Live data from Hacker News

A dark web tycoon pleads guilty, but how was he caught?

technologyreview.com

91–100 of 157 posts

Re: A dark web tycoon pleads guilty, but how was he caught?

#91

This report came out only a few months before he was caught: https://www.reddit.com/r/onions/comments/1guiav/we_have_anal... He was likely de-anonymized through this technique or similar. The issue was that he trusted the Tor network to keep him anonymous and paid for the servers with his real identity.

"https://www.reddit.com/r/onions/comments/1guiav/we_have_anal...

We have analyzed for those wondering!

Re: A dark web tycoon pleads guilty, but how was he caught?

#92

Running a hosting server for onion services, as was done in this case, is a terrible idea. It greatly increases the risk of deanonymization. The question is less how this hosting service was discovered and more how it ever stayed up long enough to become so notorious. Here's why: 1. Each hidden service chooses a "guard" relay to serve as the first hop for all connections. 2. A server running multiple hidden services…

Interesting. Looking for more info on what you were talking about (with regard to "guards"), I dug up this post[1] which has some info too. [1]: https://blog.torproject.org/announcing-vanguards-add-onion-s...

The page you link describes "vanguards" which apply the guard logic to positions beyond the first hop. They are only available as a plug-in that you must separately download and configure. My understanding is that no plans currently exist to integrate vanguards into Tor due to cost of engineering challenges that appear if everybody were to use them (including especially how they would affect load balancing).

Re: A dark web tycoon pleads guilty, but how was he caught?

#94

This sounds fishy. He probably pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal, so law enforcement has a scapegoat and some meaningless "media success" in exchange for him getting a drastically reduced sentencing. They always do that, threaten people with insane penalties if they don't accept so shitty plea deal and if you are not super certain that you can win, you will likely accept that one, just because it seems "safer". T…

As a side note: Promise (YC startup) was also saying that 70% of people in jails are waiting for judgement or are in for a technical violation (ex: did not show up to a hearing). And being in jails they end up losing their job, eventually they lose their house etc. This is a space with a lot of low hanging fruits. And minor fixes may end up doing a lot of good.

It's not so simple.

Why do we have education?

Firstly, because there's needed some way to filter people. If you get 100 applicants, you can't make a detailed consideration. But if only 30 have degrees, it's much easier. So there is a signalling effect.

But secondly, and more importantly, because you need somewhere to have these kids. If there's ten million jobs and ten million two hundred thousand jobs, you'll get problems. This is also why many countries had military service, to further improve on the unemployment figures.

"We didn't raise [the school leaving age] to enable them to learn more! We raised it to keep teenagers off the job market and hold down the unemployment figures."

Prison is just a logical extension of this. If they weren't in prison, they would be unemployed and causing all sorts of trouble.

Re: A dark web tycoon pleads guilty, but how was he caught?

#95
post #59
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should they? I know of no such law or theory. They have a burden of proof regarding the correctness of evidence and the defence can question the legality of collection methods if the evidence gets used in court. As far as I know, that's about it.

Does chain of custody have anything to do with this? I know in some computer forensics work it is important to be able to prove evidence has not been tampered with. So for example, cracking hashes instead of working with encrypted data can create safe space for non-leo to work without undermining an investigation. For example, a case of illegal doping, the accused Pearson’s samples must be able to be shown to not hav…

Chain of custody is one tool used to satisfy part of the burden of proof regarding correctness of the evidence. There are others like sworn testimony or corroborating evidence.

This only is meaningful in a courtroom situation, a lot of "evidence" never sees the courtroom and is merely used as information to help the investigation.

Re: A dark web tycoon pleads guilty, but how was he caught?

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a side note: Promise (YC startup) was also saying that 70% of people in jails are waiting for judgement or are in for a technical violation (ex: did not show up to a hearing). And being in jails they end up losing their job, eventually they lose their house etc. This is a space with a lot of low hanging fruits. And minor fixes may end up doing a lot of good.

It's not so simple. Why do we have education? Firstly, because there's needed some way to filter people. If you get 100 applicants, you can't make a detailed consideration. But if only 30 have degrees, it's much easier. So there is a signalling effect. But secondly, and more importantly, because you need somewhere to have these kids. If there's ten million jobs and ten million two hundred thousand jobs, you'll get pr…

You might be responding to the wrong post.

Re: A dark web tycoon pleads guilty, but how was he caught?

#97

Running a hosting server for onion services, as was done in this case, is a terrible idea. It greatly increases the risk of deanonymization. The question is less how this hosting service was discovered and more how it ever stayed up long enough to become so notorious. Here's why: 1. Each hidden service chooses a "guard" relay to serve as the first hop for all connections. 2. A server running multiple hidden services…

Interesting. Looking for more info on what you were talking about (with regard to "guards"), I dug up this post[1] which has some info too. [1]: https://blog.torproject.org/announcing-vanguards-add-onion-s...

This is probably the best description of how Tor uses guards: https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/tree/guard-spec.tx....

Re: A dark web tycoon pleads guilty, but how was he caught?

#98
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so simple. Why do we have education? Firstly, because there's needed some way to filter people. If you get 100 applicants, you can't make a detailed consideration. But if only 30 have degrees, it's much easier. So there is a signalling effect. But secondly, and more importantly, because you need somewhere to have these kids. If there's ten million jobs and ten million two hundred thousand jobs, you'll get pr…

You might be responding to the wrong post.

[deleted]

Re: A dark web tycoon pleads guilty, but how was he caught?

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am merely give my opinion, but a service created by the US government/Military is going to have undocumented "issues". I would not trust it one shred.

Tor is open source: https://www.torproject.org/download/tor/ So, no undocumented issues.

Yes, it is Open Source of course, by undocumented I refer to vulnerabilities that are not documented or found in the open yet. The best yardstick out there is to say 'would Edward Snowden use/recommend it?'.

Edit: https://edwardsnowden.com/docs/doc/tor-stinks-presentation.p...

Re: A dark web tycoon pleads guilty, but how was he caught?

#100

This sounds fishy. He probably pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal, so law enforcement has a scapegoat and some meaningless "media success" in exchange for him getting a drastically reduced sentencing. They always do that, threaten people with insane penalties if they don't accept so shitty plea deal and if you are not super certain that you can win, you will likely accept that one, just because it seems "safer". T…

    > Land of the free (as long as you are rich, that is).
What did you think "capitalism" meant? Rule of those with capital.
Post reply on HN