Silk Road 2.0 follows Silk Road 1.0

I have to admit that I'm still unclear about whether I have a strong opinion on this. If I read the article correctly, their second most frequent posting was marijuana and cannabis ads. I had been getting the feeling that the federal government was not all that enthusiastic about keeping marijuana illegal.

On the other hand, if they're also selling artillery (and maybe MANPADS), yeah they have to be shut down.

On the third hand (and yes, I have a puppy on standby, this will go to four paws (er, hands)), this is not a particularly difficult case for the FBI to work. Spotting Silk Road 2.0 must have been a snap (especially if that was the name they were using). From their it unrolls as in a text book. Plant the mole, support him, he gets the info, you get him out. I think the Director would say it was a good use of resources.

On the fourth hand, the US has been looking pretty feeble in the cyber wars. This might be an attempt to persuade less knowledgeable people that our internet is totally safe because the government is protecting us and our country.

They make me tired.

I'd feel better if I thought we were fighting back effectively. We're not getting many complaints from other countries about our interference in their internet systems, it makes me think that we aren't for fear of unpushing the "reset" button or something.

But why defend the country which the elite believes is responsible for the world's woes? Patriotism is laughed at by the ruling class, so don't be surprised at the result when we trust the defense of the country to people who don't love it.

@wrabbit2000,

Thanks for scaring me a little more before I've even had a chance to go through the morning work here.

As usual, you bring solid information to the table, and the point that "Payback is ..." is pretty reasonable. I'm not sure that either of the leaders of those countries are quite sane. There are (according to all reports) so many ways to cripple a country so dependent on computers and a functioning power grid. I can't see why Russia (or unfortunately any country) couldn't put several teams of saboteurs into the US with the ability to shut us down. There would be some pockets of protected areas here and there, but what Trojans can't eliminate, C4, grenades, RPGs, MANPADS, and bullets can.

I just came across this and it is an important thing to add. Perhaps, more important than the OP Thread itself, but not so much that a new thread would be needed. This works fine.... This came across Cryptome sometime last night or this morning (It's #1 on the chronological listing of new additions this morning)

Darknet Sweep Casts Doubt On Tor



It still takes me getting used to, seeing the Homeland Security stamp on everything, across every federal agency relating to law enforcement or military alike at home. Feels like a bad version of 1984...but I digress.

What stands out here is that they were infiltrated and from day 1 by the sound of it. I'll leave my own thoughts to my private moments here, since the nature of what they busted still leaves me with mixed feelings. This sure isn't a clear 'The feds against a perfectly innocent small guy' situation. Still...How they have come to operate as the preferred method now? It feels dirty and really Police-Statish. Who knows, in any effort, who is loyal to a project and who is actually split for loyalties to another 'master'? Questions not really asked or relevant until recent years, at this level of things. 

There is more though..and I didn't come back to recap what I already had.


This is a good moment to note, whatever I did or didn't do in Tor...or wherever I have or have never been in a place that technically doesn't exist among its "members"? I stopped going to any of it when the first federal action came last year. That showed me that what had taken so long to happen, had finally come. Law enforcement got tired of the largest black market in the history of mankind operating with full and open public access (One needs some special processes to follow and a utility to install..but it takes less than 10 minutes to get to the higher levels of "Deepweb" or "Darknet".).

Make no mistake...Tor is what another website we know only jokes about being. It truly IS what its users create it to be, and with no law or codes of decency. Child porn, murder porn, weapons trading, drug dealing and even looking for someone to murder another by payment were and likely still are things one can find in Darknet. Lower levels require a hell of a lot more than just a utility and a few minutes of time to learn the process, but I doubt law enforcement ever dares tread too deep, either. Monsters lurk in shallow streams within that water. Tor was the public access point to.....what? A concept? A world that isn't one? Tor only formed one arm, or protocol of what comes to be called "Deepweb" among it's many names....and among the more open parts.

It is obviously a bit more open than people would have thought. Mixed feelings on this too...... I can say that in different areas of what lay beneath the open net, I've seen things I'd pay to get out of my memories. Things one can never forget, and will wish they could. Indeed.. I've also seen things so touchy, Brad Manning likely wouldn't have had a clue what all the designations in the secure line even stood for. It's a world of extremes, and just beneath our "feet", so to speak. 

Its apparently a different one, now.

Source (Cryptome PDF, listed as "Darknet Sweep Casts Doubt on Tor" and dated November 8, 2014 for anyone looking to read the full original.

Oh..they do, eh? lol..... The funny part about all this and what Anonymous has shown to be true with their open model of resistance (where anyone can pick up and then drop the name, as desired)? Law Enforcement is infiltrated going THE OTHER direction and sometimes as much or more so than they infiltrate their own targets. 

I suppose this is basically saying, for those of us looking to be private for non-criminal reasons, the game is on and quite a game it may well be. At least they've stood tall and openly here to declare they intend to play for real. Of course....I'm just a mere spectator to all this. I'd never claim or represent myself as more. I'll be a very interested spectator for a number of reasons though, and I imagine that we'll all have a bit of a show to watch as time goes on.