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I recall the turmoil across a few major DarkNet forums (namely Dread), which I used to visit occasionally out of morbid curiosity, the day on which the bunker w

I recall the turmoil across a few major DarkNet forums (namely Dread), which I used to visit occasionally out of morbid curiosity, the day on which the bunker was raided. As I recall, at least one of the major drug trafficking sites had gone offline, which would infrequently happen, but the timing seemed obvious that it was being hosted in the bunker - and it wasn't going to be coming back. Cybercrime and the DarkNet in general are truly fascinating subjects; the analogy used within this article of the group of misfits from the bunker going out in the local town and being regarded as a band of pirates coming ashore seems very apt - cybercriminals are much like the pirates of olde, and the DarkNet their network of hidden islands full of lawlessness and anarchy.

mhh__ 6y ago
> and it wasn't going to be coming back. I think, sometimes, they do come back - i.e. via the Feds
- thecoppinger 6y ago
  Yep, you're spot on - although in this case, as I recall, the market did return (from memory it was nightmare market or 'Sinaloa' market (perhaps a different cartel name)), but there had been some kind of canary device activated via a signed PGP message from the admin. It wasn't long before the admin released a subsequent signed message claiming that it was a false alarm with some excuse as to what had happened, but it was clear that the operation was, from that point on, a honey pot.