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

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

#151
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're insane. His site facilitated numerous drug deals for profit. He also paid bitcoin in what he thought was a hit-job (he was duped). This dumbass can rot in prison. Screw him.

There is nothing wrong with facilitating drug deals and there is not a shred of evidence to support the other allegation. An allegation from the US government means absolutely nothing to me. It's also quite ironic that an organization that has assassinated numerous people are attempting to destroy the reputation of one of their enemies by claiming that he attempted to assassinate somebody.

> It's also quite ironic that an organization that has assassinated numerous people are attempting to destroy the reputation of one of their enemies by claiming that he attempted to assassinate somebody.

The United States Government (USG) enjoys a monopoly of violence (consent of the governed). However, a citizen (or group of them -- org/corp) does not enjoy such rights. Your comparison is invalidated.

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

#152
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing wrong with facilitating drug deals and there is not a shred of evidence to support the other allegation. An allegation from the US government means absolutely nothing to me. It's also quite ironic that an organization that has assassinated numerous people are attempting to destroy the reputation of one of their enemies by claiming that he attempted to assassinate somebody.

> It's also quite ironic that an organization that has assassinated numerous people are attempting to destroy the reputation of one of their enemies by claiming that he attempted to assassinate somebody. The United States Government (USG) enjoys a monopoly of violence (consent of the governed). However, a citizen (or group of them -- org/corp) does not enjoy such rights. Your comparison is invalidated.

Ignoring the fact that many of the people assassinated by the US government where not US citizens and never set foot on anything the US government claimed as territory...

Who exactly is consenting to be governed? I know I'm not consenting but I also know that some other people support the government that purports to govern them. Is it enough for one person to consent or does something magic happen at a particular number or portion?

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

#153
post #86

Isn't it rather trivial to find who is accessing a website if you can manage to monitor tor nodes? Just do some heuristic, to see when traffic happens, and over time, narrow down users. If you're the FBI and have the authority to monitor the whole internet, isn't it trivial to catch any tor user? Tor is still secure, but of course if you are the government and have skilled engineers, time and admin access to the inte…

This would be more NSA jurisdiction and they do. The problem is most people's assumption is that if one part of the government has it, then everyone gets it. This is wildly false. Even within the FBI itself, different departments and cases get different tiers of access. Even when the case agents get access, policy dictates what evidence is allowed to be taken to a public trial. Otherwise you get repeats of the FBI/4c…

This is not accurate. The NSA launders evidence that would otherwise violate the 4th amendment through its "special operations division" using "parallel construction".

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

#154
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also quite ironic that an organization that has assassinated numerous people are attempting to destroy the reputation of one of their enemies by claiming that he attempted to assassinate somebody. The United States Government (USG) enjoys a monopoly of violence (consent of the governed). However, a citizen (or group of them -- org/corp) does not enjoy such rights. Your comparison is invalidated.

Ignoring the fact that many of the people assassinated by the US government where not US citizens and never set foot on anything the US government claimed as territory... Who exactly is consenting to be governed? I know I'm not consenting but I also know that some other people support the government that purports to govern them. Is it enough for one person to consent or does something magic happen at a particular num…

> Is it enough for one person to consent or does something magic happen at a particular number or portion?

Nah. We have these things called elections (and representational democracy). In general that mechanism decides how society will progress forward from a political perspective.

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

#155
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the fact that many of the people assassinated by the US government where not US citizens and never set foot on anything the US government claimed as territory... Who exactly is consenting to be governed? I know I'm not consenting but I also know that some other people support the government that purports to govern them. Is it enough for one person to consent or does something magic happen at a particular num…

> Is it enough for one person to consent or does something magic happen at a particular number or portion? Nah. We have these things called elections (and representational democracy). In general that mechanism decides how society will progress forward from a political perspective.

Imagine this hypothetical scenario:

The US government, acting in accordance with its constitution invades and occupies Canada. Congress creates 13 new states corresponding to the previous provinces and territories and elections are held. Almost all of the elected members from the newly annexed areas are opposed to the annexation and introduce a bill to allow the 13 new states to secede from the US but the bill is overwhelmingly defeated by members of Congress from the other 50 states.

Does the US government in this scenario enjoy the consent of the governed?

If they do, imagine that the original US population was more split on the issue so that the secession bill would have passed with Canada divided into 13 states. However the pre-annexation Congress anticipated this and resolved to make Canada a single state that would consequently not have sufficient representation to pass the bill even with the support of opponents from some of the other 50 states.

Does the US government still enjoy the consent of the governed in the second scenario?

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

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To people who were paying attention to the wishful thinking at the time about tor's security guarantees, it doesn't seem so incredible.

Sure, but even if you assumed Tor was perfectly secure, there are still other ways of being exposed (like someone causing your web server to issue a network request to a host they control). No matter one's assumptions, it makes no sense to me that someone would register a VPS with their own information when it's pretty trivial to do so anonymously. Especially if you're running an illegal content hosting empire. DPR's…

They supposedly caught on to him by connecting an email address associated with DPR to his real-world identity. Wouldn't surprise me if that was an ex post facto lie concocted to conceal the true method, though.

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

#157
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tor was created to help dissidents of other nations communicate [1] Why would the US Navy develop something to help dissidents in other nations? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)#Histor... > The core principle of Tor, "onion routing", was developed in the mid-1990s by United States Naval Research Laboratory employees, mathematician Paul Syverson, and computer scientists Michael G. Reed and D…

Congrats on pulling up a wikipedia article. You are now an expert.

Not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just capable of doing the most basic of research, which is something you probably should have done before commenting.
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