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FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

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Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#21

Post by meowface »

nowarninglabel wrote: post #11
kordless wrote: post #2

As little as 50 years ago, selling these drugs wasn't illegal in the US. Look how far we've come.

In response to negativity around the drug war, I'd say that for the first time in a long time we should be very optimistic about the future of legalization in the United States. Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Colorado, and D.C. now have full legalization in legislation. Florida got nearly 58% on medical marijuana vote that unfortunately needed 60%. 23 states have legalized medical marijuana. (Up to date map: https://loc…

Legalization of marijuana within the next 30 years is inevitable for most states.

But legalization of heroin, crack, cocaine, meth? That's really a pipe dream. It might happen some day, but that'd be more on the range of 70-100 years if I were to guess, and perhaps a lot longer.

Marijuana is a significant portion of sales on all of the dark markets, but other more addictive narcotics still constitute the majority compared to marijuana.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#22

Post by puredemo »

nowarninglabel wrote: post #11
kordless wrote: post #2

As little as 50 years ago, selling these drugs wasn't illegal in the US. Look how far we've come.

In response to negativity around the drug war, I'd say that for the first time in a long time we should be very optimistic about the future of legalization in the United States. Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Colorado, and D.C. now have full legalization in legislation. Florida got nearly 58% on medical marijuana vote that unfortunately needed 60%. 23 states have legalized medical marijuana. (Up to date map: https://loc…

Sure, for marijuana.

But the ethical imperative to allow people full control over what substances go into their own bodies seems to be as ignored as ever.

Simple example: I'm not legally allowed to control the levels of testosterone in my own body. That seems absurd.

#MyBodyMyChoice

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#23

Post by meowface »

fabulist wrote: post #18
dobbsbob wrote: post #12

The SR2 guy 'defcon' was also selling his services as a .onion developer/ops so likely all these other sites he set up for vendors and they were seized when he was caught and cooperated. From the FBI complaint he was completely careless like all other recently busted darknet admins and mods so wouldn't be surprised if they were all hosted at the same host too.

Every time something like this happens, lots of people shout that the sky is falling and Tor is "dead." Thank you for putting forward a reasonable hypothesis amid the FUD. That being said, I doubt he was a developer for 399 other sites, thats quite a few. I think a "watering hole" style attack is likely here, but I think there must be a part of the story that hasn't been revealed; perhaps there was a federation of .o…

I work in the security industry, and normally I'm the first one to argue against the FUD, but this time I'm not so sure. Clearly, out of these ~400 a decent portion were probably on the same server or in the same datacenter, and many of their operators were obviously quite careless in terms of personal, infrastructure, and application security (as has always been the case and will likely forever remain the case).

But it's still a pretty high number. I would not completely rule out some sort of trick or analysis being employed by global law enforcement to identify the ISP or datacenter being used to host hidden services. It may just be a matter of them plotting the volume of Tor traffic around the world and narrowing it down from there; it's likely not that difficult to distinguish Tor traffic from a popular hidden service and Tor traffic from a relay, exit node, or client.

Note the bottom of the FBI's press release:

>The law enforcement authorities of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, whose actions have been coordinated through Eurojust and Europol’s EC3, provided substantial assistance.

That's a lot of countries. Many unscrupulous hosting providers are located in those countries. It's possible that the FBI narrowed their search down to individual foreign ISPs, then had foreign law enforcement work with ISPs, NOCs, and hosting companies to place selective taps and narrow things down even further, centered purely around analysis of Tor traffic volume.

Or they may have found a general purpose vulnerability. Or perhaps a combination of the two.

These tweets by a (not currently arrested) popular hidden service operator are also very interesting:

https://twitter.com/loldoxbin/status/530764492326838272

https://twitter.com/loldoxbin/status/530766985794420736

https://twitter.com/loldoxbin/status/530768176007884800

https://twitter.com/loldoxbin/status/530768358355251200

https://twitter.com/loldoxbin/status/530891182612955136

Tor is not dead, but anyone running an illicit hidden service should probably be concerned, at least until further details are released or discovered. It's entirely possible that they took down all of these services purely through typical cybercrime investigative techniques, but I think it's unwise to rule out something a bit more powerful this early on.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#24

Post by sp332 »

krapp wrote: post #19
oofabz wrote: post #13

Was anyone charged with a crime? It disturbs me that the FBI has free rein to seize people's property without even giving them their day in court. The Fourth Amendment says "nor shall any person [...] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". I don't see any process of law here. The FBI is law enforcement, not judicial.

The government is allowed to gather evidence before it arrests people and tries them. You're jumping the gun a bit on the moral outrage.

Gathering evidence doesn't mean shutting a site down, let alone 400.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#25

Post by jeangenie »

nowarninglabel wrote: post #11
kordless wrote: post #2

As little as 50 years ago, selling these drugs wasn't illegal in the US. Look how far we've come.

