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The Dark Web Still Thrives After Silk Road
HughPickens.com writes: Russell Berman writes at The Atlantic that the government may have won its case against Silk Road's Ross Ulbricht, but the high-profile trial gave a lot of publicity to the dark web. Both the number of sites and the volume of people using them have increased since Silk Road was shuttered. "Just as on the rest of the internet, users on the dark net are very quick to move on to new things and move away from those products and websites that seem stale and old," says Adam Benson. The cat-and-mouse game between users of the dark web and law enforcement appears to be shifting as well. Newer dark sites (two major ones are Agora and Evolution) are likely to protect their servers by basing them in countries "hostile to U.S. law enforcement," says Nicholas Weaver. "The markets will keep moving overseas, but law enforcement will keep going after the dealers," Weaver says, referring to the people who actually ship and deliver the drugs sold online.
Evolution Marketplace is a much different animal than Silk Road, according to Dan Palumbo. Evolution sells "weapons, stolen credit cards, and more nefarious items that were forbidden on both versions of Silk Road. Silk Road sold a lot of dangerous things, but operators drew the line at their version of 'victimless crimes,' i.e. no child pornography, weapons, or identity theft. Now, four of the top five DarkNet Marketplaces sell weapons while three of the top five sell stolen financial data." This is a darker DarkNet and it speaks to the challenge facing law enforcement as they knock one set of bad actors offline, another comes along with bigger and bolder intentions.
Evolution Marketplace is a much different animal than Silk Road, according to Dan Palumbo. Evolution sells "weapons, stolen credit cards, and more nefarious items that were forbidden on both versions of Silk Road. Silk Road sold a lot of dangerous things, but operators drew the line at their version of 'victimless crimes,' i.e. no child pornography, weapons, or identity theft. Now, four of the top five DarkNet Marketplaces sell weapons while three of the top five sell stolen financial data." This is a darker DarkNet and it speaks to the challenge facing law enforcement as they knock one set of bad actors offline, another comes along with bigger and bolder intentions.
I can tell everyone with certainty that dark web markerplaces are all bogus and they shouldn't even bother lookimg. You'll just get lots of malware, infested with botnets and get your identity stolen. Here be dragons, abandon all hope ye who enter. Bitcoins are a pyramid scheme and also might carry the measles virus. Basically really nothing to talk about if you know what I mean.
seems to be the delivery channel . I mean seriously, who would like to recieve a package of contraband delivered !! to an address !!! ... True blue anonymity is still far away ... ( resistance is futile kinda situation for now )
Anonymity in all its forms can be used for nefarious purposes. Isn't that right, Mr. Anonymous Coward?
Some say that anonymity is a fundamental right, like free speech. Free speech allows people to say bad things, and anonymity allows them do do bad things online, but in both cases, curtailing those rights is not an option, and does more harm than good besides. For some, running a TOR node or contributing to such projects is their way of asserting the right to anonymity, which is indeed for the greater good.
In addition, making providers of a platform (be it TOR, and ISP, or a discussion board) responsible for the content being moved over that platform is rather impractical. If such responsibility is legally enforced, it'll be the end of the open Internet. And of privacy and encryption, by the way (though I see a new market for steganography)
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Some say that anonymity is a fundamental right, like free speech.
Some say that there's no such thing, but that free speech is necessary if you want a free society, and that anonymity is necessary for free speech, thus it should be protected.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Bullshit. I ran an exit node for quite a while and look at me, posting here, with no convictions for anything other than driving with a license I didn't realize had expired (which, IMO is a petty thing to haul a person into court over, the entire justice system really is a jobs program).
So nice try but, the only reason I stopped running an exit node was the hassle involved from anti-spammers. Even though my exit node didn't allow exit on port 25 or any other mail related ports except pop and imap.... even though.... sometimes the operators of other mail servers get a bug in their ass about accepting mail from a tor exit node.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Well forged IDs are not necessarily used for a crime with a victim, they don't have to be in a real persons name, and if a bank account is all thats opened well. A person using a fake id to rent servers, who pays up front for the service isn't victimizing anyone.
As for weapons....lol I wonder if any were even sold. I bet that entire darkweb site was just cops buying stuff from cops trying to sting eachother.
Also, weapons are a persons right to bear, the US constitution recognizes that as a right more fundamental than itself saying the right "will not be infringed". So as long as he is being tried in the US, any weapons charge would be hypocritical and unconstitutional (which of course, means it will happen because, we are not actually a nation of laws)
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
If you create an anonymity network, those of us who have worked in forensics know the depravity and criminality that it will attract
If you create a law enforcement framework which hoards power jealously and does its best to prevent openness, those of us who are thoughtful citizens know the depravity and criminality that it will attract.
If you want to run an anonymity network - dont be so naive as to say it's for the greater good.
If you want to run an organized crime network, don't be so disingenuous as to say it's for the greater good.
I note that you're hiding behind anonymity, and that you're a depraved criminal, so I guess that there's something to what you say...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I looked into how this can possibly work. Apparently they go to the post office and send their drug shipment with priority mail. WHAT THE HELL?! So spend like $50,000 on one drug sniffing dog at each major USPS hub. Problem solved. Then when those idiots resort to in-person trades, arrest them in sting operations. How has the FBI not figured this out yet?!
So, what do you do? Rip open every package the dog alerts to? What about the false positives? Would you like to risk having your package destroyed every time you mailed one? Do you realize how much mail goes through the USPS every day? How much do you think inspecting every package would slow things down? Do you know the Constitution only allows searches with a warrant describing the place to be searched and the object of the search? Have I asked enough questions for one reply? How about one more?
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)