8 ms·

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's a honeypot. Just a hunch.

by ihsw 13y ago

cLeEOGPw 13y ago
Could be, but would they really dare to mock themselves in the honeypot? If it is a honeypot, it's very convincing and elaborate.
- loginx 13y ago
  I would say, that's exactly what you want from your honeypot. What I don't really know, I guess, are the legal implications of entraping people on such a mass scale. I'm also not sure about the usefulness of such a honeypot, since you can't actually track the buyers. Just because someone pays you to send drugs to some address, doesn't mean it's their own address
  - corin_ 13y ago
    IANAL, but my understanding of entrapment is that law enforcement has to persuade you to break a law that you wouldn't otherwise have broken - for example if you walk up to a cop and say "sell me some weed" that isn't entrapment, unless he initiated it and persuaded you to try to buy some weed - so if this site was a honeypot, it wouldn't be entrapment, as buyers and sellers are both going there without any persuasion, because they already want to do something illegal. That said, I agree with other comments here as to why it's unlikely to be a honeypot.
- nikcub 13y ago
  > If it is a honeypot, it's very convincing and elaborate. There is no other way to run a honeypot. Reminder that the feds ran the two largest carding forums on the web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DarkMarket http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DarkMarket They almost entirely destroyed English-language US-based carding forums in the process.
- groups 13y ago
  >would they really dare to mock themselves in the honeypot? Of course they would. The makers of a maximally-effective honeypot aren't going to shy away from making fun of TLAs. They'll do what's most effective. With that said, I doubt it's a honeypot. Of course I don't plan to test that hypothesis.
- esw 13y ago
  To me, that seems like the easiest possible thing to do. If they have the original site code, then it's just a matter of making some superficial changes and re-launching as "Silk Road 2.0".
  - workbench 13y ago
    Isn't that a terrible idea considering the feds have the source code? Would be fine if the HTML is the same but the backend should be redone
- Wingman4l7 13y ago
  Would an undercover cop say "fuck the police!" when talking to the people he was angling to bust? Of course he would.
computer 13y ago
With good opsec (i.e. only PGP-encrypted messages) sellers should still be able to operate safely. Buyers slightly less, considering that the sellers might be cops (which is also the case on a non-honeypot site), or because the PGP-keys of the sellers might be fake (for MITM). But considering that feds generally seem to target sellers, I don't think the usefulness of this as a honeypot would be huge. But it's definitely possible, especially given that the feds have the source code and all.
- Touche 13y ago
  Wouldn't it be a great honeypot for one big bust? Delay the launch as long as possible due to "load issues" to bring in as many sellers as possible and then take them all down after their first transaction.
  - computer 13y ago
    How are you going to find a seller? They use Tor, don't need to enter their details anywhere; they just send packages to addresses they receive in encrypted form.
    - stcredzero 13y ago
      Most sellers are too lazy/cheap to properly set-up their fulfillment operation with good enough security. If you read accounts of the seller busts from Silk Road 1.0, the authorities can trace where your packages have been sent from and where you bought the postage from. If you don't operate as if the police are actively using this information to track you down, they will be able to.
  - corin_ 13y ago
    Sellers don't reveal their personal details to the site - maybe having a honeypot site would make it easier to track them down, but it wouldn't be simple.
- jarrett 13y ago
  > considering that the sellers might be cops Why wouldn't law enforcement pose as buyers, as well? This is a common tactic in narcotics enforcement. Entrapment often isn't an issue, as the seller took the first step of advertising the drugs for sale. Are you getting at the fact that the buyer must have a receiving address, while the seller can ship anonymously? I would be skeptical of that. If I were attempting to track the source of a package, and I had the full force of warrants behind me, I bet I could track down most shippers. Every shipping company has its own tracking information. Much of this may be opaque to the end user. The tracking might be much more detailed than what you can see as an end user with a tracking number. Assuming the carrier cooperates with law enforcement, tracking could (presumably) be further enhanced for targeted post offices, routes, etc.. For example, suppose I, as a law enforcement agent, receive an order from a Silk Road seller. Let's say it was shipped in an envelope, dropped off at a USPS street-corner box. From the tracking info, I identify which post office first handled the envelope. Thus I narrow my search to a few possible mailboxes served by that post office. I instruct the carriers at that post office to assist me. As they follow their routes, emptying mailboxes, I have them sort outgoing mail into separate bags, one per box. I have the post office flag any mail going to my address. I place another order from the same seller. When it hits the post office, it gets flagged, and because of the per-box sorting, I know which mailbox was used. For round three, I place yet another order, this time with the mailbox under surveillance. I also install a camera inside the mailbox that sees the destination address of every envelope deposited. When the seller drops his shipment, my surveillance team detects it. They then follow the person who dropped the letter. Now I have the shipper's identity. Can these measures be defeated with appropriate opsec? Maybe, if you know exactly what tactics law enforcement will employ. But you don't. You could spend all your time defending against the tactics I just described, only to get caught because law enforcement came up with a totally different strategy. My point is, opsec is really, really hard.
