Silk Road

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Silk Road ( English for Silk Road , as an allusion to the historical trade route) was a virtual black market operated as a hidden service in the Tor network . In particular, illegal drugs and various digital goods were traded there, with the cryptocurrency Bitcoin being used as the only means of payment . After the original platform was seized after two and a half years of activity and the suspected operator was arrested, it reopened under Silk Road 2.0 just a month later . By cracking the anonymization network “Tor” as part of Operation Onymous and an agent smuggled in before that time, a new seizure was achieved a year later in November 2014.

Ultimately, the decline of the original Silk Road resulted in a real boom in darknet markets , which soon allowed the alternatives Agora and Evolution (switched off since March 2015) to overtake Silk Road as the largest and best-known market.

history

The first incarnation of Silk Road went into operation in January 2011. Two and a half years later, a data leak in the login screen was able to locate the server in a data center in Iceland; This led directly to the arrest of Ross Ulbricht in October 2013. Under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts (based on a character from the fantasy film The Prince's Bride ), he is said to have operated or helped operate the platform. Silk Road itself and bitcoins worth more than $ 3 million were also confiscated.

Up until then, around 1.2 billion US dollars had been turned over via Silk Road, of which 80 million had gone to the operator or operators as commission.

Almost a month later, the successor, simply called Silk Road 2.0 , went online under significantly tightened security precautions; a new Dread Pirate Roberts also appeared in the official forum. As a presumed co-operator of the platform, three of the forum moderators were found and arrested in December as part of an international manhunt.

In February 2014, charges were finally brought against Ulbricht; These included the formation of a criminal organization , drug trafficking , computer hacking and money laundering .

Silk Road 2.0 suffered a major setback in February 2014: The platform was compromised by exploiting a vulnerability in the Bitcoin protocol, which made it possible for the attacker to gain control of all Bitcoins circulating on the platform by repeatedly withdrawing them. As a result, the temporary blocking of the site for the implementation of further security features was announced.

By June of the same year, most of the users affected by the hack had got their bitcoins back.

In addition to the existing charges, additional charges were made against Ulbricht in August. These included drug trafficking , Internet drug trafficking and the placing on the market of forged identity papers. Ulbricht pleaded “not guilty” on all of the points raised to date.

Silk Road 2.0 has been repeatedly exposed to massive and well-organized distributed denial of service attacks. In a particularly serious incident in September 2014, the operators felt compelled to take the platform offline for a few days and adapt the software accordingly; the official forum was also offline at times.

On November 6, 2014, almost exactly one year after the portal was founded, Silk Road 2.0 was seized and shut down by an internationally coordinated action by the US domestic intelligence service FBI and Europol , among others . In the course of this, the suspected operator of the platform, Blake Benthall ( nickname Defcon ), was arrested by the authorities. Just a few hours later, sites like Silk Road Reloaded and Silk Road 3.0 appeared; however, these are merely spontaneous renaming of existing markets and very likely attempts at fraud. Although several hundred darknet URLs had been adopted and retired in the course of the operation, the two large markets, Agora and Evolution, were never affected and remained operational.

After three weeks in the Manhattan Federal Court, the jury found Ross Ulbricht guilty on all charges on February 4, 2015. On May 29, 2015, Ulbricht was sentenced to life imprisonment with no early release; With the confirmation by an appeals court on May 31, 2017, the judgment became final.

After the 2015 guilty verdict, a Drug Enforcement Administration official named Carl Force and a Secret Service agent named Shaun Bridges were arrested on suspicion of using the Ulbricht investigation to enrich themselves. Among other things, Force is said to have extorted Ulbricht with information from the investigation files and assumed the identity of an arrested Silk Road administrator with the aim of stealing $ 250,000 and also to loot the wallets of merchants whom he had previously locked out of their user accounts. In order to conceal the related money laundering via the Bitcoin trading exchange Mt.Gox , he had obtained a confiscation order against the operator Mark Karpelès , which led to the falsification of several investigations. After pleading guilty of extortion, money laundering and obstruction of justice in July , Force was sentenced to 78 months (more than 6 years) in prison in October 2015. Bridges pleaded guilty of money laundering and obstruction of justice, and agreed to pay $ 500,000 in compensation. He was sentenced to 71 months (almost 6 years) in prison the following December.

