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

technologyreview.com

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

#131

Post by torified »

ChrisCinelli wrote: post #102
homonculus1 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are numerous unjust laws that infringe on the rights of the individual. Not only is it morally defensible to break such laws, but it is a good for respectable people to do so in order to reclaim behavioral territory and psychological freedom from the police state. This demonstrates to others that being a "criminal" is not a moral status but a legal one. It may even be a social duty.

It is a dangerous ground thought... Who decide what is just or unjust? Different people have different values and believes in what is just or unjust. I agree that some laws may need to be changed. But should we not have discussions on changing the laws instead of breaking them? This obviously implies a good democratic system so it may be different is some nations.

Only the worst kind of monster would make moral decisions based solely on legality.

Yes, even under a "good Democratic system".

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

#132

Post by generatorguy »

RandomBacon wrote: post #111
MaupitiBlue wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should the government prove that it followed the law when investigating a criminal? They do, but only if the defendant requires them to do so. What’s happening here is that the prosecutors told the defendant “look, we all know you did it, so plead guilty and we’ll recommend a light sentence. You have a right to make us reveal our tor backdoor, but if you do the plea offer is off and we will have the trial, and win,…

IIRC a year or two ago, weren't some criminals let off the hook because they didn't take a deal, and the law enforcement angency didn't want to reveal how the criminals were caught?

The article mentions that

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

#133

Post by AlexCoventry »

meowface wrote: post #127
ohmygodel wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, the main question is how the server was discovered, not how the operator was then deanonymized. As the article describes, after the server was discovered to be in France and run by OVH, authorities used legal treaties ("MLATs") to obtain the subscriber information, leading them to the person that recently plead guilty in court.

This seems incredibly naive. Who would register a VPS hosting different kinds of the most illegal content imaginable using their real name or IP address? Even if they thought hidden services were impenetrable, there are always other possible slip-ups you could make which could disclose the server's real IP, and of course they'd be ignorant to think any security measure is impenetrable, including Tor. DPR made extreme…

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

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

#134

Post by AlexCoventry »

jascii wrote: post #49
seanthegeek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concern seems to be more of a legal one than a technical one. Law enforcement in theory should always disclose how they collect evidence.

Should they? I know of no such law or theory. They have a burden of proof regarding the correctness of evidence and the defence can question the legality of collection methods if the evidence gets used in court. As far as I know, that's about it.

It's crucial to prevent the police from using illegal means to gather evidence. There's a rather famous legal doctrine about it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree

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

#135

Post by AlexCoventry »

SadWebDeveloper wrote: post #93

afaicr the bug used was the one reported as MFSA 2013-53 aka CVE-2013-1690[1] but someone correct me if m wrong. [1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2013-5...

No, that was used after they had seized the site, to unmask its users.

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

#136

Post by AlexCoventry »

zelly wrote: post #57
rahuldottech wrote: post #5

Hacker Factor has a series of articles about various attacks on Tor: https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/868-De... The tor daemon really needs to be re-written and audited. Apparently the codebase right now is a huge mess.

You can make a mistake in your code and end up causing someone to go to prison. What a time to be alive.

In the 80s,it was already possible to make a mistake in your code which would cause someone to die horribly.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25

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

#137

Post by meowface »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #133
meowface wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems incredibly naive. Who would register a VPS hosting different kinds of the most illegal content imaginable using their real name or IP address? Even if they thought hidden services were impenetrable, there are always other possible slip-ups you could make which could disclose the server's real IP, and of course they'd be ignorant to think any security measure is impenetrable, including Tor. DPR made extreme…

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 mistakes at least made sense to me; they're something anyone could have overlooked, even if they were still very naive mistakes. But I doubt DPR used his personal information when paying for servers. That's well beyond "unrealized mistake" into pure incomprehensibility.

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

#138

Post by ohmygodel »

tempsalt wrote: post #88
ohmygodel wrote: post #46

Running a hosting server for onion services, as was done in this case, is a terrible idea. It greatly increases the risk of deanonymization. The question is less how this hosting service was discovered and more how it ever stayed up long enough to become so notorious. Here's why: 1. Each hidden service chooses a "guard" relay to serve as the first hop for all connections. 2. A server running multiple hidden services…

These are well known attacks. In case of Freedom Hosting this maybe was the cause for finding the server. Mitigation exists. Today big illegal darknet websites run lots of Tor servers on their own. You can also manually set trusted guards or other nodes in the chain so no malicious node will ever be part of your path through the network.

Yes, if you manually and wisely choose your own guard nodes, then you can avoid these attacks. You should be sure that those guards can't themselves be linked to you, either.

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

#139

Post by heartbeats »

dmos62 wrote: post #96
heartbeats wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so simple. Why do we have education? Firstly, because there's needed some way to filter people. If you get 100 applicants, you can't make a detailed consideration. But if only 30 have degrees, it's much easier. So there is a signalling effect. But secondly, and more importantly, because you need somewhere to have these kids. If there's ten million jobs and ten million two hundred thousand jobs, you'll get pr…

You might be responding to the wrong post.

No, I was responding to this: "minor fixes may end up doing a lot of good".

They won't, since the purpose is just to have somewhere to store people. The actual crime isn't very interesting, the thing of importance is that they have somewhere to store them.

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

#140

Post by heartbeats »

appleshore wrote: post #112
heartbeats wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so simple. Why do we have education? Firstly, because there's needed some way to filter people. If you get 100 applicants, you can't make a detailed consideration. But if only 30 have degrees, it's much easier. So there is a signalling effect. But secondly, and more importantly, because you need somewhere to have these kids. If there's ten million jobs and ten million two hundred thousand jobs, you'll get pr…

In major cities like LA, bail for misdemeanors can be $80,000 if someone misses a court date. And the jails are horrific, they force you to be racist especially if you’re Hispanic or black. There’s so many LAPD/LASD scandals that it’s hard to conceptualize. The FBI spent millions installing videocameras throughout the jails to stop the rampart torture and abuse of inmates by LA County Sheriff Deputies. The longtime S…

Then they just go in again until they're either rehabilitated or dead.

It doesn't functionally matter what happens in there, since it's the same thing as with standardized tests: all tests are inherently fair, regardless of how poorly constructed they are.

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