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Global Web Crackdown Arrests 17, Seizes Hundreds Of Dark Net Domains

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Re: Global Web Crackdown Arrests 17, Seizes Hundreds Of Dark Net Domains

#91

Post by thiagoperes »

downandout wrote: post #17

Lessons learned: 1) Don't engage in businesses that make you a target of the world's best-funded law enforcement agencies. 2) If ignoring lesson 1, don't access servers directly, from home, and don't pay for said servers with personal credit card. 3) Don't pay for your $130K Tesla using BTC a month after you open up a massive illegal drug marketplace that runs exclusively on BTC. Someone may suspect something. 4) Whe…

You can easily do this in Brazil. Incompetence is so widespread that the data center will need years before they know what you're doing there.

Law enforcement doesn't have a single idea of how to operate on the internet, being the most recent proof of that the fact that the NSA spied on our president's email for years without anyone noticing it.

Just keep your distance from drug cartels, politicians and banks and you'll be safe.

Re: Global Web Crackdown Arrests 17, Seizes Hundreds Of Dark Net Domains

#92

Post by opendais »

devconsole wrote: post #82
opendais wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then the authorities trace the server component to the person who sold it on Craigslist. And if your opsec isn't perfect, you're busted right there: Did you forget to set up a new email account for all of your craigslist transactions? Did you forget to set them up and connect to them only through Tor? If your opsec isn't perfect you are busted anyway. You already said that in the OP. ;) > Did the person you met wit…

This is a perfect illustration of how to get busted. For example, the whole idea of "How can I acquire a burner phone?" is misguided, because as soon as you speak into a burner phone, your voiceprint alone is enough to identify you. Various assumptions like "I doubt it's that easy" are also the road to getting busted. Trying to forge or steal legal documents, let alone a license plate that you drive around with and w…

I'll have to take your word for it. I'm pretty sure you are overthinking this tho.

What you are describing is basically:

1) They find the server [this likely takes months based on their performance so far].

2) They get a copy of the paperwork & server [fake id, so useless information on it and a fake picture. That is assuming they keep a copy at all, they might not.]. Server is commodity and basically untraceable. They trace you via license plate readers to a residential neighborhood with 1,000 people.

3) They see you leave a month later via license plate reader on a major freeway and somewhere along the way you disappear because the entire country isn't monitored, especially rural highways where there aren't traffic cams. You change your license plate in the middle of nowhere.

4) They somehow detect the license plate change and track you from there to your new destination.

I mean its possible, I just don't see it as being likely given how hard they've worked to find people who made publicly visible glaring errors. :P

Re: Global Web Crackdown Arrests 17, Seizes Hundreds Of Dark Net Domains

#93

Post by psykovsky »

knyt wrote: post #72
yc1010 wrote: post #67

Assuming TOR is compromised, what is to stop someone buying a vps (with fake/disposable credit card etc) hiding the main server behind this vps (with haproxy or stunnel)? FBI come along and image the vps, but it wont be the main server, connection details could be stored in RAM and if server taken down to image no configs would be left. Thoughts? obviously buying vps/servers in own name is dumb opsec. That way even i…

Don't think that'd add anything. The people investigating you would presumably look at your network traffic and see all of the non-anonymized TLS packets traveling between your VPS and the real server. And they shouldn't need to bring the VPS down to get an image of its disk (or its RAM).

It doesn't need to be like that. You can have a frontend server with a public .onion domain that just pulls everything from a different remote and private .onion domain. Yes, the latency will suck.

Re: Global Web Crackdown Arrests 17, Seizes Hundreds Of Dark Net Domains

#94

Post by twrkit »

devconsole wrote: post #32
bhouston wrote: post #5

I think that TOR should no longer be considered secure in the wake of so many busts. Either it isn't secure by some flaw, or it is too easy to fingerprint visitors, or some other work around.

There are some interesting theories being tossed around. I'd like to add one more. The common thread across all darknet websites is the fact that they generally run from datacenters. Most people don't host websites from their residence. Further, most people don't colocate servers anymore. I would be surprised if any of the 414 websites operated on boxes that had been colocated. However I won't rule out that colocatin…

One potential long term outcome of these highly publicized fed / darknet busts is that future operators will learn from the opsec mistakes of Dread Pirate Roberts, Blake Benthall, Sanu, Lulzsec, Anonsec, etc. Theoretically after enough people cock up, the 'playbook' on how to run a dark service / h4x0r group should be sufficiently fleshed out and there will be fewer and fewer busts.

Re: Global Web Crackdown Arrests 17, Seizes Hundreds Of Dark Net Domains

#95

Post by nitrogen »

chc wrote: post #79
spacefight wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0) Don't engage in business someone else has a large interest on the status quo (drug distribution and sales).

I can't tell if this means anything.

As a guess, it probably means that cartels and the DEA make tons of money fighting each other, and joining or interfering in that fight is a generally bad idea as an independent third party.

Re: Global Web Crackdown Arrests 17, Seizes Hundreds Of Dark Net Domains

#96

Post by creamynebula »

pc86 wrote: post #66
dobbsbob wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They catch Russian carding marketplace admins all the time so living in Brazil or Russia is no guarantee you won't end up in jail either. Just takes one mistake and you are on a plane in handcuffs to a federal court. They could bribe local police to pick you up for them too especially if you aren't politically connected in those countries.

And let's be honest, if one were to go to jail in the US, Brazil, or Russia, especially as a (formerly) wealthy American, the US is an order of magnitude better than the other two.

Actually most wealthy people live like a king in prison, and if the crime is a financial crime they end up in house arrest after only a short prison term ALWAYS.

Re: Global Web Crackdown Arrests 17, Seizes Hundreds Of Dark Net Domains

#98

Post by Istof »

bhouston wrote: post #5

I think that TOR should no longer be considered secure in the wake of so many busts. Either it isn't secure by some flaw, or it is too easy to fingerprint visitors, or some other work around.

all they need to make the correlations is everybody's "metadata"... which is apparently considered fair game by the US government

Re: Global Web Crackdown Arrests 17, Seizes Hundreds Of Dark Net Domains

#99

Post by charonn0 »

rglover wrote: post #20

“This is something we want to keep for ourselves,” he said. “The way we do this, we can’t share with the whole world, because we want to do it again and again and again.” That is so freaking evil.

That confuses me. How can they prove that the people they arrested are actually connected to these sites if they won't show how they came to that conclusion?

Re: Global Web Crackdown Arrests 17, Seizes Hundreds Of Dark Net Domains

#100

Post by charonn0 »

oftenwrong wrote: post #64
Lrigikithumer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say this but why aren't they targetting the real evil shit on the dark web? Why the hell are they wasting their time and resources on drug busts when there are seriously sick dangerous people using those services, hunt them. They're the real dangers to society, not the ones selling weed and ecstasy. Makes me feel sick all the wasted talent that isn't being used to take down the dark dark corners of this world.

You say that as if organisations involved in the international drug trade are not engaging in "real evil shit". Not all cannabis sold in the United States is grown by long-haired Californians. Much of it is grown in Mexico by violent drug cartels that use slave labour and kill indiscriminately. They are practically the definition of evil, and sites like The Silk Road are pushing their product.

Prohibition drives prices sky-high, drives out law-abiding brokers, but doesn't affect demand. The Mexican cartels are yet another bad consequence of the war on drugs.
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