Federal judge Richard Seeborg, who was entrusted with the case, told the court:

“This, to me, is an extremely serious crime consisting of the betrayal of public trust from a public official. From what I can see, it was motivated by greed. No departure or variance is warranted in this case. I seldom find myself in the position of imposing a high-end sentence, but I find this is warranted in this case. "

“For me, this is an extremely serious crime, which is a breach of public trust by a public official. The way I see it, it was motivated by greed. In this case, no departure or deviation will be granted. I rarely see myself in the position to impose a high sentence, but in this case I think it is justified. "

Business transaction

Cash flow in a darknet market business; the example shows the cash flow of the no longer existing darknet market Silk Road. The US government is the author of the flowchart.

The design and user interface were professionally executed and similar to that of other virtual marketplaces such as eBay or Amazon. Silk Road provided each account with a wallet with multiple Bitcoin addresses. When a purchase was made, the corresponding amount was transferred directly to the dealer; manual finalization by the buyer was no longer necessary and the escrow system had also been deactivated due to security concerns.

Feedback in the form of a review and rating could be left on purchased products . In the event of problems with processing, there was ticket-based support, which primarily dealt with investigating cases of fraud . There was also an official community forum.

Security mechanisms

Since Silk Road was a permanent target of law enforcement agencies, all participants were expected to abide by certain rules regarding anonymity. All communication, in particular the transmission of delivery addresses, had to be carried out using strong PGP encryption. In addition, in view of the widespread identity theft in the Darknet , it was urgently advised to activate two-factor authentication , whereby after entering the login name and password using your own private PGP key, a brief puzzle must be deciphered.

The Tor Browser Bundle and a current PGP implementation (such as gpg4usb ) were recommended as a minimum in the official forum for secure and anonymous access to the platform . Ideally, the programs, both of which do not require installation, are copied together with the private keys and other sensitive data onto a removable storage medium encrypted (e.g. with VeraCrypt or dm-crypt ). Windows users are also advised to use a specialized Linux live system such as Tails , as the combination of Windows 8 and TPM 2.0 hardware in particular no longer offers any security against any unauthorized interference.

Bitcoins are currently not completely anonymous, just "pseudonymous"; the metadata may be used to trace transactions to a specific Bitcoin address. In order to eliminate this risk, so-called mixing services or tumblers exist , in which the origin is concealed by means of random payouts from a shared pool.

Prosecution of those involved

In connection with Silk Road there were repeated arrests, mostly of major wholesalers, and less often of end customers and small dealers .

A user of the platform was first tracked down and arrested in Australia in February 2013 . Another wave of arrests occurred in October when eight people in the United States, Great Britain and Sweden were apprehended in the wake of the seizure of the original Silk Road, and Bitcoins worth US $ 3.5 million were seized in the course of this. In April 2014, the first known Silk Road millionaire, a Dutch national, was arrested in Florida; in May of the same year another wholesaler was set up in Texas.

Trivia

According to an unpublished study by the Universities of Lausanne and Manchester, its function as a virtual wholesale space may have led to a reduction in intimidation and violent crime related to drug trafficking.

