Sure it does. There's just a new DPR running the place now. It's not the same code as SR1.0, but it looks very similar and provides the same functionality.
It's not going to go away until drug prohibition is ended.
It won't go away then. The illegal marketplaces will move to selling child porn, illegal weapons, or whatever else the government won't let people provide openly. The people that run these sites are not risking jail time to help reform outdated notions of what drugs are, they are in it for the money.
As I understand it the law says they can take the cash, or in this case bitcoins, and unless someone can prove that the cash was in no way involved in any crime the police get to keep it and spend it. This law has been horribly misused many times in the past.
In this case it's highly likely this is drug money but even so they don't need to wait until that's proven in court.
On a physically secure machine (ATMs with heavy gauge steel armor on all sides) that's not connected to the internet.... who cares if it's running an old OS? They could run DOS and Win 3.11 for that matter without a problem.
Well there was that story about criminal gangs sawing though that steel and cracking the machines with USB keys. They made many millions.
Democracy creates these idiots. The problem is that politicians are expected to have opinions on everything, yet it's impossible to know everything. These people end up making decisions on things they understand little or nothing about.
There are legitimate uses for torrents, but demonoid wasn't about distributing Linux iso's or other open source projects. It was about pirating movies and music.
The US dollar does carry the signature of the Treasury secretary of the US government, and a big stick to whack you if you try to make one which looks the same.
North Korea has been printing US dollars for many years without consequence. That just could not happen with Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is like Bansky, You don't even know who started it but it's got value because it's an original concept. Copycats can be made by anyone with even less consequences.
I do agree that rip-off crap like Litecoin and all the other Bitcoin copies are cynical scams trying to rip off the success of Bitcoin. There is just no need for a clone of something that already exists like there is no need for 1s44c dollars.
I find that odd, cash isn't that inconvenient and it is accepted absolutely everywhere even when the electricity or phone lines are down. For small purchases it seems easier to me than all the hassle of using a card. The UK has contactless cards that are easier than cash but few places take them and the security is questionable.
What about the network over which you download the file that contains those hashes?
You could buy a CD but then you would say what about the postal system. I can't argue against you because you are right. But you have to make an assumption of trustworthiness somewhere.
Many news articles in mainstream media have pointed out that it is a non-denial. If RSA Security was innocent, it would be the easy to just issue a new press release saying unambiguously that no contract existed. Why hasn't RSA Security done that?
It doesn't have to have been done as part of a conventional contract. They would deny the contract exists and not that they did the thing in question.
RSA can't be trusted unless they use absolutely clear phrasing, and even they they could be lying under orders from the NSA.
If I hold a gun to your head and tell you to give me your wallet or I blow your brains out and you give me said wallet.. Well that's not a contract or a project.
If the NSA walk into RSA headquarters and tell the boss he and all his senior management are going down for a long time for tax evasion unless they use a NSA created random number generator.. Well that's not a contact or project either.
Only we can't know that. It's entirely possible that all this and more had been stolen from the NSA countless times before Snowden made their crappy internal security an undeniable fact.
If the Russians, Chinese, or who knows who else already got knowledge on how to exploit this weakness they would be quietly using it and we would never know.
But the NSA left masses of top secret stuff lying around where Snowden could find it. You are wrong in saying he 'stumbled' across it though, he acted unethically and broke serious laws to serve what he saw as a greater good.
Linux has some security issues from time to time and isn't perfect. But Windows has a very bad security history and it's a known fact that the NSA are advised of every security issue MS know about before any other MS customers. The NSA tried to get backdoors in Linux and failed, do you think they failed with closed source windows? Unlikely.
If Linux isn't secure enough for you then you might like OpenBSD.
I've done it for many years, it's not so hard. Spamassassin + greylisting + spamhaus DNSBL + SPF checking keep the spam down to a very small amount. The little spam I do get is tagged and filtered into a separate folder. You do need a lot to different anti-spam measures but once they are set-up they keep on working.
Don't use windows. Even if you don't believe the NSA backdoored windows the NSA do get every bug alert long before anyone else does. They also have no problem using script kiddie tactics.
Using windows is like storing your data in a transparent bag in full view of the world.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure it does. There's just a new DPR running the place now. It's not the same code as SR1.0, but it looks very similar and provides the same functionality.
It's not going to go away until drug prohibition is ended.
It won't go away then. The illegal marketplaces will move to selling child porn, illegal weapons, or whatever else the government won't let people provide openly. The people that run these sites are not risking jail time to help reform outdated notions of what drugs are, they are in it for the money.
As I understand it the law says they can take the cash, or in this case bitcoins, and unless someone can prove that the cash was in no way involved in any crime the police get to keep it and spend it. This law has been horribly misused many times in the past.
In this case it's highly likely this is drug money but even so they don't need to wait until that's proven in court.
