Justice Department Shuts Dark Web Drug Directory, Arrests Alleged Owners (nbcnews.com) 112
In what is being called "the single most significant law enforcement disruption of the darknet to date" by U.S. Attorney Scott Brady, the Justice Department has shut down a major directory of dark web drug marketplaces and arrested the alleged owners. NBC News reports: DeepDotWeb was a regular searchable website that provided a directory with direct access to a host of darknet marketplaces selling illegal narcotics including fentanyl, cocaine, heroin and meth. The website also provided access to marketplaces for firearms, including assault rifles, and for malicious software and hacking tools. The alleged owners, Tal Prihar, 37, and Michael Phan, 34, both from Israel, were arrested Monday, Prihar in France and Phan in Israel, where they remain in custody. They each face a single count of money laundering conspiracy in the U.S. Phan also faces charges in Israel.
Prihar and Phan allegedly received kickback payments through bitcoin when someone purchased an item on the darknet sites found through the directory, earning more than $15 million in fees since October 2013, according to prosecutors. These "referral bonuses" allegedly came from darknet marketplaces including AlphaBay Market, Agora Market, Abraxas Market, Dream Market, Valhalla Market, Hansa Market, TradeRoute Market, Dr. D's, Wall Street Market and Tochka Market. The closing of a directory like DeepDotWeb is significant, Brady said, because it should stifle hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal purchases.
Prihar and Phan allegedly received kickback payments through bitcoin when someone purchased an item on the darknet sites found through the directory, earning more than $15 million in fees since October 2013, according to prosecutors. These "referral bonuses" allegedly came from darknet marketplaces including AlphaBay Market, Agora Market, Abraxas Market, Dream Market, Valhalla Market, Hansa Market, TradeRoute Market, Dr. D's, Wall Street Market and Tochka Market. The closing of a directory like DeepDotWeb is significant, Brady said, because it should stifle hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal purchases.
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The Legislative branch has usurped more and more power that far exceeds the powers laid out in the Constitution. The legislative branch thinks checks and balances only apply to the two other branches of government. It is the Legislative branch that is responsible for destroying the country. The Executive branch has very little power compared to the Legislative branch. The Executive branch does not makes the laws or approve the budgets. A President has veto power but even that can be overridden by Congress.
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I was wondering about this myself...I read this part of the synopsis:
And was thinking "WOW"...they're selling full auto rifles on the Darknet? Doing that with anything made after 1986, and not doing the enhanced ATF paperwork and background checks alone will get them 10years or more for each count.
Man, that's not worth it even if they're getting the requisite $20K and up
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Sadly true....and most of the people pushing for overreaching gun control on law abiding citizens, don't even know much about the weapons they are trying to ban.
Remember, the AR in AR-15 stands for ArmaLite the company that developed the rifle, I think in the 50's or so.
It does NOT stand for assault rifle.
I mean, hell...an AR-17 [youtube.com] is a fucking shotgun, not a rifle!!
Anyway, I just w
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Armalite Rifle [youtube.com](1978).
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Hmm, pretty much NONE of the recent 'mass' shootings that have caught the news, have had the shooter employing ANY type of loophole.
Nothing much could have been done to prevent them as that they weren't on the map to law enforcement, and attained their weapons legally, background checks and all.
The only possibly thing that could have prevented them, would possibly if their mental health and if police had investigated a few of them per the tip-off
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Are a legal product in all 50 states of the US.
Maybe so, but they also mentioned heroin, cocaine, and meth. I am pro drug legalization, but I am guessing it is the drugs they are more concerned with. Probably the actual charges won't even mention the legal firearms. Why they are arresting someone who made a search tool though I'm not sure. Will they arrest everyone at Google next because I can search for information or even sources for illegal drugs with Google. May not be as effective, but it's the same principle. Either making a search tool or index o
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Re:it was only a directory? (Score:5, Informative)
They were getting kick-backs from link follows. That put them in the flow of money.
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All they did was point the way to someone else. That is not a crime.
Clearly it can be.
Whether it should be is a pertinent question, but lawyers don't need to do with that kind of ethics question.
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Would you make this same claim that it's "not a crime" if they were making money directing people to child porn?
