13 ms·
AlphaBay, the Largest Online 'Dark Market,' Shut Down
- siliconc0w 9y agoYou have to think eventually the criminals will evolve proper OPSEC - there is simply too much money to be made. Also, you really should be living in a place with no extradition - Thai police picking you up is a bad place to be. Vietnam is close by and has no extradition - a much better choice for aspiring criminals.
- berberous 9y agoOr it will evolve to being run by Russian mobsters or North Korea--folks that are much harder to stop than random 25-year old geeks from America and Canada.
- fweespeech 9y agoYeah, there might already be one or two of those in existence already. :\ At the end of the day, the "outlaw" nation states are the ones that are going to be operating these things and then use the money to fund their black budgets. It doesn't matter if they can be identified as long as they can change the bitcoin to cash in an allied country.
- peterwwillis 9y agoThis is overgeneralizing. A lot of criminals have good OPSEC. But then again many don't, possibly because they're not very technically proficient, or they don't fear getting caught, like many other criminals. Also, often there are very simple solutions to potential problems from bad OPSEC practice. If they had just bribed the local police they could avoid getting caught, or get out easier. Just ask John McAfee!
- londons_explore 9y agoI have a suspicion that good opsec is super hard. It only takes accidentally using an outdated tor client just once to reveal your location... Typing the wrong password, public key, or even favorite bash prompt anywhere breaks opsec. Even a common typo would probably identify you pretty quickly.
- hackerboos 9y agoNot having an extradition treaty doesn't mean you won't be deported.
- contingencies 9y ago"Vietnam [...] has no extradition" {{citation-needed}} https://www.bing.com/search?q="deported+from+vietnam" https://www.bing.com/search?q="deported+from+vietnam" + https://www.google.com/search?q="deported+from+vietnam" https://www.google.com/search?q="deported+from+vietnam" suggest otherwise
- rmwaite 9y agoDon't these people know that they will never kill this. Just like Napster's death, and oink, and what, and so on. Every time they shut one of these down the next one will be harder to shut down.
- acchow 9y agoHuh? What's the 2017 version of Napster?
- o_____________o 9y agoReminds me a bit of the canonical natural selection anecdote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution
- xiphias 9y agoThey know, but this is their job anyways.
- ceejayoz 9y agoOf course they know that, just as murder investigators know they're never going to stop murder from happening. Hell, in Napster's case, I'd bet half the folks involved went "woohoo!" then went home to listen to some pirated music.
- herbst 9y agoYou can just view it as free high quality security tests. Sucks for a lot of people. But it already got so much stronger I wonder what comes next.
- B1narySunset 9y agoThis won't stop people who want drugs from buying them. What it'll do is prevent some people from buying them from reputable sellers with positive feedback. Now they might have to find some shady dealer who could be selling them rat poison.
- Romanulus 9y agoWhy is 'selling poison instead of drugs' even a logical scare-tactic? Wouldn't even the shadiest of dealers want to keep their customers/hosts/victims around to, you know, keep bleeding money?
- zkms 9y agoIt's not a logical tactic, just, without professional equipment (whose sale is restricted!) working with drugs whose doses are measured in micrograms is a hard task and likely to result in failure. Why are the drugs in the illicit marketplace the ones with such small active doses? Prohibition strongly incentivises the manufacture/transport/sale of drugs with higher potency (per unit volume) -- as the odds of detection go up with bulkiness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition
- Jarwain 9y agoThat's one strategy, if said shady dealer was planning on being around. Cutting the drugs with a cheaper material, even if it's slightly poisonous, helps margins.
- distantsounds 9y agoI think it's less poison, and more just ensuring a quality product. Dealers can cut drugs with other cheaper ingredients to increase their profits. Having a reputable seller avoids these sorts of shenanigans.
- Pfiffer 9y agoI think "poison" here means things more like Fentanyl, which has been recently cut into a lot of different opiates.
- karzeem 9y agoAny more info out there on the technical details of the bust?
- dylz 9y agohttps://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/982821/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/982821/downlo... It is so sad. Literally had a paypal with the same hotmail address he sent welcome emails with? WTF?
- hackerboos 9y agoAB didn't send emails. At least not in the last 12 months.
- xeroxmalf 9y agoIt happened / was fixed 3 years ago.
- cody8295 9y agoCondolences to any users/vendors who lost coin because of the takedown. Anybody have info on how the admin was found? Was the method of DDoSing Tor nodes used to force traffic into honeypot'd Tor nodes?
- eugeneionesco 9y agoYeah man, those poor poor vendors who make money on addicted users...
- rankam 9y agoWhat are your thoughts on alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical companies that make money from addicted users?
- glbrew 9y agoPoor poor vendors who provide safety and reputation protection to addicts who would otherwise be in alleys.
- alasdair_ 9y agoThe single most highly traded item in terms of volume on most of these markets is pot, then non-addictive (but still potentially dangerous) drugs like MDMA. The number of hardcore opioid addicts that have a laptop, internet connection, knowledge of bitcoin, someone to convert cash into a bitcoin balance, a tor installation, a good address to pick up from and a willingness to wait a week to get their fix delivered is likely fairly small.
- pentae 9y agoAnd those types of users are, from what i've witnessed typically still highly functional members of society (lawyers, tech entrepreneurs, etc)
- bdcravens 9y agoCertainly a definitive source coming from the DoJ, but they were shut down several weeks ago, and the arrested founder apparently committed suicide 6 days ago.
