10 ms·

How the Feds Took Down the Silk Road Drug Wonderland

92 points by hepha1979 13y ago

jdmitch 13y ago
This seemed a bit worrying: Federal agents say the use of Tor and Bitcoin were major obstacles for them and that investigating the site was “uncharted territory” that involved a reversal of their usual investigative methods. Instead of starting with probable cause against a specific suspect who is already identified and then obtaining a search warrant to collect more evidence, the investigation of Silk Road involved collecting evidence from the site first and then trying to identify individuals. Sure it is "uncharted territory" in terms of the technology for maintaining anonymous identities, but shouldn't most investigations start with evidence of the crime and an empirical investigation into who could have committed it, rather than starting with suspects and trying to link them with the crime? Maybe I am naive, but sounds like dodgy criminal investigation methodology to me...
- carbocation 13y ago
  The real concern would be if they used parallel construction and actually used the NSA's warrantless surveillance. The core of parallel construction is to use fruit of the poisonous tree to identify the dots you need to connect, then do your sleuthing purely to figure out how to connect those dots. However, given the story told so far, it's actually pretty straightforward to identify the founder of the Silk Road based on a few of his missteps.
  - deathhand 13y ago
    The real concern would be if they used parallel construction and actually used the NSA's warrantless surveillance. The core of parallel construction is to use fruit of the poisonous tree to identify the dots you need to connect, then do your sleuthing purely to figure out how to connect those dots. This cannot be stated enough.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  You are ignoring the 'already identified' in the text you quote. I'm sure there is occasional abuse, but I'm also sure that most investigations start with an examination of the available evidence to look for leads about who committed the crime.
- devindotcom 13y ago
  It's not so strange. Conspiracy to ____ is often shown before the individuals participating in the conspiracy. In this case there was evidence galore of illegal drug trade, so it became a matter of finding the individuals responsible.
- saraid216 13y ago
  > shouldn't most investigations start with evidence of the crime and an empirical investigation into who could have committed it, rather than starting with suspects and trying to link them with the crime? This might surprise you, but there are very often situations where the police and the public are remarkably aware of the facts of the crimes being committed, but unable to do anything about it. Drugs fall into this category. Everyone knows that "that's where the deals go down" and "that's where they count the money", but that's only because we're not completely stupid. Proving direct culpability, on the other hand, is an entirely different story, as is proving the culpability of people who matter. (Street level dealers, for instance, are pretty interchangeable: one gets shot, you get someone else to do his job. Ain't no thing.) If you find a druggie on a corner, it's not exactly a stretch of the imagination to recognize he's probably guilty of possession. It's also sort of pointless to prosecute him, since the actual issue you're fighting is lots of people taking particular drugs, which means what you care about are the people managing the city-wide operation. You want evidence of that crime? That's also the druggie on the corner. Half of whom can tell you exactly who it is who manages the city-wide operation. None of which are willing to take the witness stand to accuse him in a court of law. Because he knows that he goes right back to that corner the next day and not only does he no longer have someone bringing him drugs, but he's also get a bullet in his head for the trouble. If you want a visceral primer, watch The Wire.
  - WildUtah 13y ago
    the actual issue you're fighting is lots of people taking particular drugs, which means what you care about are the people managing the city-wide operation That is a complete non sequitur. Actually, if you really want people to stop using drugs, arresting and imprisoning users is the single most effective technique yet known. It's especially effective against the middle class white population that consumes most drugs in the USA, but it works against poor minorities and addicts, also. And if you want to stop dealers, arresting and imprisoning retail dealers is the most effective technique. It clears the ones that work in public or sell to strangers out quite quickly. Arresting the kingpins or traffickers is totally ineffective at reducing drug use or reducing drug availability. If reducing public harm were a priority, the kingpins and traffickers could be ignored. Once the users and retailers are imprisoned, the bosses are out of business, anyway. And if you do catch the kingpins and traffickers, your efforts are completely ineffectual. There are always more kingpins in line to get rich quickly and easily. Decades of police targeting kingpins has only seen increases in drug availability. In fact, the faster you turn them over, the more violent the whole business becomes. The reason police agencies target kingpins and traffickers is because the purpose of the war on drugs, from the point of view of police administration, is to seize cash to fund police operations. There is no law enforcement justification for such a policy, merely an agency budgeting justification.
- sireat 13y ago
  This is how the government found MrSlippery in the opening pages of Vernor Vinge's True Names, that is they went through a list of likely suspects until they hit paydirt. Amazingly prescient for something written in 1979.
belorn 13y ago
