Silk Road Shut Down, Founder Arrested, $3.6 Million Worth of Bitcoin Seized 620
New submitter u38cg writes Ross William Ulbricht, known as 'Dread Pirate Roberts,' was arrested in San Francisco yesterday and has been charged with one count each of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy, according to a court filing. Silk Road has been shut down and some $3.6m in Bitcoin (26,000 Btc) seized. The question is — how?"
onyxruby submitted a link to the criminal complaint (PDF; coral cache might work better). The court filing indicates that they seized the actual servers and recovered their contents, making numerous references to the private messaging system. Also according to the court filing, the Silk Road was used to sell ~$1.2 billion in illicit goods since being founded in 2011.
Tor compromised (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it can be argued that Silk Road practiced the use of Tor as well as anyone could have. They still got pinched. Although it may come out that an insider turned informant, it seems that the Tor system is compromised by the snoops.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Insightful)
*(Maybe. We don't know really.)
Silk Road, however, is exceptionally well known as an illicit enterprise, so despite anonymity of packet data (or not...) they're targeted anyway.
If known to be engaging in criminal activity, Tor is not really going to save you or be the critical flaw in your plan, either.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Insightful)
The main thing is that you have to turn your stash of illicit bitcoins into real cash for most things. Someone trying to sell a load of bitcoins is going to attract attention from the authorities, and from that, they can figure out if you got them from selling drugs, which is definitely illegal, or from running a massive mining rig, where arguably legal, and it would be financial services regulators that would consider it rather than drugs enforcement people.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Insightful)
Even after all these years I find it hard to accept that so many people have a problem with people they don't even know doing things they never would have heard about had it not been for the theft and abuse of their own rights and money. Strange world we live in...
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Interesting)
...a canadian routine postal search? sounds a bit of fabrication(you know, finding evidence illegally and then fabricating something for a bust). I seriously doubt they have fakeid smelling dogs.
but was he really hosting the operation from san fransisco? why, why on earth? why have anything tying him to it at home??
Re: (Score:3)
So it is possible.
Re: (Score:3)
Don't forget the $5 they get for an "inspection fee". This was bad luck + CBS grubbing for cash.
It's not far-fetched at all... (Score:4, Informative)
Every incoming (or, I guess, in the case of Canada, outgoing) mail parcel goes through an x-ray (I'm not saying they actually pay a lot of attention to each one; it's kind of luck-of-the-draw.) If the inspector sees a package containing a bunch of plastic cards and something that looks like a passport, they are naturally going to wonder what that's doing being sent via international mail. It's not as if you can accidentally leave your passport at home when leaving the country.
Because customs facilities are on international borders, they don't need anything but the barest suspicion to take a peek in your package, certainly not a warrant.
But yeah, hosting SR in SanFran was not very bright. Of course, given that what he was doing would get him arrested in pretty much every country in the land, there's not really any good location for the servers. Even in Russia, you would have needed some pretty good underworld connections to keep those servers out of govt. hands.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, so after all the NSA bullshit, he was caught by Canada? Oh, the irony.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:4, Funny)
NSA procedure is to blame all constitutional violations on Canada, because they automatically say "sorry" when accused of anything.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Funny)
DEA & parallel construction? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, so after all the NSA bullshit, he was caught by Canada? Oh, the irony.
Welllll, maybe...
Do you remember the recent stories about the DEA and "parallel construction," [washingtonpost.com] where the DEA was getting phone records from the NSA and then using them to identify suspects from which they could reverse engineer a false "lead" to let the police just happen to find other incriminating evidence to build a case on?
I'm not saying that's clearly what happened here, but as others have pointed out, it's a distinct possibility given that drugs are involved.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:4, Informative)
So you feel it is ironic that the NSA didn't catch something that the NSA has publicly stated they are not looking for? NSA isn't law enforcement, they may sometimes help them out or give them info they have found, but it isn't their job to collect data for busts like this.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 [reuters.com]
We already know the NSA is sharing information about illicit drug trafficing with the DEA, and asking the DEA to obfuscate where the information is coming from.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Wow, what a coincidence that the Canadian authorities happened to open just the right package. A lucky break for them!
