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It was always that way, Ross Ulbrect was connected to his dark website by tracing via exit nodes. Tor was always a government tool.

• thewebguyd 1y ago
  > Ross Ulbrect was connected to his dark website by tracing via exit nodes Ulbricht wasn't caught because of flaws in Tor, but he made other mistakes. He posted stuff on LinkedIn alluding to his activities, he used a real photo on his fake IDs to rent servers, he used his real name, posting a question on stack over flow about running a Tor service, he posted his personal gmail, looked for couriers on Google+, and lastly paid an undercover cop for a hit. As for getting his location, once the feds gained acccess to silk road, they matched up activity logs, his posting habits were consistent with being in the pacific time zone, and they matched up his user name between his posts on silk road as altoid and he reused the same screenname, associated with his gmail address and full name, on other websites. A series of stupid opsec mistakes got him caught, not Tor.
  • lenerdenator 1y ago
    All of this should serve as a reminder that if .gov really, really wants you, they've got you. Unless, of course, they want everybody, which even they don't have the resources to handle.
    • mburns 1y ago
      It should (also) serve as a reminder that OpSec is important.
      • throwaway290 1y ago
        Maybe a reminder to also not sell heavy drugs to children or to order murder for hire?
        • cluckindan 1y ago
          When did he sell heavy drugs to children? When did he sell drugs?
          • hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
            Leaving out ‘When did he pay to have someone killed’ from your question is disingenuous, because he directly did that. He facilitated drug sales. If you setup ‘clucks brick and mortar Silk Road’ you’d be just as guilty. I don’t think that was ever rosses ethical objective though, I’m pretty sure he felt that drugs should be less illegal and safe. I’m under the impression that Silk Road had rules on what could be sold, and that post SR markets do allow those things, but I could be wrong.
            • coderintherye 1y ago
              Allegedly. The charge that he paid to have someone killed was never brought into court and never ruled on. Federal agents had access to the site at that point and could have posed the chat. Not really provable one way or the other. Not defending him, but clarifying that it's not proven "he directly did that"