- Mizza 9y agoThis announcement is timed in conjunction with the shutdown of "Hansa Market", which has been operating as a honeypot. They shut down AlphaBay, then users and vendors migrated to Hansa, which was already honeypotted, allowing police to capture login credentials for migrating vendors.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- tycho01 9y agoTake-away: if you're doing something illicit you'd better reconsider being dumb about passwords. Or would just user names / IPs have done them in?
- Miner49er 9y ago"'The so-called anonymity of the dark web is illusory,' said Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg of the DEA." I wonder if this is true, or simply hyperbole. I'm extremely curios on the technical details of this bust. Edit: It appears that some info can be found here https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/982821/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/982821/downlo.... Look at the section "Alexandre Cazes: Alphabay's Founder and Operator" It looks like the founder was extremely careless. His personal hotmail email was included in the header of the welcome email and password reset emails to Alphabay users. He used the same username on Alphabay on at least one forum before creating Alphabay. This username was tied with his personal email and name.
- zitterbewegung 9y agoDread Pirate Roberts was brought down by OPSEC using basic investigation skills (correlations between one online profile and his website from stackexchange and a security flaw on his hidden service website). I think its probably just good investigating this time. See https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/how-the-feds-took-down-the-dread-pirate-roberts/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/how-the-feds-too... for more information about dread pirate Roberts.
- AlphaWeaver 9y agoThe WIRED story about the fall of DPR, although I don't have it currently, spins the story as a two part epic- really good read.
- ceejayoz 9y agoThere's at least an element of truth to it. The old adage applies - law enforcement can screw up left and right, but a single slip by the folks they're chasing is all it takes.
- Veelox 9y agoIt is a little bit of an exaggeration, there are going to be a lot of people that will get caught and a lot that will get away. The point of the statement is to reduce confidence in dark net markets so they are more likely to fail.
- pero 9y agoBlockchain analysis investment perhaps delivering some ROI. http://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labnews/articles/2016/19-08/bitcoin.html http://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labnews/articles/201... https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xz35e/us-law-enforcement-have-spent-hundreds-of-thousands-on-bitcoin-tracking-tools https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xz35e/us-law-enf...
- lawn 9y agoDN users should really start using Monero instead of Bitcoin.
- alasdair_ 9y ago11,993 Monero were part of the seized assets.
- contingencies 9y ago= USD$480k according to https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/ ... and about 1/30th of global Monero trading volume in the last 24 hours. The source for assets seized is https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/982821/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/982821/downlo... which also lists properties in various countries, vehicles, bank accounts, cryptocurrency accounts, etc.
- eof 9y ago::phew:: world is a safer place now /s
- PixelB 9y agoYes no longer will we have to fear the hordes of hippies high on goopballs eating our babies and raping our pets!
- s73ver 9y agoOr, you know, just don't do illicit things.
- xj9 9y agosure, but what is actually wrong with drug use? moral outrage? the sign of a decaying society? untold secondary consequences? the problem is, people use drugs a lot. the war on drugs hasn't changed that in the least. we may have social issues, but as a "relatively upstanding and taxpaying citizen" who also happens to enjoy certain drugs on occasion, i ask. how exactly is my drug use impairing my ability to function in society? i get up and write software all day, why do you care if i get high when i get home?
- s73ver 9y ago"sure, but what is actually wrong with drug use?" I don't care; that's not what's being debated here. The fact of the matter is, it's illegal, and anyone who sets up a drug marketplace today knows that. They set it up with full knowledge that they are breaking the law. If they wish to campaign to have drug laws reworked, I'm all for that and wish them the best of luck. But they're not doing that; they're setting up a marketplace with the intentions of making lots of money. They're not fighting for freedom or anything like that; they're just trying to make a quick buck. And please don't respond with any kind of false equivalence bs. Getting high is not any kind of civil rights struggle. It's nice, but that's it. It is absolutely nothing like civil rights struggles of the past, and comparing it to such events is an extreme disrespect to those struggles and those who went through them.
- peterwwillis 9y agoThey confiscated "millions of dollars" in cryptocurrencies. A similar darkweb site that just got taken down had 2 million euros in cryptocurrency confiscated. The US federal (not state & local) government will spend over 27 Billion dollars in 2018 on the war on drugs. This site was around 11,739 times smaller than that annual budget. The global drug market was estimated at over 350 Billion in 2009, making the site approximately 152,173 times smaller than the global market.
- xj9 9y agoreplace one cartel with another
- agumonkey 9y agoDon't laugh, but what and how much is sold on darknet(s) ? weed ? cocaine ? weapons ? people ?
- PixelB 9y agoMostly MDMA, LSD. To a lesser extent weed (harder to transport), coke, heroin, etc. They do have actual bad things on these sites as well, such as the aforementioned weapons and people, but this is the subsection that we actually SHOULD be going after. As far as how much; not much. As one other user had posted, one of these illicit markets represents approximately 1/150,000th of the world market. It is a non-issue that the government spends a lot of money on for the purpose of visibility and increased funding (Look at us! We busted the bad guys! We're doing good! Give us more money!).
- antihero 9y agoAnyone else thing it's dodgy as hell that he offed himself in custody? Surely with all the assets he had, he'd have a pretty comfy lifestyle behind bars.