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a surprise, they routinely open whatever packages the NSA tells them to.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a "lucky coincidence". I'm Canadian and I buy some stuff online. Here's why they tend to open packages:
1. Canadian Border Services gets $5 for every package they open. (I call this the "putting their dick in it" fee.) You can not appeal this fee.
2. As you have more stuff sent to you, they tend to open more of your packages. My ex-wife ordered lots of stuff online (mostly knitting supplies) and towards the end of her interest in her hobby, they were opening 90% of her packages. Mine were rarely opened.
3. They get a little more openy when you're doing your own brokerage. FedEx and UPS charge about $40 for brokerage, so some people do it themselves for $10. This requires you to go down to the border (or quasi-border), which in my city is the airport.
So it wasn't a tip-off, it was just CBS looking for extra cash.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Insightful)
From reading an article on this before coming here, I'm still flabbergasted that he was using servers in the U.S. Color me naive but I don't see where that made sense.
Second thing, after reading more, is why the blazes did he have anything to do with SR sent directly to himself?
I realize 20-20 hindsight and all, but c'mon, seems to me that's all 'security 101' stuff, no?
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tor compromised (Score:4, Informative)
> I'm still flabbergasted that he was using servers in the U.S.
He may have used some servers in the U.S. but the server the FBI grabbed was overseas. From the complaint, page 14, item 22:
There's a list of U.S. Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties here [acfcs.org]. Who's got a guess?
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Insightful)
He promoted the website using his real name attached to a gmail account with his real name as part of the address. They may not have found that out until they were ready to make a bigger case against him, but as I was reading the criminal complaint and saw that, I was dumbfounded that anyone could actually be that dense about security. Reading an older article, I see where he was asked if he was worried about law-enforcement agencies trying to track him down. He said "I have confidence in our security measures."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Tor isn't a magic bullet. It's still fundamentally putting your trust in someone else. There's always a human element to relay communications. Any complicit person can yield some useful information. You can encrypt what you're saying, but someone has to know who you're talking to.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Informative)
You can encrypt what you're saying, but someone has to know who you're talking to.
Actually, no. Someone has to know who you are, and someone has to know who's being talked to, but they needn't be the same person. The way Tor works is that there are at least two "interior", routing-only nodes. Let's call the sender A and the receiver D; the interior nodes are B and C. A opens an encrypted connection to B, and tells it to connect to C. A then opens an encrypted channel to C using B as a relay, and yet another encrypted channel to D relaying through both B and C. B knows about A and C; C knows about B and D; and D knows about C. Unless the nodes are sharing information, none of B, C, or D know that A is communicating with D.
Note that this bust didn't result from compromising Tor; the SR operator was discovered through old-fashioned customs inspections.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Informative)
it appears that agents found Ulbricht after Canadian border authorities routinely checked a package intended for his San Francisco home and discovered nine fake identification cards within, which Ulbricht allegedly was seeking to obtain to rent more servers to power Silk Road as it massively expanded.
source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2013/10/02/feds-shut-down-silk-road-owner-known-as-dread-pirate-roberts-arrested/ [forbes.com]
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Interesting)
If I was guessing, I'd guess it was bitcoin, not Tor that did him in. He was moving way too much volume to hide all that. After all, the block chain is public. The FBI only has to lean on the various organizations that turn bitcoin into cash. If it gets the addresses of all their wallets, all their customer account information, and the identity of some coins that were spent on the silk road, it only has to work backwards to see who turned those coins into cash. People think bitcoin is anonymous, but it keeps a record of every transaction. This is probably the beginning of the end for bitcoin. I'm not sure it's mature enough to sustain itself without the black market support.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd guess it was being too big which did him in.
Greed and hubris-- always risky when doing illegal activities.
In fact- if I were doing something illegal- when regular articles about the silk road started being posted, I'd shut things down and take my profits.
If nothing else, those articles are embarrassing for law enforcement so they focus on that issue to stop the embarrassment.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, getting that big is not good.
Shut it down and start a new one. Heck, start several. Just don't keep going once Forbes and other not in the know folks start talking about it.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:4, Informative)
> Or sell it off for legit cash and move somewhere offshore.