See also

Documentation

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The man behind Silk Road - the internet's biggest market for illegal drugs . In: The Guardian .
  2. ^ Everything You Need to Know About Silk Road, the Online Black Market Raided by the FBI . In: Time (English).
  3. ↑ wired.com: silk road
  4. ^ New Silk Road Selling Even More Illegal Drugs Than Old Silk Road . In: Huffington Post .
  5. ↑ Sorry, FBI! Silk Road is back online, and still selling illegal drugs . In: Digital Trends (English).
  6. ↑ One month after launch, new Silk Road is up to 3,000 drug listings . In: The Verge (English).
  7. ↑ Operation "Onymous" - FBI and Europol shut down hundreds of pages in the dark web. In: Spiegel Online , November 7, 2014 Accessed March 12, 2017
  8. ↑ Feds Seize Silk Road 2 in Major Dark Web Drug Bust . In: Wired (English).
  9. ↑ FBI Arrests SpaceX Employee, Alleging He Ran The 'Deep Web' Drug Marketplace Silk Road 2.0 In: Business Insider .
  10. ↑ Silk Road 2 Seized! In: Deep Dot Web (English).
  11. ↑ A Year After Death of Silk Road, Darknet Markets Are Booming In: The Atlantic .
  12. ^ How Online Black Markets Have Evolved Since Silk Road's Downfall . In: Wired (English).
  13. ^ Silk Road: One Year On . In: CoinDesk (English).
  14. ↑ Life after Silk Road: How the darknet drugs market is booming In: The Guardian (English).
  15. ^ Drug Market 'Agora' Replaces the Silk Road as King of the Dark Net . In: Wired (English).
  16. ↑ Silk Road's Demise Spawns Agora, A Popular New Online Drug Marketplace . In: International Business Times (English).
  17. ^ Agora Is the Web's Top Black Marketplace . In: Reason.com (English).
  18. ^ Online Drug Site Agora Replaces Silk Road Atop Dark Web . In: The Fix .
  19. ^ Heroin, Guns, Stolen Credit Cards: Meet Evolution, the New Silk Road . In: Gizmodo (English).
  20. ↑ Evolution Replaces Silk Road as New Online Drug Market In: The Fix .
  21. ↑ The Dark Web Gets Darker With Rise of the 'Evolution' Drug Market . In: Wired (English).
  22. ^ Take A Walk Down Silk Road . In: Forbes Magazine (English).
  23. ^ The definitive history of Silk Road . In: The Daily Dot .
  24. ↑ The FBI Finally Says How It 'Legally' Pinpointed Silk Road's Server In: Wired .
  25. ^ The Feds Explain How They Seized The Silk Road Servers . In: Forbes Magazine (English).
  26. ↑ Lessons from Silk Road: don't host your virtual illegal drug bazaar in Iceland . In: The Verge (English).
  27. ↑ FBI claims largest Bitcoin seizure after arrest of alleged Silk Road founder . In: The Guardian .
  28. ↑ Alleged Founder Of Silk Road - The Site Where You Can Buy Illegal Drugs - Arrested And Millions In Bitcoins Seized . In: Business Insider (English).
  29. ^ Feds Raid Online Drug Market Silk Road . In: Time (English).
  30. ↑ Silk Road drug market handled $ 1.2 billion of transactions in 2.5 years before FBI seizure . In: MarketWatch (English).
  31. ↑ End Of The Silk Road: FBI Says It's Busted The Web's Biggest Anonymous Drug Black Market . In: Forbes Magazine (English).
  32. ^ The Silk Road Online Drug Marketplace by the Numbers . In: Mashable (English).
  33. ↑ New Silk Road Drug Market Backed Up To '500 Locations In 17 Countries' To Resist Another Takedown . In: Forbes Magazine (English).
  34. ^ Silk Road, the Online Black Market, Is Already Back . In: Daily Lounge (English).
  35. ↑ Alleged Top Moderators Of Silk Road 2 Forums Arrested In Ireland, EE In International Sweep . In: TechCrunch (English).
  36. ↑ 3 Alleged Silk Road Moderators Arrested in Global Sting . In: Mashable (English).
  37. ↑ Alleged Silk Road Kingpin Ross Ulbricht Pleads Not Guilty . In: Mashable (English).
  38. ^ Silk Road mastermind Ross William Ulbricht pleads not guilty, trial fixed for November . In: Tech Times .
  39. ^ Alleged Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht Pleads Not Guilty On All Charges . In: Forbes Magazine (English).
  40. ↑ Silk Road Trial Update: Ross Ulbricht, 'Dread Pirate Roberts,' Pleads Not Guilty, Trial Set For November . In: International Business Times (English).
  41. ↑ IMPORTANT: Humbled and Furious .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Announcement in the Silk Road forum - only accessible via the Tor network.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / silkroad5v7dywlc.onion  
  42. ↑ Somebody Hacked Into Silk Road 2 and Stole All the Bitcoins . In: Gizmodo (English).
  43. ↑ Drug site Silk Road wiped out by Bitcoin glitch . In: CNN Money (English).
  44. ↑ Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen - $ 2.7 million . In: Deep Dot Web (English).
