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October 2, 2013 10:50 pm GMT
For two and a half years, Silk Road was the Deep Web’s worst keep secret. The underground site was infamous for drug trafficking, gun running and murder for hire – a veritable rogues gallery for underground dealers. Since launching in 2011, the site generated over a $1.2 billion in revenue and $79.8 million in commissions. It was one of the secret successes of the underground web. The site was taken offline today and the founder, Ross William Ulbricht, a/k/a “Dread Pirate Roberts, charged with one count each of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, soliciting murder, computer hacking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, according to a court filing. It is the end of a strange era in computer security when one man and a team of salesmen, programmers, and cryptographers kept the government at bay for two solid years. The court filing reveals in explicit terms the lengths Ulbricht’s site went to ensure its users anonymity and details the violent means he allegedly used to protect himself and the site. The image of Ulbricht comes from his LinkedIn profile. What follows are excerpts from the court document compiling the notes Special Agent Christopher Tarbell of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Incidentally, Silk Road users, take note: Ulbricht instituted a multi-layer system that protected your identity, but it wasn’t perfect as it seems Silk Road vendors were the weak link in the system. Read on for more details. Anon Transactions Tarbell explains in detail Silk Road’s transaction process. Silk Road uses a so–called “tumbler” to process Bitcoin transactions in a manner designed to frustrate the tracking of individual transactions through the Blockchain. According to the Silk Road wiki, Silk Road’s tumbler “sends all payments through a complex, semi–random series of dummy transactions, . . . making it nearly impossible to link your payment with any coins leaving the site.” In other words, if a buyer makes a payment on Silk Road, the tumbler obscures any link between the buyer’s Bitcoin address and the vendor’s Bitcoin address where the Bitcoins end up — making it fruitless to use the Blockchain to follow the money trail involved in the transaction, even if the buyer’s and vendor’s Bitcoin addresses are both known. Based on my training and experience, the only function served by such “tumblers” is to assist with the laundering of criminal proceeds. Special Agent Tarbell acknowledges that Bitcoins are an anonymous, decentralized form of electronic
Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/8U1hriFrspc/
Court Docs Reveal Alleged Silk Road Founder's Murder Plot
For two and a half years, Silk Road was the Deep Web’s worst keep secret. The underground site was infamous for drug trafficking, gun running and murder for hire – a veritable rogues gallery for underground dealers. Since launching in 2011, the site generated over a $1.2 billion in revenue and $79.8 million in commissions. It was one of the secret successes of the underground web. The site was taken offline today and the founder, Ross William Ulbricht, a/k/a “Dread Pirate Roberts, charged with one count each of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, soliciting murder, computer hacking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, according to a court filing. It is the end of a strange era in computer security when one man and a team of salesmen, programmers, and cryptographers kept the government at bay for two solid years. The court filing reveals in explicit terms the lengths Ulbricht’s site went to ensure its users anonymity and details the violent means he allegedly used to protect himself and the site. The image of Ulbricht comes from his LinkedIn profile. What follows are excerpts from the court document compiling the notes Special Agent Christopher Tarbell of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Incidentally, Silk Road users, take note: Ulbricht instituted a multi-layer system that protected your identity, but it wasn’t perfect as it seems Silk Road vendors were the weak link in the system. Read on for more details. Anon Transactions Tarbell explains in detail Silk Road’s transaction process. Silk Road uses a so–called “tumbler” to process Bitcoin transactions in a manner designed to frustrate the tracking of individual transactions through the Blockchain. According to the Silk Road wiki, Silk Road’s tumbler “sends all payments through a complex, semi–random series of dummy transactions, . . . making it nearly impossible to link your payment with any coins leaving the site.” In other words, if a buyer makes a payment on Silk Road, the tumbler obscures any link between the buyer’s Bitcoin address and the vendor’s Bitcoin address where the Bitcoins end up — making it fruitless to use the Blockchain to follow the money trail involved in the transaction, even if the buyer’s and vendor’s Bitcoin addresses are both known. Based on my training and experience, the only function served by such “tumblers” is to assist with the laundering of criminal proceeds. Special Agent Tarbell acknowledges that Bitcoins are an anonymous, decentralized form of electronicOriginal Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/8U1hriFrspc/
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