Previous interviews with Roberts indicate that, just like his namesake, he indeed was not the founder but a guy who became involved and later purchased it from the founder. If the stories are to be believed, he was the first person to break their security and then, played ethical hacker and told them how he broke in and helped them fix the problem.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/meet-the-dread-pirate-roberts-the-man-behind-booming-black-market-drug-website-silk-road/ [forbes.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
On reddit it was reported that a parcel containing fake IDs (presumably to buy servers) mailed to DPR was intercepted at the Canadian border, and this is what lead to the arrest.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. ... and a name and address.
http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf [krebsonsecurity.com]
TLDR version:
A user named altoids advertised SR on various forums very early on.
Later the same user wanted some dev work done, used a gmail address as contact.
Same gmail address leads to a LinkedIn profile
Seize that dudes computers.
Find keys to the kingdom for the SR servers.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Insightful)
Incidentally, this case shows exactly why all this invasive, unconstitutional NSA monitoring is actually unnecessary. By all accounts this guy was nabbed using good old-fashioned investigative work by the various authorities.
It can be done. Sure, it's just harder that way - but our personal liberties are worth that cost.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Tor compromised (Score:4, Funny)
That's totally different! In capitalism, the government is corrupt because markets exist, but in Soviet Russia the markets exist because government is corrupt.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Interesting)
it seems that the Tor system is compromised by the snoops.
(facepalm)
tor was MADE BY the snoops, FOR the snoops
it started as a us naval research lab project to allow spies and dissidents in hostile countries to communicate with the us spy network without fear of being spied on by hostile governments
let me repeat: tor was made by the american government
of course it's been decentralized since then, but you're an idiot if you don't think they still don't have their hooks in it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)#History [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
correct, TOR is owned. look at this screenshot of prism:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/166821334/FlyingPig
right tab...
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Insightful)
it seems that the Tor system is compromised by the snoops.
The safest option is to assume that EVERYTHING is compromised nowadays. Your OS. Your security certificate server. Your ISP. Your VPN. SSL. Your webcam. Everything.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:4, Interesting)
That is an enormous logical leap. Silk Road was running a high-profile, long-running Tor service, which is inherently dangerous and certainly more dangerous than many other applications of Tor. Is there evidence that suggests they were particularly skilled in doing so safely? There are also a number of well-known (and nearly-unavoidable) attacks against the Tor design. They are difficult, but then, they've been running a high-profile site for a long time, which makes it a lot easier to be targeted by even difficult attacks.
Finally, there are plenty of ways for an operation that large to be undone that are much more likely compromise of Tor itself. Most of these things are solved by conventional police work because (a) "real" evidence looks a lot better in a trial and (b) people are a lot better at making mistakes than most security technologies.
Re: (Score:3)
Bitcoin is not an anonymous system, so the transactions should be trackable. I'd guess that's one of the weak links. Probably most of the users don't anonymize their Bitcoin usage. Silk Road may have accepted Bitcoins as a tip for example - it anyway gets a percentage of the transactions, and from all of the BC traffic a couple of hotspots can be identified.
The owner himself probably created a noticeable trail of real money. An Infomant is a good guess - when money and drugs are involved some of it is real
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know if Tor is compromised or not, but according to the complaint they were on to him since 2011. He used an account called "altoid" on the regular net to both promote the launch of the site, and elsewhere to solicit IT help directing people to his personal Gmail address (with his name right there in it).
Re: (Score:3)
I bet you the investigation cost much less than what the yield of the forfeited assets will be.
Re: (Score:3)
I wonder how much of the pot traffic on SR is from sellers who can sell legally in their own state. Most of the problems for the seller vanish if you're also selling legally. We might find out if there are follow-on busts.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:4, Informative)
"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."
It's fine to hypothesize whatever, but from what I can tell, hard evidence suggests there are easy solutions. I have yet to see any case studies that show prohibition working, in contrast.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Interesting)
> Legalization of heroin or other highly addictive drugs would be disastrous.
I hear this a lot; but what is it even based on? I used to be just a "legalize pot" guy, but the more I looked at it, the more I found that drug prohibition didn't solve, or even help, a single problem.
Do you know what percentage of people in burn units in the US (ever been to a burn unit btw? not a fun place) are there for cooking meth? Its about half. Yes....HALF the people in burn units. How the hell did we get here?
Meth has been around since the fucking 1930s. Never before in history could you say half of the people being treated for severe burns came from meth cooking, why now? The answer is fairly simple.... the DEA pushed other drugs off the market, and in the vacuume, people looking to make a quick buck or get their fix, asked "What is the easiest stimulent drug I can make at home" turns out...meth was the winner.