If this has not been posted before, its good to see that all the worries about the tor protocol can be laid to rest. They did not identify the server by some advanced technical hacks against tor. They used simple basic police methods and arrested an administrator with the use of an undercover agent posing as a drug seller. The administrator purchased a kilo of cocaine, and by doing so, gave his home address to the undercover agent. After interrogation, they gained user credentials that even included DPR's private messages. This could have easily been a episode script for the wire.
- bediger4000 13y ago
  If simple, basic police methods sufficed here, then why the massive dragnet surveillance the rest of us are caught up in? Either (a) the dragnet surveillance isn't doing what it's supposed to or (b) there's another reason for the spying. And yes, I could be accused of whipping on the NSA no matter what, that in my view, they're damned if they do, and damned if they don't. So what? Even if I don't have "standing", and the NSA is doing "legal" things, and the 3 Prong Test for Violations of Privacy hasn't been met, the NSA is still doing things that until recently were considered grossly unamerican, a violation of the principles that made the USA different than commie Russia.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    The NSA is not a law enforcement agency.
    - bediger4000 13y ago
      At least legally, I agree. But the dividing line between "spy agency" and "law enforcement agency" has gotten very thin. Beyond that, so what? The publicly stated goal of the dragnet surveillance is preventing the crime of terrorism. If "back to the basics" police work found out Dread Pirate Roberts, then why the "anti-terrorism" justification for dragnet surveillance? Dread Pirate Roberts and the Silk Road Web Site actually worked at hiding themselves in a technical, engineering, fact-based manner. From what we read, terrorists do not. At least some of them use "Islamic cyphers" and do other superstitious things in an attempt to conceal themselves. Why not concentrate on basic police work rather than massive surveillance?
Xeroday 13y ago
I wonder how much of this was actually parallel reconstruction vs "investigative research"
- tptacek 13y ago
  How exactly would parallel construction have helped here? To effect a search, with or without "parallel construction", you have to have probable cause.
  - aliakbarkhan 13y ago
    Citation needed.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      For what?
  - simplemath 13y ago
    Serious question - do you really think the 4th is anything but some words on a piece of paper any longer?
    - tptacek 13y ago
      I don't care to engage with HN about my politics. I'm just annoyed that people can't keep the concepts straight. Parallel construction is the process of using surveillance data to escalate unrelated probable cause.
      - simplemath 13y ago
        Well, for starters you stated that you "have to have" probable cause to "effect a search". Do you seriously believe that to be true? Its much less about your politics than it is your credulous insinuation that illegal search and seizure is not taking place because searches "need" probable cause to be effected.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
tptacek 13y ago
Investigators staged the torture and killing — which included mock waterboarding according to officials — and sent Dread Pirate Roberts about half a dozen pictures, including photos depicting what they said was his corpse. So much for the absolutely inane "it was all a face-saving ruse" theory of the murder-for-hire scheme.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  I think that "face-saving ruse" was in relation to the second "hit", which sounded incredibly implausible. Someone says they need $500K and blackmails DPR, then the creditor shows up and is willing to kill the blackmailer for 20% of that? Yeah, OK. The details on the first "hit" weren't known before, were they? And it still doesn't invalidate the logic behind it some people were proposing: Given the prior that the USG will do harm to SR users and dealers, is it less harm to kill one person that is going to give information to the USG? (Again, that logic only works if you take the assumption that the USG is acting immorally and will impose a large amount of suffering onto many others.)
  - tptacek 13y ago
    It freaks me out that anyone would believe that any amount of message board political bullshit could justify murder. But I bet you're right.
    - MichaelGG 13y ago
      Murder is justified for all sorts of reasons. IIRC, the US was founded on a base of murdering people over disputes on taxes and government. Treason was (or is?) punishable by death. I'm not sure why message board political bullshit is intrinsically less valid than "official" government or LE reasons. Additionally, most people believe lethal force is justified in cases of defense. It's not a huge jump of logic to view these hits as defense.
      - georgemcbay 13y ago
        "Additionally, most people believe lethal force is justified in cases of defense. It's not a huge jump of logic to view these hits as defense." uh, wat? The dude was a drug dealer protecting his criminal empire. If I'm robbing a bank and shoot a cop who is going to shoot me, is that also defense? So I should be charged for the original crime but not for killing the cop? Because that's pretty much what your argument sounds like to me.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
Sounds like a police thriller novel. That said, and BitCoin hitting an all time high, is it even possible to convert BitCoin into dollars any more? I note that the article says the agents seized over two million dollars from the Mt GOX founder [1]. So given how many btc to dollar exchanges have been targeted how does that work now? Western Union or something? [1] "The seizures included $2.9 million from a Dwolla account that was controlled by a U.S. subsidiary of Mt. Gox and $2.1 million seized from two Wells Fargo accounts, one controlled by the same subsidiary, the other by Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles."
- Synaesthesia 13y ago
  Yes, it's easy to convert Bitcoin to USD. You can sell them at Coinbase, Bitstamp, LocalBitcoins and all kinds of other exchanges.
etler 13y ago
Wow, this is the funniest thing I've read all week!

