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The clever thing is that they took it over and for one month monitored it without the users knowing. Everyone on obfuscating their persona with Tor and bitcoi

The clever thing is that they took it over and for one month monitored it without the users knowing. Everyone on obfuscating their persona with Tor and bitcoins, still had to enter their postal addresses on the website, to receive the goodies. That database must be a wet dream for law enforcement.

peteretep 9y ago
Catching users is of limited interest to most law enforcement, and I suspect especially for Dutch law enforcement.
- raugustinus 9y ago
  For which I expect some of them to be charged with tax fraude or racketeering here in Holland. A lot of financial crimes, especially regarding taxes, are punished heavier than other crimes.
  - ShabbosGoy 9y ago
    I wonder how cannabis dealers based in Holland would be prosecuted. Doing a quick search shows that cannabis distribution/growing is still illegal under NL law. [1] I thought this excerpt was interesting: "The sale of small quantities of cannabis in coffeeshops is therefore technically an offence, but prosecution proceedings are only instituted if the operator or owner of the shop does not meet the criteria issued by the Prosecutor General: no more than five grams per person may be sold in any one transaction and the coffeeshop is not allowed to keep more than 500 grams of cannabis in stock; no hard drugs may be sold; drugs may not be advertised; the coffee shop must not cause any nuisance; they are not allowed to sell alcoholic beverages; no drugs may be sold to minors (under the age of 18), nor may minors be admitted to the premises." Could an implicated dealer use the legal defense that they were operating a coffee shop online? (Provided that they didn't sell > 5 grams of cannabis) [1] http://www.emcdda.europa.eu//html.cfm//index5174EN.html?# http://www.emcdda.europa.eu//html.cfm//index5174EN.html?#
    - Confiks 9y ago
      No, it doesn't work that way. One of the other criteria for qualifying as a coffeeshop, is that you obtain a permit from the municipality. Some municipalities simply don't allow any coffeeshops. Coffeeshops also have to be physical stores, and may not advertise. Also, it's also pretty much at the whim of the public prosecutor whether to close coffeeshops for not upholding the unrealistic 500 gram limit (for the amount of shops in densely populated areas other than Amsterdam).
- theEXTORTCIST 9y ago
  Untrue according to the crabs article interview with the woman "Petra Haandrikman, team leader of the Dutch police unit that infiltrated Hansa." https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/07/exclusive-dutch-cops-on-alphabay-refugees/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/07/exclusive-dutch-cops-on-... "H: Yes, we called them “AlphaBay refugees.” It wasn’t the technical challenge that caused problems. Because this was a police operation, we wanted to keep up with the orders to see if there were any large amounts [of drugs] being ordered to one place, [so that] we could share information with our law enforcement partners internationally."
  - peteretep 9y ago
    To me, that sounds like they were looking for resellers more than users
    - theEXTORTCIST 9y ago
      point taken, I had not read it this way originally but your interpretation makes sense edit: I knew I saw something about this somewhere earlier today. Still, this proves nothing because it's source less. https://www.politie.nl/en/news/2017/july/20/underground-hansa-market-taken-over-and-shut-down.html https://www.politie.nl/en/news/2017/july/20/underground-hans... "Some 10,000 foreign addresses of Hansa Market buyers were passed on to Europol"
forgotpwtomain 9y ago
> That database must be a wet dream for law enforcement. Because obviously people buying a few pills of ecstasy or a tab of LSD are a serious danger to society and should be taken of the streets. /s
- kbenson 9y ago
  > Because obviously people buying a few pills of ecstasy or a tab of LSD are a serious danger to society and should be taken of the streets. /s Because obviously it's impossible to express that one party might have viewed an outcome as favorable without agreeing with that view. /s
  - forgotpwtomain 9y ago
    Well given that this party is funded by taxpayers, for the purported benefit of said taxpayers and their society; I do think its problematic that said party would hold such a view.
    - kbenson 9y ago
      I have no problem calling out what you believe are unjust laws, but the way you did so implies some agreement with those laws from the commentor you were replying to, as well as some responsibility for those laws existing from the police that carry them out. Calling out a commentor's statement about the police's state of mind at concluding what was undoubtedly a large project for their department doesn't effectively work as a launchpad into a critique of those responsible for the law when done through terse sarcasm that seems to target the wrong responsible parties.
- mfoy_ 9y ago
  Because the police will totally arrest every single user and not focus on the high-volume buyers / sellers. /s
  - snaily 9y ago
    Until you look at an officer the wrong way. Or their friend. Or someone else with the ear of the boys in blue.
this_user 9y ago
Users usually use GPG to encrypt that data for precisely this reason.
squegles 9y ago
If users were smart they would have PGP encrypted their address with the seller's public key.
- nailer 9y ago
  If law enforcement were smart the "seller's" public key would be part of a keypair made by LEOs.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
    As I understand it, most sellers have their public keys available from several sources and savvy buyers will cross-verify them. It would probably raise too much suspicion of LE swapped out the keys and there was a discrepancy with the cross-references.
    - hackerboos 9y ago
      The website Grams kept a list of vendor's public keys. It appears from cross checking against that roster that not all keys were changed.
mschwar99 9y ago
From what I remember poking around at Hansa that's not true. Each vendor / user had a public key associated with their account. All text communication through the website was supposed to be with GPG encrypted text secured by private keys unavailable to website. So law enforcement has lots of encrypted text along with some clear text from users not informed enough to follow any kind of opsec.
- jameskegel 9y ago
  That's got to be bittersweet, busting a perp, only to open the door to his lair to find a grid of bank safes.
  - saimiam 9y ago
    > unfathomably large grid of bank safes The size of the grid makes encryption work.
    - mfoy_ 9y ago
      No, he means each "bank safe" is a "user profile". I.e. controlling the site didn't automatically come with the users' history on the site.
- theEXTORTCIST 9y ago
  Law enforcement could have easily MITM'd the PGP. They replace the public key of a vendor with their own public key (on the vendors's page, without the vendor's/buyer's knowledge), then the buyer address gets encrypted with that public key. Then they decrypt and resend the message using the sellers original public key. I really wonder if this happened at all
  - snissn 9y ago
    Then users looking at their accounts from other logins would see the wrong public key and know something was wrong. Also wonder if that happened at all
AgentSpoofer 9y ago
Everything is 256 bit encrypted though. No way they broke that.
Allower 9y ago
despicable
jcoffland 9y ago
> Everyone on obfuscating their persona with Tor and bitcoins, still had to enter their postal addresses on the website, to receive the goodies. Not exactly, these sites allow you to encrypt your address with the seller's public key. Of course it's possible that the site performs a man in the middle attack, but you could test for this. The big problem is that many users do not take advantage of the encryption features and send their address in clear text. Regardless, there is inherent risk. Even with perfect encryption, as a buyer, you still have to trust a drug dealer with your mailing address. And there's no way to tell for sure that the seller isn't LE.
theWatcher37 9y ago
This is wrong, but I can't say why. Investigate a bit more.
sondr3 9y ago
I have a friend who quite frequently used to buy from online markets (I have since lost touch with him). From what he told me what he and his friends used to do was to buy a new post box and set it up somewhere away from where they lived under a fictitious address and name. So they'd be John Doe living at Copper Street 45 (when it only actually goes to 44 or whatever). Then he'd track how long the package took, whether or not it was delivered normally by the postal service and even then wait a week or so and get it in the middle of the night. Nowadays they apparently just use drones instead to deliver stuff.
- pizza 9y ago
  Doesn't it take 2 pieces of photo ID to setup a PO box..?
  - yorwba 9y ago
    I think they used the kind that you can just buy and prop up next to your garden door or whatever. (Except they apparently put it to the side of some random road, effectively creating a new address not tied to them.)