So they took a problem...and made it worst. They did that with fucking everyting. Would we have IV drug use without prohibition? Sure, a few. However, I doubt it would be nearly as popular. I mostly doubt it because, people were using other drugs before meth became so available.
Krokodil or however they spell it.... is desomorphine. Everything I read about it indicates it would be a fine drug for opiate addicts. Its fairly short acting, it produces less respiratory distress (ie its safer). However.... its also cheap to produce in your kitchen from codiene. Why are people doing it? Because they can't buy anything cheaper! Who the hell would whip up something in their kitchen and inject it, if, for a similar price, they could buy it?
Look at the swiss heroin study, allowed users cheap, fairly priced heroin and gave them a safe place to shoot up. Quickly the subjects of the study ceased illegal activities and got jobs.
Frankly the claims of problems with legalization sound no different and are based on no more sound evidence than claims that accepting homosexuality is going to turn children gay.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Informative)
Legalization of heroin or other highly addictive drugs would be disastrous
Sorry, this experiment has been run (Portugal) and decriminalizing and getting people treatment drops the usage rate by more than half in just a couple years and greatly reduces crime.
Ignorance like yours is what keeps the level of addiction up as well as the crime rate. You should feel bad.
Re:Tor compromised (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have any evidence that this happened, or are you confusing Silk Road with Freedom Hosting?
You mean besides the criminal complaint posted in the article you were supposed to read before shoving your foot in your mouth?
Page 6: "as well as forensic analysis of computer servers used to operate the Silk Road website that have been located and imaged during the investigation"
Page 11: "... instructs vendors to 'vacuum seal' packages containing narcotics, in order to avoid detection..." "use a different address from the user's own address to receive shipment... friend's house or P.O. box"
"Since November of 2011, law enforcement agents participating in this investigation have made over 100 individual undercover purchases..."
Thanks to the Silk Road taking a percentage of all proceeds, they've been able to locate the ledger for the entire website; Every transaction made, as well as the so-called "tumbler" used to anonymize bitcoins used to make purchases on the website... as the transaction logs for "tumbled" bitcoins was also amongst the items recovered.
When you dig into the complaint it becomes painfully clear how sloppy this guy was: He had a Google+ page, a LinkedIn profile, youtube, etc., -- there is considerable captured traffic between the Silk Road webserver sent outside the Tor network, including e-mails and other accounts authorities are now using to collect the realworld identities of many of the administrators and regular contributors to the site. He didn't encrypt anything on the servers -- they didn't even need a fucking password to get this information.
Backup servers which had SSH keys to login to were also recovered, so what little was encrypted... well, let's just say the root password of the Silk Road might as well have been "1234".
Every PO box, every ship-to address... he kept it all. There was no data retention policy this guy used... he was a data hoarder, and the only reason it took the government this long wasn't because of how hard it was to track him down in real life, but because of the sheer crapflood of forensic data bogged down their entire cybercrime division. And get this... they bought the malware later used to infect Freedom Hosting off Silk Road!.
Someone should built a monument to this guy's stupidity... Tor might anonymize your IP address, but this guy fucked over the privacy of everyone that visited with gross incompetence and greed all on his own. The government didn't need to go the extra mile... all that stuff with Freedom Hosting getting infected (Hey, check out that malware sometime; It records which Tor sites you visit and when. Can't think of how Silk Road might have been affected there!) was just testing out their toys. It wasn't necessary, but you know... if you're gonna do it, might as well overdo it.
Billion ... with a B (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Billion ... with a B (Score:4, Interesting)
It depends. Do you make money from the prison industry?
Re:Billion ... with a B (Score:5, Funny)
War on Drugs? Don't know.
The War on Incorrect Usage of "Begs the Question" however, we are obviously losing.
Re:Billion ... with a B (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Billion ... with a B (Score:5, Funny)
It means the same thing, for all intensive purposes.
Re:Billion ... with a B (Score:5, Funny)
Nonsense, it's lunchtime at the shoreside campground at the dolphin sanctuary.
"Food, for all in tents, and porpoises!"