92 points by hepha1979 13y ago

This seemed a bit worrying: Federal agents say the use of Tor and Bitcoin were major obstacles for them and that investigating the site was “uncharted territory” that involved a reversal of their usual investigative methods. Instead of starting with probable cause against a specific suspect who is already identified and then obtaining a search warrant to collect more evidence, the investigation of Silk Road involved collecting evidence from the site first and then trying to identify individuals. Sure it is "uncharted territory" in terms of the technology for maintaining anonymous identities, but shouldn't most investigations start with evidence of the crime and an empirical investigation into who could have committed it, rather than starting with suspects and trying to link them with the crime? Maybe I am naive, but sounds like dodgy criminal investigation methodology to me...

carbocation 13y ago
The real concern would be if they used parallel construction and actually used the NSA's warrantless surveillance. The core of parallel construction is to use fruit of the poisonous tree to identify the dots you need to connect, then do your sleuthing purely to figure out how to connect those dots. However, given the story told so far, it's actually pretty straightforward to identify the founder of the Silk Road based on a few of his missteps.
- deathhand 13y ago
  The real concern would be if they used parallel construction and actually used the NSA's warrantless surveillance. The core of parallel construction is to use fruit of the poisonous tree to identify the dots you need to connect, then do your sleuthing purely to figure out how to connect those dots. This cannot be stated enough.
maxerickson 13y ago
You are ignoring the 'already identified' in the text you quote. I'm sure there is occasional abuse, but I'm also sure that most investigations start with an examination of the available evidence to look for leads about who committed the crime.
devindotcom 13y ago
It's not so strange. Conspiracy to ____ is often shown before the individuals participating in the conspiracy. In this case there was evidence galore of illegal drug trade, so it became a matter of finding the individuals responsible.
saraid216 13y ago
> shouldn't most investigations start with evidence of the crime and an empirical investigation into who could have committed it, rather than starting with suspects and trying to link them with the crime? This might surprise you, but there are very often situations where the police and the public are remarkably aware of the facts of the crimes being committed, but unable to do anything about it. Drugs fall into this category. Everyone knows that "that's where the deals go down" and "that's where they count the money", but that's only because we're not completely stupid. Proving direct culpability, on the other hand, is an entirely different story, as is proving the culpability of people who matter. (Street level dealers, for instance, are pretty interchangeable: one gets shot, you get someone else to do his job. Ain't no thing.) If you find a druggie on a corner, it's not exactly a stretch of the imagination to recognize he's probably guilty of possession. It's also sort of pointless to prosecute him, since the actual issue you're fighting is lots of people taking particular drugs, which means what you care about are the people managing the city-wide operation. You want evidence of that crime? That's also the druggie on the corner. Half of whom can tell you exactly who it is who manages the city-wide operation. None of which are willing to take the witness stand to accuse him in a court of law. Because he knows that he goes right back to that corner the next day and not only does he no longer have someone bringing him drugs, but he's also get a bullet in his head for the trouble. If you want a visceral primer, watch The Wire.
- WildUtah 13y ago
  the actual issue you're fighting is lots of people taking particular drugs, which means what you care about are the people managing the city-wide operation That is a complete non sequitur. Actually, if you really want people to stop using drugs, arresting and imprisoning users is the single most effective technique yet known. It's especially effective against the middle class white population that consumes most drugs in the USA, but it works against poor minorities and addicts, also. And if you want to stop dealers, arresting and imprisoning retail dealers is the most effective technique. It clears the ones that work in public or sell to strangers out quite quickly. Arresting the kingpins or traffickers is totally ineffective at reducing drug use or reducing drug availability. If reducing public harm were a priority, the kingpins and traffickers could be ignored. Once the users and retailers are imprisoned, the bosses are out of business, anyway. And if you do catch the kingpins and traffickers, your efforts are completely ineffectual. There are always more kingpins in line to get rich quickly and easily. Decades of police targeting kingpins has only seen increases in drug availability. In fact, the faster you turn them over, the more violent the whole business becomes. The reason police agencies target kingpins and traffickers is because the purpose of the war on drugs, from the point of view of police administration, is to seize cash to fund police operations. There is no law enforcement justification for such a policy, merely an agency budgeting justification.
sireat 13y ago
This is how the government found MrSlippery in the opening pages of Vernor Vinge's True Names, that is they went through a list of likely suspects until they hit paydirt. Amazingly prescient for something written in 1979.

belorn 13y ago

If this has not been posted before, its good to see that all the worries about the tor protocol can be laid to rest. They did not identify the server by some advanced technical hacks against tor. They used simple basic police methods and arrested an administrator with the use of an undercover agent posing as a drug seller. The administrator purchased a kilo of cocaine, and by doing so, gave his home address to the undercover agent. After interrogation, they gained user credentials that even included DPR's private messages. This could have easily been a episode script for the wire.