knodi 13y ago
Easy way to find out buy something cheap and ship it to your neighbor. Your neighbor will have a bad day but won't won't get in trouble and there won't be any evidence that he bought it only that someone shipped it to him/her.
- consonants 13y ago
  This is one of the most irresponsible things I've ever read.
  - daughart 13y ago
    Why?
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - consonants 13y ago
      Seriously? You don't think that sending a schedule I substance to an unknowing stranger through the mail and across state lines isn't irresponsible? Are you going to valiantly turn yourself in if your neighbors get raided? If you get drugs shipped to your house, they will charge and probably convict you. Doesn't mean it would hold up in an appeal, but why would you risk an innocent's life, freedom, finances, and social standing just to order drugs off the internet? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor's_residence_drug_raid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor...
      - daughart 13y ago
        32 pounds of marijuana in that case. If you were going to do a test run in this way, you could send a single schedule IV Xanax or something. I'm not saying it's a good idea but the likelihood of putting your neighbors in danger is probably smaller than many common actions. It's probably less dangerous statistically than giving them baked goods with nuts. All I was responding to is your statement, "One of the most irresponsible things I've ever read." If I ranked all statements I've ever read in order of irresponsibility, this is pretty middling.
anaphor 13y ago
You'd have to be a complete moron or a huge addict to use this. How much do you want to bet this is run by the FBI and filled with various browser exploits designed to de-anonymize you? I wouldn't even connect to it, let alone buy or sell drugs on it.
- phusion 13y ago
  Then there a lot of moron drug addicts on this forum.
davmre 13y ago
The Silk Road seizure demonstrated that the only reasonable way to participate in any online drug market is to assume the market itself is compromised and untrustworthy. That means you never upload identifying information in cleartext (e.g., buyers encrypt their addresses with the seller's public key), and you run all bitcoins sent to or received from such a site through a third-party mixer. Of course, there still has to be some level of trust on the part of a buyer, that the seller they're connecting to is actually a real drug dealer and not an undercover cop. But that was still an issue even on the original Silk Road. It was partially addressed by the feedback/review system -- which does involve a certain amount of trust in the site not to fabricate reviews -- but more importantly by the fact that high-level law enforcement is really only interested in tracking down sellers. And assuming the users are competent, running a honeypot gives you very little information about the sellers.
- draugadrotten 13y ago
  > It was partially addressed by the feedback/review system -- which does involve a certain amount of trust in the site not to fabricate reviews Many users over in Europe took to themselves to review sellers on trusted third-party sites, such as flashback.org. There trusted sellers were "greened", as it were, and word was quickly spread when some seller tried a bait-and-switch by giving good drugs to the first buyers and scamming the second wave. Full Disclosure: I am a user of flashback.org but I never used drugs or silk road.
- TylerE 13y ago
  What good does that do if the sellers are also fake?
  - veemjeem 13y ago
    Law enforcement would rather go after the vendors than buyers. There are probably too many buyers for officers to deal with, and they would have to make all the arrests simultaneously. In meat-space, they arrest buyers so that they will rat out their dealer. This is not possible on SR because the dealers do not expose any identifying info to buyers.
  - 13y ago
RivieraKid 13y ago
It's run by one of the admins of the original SR according to the article. And would it be even legal for the police to do this?
- gknoy 13y ago
  Since when in recent years has that been a determining factor? The war on Bad People has been the go-to excuse for all sorts of things which we might feel should not be legal, or which are not. The Justice Department can merely choose not to prosecute them, congress can enact legislation granting immunity, or the agencies can flat-out lie about what they are doing. If the government is running a drug marketplace as a honeypot to catch sellers and buyers, it's possible that some of those buyers and sellers might mount an effective suit ... but I'd say the expected result is much more likely to be jail time for the buyers/sellers. Moreover, the courts will rule that only people directly harmed by such things can sue for it, and then will deny THEIR suit unless they are able to prove that it happened. Since it'll all be classified up to the moon, the government will deny its existence, and no suits will happen. This is a deliberately cynical take on how that would go down, but I fear it's probably not inaccurate.
segmondy 13y ago
Nah, I believe the motive is money. Did you hear how much was seized from the previous admin? To make such money just sitting behind a computer, without having to worry about guns and the violence that comes with dealing drugs? There are many people who are willing to risk it.
- scarmig 13y ago
  Well, to be clear, you've still got to be worried about guns and violence. They just happen to be wielded by thugs who happen to have a badge and uniform.

