SIlkroad 2.0 down

[myr]

Haha, up until a few days ago I had no idea there are others lol

 

[poledriver]

How the FBI just made the world a more dangerous place by shutting down Silkroad 2.0 and a bunch of online drug markets

The FBI has seized the website of Silk Road 2.0, a major "darknet" marketplace, and arrested its alleged operator, Blake Benthall, in San Francisco. On reddit, the darknet community is reporting that several other marketplaces may be down as well. (RELATED: Seized sites represent less than a third of Darknet commerce »)

The Irish Examiner reports that "an international day of action to disrupt global activity on the Darknet and remove certain websites and forums is to conclude within the next 24 hours under the FBI/Europol operation codenamed 'Onymous'".

In the post below, originally published last month, I outlined the darknet economy and discuss the findings of a computer programmer who scraped Silk Road 2.0's site to determine what types of drugs were for sale.

This story is still developing, but I'll note that there's a strong argument to be made that the darknet economy makes the world a safer place overall. By taking drug transactions off the street and putting them online, you eliminate a significant link in the chain of violence between drug suppliers and end users. Drugs purchased online are typically less adulterated with dangerous contaminants than street drugs are, and a system of reviews rewards sellers who provide high-quality product.

In their statement, federal authorities don't discuss these broad implications but say that, generating $8 million in sales, Silk Road 2.0 was used by " thousands of drug dealers and other unlawful vendors." They pledged to "return as many times as necessary to shut down noxious online criminal bazaars."

Regardless of how many of these sites the FBI has seized today, it's a near certainty that dozens more will spring up to take their place tomorrow.

In October 2013, the FBI shut down Silk Road, a thriving online black market where, with a bit of technical know-how, you could to purchase things like illicit drugs, forged documents and weapons. Think Amazon, but for drugs and other not-so-legal things. The FBI may have hoped that shutting down Silk Road would take a bite out of illicit drug sales online. But if anything, it appears the opposite has happened.

Continued with a graph and some comments -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...kroad-2-0-and-a-bunch-of-online-drug-markets/

 

[RxContin]

 

[poledriver]

Silk Road 3.0 and the million-dollar drug trade hiding in the deep web

NO sooner had authorities announced the shuttering of an alleged illegal online drug bazaar than another popped up claiming to take its place.

Welcome to the “dark web,” an increasingly popular corner of the internet where thousands of computer users from around the globe interact anonymously — and, in many cases, illegally.

On Thursday, the US Department of Justice charged a 26-year-old San Francisco man with operating Silk Road 2.0, an anonymous website that authorities say rang up $8 million in monthly drug sales.

On Friday, an underground website calling itself Silk Road 3.0 Reloaded claimed to be open for business on the TOR network, which is linked globally through special browsers that encrypt internet traffic.

Several other websites on the TOR network also claimed to be open for drug transactions.

The dark web poses new and formidable challenges for law enforcement agencies around the world that have been dealing for decades with more conventional international drug trafficking.

The reach and anonymity of these 21st century internet operations is difficult to penetrate. Silk Road and copycats on the TOR network are not readily visible through popular internet search sites.

The buyers and sellers don’t exchange cash, dealing instead in often untraceable digital currencies, usually Bitcoin. So there are no banking records for investigators to subpoena.

“As long as the dark web exists, there will always be people who set up places to engage in wrongdoing,” said Joseph DeMarco, a defence attorney and former federal prosecutor who headed the computer crimes section of the US attorney’s office in New York.

DeMarco said he was sceptical that a single “global solution” would be found to stop illegal activity on the TOR network.

“There will always be an arms race between the bad guys and law enforcement,” DeMarco said.

Those who created and support the TOR network say it’s a way to protect online users’ privacy in the digital age. TOR boasts that none of its websites will appear in Google search.

“TOR was created to protect people’s privacy and anonymity, and we don’t condone its use for these illegal activities,” said Roger Dingledine, who co-created the TOR network originally for the US Navy.

But investigators around the globe say the network is also a place of flagrant and profligate illegal activity of all sorts — from prostitution to arms trafficking — and they vow to crack down.

“Underground websites such as Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0 are like the Wild West of the internet, where criminals can anonymously buy and sell all things illegal,” said Homeland Security Investigations Executive Associate Director Peter Edge.

