't be stopped like this. Edison didn't fail 1000 times in making the lightbulb, he succeeded 1000 times in finding out how not to make that goddamn filament. This was a set back in the hugely successful bigger picture it represented.

RIP SR, you were a godsend. Viva la revolution...

 

[oldirtybizza]

It's not fair to hold him to the standard of a "criminal mastermind" who's was used to having to live like they're always being watched. The sloppiness with which he he did eventually conduct himself when the whole thing did became huge was almost suicidally reckless.

The fact that he did such glaringly obvious mistakes as using his personal email to promote and find staff certainly isn't in line with whole ethos of security and anonymity of SR. Do they actually have the physical servers in their possession? if so how did they find them?
One would have though that this would have been picked up much earlier considering the resources of the state. 3 possibilities come to mind

Everything is as it's said to be , true as portrayed by the media
DPR was known by LE much earlier on it was allowed to continue as honeypot to gain insight/data/sources.
The whole thing was pre-orchestrated and created by LE with these slip-ups intentional and discovered and the whole thing shut down when enough intel was gathered.

The money isn't worth anything if you can't even enjoy it. I'd rather work at a carwash and be free and clear than to live under the looming shadow of 30+ years in prison.

This goes for smaller scale dealing also and something that looms overs anyone who participates in supply even at a social level. It's just not fucking worth it! Stay a customer.

 

[tyrael]

If you're asking "does US federal law enforcement have access to algorithms and computing resources capable of cracking a given PGP cypher?" The answer is maybe.
....
1024 bit is probably routinely and trivially cracked by NSA crypto at this point. Whether or not the likes of the DEA would have access to, or routinely employ, such cryptographic sophistication in the course of this type of investigation, is anyone's guess.
.....
2046 or higher... you're probably in the clear. But you have to understand that the cryptographic capabilities of the US intelligence community are astounding, and in all likelihood their sophistication is far exceeding what is known to the public.
.....

A few good points! Are 2046 bit encryption utilised "residentially"? There are encryption algorithms which the Government prevents the use of (assumingly for cases such as these - the possibility of cracking the encrypted data).

In terms of capabilities, from my knowledge, there's no question that the DEA (or pick your agency) could sequester the required computing power and expertises. Whether or not they would go to such lengths, no one (outside the agency itself) could tell imo! A benefit of cloud-computing (I use this term loosely, distributed computing is nothing new?

....They can also run a dictionary attack on the actual input password, which could be trivial provided a low-entropy input. If you chose a high-entropy input password, you have less to worry about....

Very true. Although in all honesty if you're pwd can be cracked via a dictionary attack, you deserve to be caught. 8( Such a silly, basic mistake for someone to do! Just on this topic, if one were to follow the history of network progression, the basic textual password really is the aspect lagging further development (sort of like the battery for hardware)! Alternatives such as biometrics - in addition to their inherent faults with each modality (retinal, finger prints, I even read a paper which utilised [previously recorded for that one individual who owns the device] typing aspects such as word count/min and other heuristics to determine one typer [the owner] from another, I'll try and find the paper.), (implanted) RFID chips, "electronic tattoos", etc. - all of which have been incorporated with varying success.

........Its very hard to speak in absolutes when it comes to crypto, its all about probabilities and risk management.....

This is true. Especially since no one person has the full information (technical, legal, etc.) from both sides. All posts here are essentially conjecture (barring quotes from News sites)