IANAL, but here is why you won't get your coins. (Score:5, Informative)
The US govt seized my bitcoins which silk road kept for me. I am not a US citizen. I have not committed a crime involving us soil or citizens. Will I be able to reclaim my bitcoins? I was actually keeping them there as a safe haven.
You will probably not be able to get your coins back. They have been seized via civil forfeiture. [wikipedia.org] To get your coins back, you will need to establish proof that you are the owner of the coins and that you qualify for an "innocent owner" defense under 18 USC 983(d). [cornell.edu] Specifically, you will need to show that you "(i) did not know of the conduct giving rise to forfeiture; or (ii) upon learning of the conduct giving rise to the forfeiture, did all that reasonably could be expected under the circumstances to terminate such use of the property."
So, can you show that you did not know that drugs and other illicit materials were being traded on Silk Road? If not, can you show that you tried to get your coins out as soon as you learned this was the case? If not, then goodbye money. You shouldn't have knowingly comingled funds with criminals.
Beyond the unlikelihood of successful recovery, I would point out that attempting to claim your coins may put you at risk of criminal charges for your own actions. I note that you specifically mention that you "have not committed a crime involving us soil or citizens" (emphasis added). If you have used your coins to participate in a crime elsewhere or have participated in activity that is legal elsewhere but criminal in the US (e.g. trade in controlled substances), you may run afoul of money laundering charges (18 USC 1956-1957) and RICO (18 USC 1961-1968).
I highly recommend you consult a real attorney first. (I am not one!) Be honest with them; you have attorney-client privilege in the US and in many other countries, and they cannot give good legal advice without all the facts. Don't be reckless, though. Since you're a foreign national, any calls to the US will most likely be monitored according to recent news, and the DEA is accused of using information they can't legally obtain to fake up a "clean" evidence trail that can't be constitutionally impeached. If possible, you may wish to seek an attorney local to your country who works with US law internationally.
Final note: I am not a lawyer. This should not be construed as legal advice, and I may be quite wrong on several aspects of the above. If you are in serious trouble, consult a real attorney and not Slashdot.
Didn't expect this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Might not be via TOR (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Might not be via TOR (Score:5, Insightful)
Got nailed by USING Silk Road, not RUNNING it (Score:4, Informative)
According to the complaint, they tracked him by intercepting fake id's he sent to his actual home address. Whether they breached TOR and just set him up, or just hit the stupid mistake of a lifetime by him using his actual address I doubt we will ever know. In any case, they traced things back to him in the end it seems.
So how long... (Score:5, Funny)
So how long will it be before the Silk Road is back up and running under the management of the Dread Pirate Roberts? I presume he had a cabin boy prior to being arrested... or was that how he got nabbed?
Re: (Score:3)
Inconceivable!
Expect to see bitcoin lose half its value (Score:4, Insightful)
It's an open secret that Silk Road was THE primary driver of demand for bitcoin in the beginning. Adoption by the Silk Road transformed bitcoin from a technical curiosity to a real currency backed by a valuable physical commodity (drugs).
Bitcoin has a life of its own now. Even Wall Street is involved. But without Silk Road, 99% of slashdot would have never heard of bitcoin. And the end of Silk Road is certain to impact bitcoin in a big way, even today.
Re: (Score:3)
Sweet. When that happens it will be time to buy.
Ya, Sure. (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone knows the real Dread Pirate Roberts [wikipedia.org] has been retired +15 years in Patagonia ... But, of course, no one would care about arresting the Dread Pirate Ulbricht.
How he was caught. (Score:4, Informative)
https://medium.com/p/d48995e8eb5a [medium.com]
I didn't write it.
Link to indictment contained within too.
$3.6 Million Bitcoin Seized (Score:4, Interesting)
Will the government try to redeem these bitcoins? Wouldn't that be like saying that they accept that bitcoin is valid? (Of course they could be hypocrites and say that bitcoin is completely invalid and redeem them anyways.)
It would be neat if all the seized bitcoins could be identified and recorded as being worthless now.
Re:$3.6 Million Bitcoin Seized (Score:5, Insightful)
When they size 20kg of cocaine "with a street value of $3.6m"[1], they don't sell it, or at least they are not supposed to. They destroy it.
- Officer Smith, please take this pile of drugs and make it disappear!
- Sure, boss. You won't see this particular pile of drugs ever again.