The feds refer to this as "facilitating", and it's a bit of a gray area, but make no mistake- they can and will prosecute you for it. And you'll go to prison, where you can file appeals until you're too old to get out of your wheelchair.
For example, if someone stops you on the street and asks "Where's the nearest bank?" and you tell them and they go there and rob it, you're probably not in any leg
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While I actually agree with these arrests* , contributory complicity can produce absurd outcomes. There was/is (dont know) a guy in the US on death row for lending his friends a car, which they used for a robbery. The robbery went wrong and the homeowner was killed. The guy who lent the car is on death row. The guy who shot the homeowner got life. That is *fucking absurd*.
* why I agree with these arrests;- Either drugs are illegal or they are not, if they are not then we've got no clear line and its those g
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The guy who lent the car is on death row. The guy who shot the homeowner got life. That is *fucking absurd*.
Agreed. This is a perfect example of the law gone horribly, insanely wrong.
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You sound ridiculous.
I sound ridiculous? You're the one equating child porn with the "linen aisle at Macy's."
Pay attention kids- this is called "hypocrisy" or "lack of self-awareness".
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TPB doesn't monetize their links.
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So two Israeli citizens who don't live or operate within the United States are burdened by US laws how exactly?
... doing business in the US?
Fentanyl (Score:3, Insightful)
Fentanyl problems exist precisely because there is a black market for opiates.
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Or does a black market exist because of demand for Fentanyl?
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and opiate problems exist.... because junkies like to be high on opiates
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Fentanyl problems exist precisely because there is a black market for opiates.
Wrong. Fentanyl problems exist because of the pharmaceutical industry flooding the market with opioid-based "medicine", which doctors prescribed in unbelievable quantities during the early 2000's. This created a huge demand in the streets for pills and heroin (oxy's big brother). Over the past couple of years, the FDA/DEA realized they could no longer turn a blind eye to the so called "opioid epidemic", so they started cracking down on pharmaceutical distributors, doctors, and drug dealers. The general opio
Hydra. (Score:2)
As with all else, more will rise to take its place.
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As with all else, more will rise to take its place.
I would expect to see it back in business within a week. Of course anyone with half a brain wouldn't touch it with a 10 meter cattle prod. But there are enough drug addled out there to make it worth while.
How can you have a public Dark Web? (Score:4, Interesting)
The moment you provide a method of finding your local drug dealer, they will be found, but the law.
Crime is traditionally carried out based on one-to-one interactions. The user finds clients to supply and so buys more from the dealer. Neither the dealer nor clients know who the other is, and the user would be severely punished if that leaked. At the higher end, relationships are made over long time periods, in dubious places, specifically to avoid the law.
So how can you possibly have a dark web? Encrypted point to point communications sure. But a website or any other type of broadcast forum??
That is a question? Anyone know?
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TOR, look it up. And some method of shipment that is a lot of effort to trace back. Apparently they are now considering classical dead-drops, but even the post office seems to still work reasonably well.
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I am not so sure. The article linked here https://www.schneier.com/blog/... [schneier.com] is pretty interesting. Of course, it all depends on how strong the authoritarians, that presume to tell people how to live, push. If they push too hard, they may lose it all. That may be why the demented "war on drugs" almost exclusively catches small fish and most of the trade seems to be working well. Too many people in law enforcement and politics profit from the issue being on-going.
Re:How can you have a public Dark Web? (Score:5, Informative)
The other term is "deep web" which means "not indexed by Google."
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Must have been a physicist that came up with the term dark web. They shove dark in front of anything that they don't know about: dark matter; dark energy; dark web.
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The moment you provide a method of finding your local drug dealer, they will be found, but the law.
The idea behind these sites is that you can't find the drug dealer. You can send them Bitcoins and a mailing address, but you never have to meet them or know where they are. They send you the goods in the mail.
As long as they practice good op-sec then law enforcement still won't be catching up with them. Disposable, anonymous email address only accessed over Tor, and remove all fingerprints and other forensic evidence from the mailed out packages.
Of course, most drug dealers are not that smart.
Re: How can you have a public Dark Web? (Score:2)
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"Basically it is illegal to sell somebody something that you know is then going to be used in illegal activities."
