Posted on 11/07/2014 2:38:07 PM PST by ConservingFreedom
Silk Road 2.0 and 400 other sites believed to be selling illegal items including drugs and weapons have been shut down.
The sites operated on the Tor network - a part of the internet unreachable via traditional search engines.
The joint operation between 16 European countries and the US saw 17 arrests, including Blake Benthall who is said to be behind Silk Road 2.0.
Experts believe the shutdown represents a breakthrough for fighting cybercrime.
Six Britons were also arrested, including a 20-year-old man from Liverpool, a 19-year-old man from New Waltham, a 30 year-old-man from Cleethorpes and a man and woman, both aged 58, from Aberdovey, Wales.
All were interviewed and bailed according to the National Crime Agency.
Tor, as well as hosting legitimate sites, is home to thousands of illegal marketplaces, trading in drugs, child abuse images as well as sites for extremist groups. [...]
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
400 sites and only 17 arrests
Seems that they can only find site owners if they are dumb enough to leave their real info on the server. Like Silk Road 1.0 and 2.0
No evidence that Tor has been cracked yet
What say Ye, Laz?
Has gubment accomplished anything this time, or in the ongoing game of Hackers v. Clods, have the Clods amped up the Sound & Fury while the signal to noise ratio went seriously south?
Stupid and vague article...
400 sites and 17 arrests?
I recognized some of those words!
People running child abuse sites should be beaten to death
[ People running child abuse sites should be beaten to death ]
After a Fair Judicial trial of course!
the dopes at the washpost had this to say:
“This story is still developing, but I’ll note that there’s a strong argument to be made that the darknet economy makes the world a safer place overall. By taking drug transactions off the street and putting them online, you eliminate a significant link in the chain of violence between drug suppliers and end users. Drugs purchased online are typically less adulterated with dangerous contaminants than street drugs are, and a system of reviews rewards sellers who provide high-quality product.”
I wonder if they apply the same logic to the sellers of sex slaves and kiddie porn?
That crossed my mind almost immediately upon reading their other excuses...
I wonder which network Obie prefers?
I don’t understand.
They can do this, but they can’t shut down YouTube for multiple copyright infringements?
Those not arrested are probably politicians.
So...where’s the rabbit hole entrance that allows you access to this wondrous world of sin and degradation?
I’ve got nothing else to do...
“The sites operated on the Tor network - a part of the internet unreachable via traditional search engines.”
I have to wonder what this means. Gotta be a little more to it than “search engines.”
Their TCP is just like my TCP, it all travels down the same piece of fiber. What makes this “dark net” so mysterious and exclusive?
This is just my understanding, so take it for what it is worth, but I think that sites in the Tor network don’t use ip addresses or domain names. Instead, they have their own decentralized naming and routing framework. As a result, search engines don’t have a good place to start. Also, there aren’t many links from the www into Tor, so crawlers don’t usually go there, and, if they do, don’t go very far.
“Silk Road 2.0 and 400 other sites believed to be selling illegal items including drugs and weapons have been shut down.”
How about the sites selling sexual adventures with little British girls, or is that too ‘sensitive’ for the local pigs to do anything about?
I would suspect that “they” shut them down just to block a means to communicate without NSA snooping.
The kiddie porn and drugs scam is a pretext
The Tor network conceals the IP of any server or user by rerouting multiple times. Basically an automatic proxy chain that changes continuously.
It also allows people to create domains that are only accessible through the Tor browser while concealing the originating server.
Right now the Feds are finding servers because many of them leak the originating IP. I suspect this will be addressed and fixed in short order.
“I wonder if they apply the same logic to the sellers of sex slaves and kiddie porn?”
Yea, all private communication should be banned for billions of people over a few pedophiles
Do a search for Tor Net and it seems they have their own browser - which I assume one needs to get to these “unreachable” sites.
Here is what wiki has to say:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_%28anonymity_network%29:
“... An extract of a Top Secret appraisal by the National Security Agency (NSA) characterized Tor as ‘the King of high secure, low latency Internet anonymity’ with ‘no contenders for the throne in waiting’”.
One person can run numerous sites, just depends on how ambitious you are. So it is not a stretch for only 17 arrests.
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