  45. ↑ You Are Writing History: 82% Repaid .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Statement in the Silk Road forum - only accessible through the Tor network.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / silkroad5v7dywlc.onion  
  46. ↑ Silk Road Admin: We Have Repaid 82.09% Of the Stolen Funds. In: Deep Dot Web (English).
  47. ↑ Silk Road 2.0 makes good: Has repaid 82% of stolen bitcoin deposits as sales approach pre-hack level . In: Tech Investor News (English).
  48. ^ Ross Ulbricht Pleads Not Guilty to New Drug Charges . In: CoinDesk (English).
  49. ↑ Alleged Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht denies charges, says lawyer . In: The Verge (English).
  50. ^ Prosecutors hit Silk Road suspect Ross Ulbricht with new drug charges . In: Ars Technica (English).
  51. ↑ Silk Road 2.0 is battling a major cyberattack . In: The Daily Dot .
  52. ↑ Silk Road 2.0 Hit by 'Sophisticated' DDoS Attack . In: CoinDesk (English).
  53. ↑ Silk Road DDoS attacks take down Tor drug market . In: canada.com (English).
  54. ↑ Onymous: Raid against Silk Road 2.0 and the Darknet. In: heise.de. November 6, 2014, accessed November 7, 2014 .
  55. ↑ There's Already A Silk Road 3.0 . In: Business Insider (English).
  56. ↑ We spoke to the shady opportunist behind Silk Road 3.0 . In: The Daily Dot (English)
  57. ↑ Silk Road 3 In: Deep Dot Web
  58. ^ Illicit e-commerce: Winning the battle, losing the war . In: The Economist .
  59. ↑ Europol Arrests 17 in Darknet Crackdown . In: medium.com (English).
  60. ^ Ross Ulbricht Guilty: Silk Road Founder Convicted By Jury; Faces Life In Prison For Conspiracy, Drug Trafficking. In: International Business Times
  61. ↑ Johannes Wendt: Ross Ulbricht: Silk Road founder has to be behind bars for life. In: Zeit Online. May 29, 2015. Retrieved May 29, 2015 .
  62. ↑ Jörg Thoma: Silk Road Trial: Life imprisonment for Ross Ulbricht confirmed. In: golem.de . June 1, 2017, accessed December 14, 2017 .
  63. ↑ http://www.golem.de/news/silk-road-prozess-lebenslange-haft-fuer-ross-ulbricht-1505-114354.html
  64. ^ Second Former Government Agent Sentenced to 71 Months. In: Deep Dot Web (English)
  65. ^ Federal agent gets six years in prison for extorting bitcoins from Silk Road creator . In: The Verge (English).
  66. ↑ Cop charged with stealing $ 820K from Silk Road is trying to run, prosecutors claim . In: The Daily Dot .
  67. ^ Secret Service Agent Gets Six-Year Sentence for Bitcoin Theft. In: CoinDesk (English)
  68. ↑ a b Judge sets 71-month sentence for former Secret Service agent who plundered Silk Road. In: Ars Technica (English)
  69. ↑ How I bought drugs from 'dark net' - it's just like Amazon run by cartels. In: The Guardian
  70. ↑ Libertarian Dream? A Site Where You Buy Drugs With Digital Dollars. In: The Atlantic
  71. ^ Silk Road: The Amazon.com of illegal drugs. In: The Week
  72. ^ Marketplace Directory - Silk Road 2.0. In: Deep Dot Web
  73. ↑ Statement by the BSI on current reporting on MS Windows 8 and TPM. ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Federal Office for Information Security
  74. ↑ Federal authorities see risks when using Windows 8. In: Zeit Online
  75. ↑ Control chips: This is how the PC industry wants to incapacitate customers. In: Spiegel Online
  76. ^ A Taxonomy of Bitcoin Mixing Services for Policymakers. In: CoinDesk
  77. ^ The Politics Of Bitcoin Mixing Services. In: Forbes Magazine
  78. ^ The current state of coin-mixing services. In: Deep Dot Web
  79. ^ Police crack down on Silk Road following first drug dealer conviction . In: Wired (English).
  80. ^ Silk Road Arrests In Seattle, Britain, Sweden As Crackdown Continues . In: Gawker (English).
  81. ↑ Silk Road Users Arrested In US, UK And Sweden With Millions Of Dollars In Bitcoins Seized . ( Memento of the original from October 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Huffington Post .  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.huffingtonpost.com
  82. ↑ Uh Oh, Silk Road Users Are Starting to Get Arrested . In: Gizmodo (English).
  83. ↑ Alleged 'prolific' illegal drug dealer on Silk Road website to plead guilty . ( Memento of the original from October 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Chicago Sun-Times (English).  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.suntimes.com
  84. ↑ Vendor “Caligirl” Busted: Charged With Selling Drugs On Silk Road & Bitmessage . In: Deep Dot Web (English).
  85. ^ Judith Aldridge, David Décary-Hétu: Not an 'Ebay for Drugs': The Cryptomarket 'Silk Road' as a Paradigm Shifting Criminal Innovation. May 13, 2014, accessed February 5, 2015 ( doi : 10.2139 / ssrn.2436643 ).
  86. ↑ Silk Road may have prevented drug violence, study says. In: The Verge
  87. ↑ Silk Road Reduced Violence in the Drug Trade , Study Argues. In: Wired