peteretep 9y ago

Catching users is of limited interest to most law enforcement, and I suspect especially for Dutch law enforcement.

raugustinus 9y ago
For which I expect some of them to be charged with tax fraude or racketeering here in Holland. A lot of financial crimes, especially regarding taxes, are punished heavier than other crimes.
- ShabbosGoy 9y ago
  I wonder how cannabis dealers based in Holland would be prosecuted. Doing a quick search shows that cannabis distribution/growing is still illegal under NL law. [1] I thought this excerpt was interesting: "The sale of small quantities of cannabis in coffeeshops is therefore technically an offence, but prosecution proceedings are only instituted if the operator or owner of the shop does not meet the criteria issued by the Prosecutor General: no more than five grams per person may be sold in any one transaction and the coffeeshop is not allowed to keep more than 500 grams of cannabis in stock; no hard drugs may be sold; drugs may not be advertised; the coffee shop must not cause any nuisance; they are not allowed to sell alcoholic beverages; no drugs may be sold to minors (under the age of 18), nor may minors be admitted to the premises." Could an implicated dealer use the legal defense that they were operating a coffee shop online? (Provided that they didn't sell > 5 grams of cannabis) [1] http://www.emcdda.europa.eu//html.cfm//index5174EN.html?# http://www.emcdda.europa.eu//html.cfm//index5174EN.html?#
  - Confiks 9y ago
    No, it doesn't work that way. One of the other criteria for qualifying as a coffeeshop, is that you obtain a permit from the municipality. Some municipalities simply don't allow any coffeeshops. Coffeeshops also have to be physical stores, and may not advertise. Also, it's also pretty much at the whim of the public prosecutor whether to close coffeeshops for not upholding the unrealistic 500 gram limit (for the amount of shops in densely populated areas other than Amsterdam).
theEXTORTCIST 9y ago
Untrue according to the crabs article interview with the woman "Petra Haandrikman, team leader of the Dutch police unit that infiltrated Hansa." https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/07/exclusive-dutch-cops-on-alphabay-refugees/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/07/exclusive-dutch-cops-on-... "H: Yes, we called them “AlphaBay refugees.” It wasn’t the technical challenge that caused problems. Because this was a police operation, we wanted to keep up with the orders to see if there were any large amounts [of drugs] being ordered to one place, [so that] we could share information with our law enforcement partners internationally."
- peteretep 9y ago
  To me, that sounds like they were looking for resellers more than users
  - theEXTORTCIST 9y ago
    point taken, I had not read it this way originally but your interpretation makes sense edit: I knew I saw something about this somewhere earlier today. Still, this proves nothing because it's source less. https://www.politie.nl/en/news/2017/july/20/underground-hansa-market-taken-over-and-shut-down.html https://www.politie.nl/en/news/2017/july/20/underground-hans... "Some 10,000 foreign addresses of Hansa Market buyers were passed on to Europol"