Or the US government pushes the price down and lots of people buy in with the expectation that it will go up again.
This might help spread BTC around to more people.
On a physically secure machine (ATMs with heavy gauge steel armor on all sides) that's not connected to the internet.... who cares if it's running an old OS? They could run DOS and Win 3.11 for that matter without a problem.
Well there was that story about criminal gangs sawing though that steel and cracking the machines with USB keys. They made many millions.
Nobody has ever managed to get money out of MS for bugs in spite of many billions in economic damage due to security problems.
Security, stability, reliability, and performance problems. Security isn't the only thing MS suck at.
Just cluing in that Democrazy is a BAD thing?
That's oversimplifying it, but any system that puts people in charge of making serious decisions about things they know little about isn't good.
Democracy creates these idiots. The problem is that politicians are expected to have opinions on everything, yet it's impossible to know everything. These people end up making decisions on things they understand little or nothing about.
There are legitimate uses for torrents, but demonoid wasn't about distributing Linux iso's or other open source projects. It was about pirating movies and music.
The network checks for double spends and rejects them, that's kind of the point of the thing. It is built to be resistant to attacks.
The US dollar does carry the signature of the Treasury secretary of the US government, and a big stick to whack you if you try to make one which looks the same.
North Korea has been printing US dollars for many years without consequence. That just could not happen with Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is like Bansky, You don't even know who started it but it's got value because it's an original concept. Copycats can be made by anyone with even less consequences.
I do agree that rip-off crap like Litecoin and all the other Bitcoin copies are cynical scams trying to rip off the success of Bitcoin. There is just no need for a clone of something that already exists like there is no need for 1s44c dollars.
I find that odd, cash isn't that inconvenient and it is accepted absolutely everywhere even when the electricity or phone lines are down. For small purchases it seems easier to me than all the hassle of using a card. The UK has contactless cards that are easier than cash but few places take them and the security is questionable.
I guess they will start siezing wood furniture from Ikea now, since,, you know, wood is an agricultural product.
Since when is Ikea furniture made out of wood?
MDF does contain some wood.
What about the network over which you download the file that contains those hashes?
You could buy a CD but then you would say what about the postal system. I can't argue against you because you are right. But you have to make an assumption of trustworthiness somewhere.
Many news articles in mainstream media have pointed out that it is a non-denial. If RSA Security was innocent, it would be the easy to just issue a new press release saying unambiguously that no contract existed. Why hasn't RSA Security done that?
It doesn't have to have been done as part of a conventional contract. They would deny the contract exists and not that they did the thing in question.
RSA can't be trusted unless they use absolutely clear phrasing, and even they they could be lying under orders from the NSA.
If I hold a gun to your head and tell you to give me your wallet or I blow your brains out and you give me said wallet.. Well that's not a contract or a project.
If the NSA walk into RSA headquarters and tell the boss he and all his senior management are going down for a long time for tax evasion unless they use a NSA created random number generator.. Well that's not a contact or project either.
Only we can't know that. It's entirely possible that all this and more had been stolen from the NSA countless times before Snowden made their crappy internal security an undeniable fact.
If the Russians, Chinese, or who knows who else already got knowledge on how to exploit this weakness they would be quietly using it and we would never know.
But the NSA left masses of top secret stuff lying around where Snowden could find it. You are wrong in saying he 'stumbled' across it though, he acted unethically and broke serious laws to serve what he saw as a greater good.
Theo de Raadt.
OpenBSD is trustworthy but you have to be suspicious of the BIOS it runs under and every network it connects to.
That's funny and creative but not really on-topic.
Linux has some security issues from time to time and isn't perfect. But Windows has a very bad security history and it's a known fact that the NSA are advised of every security issue MS know about before any other MS customers. The NSA tried to get backdoors in Linux and failed, do you think they failed with closed source windows? Unlikely.
If Linux isn't secure enough for you then you might like OpenBSD.
I've done it for many years, it's not so hard. Spamassassin + greylisting + spamhaus DNSBL + SPF checking keep the spam down to a very small amount. The little spam I do get is tagged and filtered into a separate folder. You do need a lot to different anti-spam measures but once they are set-up they keep on working.
It's really not a fuckload of work. It's a load of work to set it up and very little ongoing work to keep it updated.
It's really not for everyone but this is slashdot isn't it?
Solution: Don't have friends.
Or have the kind of friends that are not government spies. It's sad that the NSA's lawless actions make anyone that paranoid.
They are not gods, they are bound to the same laws of physics as everyone else.
They can't break strong encryption. They can break light encryption at a heavy cost in time and equipment just like anyone else can.
Don't use windows. Even if you don't believe the NSA backdoored windows the NSA do get every bug alert long before anyone else does. They also have no problem using script kiddie tactics.
Using windows is like storing your data in a transparent bag in full view of the world.