bediger4000 13y ago
If simple, basic police methods sufficed here, then why the massive dragnet surveillance the rest of us are caught up in? Either (a) the dragnet surveillance isn't doing what it's supposed to or (b) there's another reason for the spying. And yes, I could be accused of whipping on the NSA no matter what, that in my view, they're damned if they do, and damned if they don't. So what? Even if I don't have "standing", and the NSA is doing "legal" things, and the 3 Prong Test for Violations of Privacy hasn't been met, the NSA is still doing things that until recently were considered grossly unamerican, a violation of the principles that made the USA different than commie Russia.
- philwelch 13y ago
  The NSA is not a law enforcement agency.
  - bediger4000 13y ago
    At least legally, I agree. But the dividing line between "spy agency" and "law enforcement agency" has gotten very thin. Beyond that, so what? The publicly stated goal of the dragnet surveillance is preventing the crime of terrorism. If "back to the basics" police work found out Dread Pirate Roberts, then why the "anti-terrorism" justification for dragnet surveillance? Dread Pirate Roberts and the Silk Road Web Site actually worked at hiding themselves in a technical, engineering, fact-based manner. From what we read, terrorists do not. At least some of them use "Islamic cyphers" and do other superstitious things in an attempt to conceal themselves. Why not concentrate on basic police work rather than massive surveillance?

Xeroday 13y ago

I wonder how much of this was actually parallel reconstruction vs "investigative research"

tptacek 13y ago
How exactly would parallel construction have helped here? To effect a search, with or without "parallel construction", you have to have probable cause.
- aliakbarkhan 13y ago
  Citation needed.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    For what?
- simplemath 13y ago
  Serious question - do you really think the 4th is anything but some words on a piece of paper any longer?
  - tptacek 13y ago
    I don't care to engage with HN about my politics. I'm just annoyed that people can't keep the concepts straight. Parallel construction is the process of using surveillance data to escalate unrelated probable cause.
    - simplemath 13y ago
      Well, for starters you stated that you "have to have" probable cause to "effect a search". Do you seriously believe that to be true? Its much less about your politics than it is your credulous insinuation that illegal search and seizure is not taking place because searches "need" probable cause to be effected.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

tptacek 13y ago

Investigators staged the torture and killing — which included mock waterboarding according to officials — and sent Dread Pirate Roberts about half a dozen pictures, including photos depicting what they said was his corpse. So much for the absolutely inane "it was all a face-saving ruse" theory of the murder-for-hire scheme.

MichaelGG 13y ago
I think that "face-saving ruse" was in relation to the second "hit", which sounded incredibly implausible. Someone says they need $500K and blackmails DPR, then the creditor shows up and is willing to kill the blackmailer for 20% of that? Yeah, OK. The details on the first "hit" weren't known before, were they? And it still doesn't invalidate the logic behind it some people were proposing: Given the prior that the USG will do harm to SR users and dealers, is it less harm to kill one person that is going to give information to the USG? (Again, that logic only works if you take the assumption that the USG is acting immorally and will impose a large amount of suffering onto many others.)
- tptacek 13y ago
  It freaks me out that anyone would believe that any amount of message board political bullshit could justify murder. But I bet you're right.
  - MichaelGG 13y ago
    Murder is justified for all sorts of reasons. IIRC, the US was founded on a base of murdering people over disputes on taxes and government. Treason was (or is?) punishable by death. I'm not sure why message board political bullshit is intrinsically less valid than "official" government or LE reasons. Additionally, most people believe lethal force is justified in cases of defense. It's not a huge jump of logic to view these hits as defense.
    - georgemcbay 13y ago
      "Additionally, most people believe lethal force is justified in cases of defense. It's not a huge jump of logic to view these hits as defense." uh, wat? The dude was a drug dealer protecting his criminal empire. If I'm robbing a bank and shoot a cop who is going to shoot me, is that also defense? So I should be charged for the original crime but not for killing the cop? Because that's pretty much what your argument sounds like to me.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

Sounds like a police thriller novel. That said, and BitCoin hitting an all time high, is it even possible to convert BitCoin into dollars any more? I note that the article says the agents seized over two million dollars from the Mt GOX founder [1]. So given how many btc to dollar exchanges have been targeted how does that work now? Western Union or something? [1] "The seizures included $2.9 million from a Dwolla account that was controlled by a U.S. subsidiary of Mt. Gox and $2.1 million seized from two Wells Fargo accounts, one controlled by the same subsidiary, the other by Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles."

Synaesthesia 13y ago
Yes, it's easy to convert Bitcoin to USD. You can sell them at Coinbase, Bitstamp, LocalBitcoins and all kinds of other exchanges.

etler 13y ago

Wow, this is the funniest thing I've read all week!