In response to negativity around the drug war, I'd say that for the first time in a long time we should be very optimistic about the future of legalization in the United States. Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Colorado, and D.C. now have full legalization in legislation. Florida got nearly 58% on medical marijuana vote that unfortunately needed 60%. 23 states have legalized medical marijuana. (Up to date map: https://loc…

I think the term "legalization" needs to be qualified. The situation is moving towards extremely limited government-controlled privatization. Citizens can buy recreational pot in an approved store but it's still illegal to grow a single plant in your own back yard.

I'm almost positive someone will be absolutely indignant at my temerity for suggesting the above, but it's worth thinking about what real legalization would look like.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#26

Post by dobbsbob »

fabulist wrote: post #18
dobbsbob wrote: post #12

The SR2 guy 'defcon' was also selling his services as a .onion developer/ops so likely all these other sites he set up for vendors and they were seized when he was caught and cooperated. From the FBI complaint he was completely careless like all other recently busted darknet admins and mods so wouldn't be surprised if they were all hosted at the same host too.

Every time something like this happens, lots of people shout that the sky is falling and Tor is "dead." Thank you for putting forward a reasonable hypothesis amid the FUD. That being said, I doubt he was a developer for 399 other sites, thats quite a few. I think a "watering hole" style attack is likely here, but I think there must be a part of the story that hasn't been revealed; perhaps there was a federation of .o…

He sold cookie cutter stores that vendors bought and wouldn't take long to que up puppet and deploy a .onion for the hundreds of vendors on SR2. I wouldn't give Tor a green light either though, esp with people considering peddling narcotics using that p2p alpha market software Open Market where you run your own server. Seems incredibly risky for timing analysis plus nobody knows how they discovered SR #1.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#27

Post by meowface »

sp332 wrote: post #24
krapp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government is allowed to gather evidence before it arrests people and tries them. You're jumping the gun a bit on the moral outrage.

Gathering evidence doesn't mean shutting a site down, let alone 400.

If they have a valid search and seizure warrant, it is legal for them to take down the sites.

If you read through the criminal complaint filed against Silk Road 2.0 / Benthall, they establish pretty sufficient probable cause for a search and seizure.

Arrest warrants for the individuals involved is a separate process.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#28

Post by sliverstorm »

puredemo wrote: post #22
nowarninglabel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In response to negativity around the drug war, I'd say that for the first time in a long time we should be very optimistic about the future of legalization in the United States. Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Colorado, and D.C. now have full legalization in legislation. Florida got nearly 58% on medical marijuana vote that unfortunately needed 60%. 23 states have legalized medical marijuana. (Up to date map: https://loc…

Sure, for marijuana. But the ethical imperative to allow people full control over what substances go into their own bodies seems to be as ignored as ever. Simple example: I'm not legally allowed to control the levels of testosterone in my own body. That seems absurd. #MyBodyMyChoice

Because we balance it against other ethical imperatives, such as impact to the people around the user, and safety/health.

Many drugs have indirect impacts. Jacking up on testosterone, for example, makes you aggressive and violent.

Many people want the government to look out for them. For example, the regulatory rigor around new medicine.

Many proponents of complete legalization of all substances argue that responsible users have no impact on others. However while this may be true of responsible users, empirical evidence suggests vanishingly few users are responsible, which is the major problem.

You have to weight the infringement on the rights & freedoms of innocent bystanders suffering at the hands of the abusers, against the infringement of rights from outlawing the drug. Somebody must loose; which should it be?

Maybe the rational conclusion is still, "make it legal", but this is the real question. It is not as simple as "my body, my choice".

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#29

Post by akerl_ »

MysticFear wrote: post #6
sliverstorm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As little as 50 years ago, putting lead in gasoline was legal. Look how far we've come. As little as 20 years ago, spraying your crops with DDT wasn't illegal. Look how far we've come. As little as 5 years ago, selling furniture treated with brominated flame retardants wasn't illegal in the EU. Look how far we've come. We are wrong about chemicals all the time. The regulatory status of chemical X fifty years ago rare…

The responsible use of drugs for your own use doesn't affect anyone except yourself. The chemical uses you brought up affects more than just yourself.

That's quite the qualifier. If the only issue was "responsible" use of drugs, we'd be dealing with a substantially easier debate.

But before we get rid of the current legislation about drugs, we would need an actual plan for dealing with irresponsible uses of drugs.

Re: FBI takes down over 400 .onion sites

#30

Post by adventured »

orbifold wrote: post #20
kordless wrote: post #2

As little as 50 years ago, selling these drugs wasn't illegal in the US. Look how far we've come.

I think people in power realized that the counter culture of the 60s and 70s posed a real threat to a capitalistic society, so they eliminated factors that could give people the idea their life purpose was not to be a drone in a large corporation.

Capitalism - an actual free market - would require the complete legalization of all drugs. You've got it exactly backwards.

The counter culture won. America is the world's largest welfare state, has the largest entitlement systems, with a total government system larger than the economy of Japan, hyper regulation, high taxation, and has very few remnants of Capitalism.

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