Or perhaps Bill Gates? (Score:3, Funny)
Ross William Ulbricht: Have you ever considered black marketing? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.
.
RTFA! And Read the complaint! (Score:4, Informative)
Solution - End the "war on drugs" (Score:3)
An interesting side point that comes out of all this is that services like Silk Road wouldn't exist if there wasn't a market for them.
I'm about as far from Libertarian as you can get, but one thing I do think they have right is the idea that the "war on drugs" should be stopped. It can't be won, that has been proven. Every single defense that's put up to stop drug trafficking is worked around shortly after it comes on the scene. Drug cartels basically run large parts of Mexico and Central America. US citizens get tossed in prison for drug use and sales, which basically turns them into a wasted resource (good luck getting a normal job with a prison record) and this ends up costing more in the long run.
Prohibition basically gave birth to organized crime, simply because enough of the population wanted to keep drinking alcohol and was willing to break the law. As a result, we saw what we see now with other drugs -- the price of alcohol shot up, other ancillary crime increased, violent gangs brutally wiped each other out neighborhood by neighborhood in big cities. With drugs it's the same thing -- I have no desire to use drugs, but there are plenty of others who do. And they'll do whatever it takes to do so, and pay whatever street price is prevalent. Econ 101 -- inelastic demand (more like infinite demand) in the face of constrained supply means prices keep going up no matter what you do.
I believe drug use is a completely victimless crime -- it's the other stuff that happens alongside it (stealing to pay for expensive drugs, drunk/high driving, etc.). If everything were readily available, sold in safe doses and taxed appropriately (like tobacco and alcohol,) prices would be low and people wouldn't have to steal to pay for their habits.
The other thing to consider is that we're rapidly heading towards a sci-fi dystopian future where human labor is no longer as important as it is now. When the unemployment rate shoots up to 85%, wouldn't you rather fill their free time with something other than random crime sprees? Yes, it sounds very "Brave New World"-ish, but it's rapidly coming true. Unless society just drops the use of labor and money as measures of productivity, which will never happen, this is the inevitable future!
Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow, if people read the criminal indictment there's one, possibly even two murder-for-hires in the wings linked to (allegedly posted by / conversation with) this guy.
-Matt
Value of bitcoins (Score:5, Funny)
Article: 11:36am: US Government seizes $3.6 million worth of bitcoins
Update, 11:45am: US Government seizes $1.75 million worth of bitcoins
Update, 12:03pm: US Government seizes $8.3 million worth of bitcoins
Update, 12:54pm: US Government seizes $766 thousand worth of bitcoins
Update, 3:27pm: US Government seizes Eight Dollars worth of bitcoins
Update, 5:55pm: US Government seizes $15 million worth of bitcoins
Re:HOW?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or more specifically, monitoring known(or complicit) tor entry nodes, looking for quantity of activity corresponding to activity by roberts, back tracking to the origin IP address, getting a warrant for a full-on-monitoring of that address, verifying their target, then going for a bust.
Encryption and anonymyzing technology only works in as much as no one with any resources actively wants to figure out who you are. You might be able to hide your message, but you'll never hide your existence.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or more specifically, monitoring known(or complicit) tor entry nodes, looking for quantity of activity corresponding to activity by roberts, back tracking to the origin IP address, getting a warrant for a full-on-monitoring of that address, verifying their target, then going for a bust.
Encryption and anonymyzing technology only works in as much as no one with any resources actively wants to figure out who you are. You might be able to hide your message, but you'll never hide your existence.
You had me sold on this theory, right up until you said "warrant".
Then I knew it was bullshit.
Like our government feels the need to recognize the legal process anymore.
Re:HOW?? (Score:5, Informative)
You had me sold on this theory, right up until you said "warrant".
Then I knew it was bullshit.
Like our government feels the need to recognize the legal process anymore.
You know that he's going to have a trial, right? And that the FBI won't want him to get off because there was no warrant for the evidence the prosecution presents in that trial, right? There might very well be unconstitutional monitoring in this process, but to bring it to court and get a conviction, a warrant is necessary paperwork.
Re:HOW?? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:HOW?? (Score:4, Insightful)
The US Government cares, but only so far as they need to make sure they get reciprocal privileges in that country. Obviously, US power makes it easier to get things done without having to horse trade for it, but ultimately, it only works if there is not too much abuse.
