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Operator of Silk Road 2.0 Website Charged in Manhattan Federal Court

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Re: Operator of Silk Road 2.0 Website Charged in Manhattan Federal Court

#81

Post by shitehawk »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #15
ChuckMcM wrote: post #5

Maybe the title should be, "FBI Announces Silk Road 3.0" :-) And I agree, folks seem to be running these things out of the US rather than out of say the Cayman islands or Belize where is it easier to level the playing field with respect to the authorities.

Yup; as long as it takes only a few weeks to set up something like this but a year to take it down, I don't think this idea is going away. The business model obviously works, and there is definitely a market.

And there is no shortage of people who think they can outsmart the FBI, but one slip and there goes your life. I sleep better working for a living.

Re: Operator of Silk Road 2.0 Website Charged in Manhattan Federal Court

#82

Post by avn2109 »

yourad_io wrote: post #65

I cannot imagine a way in which a single-server hidden service is safe from a global, active adversary like FBI, NSA & Friends. This [1] discusses passive analysis over time. Isn't it really easy to locate one if you can perform active attacks on the global infrastructure? (introduce latencies and/or break links temporarily) If your hidden service is served by a couple of mirrors on each continent, though... then may…

Good point. Noises have been made for a long time that Tor is compromised given a sufficiently motivated adversary. For instance, [0], among many others.

In light of those noises, my non-rhetorical question is this: Why would any Ulbright wannabe reside within the US DoJ's sphere of influence? Get thee to Russia, and quickly! And while you're at it, keep your hardware in some third, fourth, and fifth locations, neither American nor Slavic.

[0] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/08/has_tor_been_...

Re: Operator of Silk Road 2.0 Website Charged in Manhattan Federal Court

#83

Post by yourad_io »

jim_dnaley wrote: post #26

They located Silk Road 2.0's server in an unspecified way, not directly related to their undercover agent on the support staff. Given that two other darknet markets (Black Market and Cloud9) have been shut down today, and they didn't specify how they located the SR2 server, it seems plausible that law enforcement have a vulnerability to locate servers over the Tor network. From the complaint: "In or about May 2014, t…

I don't think a single-server hidden service is meant to protect against a global, active adversary. If you think it does I would love to hear your thoughts on my question[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8568667

Re: Operator of Silk Road 2.0 Website Charged in Manhattan Federal Court

#84

Post by creaoticx »

personZ wrote: post #25
openssj wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which the purpose of the press release (and bust) is revealed: to threaten the public and make an example. The usual stuff you expect out of an upstanding agent of democracy.

There is absolutely nothing untowards or abnormal about their claim, nor are they threatening the "public", which overwhelmingly doesn't operate black market sites. Law enforcement absolutely includes an element of making examples, and deterring crime. That is one of the major purposes why organizations like the FBI exist. Not quite sure what this has to do with democracy.

You have to look at it not from the perspective of a black market site, but from the perspective of anonymity. Sites operated on the TOR network are supposed to be anonymous which is a valuable contribution to the existence of free speech. The freedom of a country that outlaws acts between consenting adults can be debated, but there are many countries that are undeniably oppressive. If the US government can track down an anonymous site, then it is likely these countries can too.

Arguably anonymous sites can harbor truly dangerous crimes like murder for hire, pedophiles, and terrorists. However, they can also protect political activists and whistle blowers. So while this isn't necessarily a cut and dry issue, it is much more complex than just saying these are black market sites so who cares.

Re: Operator of Silk Road 2.0 Website Charged in Manhattan Federal Court

#85

Post by yourad_io »

avn2109 wrote: post #82
yourad_io wrote: post #65

I cannot imagine a way in which a single-server hidden service is safe from a global, active adversary like FBI, NSA & Friends. This [1] discusses passive analysis over time. Isn't it really easy to locate one if you can perform active attacks on the global infrastructure? (introduce latencies and/or break links temporarily) If your hidden service is served by a couple of mirrors on each continent, though... then may…

Good point. Noises have been made for a long time that Tor is compromised given a sufficiently motivated adversary. For instance, [0], among many others. In light of those noises, my non-rhetorical question is this: Why would any Ulbright wannabe reside within the US DoJ's sphere of influence? Get thee to Russia, and quickly! And while you're at it, keep your hardware in some third, fourth, and fifth locations, neith…

> Why would any Ulbright wannabe reside within the US DoJ's sphere of influence? Get thee to Russia, and quickly!

100% agree with this. I imagine it is mostly that people never think they'll get caught - or they view the risk of getting caught as much lower than the benefit of not moving, in any case.

Edit 1: To add: I think "people" also underestimate just how easy it is to get caught.

Getting caught doesn't mean you're stupid, or inexperienced, or anything except that you slipped once.

You forgot the proxy, once. You sent your personal pubkey your rather your darknet pubkey, once.

It takes next to nothing at all to get caught.

Edit 2: The link you posted was about a javascript 0day exploit in the Tor Browser Bundle. Implementation flaws will always be there, but if the theory is broken as well... My question is about if the tor protocol itself could theoretically shield a hidden service from a global, active adversary. Which I think it couldn't.

Re: Operator of Silk Road 2.0 Website Charged in Manhattan Federal Court

#86

Post by krapp »

innguest wrote: post #75
krapp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shame on the US government for threatening the public with the enforcement of its own laws.

...when it consistently and unfairly places itself and its cronies above said laws.

Nevertheless, selling illegal drugs on the internet is illegal. I don't think you can say that attempting to bring down darknets is an example of government corruption in this case, notwithstanding the inevitable argument that the government is corrupt in any case.

Re: Operator of Silk Road 2.0 Website Charged in Manhattan Federal Court

#87

Post by zanny »

yourad_io wrote: post #77
duaneb wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With TOR, though, it's very easy to move servers quickly. Who wants to play a foreign game of 'whack a mole'? Authorities will tire quickly of complying with an endless game.,

I'm not sure how this is a whack-a-mole game. If you run a single-server hidden service, the NSA can track it (unless you think otherwise - tried to initiate discussion here[1]). Once they track it, they will get your hosting provider to cooperate and before you know it, your server has been imaged and that irrevocable .onion private key is in the authorities' hands. The most you'll see from your end was some downtim…

I'm wondering why they would image the server. Did SR2 not use full disc encryption using LUKS? How would they be able to access anything on it, I know if I were running SR2 I'd have the longest private key ever stored in my brain to decrypt the drives.

Re: Operator of Silk Road 2.0 Website Charged in Manhattan Federal Court

#88

Post by jamesbrownuhh »

jim_dnaley wrote: post #26

They located Silk Road 2.0's server in an unspecified way, not directly related to their undercover agent on the support staff. Given that two other darknet markets (Black Market and Cloud9) have been shut down today, and they didn't specify how they located the SR2 server, it seems plausible that law enforcement have a vulnerability to locate servers over the Tor network. From the complaint: "In or about May 2014, t…

> service outages at the time the imaging was conducted

That whole "correlation is not causation" maxim comes to mind here.

Re: Operator of Silk Road 2.0 Website Charged in Manhattan Federal Court

#90

Post by wmf »

macrael wrote: post #71

"On or about October 7, 2013, the HSI-UC [the undercover agent] was invited to join a newly created discussion forum on the Tor network, concerning the potential creation of a replacement for the Silk Road 1.0 website. The next day, on or about October 8, 2013, the persons operating the forum gave the HSI-UC moderator privileges, enabling the HSI-UC to access areas of the forum available only to forum staff." They we…

That sounds like the FBI had already infiltrated the Silk Road 1.0 community so they were invited into 2.0 at the beginning.
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