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Series of Monumental OpSec Mistakes Led to AlphaBay's Demise
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago> ... included the AlphaBay admin's personal email address in the message header. That email address was "pimp_alex_91@hotmail.com Yep that'll do it. To save you the click there was no clever technology used to pop this site, just a personal email belonging to a service friendly to law enforcement.
- nodesocket 9y agoI just finished the great audible book "American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt For The Criminal Mastermind Behind The Silk Road". Ultimately Ross Ulbricht was extremely careful and paranoid. What got him was a very old forum post announcing the Silk Road when he launched it. Even though he deleted the post, it was still in the forums database (soft delete), and Ross used his personal gmail address rossulbricht@gmail.com. Oops! Seems like the AlphaBay founder was nowhere near as careful and technically proficient in OpsSec and DevOps as Ross. Arrogance. Running a darknet site is like gambling. Eventually the house wins. You'll make a mistake.