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Didn't FBI track down and catch Dread Pirate Roberts despite all the Tor network/browser anonymity? Did he do something stupid to break his anonymity or did FBI

Didn't FBI track down and catch Dread Pirate Roberts despite all the Tor network/browser anonymity? Did he do something stupid to break his anonymity or did FBI break Tor in some way?

eindiran 7y ago
Ross Ulbricht made some mistakes by reusing account names etc that he had made on the clearnet[0, 1]. But at the time there were (tinfoil-hat-wearing) folks that thought that this was actually parallel construction and Tor was backdoored. Here is the relevant section from the Times article on the IRS agent that figured it out: """ Mr. Alford’s preferred tool was Google. He used the advanced search option to look for material posted within specific date ranges. That brought him, during the last weekend of May 2013, to a chat room posting made just before Silk Road had gone online, in early 2011, by someone with the screen name “altoid.” “Has anyone seen Silk Road yet?” altoid asked. “It’s kind of like an anonymous Amazon.com.” The early date of the posting suggested that altoid might have inside knowledge about Silk Road. During the first weekend of June 2013, Mr. Alford went through everything altoid had written, the online equivalent of sifting through trash cans near the scene of a crime. Mr. Alford eventually turned up a message that altoid had apparently deleted — but that had been preserved in the response of another user. In that post, altoid asked for some programming help and gave his email address: rossulbricht@gmail.com. """ [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Silk_Road,_arrest_and_trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Silk_Road,_arres... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)#Arrest_and_trial_of_Ross_Ulbricht https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)#Arrest... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/business/dealbook/the-unsung-tax-agent-who-put-a-face-on-the-silk-road.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/business/dealbook/the-uns...
- einpoklum 7y ago
  The Silk Road guy was using _GMail_ ? Heh. Interesting.
  - ngcc_hk 7y ago
    And not move from time to time? May be you always get caught.
shoes_for_thee 7y ago
Allegedly, fake IDs en route to DPR were intercepted at the Canadian border, and that investigation yielded Ross Ulbricht. Whether or not this is a plausible explanation is a matter of perspective.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Didn't FBI track down and catch Dread Pirate Roberts despite all the Tor network/browser anonymity? Did he do something stupid to break his anonymity or did FBI break Tor in some way?

eindiran 7y ago

Ross Ulbricht made some mistakes by reusing account names etc that he had made on the clearnet[0, 1]. But at the time there were (tinfoil-hat-wearing) folks that thought that this was actually parallel construction and Tor was backdoored. Here is the relevant section from the Times article on the IRS agent that figured it out: """ Mr. Alford’s preferred tool was Google. He used the advanced search option to look for material posted within specific date ranges. That brought him, during the last weekend of May 2013, to a chat room posting made just before Silk Road had gone online, in early 2011, by someone with the screen name “altoid.” “Has anyone seen Silk Road yet?” altoid asked. “It’s kind of like an anonymous Amazon.com.” The early date of the posting suggested that altoid might have inside knowledge about Silk Road. During the first weekend of June 2013, Mr. Alford went through everything altoid had written, the online equivalent of sifting through trash cans near the scene of a crime. Mr. Alford eventually turned up a message that altoid had apparently deleted — but that had been preserved in the response of another user. In that post, altoid asked for some programming help and gave his email address: rossulbricht@gmail.com. """ [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Silk_Road,_arrest_and_trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Silk_Road,_arres... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)#Arrest_and_trial_of_Ross_Ulbricht https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)#Arrest... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/business/dealbook/the-unsung-tax-agent-who-put-a-face-on-the-silk-road.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/business/dealbook/the-uns...

einpoklum 7y ago
The Silk Road guy was using _GMail_ ? Heh. Interesting.
- ngcc_hk 7y ago
  And not move from time to time? May be you always get caught.

shoes_for_thee 7y ago

Allegedly, fake IDs en route to DPR were intercepted at the Canadian border, and that investigation yielded Ross Ulbricht. Whether or not this is a plausible explanation is a matter of perspective.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]