4 ms·

Like what?

Natsu 14y ago
Compromise the site itself & gather information. Catch & turn real sellers. Crapflood it with fake buyers/sellers making it less useful. Order drugs & gather forensic info from the packages. Try to trace the money trail via the bitcoin block chain. While bitcoin is nominally anonymous, I believe there was an article a while back about how easy it is to accidentally deanonymize your bitcoins (see https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses for example). Heck, agree to sell someone drugs and actually send them flour + a GPS/camera if you want to go that route. For the most part, just go after the weak human links in the chain and use standard anti-network tactics like turning people into informants and isolating everyone via mistrust. Heck, they could just start scamming folks on the site. Create lots of new sellers, never deliver the promised drugs. BTC aren't revokable, so you can just rob them blind. The marketplace requires trust and there are lots of ways to break that. Yes, they could start building escrow services and the like, but those just create new avenues for attack. With a little imagination, this could be used by the police as a giant honeypot.
- lwat 14y ago
  > Compromise the site itself & gather information. Yea good luck with that! > Catch & turn real sellers. How would you do that? This seller got caught because he was a buyer too. People only selling on silk road can't be caught unless they do something really really stupid. And even if you do catch a seller what does that get you? Nothing! You're no closer to closing down Silk Road itself. > Crapflood it with fake buyers/sellers making it less useful. You can't be a fake buyer. Buyers must pony up the bitcoin up front and so that only helps sellers. Who cares where the actual drugs went, the seller got his money. Fake sellers are quickly caught out because of the reputation system. Buyers already know which sellers are reputable, they'll just keep buying from them. You can't do anything about that. > Order drugs & gather forensic info from the packages. This just targets individual sellers and won't do anything to stop Silk Road. Especially if the sellers are overseas. > Heck, agree to sell someone drugs and actually send them flour + a GPS/camera if you want to go that route. Yes buyers are vulnerable and always will be on Silk Road. That doesn't stop anyone and you'll usually only bust small time users which is a waste of resources. >For the most part, just go after the weak human links in the chain and use standard anti-network tactics like turning people into informants and isolating everyone via mistrust. Informants are useless. No seller can help you take down Silk Road because no seller knows where it's hosted or who is running it. > Heck, they could just start scamming folks on the site. Reputation systems stop this. Buyers only buy from reputable sellers. > With a little imagination, this could be used by the police as a giant honeypot. I don't see it.
  - Natsu 14y ago
    Well, for one, you can get forensics from the packages. They may be good, but I wonder if they're perfect. It's likely that they use similar methods most of the time. If you're flooding them with fake sellers, it's going to be hard for new sellers to gain rep. Especially if you're leaving fake feedback, too. By 'informants' I mean that you take over their Silk Road account and sell with their reputation. Turning people one at a time isn't useless if you make people afraid to use the site or to trust new sellers, then each seller you bust leaves them one less trusted place to turn to. Reputation systems only work if there's a trusted authority to decide them or if there's more legit feedback than fake. It's not as though there are no ways to create fake accounts en masse. And it's not like a TOR hidden service can tell where the accounts are being spam registered from. Overall, it's a cat-and-mouse game, but I don't see why it's fundamentally intractable.
pedalpete 14y ago
I think what Natsu is suggesting is similar to what the film and music industry tried with seeding torrent sites with partial clips, or material unrelated to that which it says it was. That was thwarted by a simple comment and up-vote system.
- Natsu 14y ago
  For something that relies on physical delivery, you can do a lot more. And there are no chargebacks with bitcoins, so I'm surprised if there aren't lots of scammers. If you can convince someone to send you bitcoins, you have their money and they can't get it back.
  - Devilboy 14y ago
    The reason there are not a lot of scammers is because the feedback / reputation system works.
    - Natsu 14y ago
      I would assume it's not being spammed with false feedback at this time, either, which is rather helpful for that sort of thing.

Like what?

Natsu 14y ago

Compromise the site itself & gather information. Catch & turn real sellers. Crapflood it with fake buyers/sellers making it less useful. Order drugs & gather forensic info from the packages. Try to trace the money trail via the bitcoin block chain. While bitcoin is nominally anonymous, I believe there was an article a while back about how easy it is to accidentally deanonymize your bitcoins (see https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses for example). Heck, agree to sell someone drugs and actually send them flour + a GPS/camera if you want to go that route. For the most part, just go after the weak human links in the chain and use standard anti-network tactics like turning people into informants and isolating everyone via mistrust. Heck, they could just start scamming folks on the site. Create lots of new sellers, never deliver the promised drugs. BTC aren't revokable, so you can just rob them blind. The marketplace requires trust and there are lots of ways to break that. Yes, they could start building escrow services and the like, but those just create new avenues for attack. With a little imagination, this could be used by the police as a giant honeypot.

lwat 14y ago
> Compromise the site itself & gather information. Yea good luck with that! > Catch & turn real sellers. How would you do that? This seller got caught because he was a buyer too. People only selling on silk road can't be caught unless they do something really really stupid. And even if you do catch a seller what does that get you? Nothing! You're no closer to closing down Silk Road itself. > Crapflood it with fake buyers/sellers making it less useful. You can't be a fake buyer. Buyers must pony up the bitcoin up front and so that only helps sellers. Who cares where the actual drugs went, the seller got his money. Fake sellers are quickly caught out because of the reputation system. Buyers already know which sellers are reputable, they'll just keep buying from them. You can't do anything about that. > Order drugs & gather forensic info from the packages. This just targets individual sellers and won't do anything to stop Silk Road. Especially if the sellers are overseas. > Heck, agree to sell someone drugs and actually send them flour + a GPS/camera if you want to go that route. Yes buyers are vulnerable and always will be on Silk Road. That doesn't stop anyone and you'll usually only bust small time users which is a waste of resources. >For the most part, just go after the weak human links in the chain and use standard anti-network tactics like turning people into informants and isolating everyone via mistrust. Informants are useless. No seller can help you take down Silk Road because no seller knows where it's hosted or who is running it. > Heck, they could just start scamming folks on the site. Reputation systems stop this. Buyers only buy from reputable sellers. > With a little imagination, this could be used by the police as a giant honeypot. I don't see it.
- Natsu 14y ago
  Well, for one, you can get forensics from the packages. They may be good, but I wonder if they're perfect. It's likely that they use similar methods most of the time. If you're flooding them with fake sellers, it's going to be hard for new sellers to gain rep. Especially if you're leaving fake feedback, too. By 'informants' I mean that you take over their Silk Road account and sell with their reputation. Turning people one at a time isn't useless if you make people afraid to use the site or to trust new sellers, then each seller you bust leaves them one less trusted place to turn to. Reputation systems only work if there's a trusted authority to decide them or if there's more legit feedback than fake. It's not as though there are no ways to create fake accounts en masse. And it's not like a TOR hidden service can tell where the accounts are being spam registered from. Overall, it's a cat-and-mouse game, but I don't see why it's fundamentally intractable.

pedalpete 14y ago

I think what Natsu is suggesting is similar to what the film and music industry tried with seeding torrent sites with partial clips, or material unrelated to that which it says it was. That was thwarted by a simple comment and up-vote system.

Natsu 14y ago
For something that relies on physical delivery, you can do a lot more. And there are no chargebacks with bitcoins, so I'm surprised if there aren't lots of scammers. If you can convince someone to send you bitcoins, you have their money and they can't get it back.
- Devilboy 14y ago
  The reason there are not a lot of scammers is because the feedback / reputation system works.
  - Natsu 14y ago
    I would assume it's not being spammed with false feedback at this time, either, which is rather helpful for that sort of thing.