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Looks like Hushmail was their weak point. Feds got court order from Canada based on treaty and it flowed from there. But yeah, between advertising, shipping, g

Looks like Hushmail was their weak point. Feds got court order from Canada based on treaty and it flowed from there. But yeah, between advertising, shipping, getting paid and moving money around it's hard to stay anon .

cookiecaper 14y ago
I never understand why people have such a fundamentally difficult time grasping the concept of plaintext and/or subpoenas. If someone knows enough to trade drugs on Tor, they definitely should be using strong encryption on anything and everything pertaining to it, including email. Month after month handfuls of new stories come out about someone outed and/or owned by emails or other plaintext communication that was not encrypted or cryptographically signed. You'd think it'd sink through after a while. You have no reasonable expectation of security for anything that is not fully encrypted with vetted, real-world strong encryption. While you may want something to stay under wraps, you're just leaving it there for the taking unless it is stored on permanent storage only in encrypted form.
- rorrr 14y ago
  My theory is that only idiots get caught. If you read the article, it was a tiny operation considering the global illegal drug market. They only sold $1M worth of drugs in three years, that's silly. They didn't catch some big fish criminals, they caught some idiot kids who thought they could easily make money.
  - Blunt 14y ago
    "My theory is that only idiots get caught" No, only idiots do this to begin with.
    - reustle 14y ago
      As much as I agree, do you realize how big the active drug trade is? There are a lot of very smart people out there.
      - wisty 14y ago
        It's about half the size of the legal (pharmaceutical) drug trade, which is big. Taking out a group with $1 million revenue is like taking out a local pharmacy.
        cookiecaper 14y ago
        Maybe there's value in the fact that this was an Onion service that was targeted specifically -- are the Feds trying to send a message about Tor? Was this whole operation hinged on the PR or was there some strategic value to taking out the group (assuming your analogy to a local pharmacy holds true, which I don't necessarily believe)? Perhaps the Feds were scared because Tor was involved and wanted to strike before the defendants wised up and went totally dark with more anonymous payment schemes (anyone using PayPal obviously has no reasonable expectation of anonymity), knowing that PayPal et al only keep records so long?
  - loverobots 14y ago
    Big criminals arrange for 120 tons to be shipped to San Diego, but the last mile has to sell it. When you make a few dollars at a time in profit, you need new customers, over and over again. Thee big dealer can also get lucky once and retire, not so for the small fish. Acting as a user wanting to buy drugs online is the easiest thing for an undercover DEA agent. And then they can use full power of the US Government to find out the rest. Bottom line: do not sell drugs online day in and day out, you will get caught.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
nowarninglabel 14y ago
Hushmail has been known to be open to law enforcement for years, they even talk about it in "Kingpin", http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/11/hushmail-to-war/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/11/hushmail-to-war/ Amazing they would choose to communicate over it.

cookiecaper 14y ago

I never understand why people have such a fundamentally difficult time grasping the concept of plaintext and/or subpoenas. If someone knows enough to trade drugs on Tor, they definitely should be using strong encryption on anything and everything pertaining to it, including email. Month after month handfuls of new stories come out about someone outed and/or owned by emails or other plaintext communication that was not encrypted or cryptographically signed. You'd think it'd sink through after a while. You have no reasonable expectation of security for anything that is not fully encrypted with vetted, real-world strong encryption. While you may want something to stay under wraps, you're just leaving it there for the taking unless it is stored on permanent storage only in encrypted form.

rorrr 14y ago
My theory is that only idiots get caught. If you read the article, it was a tiny operation considering the global illegal drug market. They only sold $1M worth of drugs in three years, that's silly. They didn't catch some big fish criminals, they caught some idiot kids who thought they could easily make money.
- Blunt 14y ago
  "My theory is that only idiots get caught" No, only idiots do this to begin with.
  - reustle 14y ago
    As much as I agree, do you realize how big the active drug trade is? There are a lot of very smart people out there.
    - wisty 14y ago
      It's about half the size of the legal (pharmaceutical) drug trade, which is big. Taking out a group with $1 million revenue is like taking out a local pharmacy.
      - cookiecaper 14y ago
        Maybe there's value in the fact that this was an Onion service that was targeted specifically -- are the Feds trying to send a message about Tor? Was this whole operation hinged on the PR or was there some strategic value to taking out the group (assuming your analogy to a local pharmacy holds true, which I don't necessarily believe)? Perhaps the Feds were scared because Tor was involved and wanted to strike before the defendants wised up and went totally dark with more anonymous payment schemes (anyone using PayPal obviously has no reasonable expectation of anonymity), knowing that PayPal et al only keep records so long?
- loverobots 14y ago
  Big criminals arrange for 120 tons to be shipped to San Diego, but the last mile has to sell it. When you make a few dollars at a time in profit, you need new customers, over and over again. Thee big dealer can also get lucky once and retire, not so for the small fish. Acting as a user wanting to buy drugs online is the easiest thing for an undercover DEA agent. And then they can use full power of the US Government to find out the rest. Bottom line: do not sell drugs online day in and day out, you will get caught.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

nowarninglabel 14y ago

Hushmail has been known to be open to law enforcement for years, they even talk about it in "Kingpin", http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/11/hushmail-to-war/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/11/hushmail-to-war/ Amazing they would choose to communicate over it.