Re:HOW?? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not going to cry about criminals going to jail. it's people like this that help the govt justify the NSA, etc. they need all these tools because people who use encryption / tor / bitcoin / etc are criminals! thanks silk road for ruining it for the rest of us.
it's like the shoe bomber guy who gave the gov't authority to tell me to take off my shoes, and the underwear bomber guy who convinced the govt to fondle my nuts every time I went through security (although secretly they always wanted to do that). Now because of the boston bombers NSA will be collating my online profile to look for "suspicious activities" that may make me a potential terrorist.
I think in 1984 the Goldman terrorist guy actually didn't exist, and was just a gov't front to justify their behaviors and scare people. maybe that's what's going on here?
Re:HOW?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:HOW?? (Score:4, Interesting)
You perspective is common, but I think flawed. We need to have law and order in a civil society, even when there are great injustices also taking place. As a thought experiment, imagine that you are living in South prior to the Civil War. Women can't vote and people are actually enslaved right in your very own town. Now you find out that a guy in town is passing off counterfeit money. Do you arrest and prosecute the guy, or do you let him go because what he is doing is a trivial crime because one of the most unspeakably horrible crimes that man has ever perpetuated upon man is occurring at the same time?
Anyway, my 2 cents...
Re:HOW?? (Score:4, Interesting)
If he's an ally in the fight against slavery, you're damned right you don't do anything about it. And in this case, what we're talking about is a modern equivalent to the underground railroad. DPR enabled the oppressed to live freer at great personal risk. That's worthy of respect.
Re:HOW?? (Score:5, Insightful)
What value does law and order have to the slave? Law and order is nothing more than a tool, and when that tool is wielded by evil, it serves evil. A society where injustice is enforced by the government and cheered on by patriots is no society that is worth having.
Think about it, if you were the slave in your scenario, would you really care that an abolitionist had counterfeited currency? Hell no! If you thought that counterfeiting would lead to your freedom, I bet you would run the presses yourself.
Re:HOW?? (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the more significant recent revelations is that the govt uses "parallel construction" in building a cae. If possibly illegal surveillance is used to catch you, they -- after the fact -- construct a legal scenario for how they MIGHT have caught you that will pass muster w/ a judge.
Re:HOW?? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I'd like to see how he implemented his back-end. Did he rely upon tor's anonymity and get lazy in the private messaging system? Were the logs/messages unencrypted and left in RAM? The new methods of catching computer crooks basically entail that the FBI sends in an IT team and nothing is touched or powered off (meaning mounted encrypted drives are live and they can run through them at will, etc).
Also, I remember reading an article by Schneier about the possibility for a well-funded attacker to effective
Re:HOW?? (Score:4, Funny)
It's pure BS.
Since the eighties, everybody knows that Roberts is not one man, but a series of individuals who periodically pass the name and reputation to a chosen successor. Everyone except the successor and the former Roberts is then released at a convenient port, and a new crew is hired. The former Roberts stays aboard as first mate, referring to his successor as "Captain Roberts", and thereby establishing the new Roberts' persona. After the crew is convinced, the former Roberts leaves the ship and retires on his earnings.
Re:HOW?? (Score:5, Insightful)
it is more likely than not that a very clear paper trail will be shown that it all happened by good old fashioned police investigation as you described.
It doesn't mean it was not obtained with an illicit program to begin with, only that they were able to cross the "t"s an dot the "i"s later.
Re:HOW?? (Score:5, Informative)
This guy, Ross Ulbricht, made a number of critical mistakes irrespective of his use of TOR. For example, he posted on the shroomery.org forums using the user name "altoid" and then again a few days later on bitcointalk.org with the same user name. The court documents aren't clear on whether or not he was using TOR at the time he made those posts or when or how he created those accounts in the first place. Apparently, these were some of the earliest public posts promoting what would ultimately become the Silk Road. Eight months after that, the "altoid" identity was used again on the bitcointalk forum to advertise for an "IT pro in the Bitcoin community" to hire for a job with a "venture backed Bitcoin startup company". This was critical because the email address for the job posting was rossulbricht at gmail. So this guy used his real email address (which contained his real name) posting as "altoid", the same account that had earlier promoted the Silk Road concept on both shroomery and bitcointalks: epic fail. . From there it was proverbial cake for the authorities to monitor his Google accounts and trace the IP address of his logins to an Internet cafe in San Francisco. They also found that he had an account on the Mises Institute website (an Austrian Economics organization) under Ross Ulbricht and the Silk Road website also linked to the Mises Institute website. Yet more evidence, albeit circumstantial, that Ulbricht was the one behind Silk Road. Game, Set and Match to the the 3 letter agencies and the USSS. Have a nice day.