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's a honeypot. Just a hunch.

by ihsw 13y ago

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's a honeypot. Just a hunch.

Could be, but would they really dare to mock themselves in the honeypot? If it is a honeypot, it's very convincing and elaborate.

loginx 13y ago
I would say, that's exactly what you want from your honeypot. What I don't really know, I guess, are the legal implications of entraping people on such a mass scale. I'm also not sure about the usefulness of such a honeypot, since you can't actually track the buyers. Just because someone pays you to send drugs to some address, doesn't mean it's their own address
- corin_ 13y ago
  IANAL, but my understanding of entrapment is that law enforcement has to persuade you to break a law that you wouldn't otherwise have broken - for example if you walk up to a cop and say "sell me some weed" that isn't entrapment, unless he initiated it and persuaded you to try to buy some weed - so if this site was a honeypot, it wouldn't be entrapment, as buyers and sellers are both going there without any persuasion, because they already want to do something illegal. That said, I agree with other comments here as to why it's unlikely to be a honeypot.
nikcub 13y ago
> If it is a honeypot, it's very convincing and elaborate. There is no other way to run a honeypot. Reminder that the feds ran the two largest carding forums on the web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DarkMarket http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DarkMarket They almost entirely destroyed English-language US-based carding forums in the process.
groups 13y ago
>would they really dare to mock themselves in the honeypot? Of course they would. The makers of a maximally-effective honeypot aren't going to shy away from making fun of TLAs. They'll do what's most effective. With that said, I doubt it's a honeypot. Of course I don't plan to test that hypothesis.
esw 13y ago
To me, that seems like the easiest possible thing to do. If they have the original site code, then it's just a matter of making some superficial changes and re-launching as "Silk Road 2.0".
- workbench 13y ago
  Isn't that a terrible idea considering the feds have the source code? Would be fine if the HTML is the same but the backend should be redone
Wingman4l7 13y ago
Would an undercover cop say "fuck the police!" when talking to the people he was angling to bust? Of course he would.

computer 13y ago

With good opsec (i.e. only PGP-encrypted messages) sellers should still be able to operate safely. Buyers slightly less, considering that the sellers might be cops (which is also the case on a non-honeypot site), or because the PGP-keys of the sellers might be fake (for MITM). But considering that feds generally seem to target sellers, I don't think the usefulness of this as a honeypot would be huge. But it's definitely possible, especially given that the feds have the source code and all.

Touche 13y ago
Wouldn't it be a great honeypot for one big bust? Delay the launch as long as possible due to "load issues" to bring in as many sellers as possible and then take them all down after their first transaction.
- computer 13y ago
  How are you going to find a seller? They use Tor, don't need to enter their details anywhere; they just send packages to addresses they receive in encrypted form.
  - stcredzero 13y ago
    Most sellers are too lazy/cheap to properly set-up their fulfillment operation with good enough security. If you read accounts of the seller busts from Silk Road 1.0, the authorities can trace where your packages have been sent from and where you bought the postage from. If you don't operate as if the police are actively using this information to track you down, they will be able to.
- corin_ 13y ago
  Sellers don't reveal their personal details to the site - maybe having a honeypot site would make it easier to track them down, but it wouldn't be simple.
jarrett 13y ago
> considering that the sellers might be cops Why wouldn't law enforcement pose as buyers, as well? This is a common tactic in narcotics enforcement. Entrapment often isn't an issue, as the seller took the first step of advertising the drugs for sale. Are you getting at the fact that the buyer must have a receiving address, while the seller can ship anonymously? I would be skeptical of that. If I were attempting to track the source of a package, and I had the full force of warrants behind me, I bet I could track down most shippers. Every shipping company has its own tracking information. Much of this may be opaque to the end user. The tracking might be much more detailed than what you can see as an end user with a tracking number. Assuming the carrier cooperates with law enforcement, tracking could (presumably) be further enhanced for targeted post offices, routes, etc.. For example, suppose I, as a law enforcement agent, receive an order from a Silk Road seller. Let's say it was shipped in an envelope, dropped off at a USPS street-corner box. From the tracking info, I identify which post office first handled the envelope. Thus I narrow my search to a few possible mailboxes served by that post office. I instruct the carriers at that post office to assist me. As they follow their routes, emptying mailboxes, I have them sort outgoing mail into separate bags, one per box. I have the post office flag any mail going to my address. I place another order from the same seller. When it hits the post office, it gets flagged, and because of the per-box sorting, I know which mailbox was used. For round three, I place yet another order, this time with the mailbox under surveillance. I also install a camera inside the mailbox that sees the destination address of every envelope deposited. When the seller drops his shipment, my surveillance team detects it. They then follow the person who dropped the letter. Now I have the shipper's identity. Can these measures be defeated with appropriate opsec? Maybe, if you know exactly what tactics law enforcement will employ. But you don't. You could spend all your time defending against the tactics I just described, only to get caught because law enforcement came up with a totally different strategy. My point is, opsec is really, really hard.