Continued -

http://www.news.com.au/technology/o...-in-the-deep-web/story-fnjwmwrh-1227117400842

 

[drug_mentor]

^ So hope this new Silk Road is legit, that would just be too funny, the Feds put all that time and money into closing down 2.0 and literally one day later another one opens up. I don't know much about these dark web drug markets but it does seem to me there is a reasonable likelihood that SR 3.0 coming out this quickly could be a scam, I suppose only time will tell.

 

[RxContin]

^ So hope this new Silk Road is legit, that would just be too funny, the Feds put all that time and money into closing down 2.0 and literally one day later another one opens up. I don't know much about these dark web drug markets but it does seem to me there is a reasonable likelihood that SR 3.0 coming out this quickly could be a scam, I suppose only time will tell.

The feds know there will be another one up to take its place soon. They just want the public to think they're making progress. Put respectable libertarians in jail, steal thousands if not millions of dollars from the black market, and most of all remind us who has the bigger guns. Sure, that sounds like progress to me.

SR2 was supposed to be fed-proof. They apparently strengthened security measures, de-centralized escrow, backed up and hid copies of the source code so they can re-load the website soon after it gets taken down. So where did they fuck up? This idiot by the name of "defcon" didn't know how to keep a goddamn secret.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

 

[adder]

That makes sense up to a certain point, but if drugs were legalized, then the wealth they created after legalization in such things as taxes and generally benefitting the economy would more than dwarf that to be made now by law enforcement or drug cartels.

In other words, yes, keeping drugs illegal makes police make more in fines and seizures and allows the large scale black market financial backers of the drug trade to maximize profits, but drugs would be such a big industry if legalized, taxed, and sold over the counter at Wal-Mart that its profits would make the police and cartels' profits of today look paltry by comparison.

On the flip side, more people than ever would be getting high overall, on a wider variety of substances than ever before, and this is the one thing the sobriety police cannot abide by. That, and they point to 'moral decay.' There is also the 'fear of the unknown' factor. And the 'what about the children!' card.

However, any pandemonium--such as tripping teenagers running wild on the streets at night--that might immediately ensue after the large scale, full legalization of all drugs would quickly subside as drug users' societies gradually learned to incorporate drug x, y, and z into each's moral fabric of acceptable social mores.

If drugs were legalised, then it would be much harder to make the money made on them legally shift to certain people. If they're kept illegal and the money float around underground anyway, it's much easier to publicly say that clean money are gone into the black market (and it's even unknown how much there was...) and one can do with that money whatever one wishes to.

 

[Jabberwocky]

That makes sense up to a certain point, but if drugs were legalized, then the wealth they created after legalization in such things as taxes and generally benefitting the economy would more than dwarf that to be made now by law enforcement or drug cartels.

In the context of the "some want drugs to remain illegal, because they profit via jobs/funding, or even direct involvement in, the drug trade", you're missing something that invalidates that^. Namely, while ending prohibition benefits the economy-at-large, these benefits are not realized by the same groups. For instance, it certainly hurts anyone whose primary financial interests involve high incarceration rates, it hurts anyone whose livelihood&purpose is rooted in capturing drugs&users, and it hurts anyone who sells 'drugs' who will not make the same profits were things legalized (this includes cartels, pharma companies, etc)

 

[Jabberwocky]

I feel dumb. I do t understend this darknet shit.I sure wish I did though. Life would be easier.

reddit has a handful of incredibly useful subreddits for you, if you google you'll be able to find them and learn a lot.

I know but i can't figure out how to access. I'm not very computer savvy

well, you'll need to fix that or find someone irl to help you... if you're the type that cannot figure out email, you're probably not going to find this 'making your life easier' lol

 

[Dystopia35]

reddit has a handful of incredibly useful subreddits for you, if you google you'll be able to find them and learn a lot.



well, you'll need to fix that or find someone irl to help you... if you're the type that cannot figure out email, you're probably not going to find this 'making your life easier' lol

No I'm not an idiot. I am just new to this lol. I'm used to getting what I want the old fashioned way but the am tired of risking getting into trouble.

 

[PlayHard]

^ So hope this new Silk Road is legit, that would just be too funny, the Feds put all that time and money into closing down 2.0 and literally one day later another one opens up. I don't know much about these dark web drug markets but it does seem to me there is a reasonable likelihood that SR 3.0 coming out this quickly could be a scam, I suppose only time will tell.

lets hope there isnt already a rat part of the SR 3 team + the owner/creator isnt a dumb fuck american script kiddie who thinks he's invincible? (yet use's his personal email?)