Re:HOW?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup. NSA -> FBI -> Parallel Construction Filter -> Arrest.
Tor was not designed to protect against an adversary that has a global view of all traffic.
Re:HOW?? (Score:5, Informative)
Now, onto how he got caught... An agent involved in the investigation ("Agent-1"), found the first few references to SR on the internet from somebody only identified as "altoid", attempting to promote the site in its beginning days, in January of 2011.
In October of the same year, a user also going by the name of "altoid" made a posting on Bitcoin Talk titled "a venture backed Bitcoin startup company", which directed interested users to "rossulbricht at gmail dot com".
That email address is what led to DPR's downfall.
---
After identifying "altoid", they started connecting the "DPR" identity to Ulbricht pretty quickly.
Ulbricht's Google+ page and YouTube profile both make multiple references to the a website dubbed the "Mises Institute". DPR's signature on the SR forums contained a link to the Mises Institute.
DPR cited the "Austrian Economic theory" along with the works of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, all of which are closesly associated with the Mises Institute.
Server logs show that someone logged onto the SR administration panel from San Fransisco around the same time that Ulbricht was staying in San Fransisco.
Multiple fake IDs were intercepted by U.S. Customs & Border Patrol while on their way to an address which Ulbricht was living at the time.
These IDs all carried photos of Ulbricht but had false names and details. This was around the same time that DPR stated in a message that he was acquiring some fake IDs to buy new servers.
When questioned by Homeland Security about the fake IDs, he refused to answer any questions but then stated that anyone could purchase such things using "Silk Road" and "Tor".
The address which Ulbricht was staying at was being rented in cash and he was living with housemates who knew him under a name which corresponded with one of the fake IDs.
He posted on StackOverflow using his real name, inquiring about how to use curl/PHP to grab things off Tor, before quickly changing the name to "frosty" (with a fake email: frosty@frosty.com)
Thought my money is on NSA and parallel construction.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No. http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf [berkeley.edu] has more info. DPR got extremely sloppy with keeping his identities separate. The Tor part worked fine.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The only surprise here is why this arrest and seizure took so long. I hope all these evildoers and drug pushers realize now that they can't hide behind anonymity and the authorities can prosecute and punish these dastardly bastards.
Congrats to the FBI, DEA, and government for taking this hooligan down.
Sounds like you need a mushroom session.
Re:Long Overdue (Score:4, Insightful)
The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right... The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
— John Stuart Mill,
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, "drug pushers". They "pushed" TOR onto everyone's computer. They "pushed" everyone's browser to the onion URL that points to Silk Road. Then they "pushed" everyone to buy bitcoins and "pushed" them to use those bitcoins to buy contraband. Yep, "pushers" indeed!
Re:Long Overdue (Score:5, Informative)
Using the word "evildoers" in a context other then a Saturday morning cartoon means that he is brainwashed.
Re:strange summary FTA (Score:5, Funny)
They didn't. They used their backdoor.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
i'm attacking the notion that because the "war" goes on forever it is invalid. you also need to take the trash out every thursday. is that an argument to end "the war on trash"? no, some functions of society are just maintenance functions that never end
i'm not defending us drug policy, it's poor tactics. and some substances need to be legal. but i'm attacking the notion that just because there's demand and supply for something, therefore it needs to be accepted
example: something like meth has a lot of supply and demand. meth also creates horrible costs to individuals and society. such that attacking the meth supply and demand chain has direct costs, and secondary costs. but if meth use is minimized to some extent because of the "war", that pays dividends in the form of less overall costs for individuals and society in regards to the harm that meth does. such that fighting meth is worth it
it's a case-by-case basis. just because marijuana is legalized (and should be legalized) doesn't mean all drugs should be. each substance has to be evaluated individually