Tracking the Mole Inside Silk Road 2.0

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Tracking the Mole Inside Silk Road 2.0

Posted by Soulskill on Friday December 12, 2014 @05:21AM from the doomed-from-day-one dept.

derekmead writes: The arrest of the Silk Road 2.0 leader and subsequent seizure of the site was partially due to the presence of an undercover U.S. Department of Homeland Security agent, who "successfully infiltrated the support staff involved in running the Silk Road 2.0 website," according to the FBI.

Referencing multiple interviews, publicly available information, and parts of the moderator forum shared with me, it appears likely that the suspicions of many involved in Silk Road 2.0 are true: the undercover agent that infiltrated the site was a relatively quiet staff member known as Cirrus.

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Cirrusly? by turkeydance · 2014-12-12 05:24 · Score: 2, Funny

whose relative?
blow their minds by slashmydots · 2014-12-12 05:31 · Score: 4, Funny

If I ran a secret tor service site thing, I'd had 5 moderators and 1 administrator and they'd all be me just to mess with people's heads. That would prevent moles.
1. Re:blow their minds by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-12 05:39 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  until one of your psyche's turned on you.
2. Re:blow their minds by ultranova · 2014-12-12 05:40 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  If I ran a secret tor service site thing, I'd had 5 moderators and 1 administrator and they'd all be me just to mess with people's heads. That would prevent moles.
  
  If I ran a secret tor site, I wouldn't publicly post my security practices, especially on a non-Tor site that doesn't even use SSL. That's the most important security...
  Oh, crap.
  
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3. Re: blow their minds by wisnoskij · 2014-12-12 05:50 · Score: 2
  
  Garibaldi?
  
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4. Re:blow their minds by jythie · 2014-12-12 06:18 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Question is, can you do 6 times the work, or just hexth ass all the jobs?
5. Re:blow their minds by TheCarp · 2014-12-12 09:29 · Score: 2
  
  If I ran a secret tor site, I wouldn't register the servers with my email address based on my real name.
  
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  "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Lucky grab by kamapuaa · 2014-12-12 05:33 · Score: 5, Funny

According to the FBI complaint against Benthall, he registered the black market bazaar's servers with the email address blake@benthall.net.
Lucky they had a mole on this inside, or they never could've taken down that criminal mastermind.

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1. Re:Lucky grab by hey! · 2014-12-12 06:47 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  What makes you think they took down the criminal mastermind?
  Remember this is the government we recently learned abducted a German citizen, beat him, chained him in the Salt Pit where he was rectally violated, only to learn they'd snatched a vacationing car salesman who happened to have the same common Arabic name as the guy they actually wanted. It was like kidnapping and anally raping "John Smiths" until you found the one you wanted.
  
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2. Re:Lucky grab by hey! · 2014-12-12 08:39 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  What it has in common is that the government isn't infallible. It should have to prove its case before it anally rapes anyone.
  
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3. Re:Lucky grab by TheCarp · 2014-12-12 09:37 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Well I think he is saying we can trust them about as far as we can throw a battleship.
  Certainly is evidence that the people in charge, up to the highest levels, don't seem bound by any sense of duty to their own laws, or really any sense of justice. I mean, bad enough they broke the law and tortured people, but, the wrong people? And the only response was to cover it up? Now....now we are to take their statements on other issues at face value?
  Thing is, it gets worst. We have the DEA having openly claimed in the past that they believe Parallel construction is perfectly acceptible practice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
  Based on that alone ANY claim they make as to the investigation and ESPECIALLY to where information was obtained is suspect....they have admitted openly they will fabricate the origin of information, and go so far as to present that fabrication to prosecution and the courts.
  
  --
  "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Re:Seeing this information so widely disseminated by CaptainDork · 2014-12-12 05:41 · Score: 4, Funny

Seeing this just serves to remind me that criminals are dumb.

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Re:Seeing this information so widely disseminated by oodaloop · 2014-12-12 05:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

The criminals that are caught are dumb. You never even knew the smart ones were there.

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Old fashioned detective work by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2014-12-12 06:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is how I want our 3-letter agencies to be doing their jobs, rather than actively working to sacrifice everyone's privacy and safety just because it might make it slightly easier to nail a small number of criminals.

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Re:The Internet works again! by wile_e_wonka · 2014-12-12 06:08 · Score: 5, Informative

This is veering offtopic, but, according to this article, thepiratebay.cr is not to be trusted, if I am understanding it correctly:

Various mirror sites of The Pirate Bay have sprung up since the site’s disappearance, but this one is different. Some alternatives simply provide a copy of The Pirate Bay with no new content (many proxy sites have been doing this for years). Others, like thepiratebay.cr, go further and even provide fake content as if it was new and even attempt to charge users.
Probably any torrent site is not to be easily trusted, but I could imagine hackers setting up a lookalike site in order to get people who should know better to download problematic stuff. Heck, maybe the CIA set it up.
Re:Protective custody by mythosaz · 2014-12-12 06:14 · Score: 2

For all we know, the speculation and guesses in the article are complete misses.
There's nothing even approaching evidence in the Vice article.
No, it wasn't Cirrus... by Sowelu · 2014-12-12 06:19 · Score: 4, Funny

...it was his brother, Achenar. He's demented, he is guilty!
Re:Protective custody by jythie · 2014-12-12 06:23 · Score: 2

The risk is probably very low. If, as an organization, they were capable of taking reprisals against the FBI, they could just as easily take them against any number of publicly known faces involves in the case, or the judge, or the prosecutor, etc.
Re:Seeing this information so widely disseminated by marcello_dl · 2014-12-12 06:34 · Score: 5, Funny

> criminals are dumb
Indeed, They put faith in Cirrus after all the warnings about not trusting the Cloud.

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Re:Seeing this information so widely disseminated by currently_awake · 2014-12-12 06:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

This is why the police win, they just wait for the criminals to make mistakes. Police are not paid enough to attract the top talent, they win by statistics.