[Cryptography] Dark Web should really be called the Twilight Web

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:08 AM, Lodewijk andré de la porte <l at odewijk.nl>
wrote:

> 2015-05-28 12:08 GMT+09:00 Phillip Hallam-Baker <phill at hallambaker.com>:
>
>> Where I don't see Tor being remotely safe is trying to operate an online
>> Drug bazar as a hidden service. I mean seriously guys, cryptography isn't
>> magic and traffic analysis is a very effective tool. Tor is still going to
>> help your customers keep their identity secret but it isn't going to stop a
>> determined law enforcement team with pervasive Internet access tracking
>> down your server. Not when the hidden service is trying to become a
>> consumer brand with global reach.
>
>
> But do they care about drugs? National security does not seem directly
> impacted by drug use. In fact, there's plenty evidence that these markets
> reduce drug-related violence (which is dangerous).
>

Well they certainly have Tor instrumented and they certainly have channels
for passing information to the FBI. That was one of the things they were
hit for.

Which might just explain one of the Silk Road issues that has not been
explained which is what happened to the $1.1 million that DPR paid to what
now appears to have been a clever con artist.

The emails sent by Dread Pirate Roberts are fascinating as he was persuaded
to pay a guy $650K to organize five hits and then lent him another $500K.
All in bitcoin.

But the thing that I find odd about the scam was that he had the background
knowledge on DPR and his activities to know how he could be conned.

Seems to me that a very plausible explanation would be that the NSA
analysts who originally tipped off the FBI were behind the scam.
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