There is cool interesting feature — two factor auth. But not your usual one.
It ask you to decrypt random string encrypted with your public GPG key (you provide it in prefs).
Silk Road 2.0 Launches
51–60 of 243 posts
Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches
#52I'd never buy heroin from a website, but I see the Silk Road as cyber-civil-disobedience, and I hope the persona of DPR and the site itself are as unsinkable as they claim. The drug war is a ghastly thing, and the number of people we lock up in the US is more shameful than our foreign policy. You can begrudge the first DPR his lame security, shady murder contracts, and ill-gotten fortune, but he's the product of our…
The current DPR is allegedly the third one, and the one in jail is the second, as he said in an interview with Forbes.
Are there holes in the timeline that connected Ulbricht to Silk Road? Because that timeline didn't really leave any time for there to have been a first DPR.
Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches
#53I have a sneaking suspicion that it's a honeypot. Just a hunch.
With good opsec (i.e. only PGP-encrypted messages) sellers should still be able to operate safely. Buyers slightly less, considering that the sellers might be cops (which is also the case on a non-honeypot site), or because the PGP-keys of the sellers might be fake (for MITM). But considering that feds generally seem to target sellers, I don't think the usefulness of this as a honeypot would be huge. But it's definit…
> considering that the sellers might be cops
Why wouldn't law enforcement pose as buyers, as well? This is a common tactic in narcotics enforcement. Entrapment often isn't an issue, as the seller took the first step of advertising the drugs for sale.
Are you getting at the fact that the buyer must have a receiving address, while the seller can ship anonymously? I would be skeptical of that. If I were attempting to track the source of a package, and I had the full force of warrants behind me, I bet I could track down most shippers.
Every shipping company has its own tracking information. Much of this may be opaque to the end user. The tracking might be much more detailed than what you can see as an end user with a tracking number. Assuming the carrier cooperates with law enforcement, tracking could (presumably) be further enhanced for targeted post offices, routes, etc..
For example, suppose I, as a law enforcement agent, receive an order from a Silk Road seller. Let's say it was shipped in an envelope, dropped off at a USPS street-corner box. From the tracking info, I identify which post office first handled the envelope. Thus I narrow my search to a few possible mailboxes served by that post office.
I instruct the carriers at that post office to assist me. As they follow their routes, emptying mailboxes, I have them sort outgoing mail into separate bags, one per box. I have the post office flag any mail going to my address.
I place another order from the same seller. When it hits the post office, it gets flagged, and because of the per-box sorting, I know which mailbox was used.
For round three, I place yet another order, this time with the mailbox under surveillance. I also install a camera inside the mailbox that sees the destination address of every envelope deposited. When the seller drops his shipment, my surveillance team detects it. They then follow the person who dropped the letter. Now I have the shipper's identity.
Can these measures be defeated with appropriate opsec? Maybe, if you know exactly what tactics law enforcement will employ. But you don't. You could spend all your time defending against the tactics I just described, only to get caught because law enforcement came up with a totally different strategy.
My point is, opsec is really, really hard.
Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches
#54A serious question: while I have nothing against Silk Road (the drug war is a waste of money anyways), aren't people afraid of putting stuff in their body that they had an anonymous person send to them? I mean, unless the seller has a reputation, isn't there is a substantial risk of using that drug? Are my fears unfound? On one hand, the idea of buying drugs online is probably more safe than doing it on the streets,…
Do you ever buy anything at grocery store, drug store, restaurant that you put in your body? There is risk in everything. Generally people aren't sociopaths and aren't out to harm others. Risk is minimal but exists. Sellers on Silkroad do have reputation? Anonymous does not mean "unknown".
I'm rather sure that Anonymous does mean "(of a person) not identified by name; of unknown name."
Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
[deleted]
Forbes interviewed DPR (Ulbricht or not) in August. "Roberts isn’t actually the site’s founder, he revealed in our interview. He credits Silk Road’s creation to another, even more secretive entrepreneur whom he declined to tell me anything about and who may have used the “Dread Pirate Roberts” nom de guerre before it was assumed by the person I interviewed." http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/meet-t…
Yeah, he was just saying that to throw people off his trail.
Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches
#56The sudden rise of terribly programmed, horribly insecure marketplaces as hidden services since SR went down has been absolutely fascinating.
Any particular reason you're assuming this one is terribly programmed and horribly insecure? Other than past experience, I guess.
Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches
#57Hopefully it won't be another "Project: Black Flag", http://buttcoin.org/silk-road-replacement-project-black-flag...
Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches
#58A serious question: while I have nothing against Silk Road (the drug war is a waste of money anyways), aren't people afraid of putting stuff in their body that they had an anonymous person send to them? I mean, unless the seller has a reputation, isn't there is a substantial risk of using that drug? Are my fears unfound? On one hand, the idea of buying drugs online is probably more safe than doing it on the streets,…
Same with any drug buying process. At least online you have seller reputations and reviews to go on.
Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches
#59I'd never buy heroin from a website, but I see the Silk Road as cyber-civil-disobedience, and I hope the persona of DPR and the site itself are as unsinkable as they claim. The drug war is a ghastly thing, and the number of people we lock up in the US is more shameful than our foreign policy. You can begrudge the first DPR his lame security, shady murder contracts, and ill-gotten fortune, but he's the product of our…
I completely agree with this. Looking at it from a civil disobedience standpoint really exemplifies what we need to do to protect our freedom on the web in the coming future. With the onslaught of information with PRISM, spying, etc. the general public becoming aware of these sort of "rogue web pirates" is quite important to raising awareness even if it is only due to shock value that the general media is reporting it.
Re: Silk Road 2.0 Launches
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
With good opsec (i.e. only PGP-encrypted messages) sellers should still be able to operate safely. Buyers slightly less, considering that the sellers might be cops (which is also the case on a non-honeypot site), or because the PGP-keys of the sellers might be fake (for MITM). But considering that feds generally seem to target sellers, I don't think the usefulness of this as a honeypot would be huge. But it's definit…
> considering that the sellers might be cops Why wouldn't law enforcement pose as buyers, as well? This is a common tactic in narcotics enforcement. Entrapment often isn't an issue, as the seller took the first step of advertising the drugs for sale. Are you getting at the fact that the buyer must have a receiving address, while the seller can ship anonymously? I would be skeptical of that. If I were attempting to tr…
[deleted]