forgotpwtomain 9y ago

> That database must be a wet dream for law enforcement. Because obviously people buying a few pills of ecstasy or a tab of LSD are a serious danger to society and should be taken of the streets. /s

kbenson 9y ago
> Because obviously people buying a few pills of ecstasy or a tab of LSD are a serious danger to society and should be taken of the streets. /s Because obviously it's impossible to express that one party might have viewed an outcome as favorable without agreeing with that view. /s
- forgotpwtomain 9y ago
  Well given that this party is funded by taxpayers, for the purported benefit of said taxpayers and their society; I do think its problematic that said party would hold such a view.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    I have no problem calling out what you believe are unjust laws, but the way you did so implies some agreement with those laws from the commentor you were replying to, as well as some responsibility for those laws existing from the police that carry them out. Calling out a commentor's statement about the police's state of mind at concluding what was undoubtedly a large project for their department doesn't effectively work as a launchpad into a critique of those responsible for the law when done through terse sarcasm that seems to target the wrong responsible parties.
mfoy_ 9y ago
Because the police will totally arrest every single user and not focus on the high-volume buyers / sellers. /s
- snaily 9y ago
  Until you look at an officer the wrong way. Or their friend. Or someone else with the ear of the boys in blue.

this_user 9y ago

Users usually use GPG to encrypt that data for precisely this reason.

squegles 9y ago

If users were smart they would have PGP encrypted their address with the seller's public key.

nailer 9y ago
If law enforcement were smart the "seller's" public key would be part of a keypair made by LEOs.
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
  As I understand it, most sellers have their public keys available from several sources and savvy buyers will cross-verify them. It would probably raise too much suspicion of LE swapped out the keys and there was a discrepancy with the cross-references.
  - hackerboos 9y ago
    The website Grams kept a list of vendor's public keys. It appears from cross checking against that roster that not all keys were changed.

mschwar99 9y ago

From what I remember poking around at Hansa that's not true. Each vendor / user had a public key associated with their account. All text communication through the website was supposed to be with GPG encrypted text secured by private keys unavailable to website. So law enforcement has lots of encrypted text along with some clear text from users not informed enough to follow any kind of opsec.

jameskegel 9y ago
That's got to be bittersweet, busting a perp, only to open the door to his lair to find a grid of bank safes.
- saimiam 9y ago
  > unfathomably large grid of bank safes The size of the grid makes encryption work.
  - mfoy_ 9y ago
    No, he means each "bank safe" is a "user profile". I.e. controlling the site didn't automatically come with the users' history on the site.
theEXTORTCIST 9y ago
Law enforcement could have easily MITM'd the PGP. They replace the public key of a vendor with their own public key (on the vendors's page, without the vendor's/buyer's knowledge), then the buyer address gets encrypted with that public key. Then they decrypt and resend the message using the sellers original public key. I really wonder if this happened at all
- snissn 9y ago
  Then users looking at their accounts from other logins would see the wrong public key and know something was wrong. Also wonder if that happened at all

AgentSpoofer 9y ago

Everything is 256 bit encrypted though. No way they broke that.

Allower 9y ago

despicable

jcoffland 9y ago

> Everyone on obfuscating their persona with Tor and bitcoins, still had to enter their postal addresses on the website, to receive the goodies. Not exactly, these sites allow you to encrypt your address with the seller's public key. Of course it's possible that the site performs a man in the middle attack, but you could test for this. The big problem is that many users do not take advantage of the encryption features and send their address in clear text. Regardless, there is inherent risk. Even with perfect encryption, as a buyer, you still have to trust a drug dealer with your mailing address. And there's no way to tell for sure that the seller isn't LE.

theWatcher37 9y ago

This is wrong, but I can't say why. Investigate a bit more.

sondr3 9y ago

I have a friend who quite frequently used to buy from online markets (I have since lost touch with him). From what he told me what he and his friends used to do was to buy a new post box and set it up somewhere away from where they lived under a fictitious address and name. So they'd be John Doe living at Copper Street 45 (when it only actually goes to 44 or whatever). Then he'd track how long the package took, whether or not it was delivered normally by the postal service and even then wait a week or so and get it in the middle of the night. Nowadays they apparently just use drones instead to deliver stuff.

pizza 9y ago
Doesn't it take 2 pieces of photo ID to setup a PO box..?
- yorwba 9y ago
  I think they used the kind that you can just buy and prop up next to your garden door or whatever. (Except they apparently put it to the side of some random road, effectively creating a new address not tied to them.)