They sold traffic to sites they knew were involved in illegal activities. Pretty open and shut case.
Assuming that's true, how does the U.S. get jurisdiction to make this arrest? If a law was broken, it would be in the jurisdiction where they lived etc (assuming they weren't using U.S. servers, bank accounts, etc).
This reeks of more "police of the world" bullshit.
Re:Government Persecution of Speech Continues (Score:4, Insightful)
...how does the U.S. get jurisdiction to make this arrest? If a law was broken, it would be in the jurisdiction where they lived etc (assuming they weren't using U.S. servers, bank accounts, etc).
This reeks of more "police of the world" bullshit.
What else should one expect of an authoritarian oligarchy like the US? Just look at the Julian Assange/WikiLeaks debacle. If they'd do that to someone who simply did what the NYT did re: publishing the Pentagon Papers, etc, while not even being a US citizen, being in the US, or doing anything within the US's legal jurisdiction, why would you think they'd not go after anyone anywhere they considered "problematic" from their point of view regardless of any legalities if they were annoyed/paid enough?
The US government has been routinely and daily ignoring the Constitution and it's own laws, especially if it found either or both of them inconvenient to their corrupt goals and agendas of the moment, for many decades. Hell, these two guys are damned lucky someone in authority at the FBI/DoJ/State didn't say "Can't we just drone these guys?".
Strat
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What else should one expect of an authoritarian oligarchy like the US? Just look at the Julian Assange/WikiLeaks debacle. If they'd do that to someone who simply did what the NYT did re: publishing the Pentagon Papers, etc, while not even being a US citizen, being in the US, or doing anything within the US's legal jurisdiction, why would you think they'd not go after anyone anywhere they considered "problematic" from their point of view regardless of any legalities if they were annoyed/paid enough?
The facts are still emerging, but if Assange did indeed give material support in helping crack the encryption protecting said data then that would be giving material support to espionage (not saying I necessarily agree, just that there is a discernible basis).
What they did here was no different than setting up a directory. We don't charge the owner of Craigslist with a crime merely because two people used the site to meet up and facilitate a crime. Someone earlier said it was because they financially b
I feel like the WWII Germans in Cryptonomicon (Score:3)
Like the Germans in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon looking at suspicious ship sinkings and wondering about Enigma. How could the Allies have known where that convoy was? Oh right some convenient and odd coincidence that just happens to explain how it's possible after the fact. I hate to say this guys but I think Tor itself has probably been compromised and has become a honeypot. They could bust everyone on the dark web if they wanted to but it would be too obvious and they would lose their honeypot. I can't be sure of this of course just like the Germans couldn't be sure Enigma had been compromised. I think we need a new system to replace Tor or Tor needs to be upgraded so that it cannot be compromised even if the adversary owns most of the nodes. Is there anything that can be done to patch Tor and make it more resistant to attacks by massive and extremely well funded and persistent adversaries like multi-government cooperative law enforcement task forces?
I'm obviously missing something here... (Score:1)
Because I'm just a simple person, I can't see the difference between a directory that links to various sites and earns money from those links (like Google, say) and a directory that links to various sites and earns money from those links (like... the directory run by these guys)...
Could someone with more legal/technical/general knowledge than me explain the difference?
It seems to me to be a similar case of Megaupload bad, Google Drive good, despite the two things ultimately being identical in almost every w
Once again the US goes after the wrong targets (Score:3)
Instead of going after the sellers and makers of the harmful products the US has decided to take down the directory. Another directory will pop up in a couple days and nobody is really safer. It's just the illusion of safety. Where are the real criminals here? The ones killing people with Fentanyl, other drugs, and illegal weapons? (And the ones that created the Fentanyl problems with the over-prescribing of opiates but that's a different discussing.) The people who caused the real harm are walking free and we won't hear about their arrests because they won't be.
Much like the war on drugs in the US where they went/are going after the poor street dealers that are easy targets and are easily replaceable. They rarely went after people higher up the chain to stop the flow of drugs. Just build another jail and pack the poor, usually non-white, in there. It didn't matter that they were decimating their communities between the drugs and the arrests.