knodi 13y ago

Easy way to find out buy something cheap and ship it to your neighbor. Your neighbor will have a bad day but won't won't get in trouble and there won't be any evidence that he bought it only that someone shipped it to him/her.

consonants 13y ago
This is one of the most irresponsible things I've ever read.
- daughart 13y ago
  Why?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - consonants 13y ago
    Seriously? You don't think that sending a schedule I substance to an unknowing stranger through the mail and across state lines isn't irresponsible? Are you going to valiantly turn yourself in if your neighbors get raided? If you get drugs shipped to your house, they will charge and probably convict you. Doesn't mean it would hold up in an appeal, but why would you risk an innocent's life, freedom, finances, and social standing just to order drugs off the internet? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor's_residence_drug_raid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor...
    - daughart 13y ago
      32 pounds of marijuana in that case. If you were going to do a test run in this way, you could send a single schedule IV Xanax or something. I'm not saying it's a good idea but the likelihood of putting your neighbors in danger is probably smaller than many common actions. It's probably less dangerous statistically than giving them baked goods with nuts. All I was responding to is your statement, "One of the most irresponsible things I've ever read." If I ranked all statements I've ever read in order of irresponsibility, this is pretty middling.

anaphor 13y ago

You'd have to be a complete moron or a huge addict to use this. How much do you want to bet this is run by the FBI and filled with various browser exploits designed to de-anonymize you? I wouldn't even connect to it, let alone buy or sell drugs on it.

phusion 13y ago
Then there a lot of moron drug addicts on this forum.

davmre 13y ago

The Silk Road seizure demonstrated that the only reasonable way to participate in any online drug market is to assume the market itself is compromised and untrustworthy. That means you never upload identifying information in cleartext (e.g., buyers encrypt their addresses with the seller's public key), and you run all bitcoins sent to or received from such a site through a third-party mixer. Of course, there still has to be some level of trust on the part of a buyer, that the seller they're connecting to is actually a real drug dealer and not an undercover cop. But that was still an issue even on the original Silk Road. It was partially addressed by the feedback/review system -- which does involve a certain amount of trust in the site not to fabricate reviews -- but more importantly by the fact that high-level law enforcement is really only interested in tracking down sellers. And assuming the users are competent, running a honeypot gives you very little information about the sellers.

draugadrotten 13y ago
> It was partially addressed by the feedback/review system -- which does involve a certain amount of trust in the site not to fabricate reviews Many users over in Europe took to themselves to review sellers on trusted third-party sites, such as flashback.org. There trusted sellers were "greened", as it were, and word was quickly spread when some seller tried a bait-and-switch by giving good drugs to the first buyers and scamming the second wave. Full Disclosure: I am a user of flashback.org but I never used drugs or silk road.
TylerE 13y ago
What good does that do if the sellers are also fake?
- veemjeem 13y ago
  Law enforcement would rather go after the vendors than buyers. There are probably too many buyers for officers to deal with, and they would have to make all the arrests simultaneously. In meat-space, they arrest buyers so that they will rat out their dealer. This is not possible on SR because the dealers do not expose any identifying info to buyers.
- 13y ago

RivieraKid 13y ago

It's run by one of the admins of the original SR according to the article. And would it be even legal for the police to do this?

gknoy 13y ago
Since when in recent years has that been a determining factor? The war on Bad People has been the go-to excuse for all sorts of things which we might feel should not be legal, or which are not. The Justice Department can merely choose not to prosecute them, congress can enact legislation granting immunity, or the agencies can flat-out lie about what they are doing. If the government is running a drug marketplace as a honeypot to catch sellers and buyers, it's possible that some of those buyers and sellers might mount an effective suit ... but I'd say the expected result is much more likely to be jail time for the buyers/sellers. Moreover, the courts will rule that only people directly harmed by such things can sue for it, and then will deny THEIR suit unless they are able to prove that it happened. Since it'll all be classified up to the moon, the government will deny its existence, and no suits will happen. This is a deliberately cynical take on how that would go down, but I fear it's probably not inaccurate.

segmondy 13y ago

Nah, I believe the motive is money. Did you hear how much was seized from the previous admin? To make such money just sitting behind a computer, without having to worry about guns and the violence that comes with dealing drugs? There are many people who are willing to risk it.

scarmig 13y ago
Well, to be clear, you've still got to be worried about guns and violence. They just happen to be wielded by thugs who happen to have a badge and uniform.