How a Tax Inspector Used Google Search To Locate the Founder of SilkRoad (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: You could buy any drug imaginable, wherever you were in the world, on the Silk Road website. Hidden on the dark web, it made millions of dollars every week. The US government had been trying to shut it down for more than two years when tax agent Gary Alford was brought in to try to trace the money which passed through the site. In his spare time, Gary started searching Google to try to find the mysterious mastermind behind the site: Dread Pirate Roberts. And he was successful. Gary spent hours trawling the internet for the first ever mention of Silk Road. He says he came across a posting on Bitcoin forum. In the post, Roberts had shared his Gmail account. That escalated the investigation. Gary spoke with BBC describing the rest.

Comments

Video?

[Anonymous Coward]

No one is going to watch a stupid video for this.

Re:Video?

[Gaygirlie]

Pretty much. As soon as I noticed it was a video I just simply closed the tab in disgust. Videos are great and all for content where there is some visual content that'd be difficult to convey properly in textual form, but... talking heads ain't that.

Re:Video?

[Mashiki]

Video like this is the "it's millinial's thus, hot shit in their demographic market" just like it was supposed to be for gen-xer's in 2002.

Re:Video?

[LordWabbit2]

What's annoying about videos is the wadsworth constant where the first 30% of a video is not worth watching because it contains nothing relevant to why you are watching the video in the first place. It's waffle about their other videos and pleas to subscribe etc. etc. You used to be able to add &wadsworth=1 to a youtube url, but the last time I tried it didn't work anymore.

The other reason I prefer reading to watching someone with a lisp trying to explain something, is that I read WAY faster than they can talk (without sounding like Mickey Mouse) so if I am skimming a wall of text scanning for something it's faster and I don't waste 10~15 minutes of my life before realizing the video does not have the information I am looking for.

The annoying part is everyone wants to be a youtube star, so more and more I have to sit through some twat waffling about his cat.

Maybe the real lesson is paranoia

[DickBreath]

When you first want to unveil something like this, think ahead more. Don't get caught up in the excitement of your creation.

Use a new computer (hint, they're cheap these days, even a Raspberry Pi). Use a browser in the most anonymous mode, within a VM. Connect to the internet using an anonymous WiFi. Create a new account on the forum simply for the unveiling event. Wipe the VM and maybe even the entire computer when you're done. If the computer was a Pi, simply dispose of the SD card. Use a USB WiFi dongle, not the computer's built in WiFI -- and then dispose of the WiFI dongle when done. Use a pre-composed message for your announcement. Make sure it is not in your typical writing style and vocabulary. Don't compose the message on another computer. Maybe on a yellow paper tablet that is easily disposed of.

Maybe that sounds too paranoid. After all, they're not out to get you.

Re:Maybe the real lesson is paranoia

[hey!]

And never, ever, ever make a mistake. Mistakes never go away.

What's in addition point mistakes, where you reveal a single, discrete detail that identifies you, there are cumulative mistakes, where you release enough enough information over time; innocuous details that crosschecked with each other can locate you in time and space.

Even your writing style and subject matter can identify you. That's how they caught the Unabomber, through content and style of his manifesto. Keep your communications terse, business-like and confine them to the point, and avoid regionalisms.

If you must argue politics, use sock puppet accounts.

Best part of the story

[Bill Hayden]

Librarian: I texted my son, "...a bunch of FBI agents just came in and busted a guy." My son knew exactly what Silk Road was! (nervous laugh) I don't know why he knew that.

Comedy gold.

Really?

[nospam007]

"searching Google to try to find the mysterious mastermind behind the site: Dread Pirate Roberts."

Inconceivable!

Re:What mastermind?

[king neckbeard]

From a technical standpoint, Amazon isn't particularly exceptional as a website, or at least it wasn't until it had enough volume that major innovations were needed to handle the load.

Being a large presence on the internet often consists of creating the first "good enough" site for a particular niche.