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Thread: Dark net experts trade theories on 'de-cloaking' after raids

  1. #1
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    Question Dark net experts trade theories on 'de-cloaking' after raids

    The hidden web community has started trying to find out how services and identities were compromised after police raids led to 17 arrests.

    Last week, several high-profile sites on the so-called "hidden", "dark" or "deep" web were seized.

    Experts are looking at techniques the authorities may have used to "de-cloak" people running services accessed through anonymisation service Tor.

    "We were as surprised as most of you," said the group that develops Tor.

    In a blog post, the Tor Project team wrote: "We are left asking, 'How did they locate the hidden services?' We don't know.

    "In liberal democracies, we should expect that when the time comes to prosecute some of the 17 people who have been arrested, the police would have to explain to the judge how the suspects came to be suspects.

    "As a side benefit of the operation of justice, Tor could learn if there are security flaws in hidden services or other critical internet-facing services."


    Sites seized showed the following caption


    The anonymity Tor offers means that it has become popular with criminals as a way to conduct their activities online.

    But the Tor Project, which receives funding from the US government, is also seen as a key component for those who need anonymity on the internet for other important reasons, such as activism in repressive regimes.

    'Operation Onymous'
    Tor - which stands for The Onion Router - is one of several services that allows people to access what is generally referred to as the "hidden", "deep" or "dark" web.

    Here, sites that do not show up on traditional search engines are located.

    But more importantly, users on Tor have their locations, and therefore identities, hidden. This is achieved by routing a person's journey on the internet through various different computers in locations all over the world, creating anonymity.

    However, with this latest raid, the anonymity of users on Tor is again under question. But one expert, Dr Steven Murdoch, from University College London, told the BBC it was unlikely that Tor itself had been "cracked".

    "Some major hidden markets are still available," he noted. "Including some of the biggest.

    "If they had a successful way of compromising hidden services they would have done it to everyone."

    The shutdown of the hidden web services was co-ordinated by Europol in what it dubbed Operation Onymous.

    In a press release, it said more than 400 services were shut - although it later clarified that to mean 400 pages were disabled. Those pages had belonged to 27 individual services that were seized and closed.

    The majority of the sites were selling drugs or other illegal paraphernalia, while others dealt with the selling of stolen credit card data.

    The most high-profile closure was of Silk Road 2.0 - a site selling drugs, set up after the closure of the original Silk Road site last year.

    The Tor Project went into detail listing possible methods of how the sites were compromised and their owners arrested.

    They included:

    Poor operational security - that is, basic failings in running the websites. On Silk Road 2.0, investigators noted that an email address identifying Blake Benthall, who's been accused of running the site, was found within its code
    Bugs in web applications - just as in the open internet, elements used within pages, such as video players or other interactive features, on Tor can be vulnerable to bugs and exploits. The Tor Project said some of the sites seized were likely to have contained "quickly-coded e-shops" which as a result had weaknesses
    Bitcoin "deanonymisation" - Those using illegal services need a way to pay for what they are getting - and Bitcoin is often the virtual currency of choice. While Bitcoin is far harder to trace than the use of normal payment methods, it is certainly not completely anonymous. Recent research has demonstrated ways to link Bitcoin transactions with a user's location
    Denial of Service (DoS) attack - Highly theoretical at this stage, law enforcement could orchestrate a DoS attack - where a site is flooded with visits - in an attempt to force traffic to access Tor through computers owned and monitored by the authorities. Concerns about this complex technique were raised earlier this year
    'Hello, internet super-villain here'
    In an attempt to find clues as to the authorities' tactics, one owner of a seized site - who was apparently not arrested - released log files showing activity on his "onion", the term given to sites on Tor.

    He offered the logs up to the community for scrutiny.

    On a mailing list for Tor developers, he wrote: "This will probably be a very humbling experience, because unlike my fellow illegal onion operators both past and present, I will actually be outside of a jail cell and able to read the ruthless dissection of my set-up.

    "On the bright side, you're all are getting way more info from me than the pigs [police] will ever willingly cough up, which means if they have some sort of magic onion de-cloak trick, this mailing list discussion is a good chance at finding it."

    His post, titled, "yes hello, internet super-villain here", shared details of Doxbin, a hidden website that allowed people to upload documents supposedly anonymously.

    From the logs, some have suggested that the DoS attack, as detailed above, was responsible for "de-anonymising" users of the site.

    Dr Murdoch noted that getting a real explanation for how Operation Onymous was carried out is unlikely.

    "They're not going to tell anyone about it because they want to do it again," he said.

    "They want people to be afraid to run illegal hidden services."



    Source


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    Huge raid to shut down 400-plus dark net sites

    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 system that gives access to otherwise hard-to-reach parts of the net.

    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.

    As well as providing anonymous access to legitimate sites, Tor also lets people hide their visits to thousands of illegal marketplaces, trading in drugs, child abuse images as well as sites for extremist groups.

    It was the operation last year to take down the drugs marketplace Silk Road which was the first major success in the battle against criminal use of the dark net.

    Now this much bigger operation involving global cooperation amongst law enforcement agencies sees that battle taken to a new level, with Silk Road 2.0 amongst 400 sites closed.

    It's important to remember that the dark net isn't all about illegal activity. Indeed its best known tool the anonymising browser Tor was created by a US intelligence agency to help its operations and to assist people living under repressive regimes.

    Last year, many predicted that shutting one online drugs bazaar - and arresting its alleged owner Ross William Ulbricht - would not make a lot of difference, with plenty more rushing to fill the gap.

    Now this much bigger operation may signal that the authorities have developed new techniques to track down the origins of these networks and those behind them.

    Still, the number of arrests may be telling - 400 sites closed, but just 17 arrests. That would suggest there is a lot of work still to be done.

    Source


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    Darknet: Bitcoin and drugs worth £1.5m seized by Irish police

    Police in the Republic of Ireland have seized almost 2m euros (£1.5m) of digital currency and drugs in an operation targeting international drug selling over the darknet.

    The darknet is an encrypted version of the internet that enables anonymity.

    Two men in their 30s were arrested.

    Police found ecstasy tablets, LSD and other controlled drugs, as well as internet currency and records that may lead to further arrests, near South Circular Road, Dublin, on Wednesday.

    Bitcoins, a digital currency used to pay for anonymous transactions over the internet, worth "between 1.5m and 2m euros", were found on computers seized during the raid.

    The police also recovered 180,000 euros (£140,000) of drugs.

    A police spokesperson said: "A critical part of this operation was preservation of data on encrypted computers which is related to the worldwide distribution of controlled drugs.

    Anonymous
    "The fact that such a significant vendor has been arrested in the presence of an encrypted but open computer with address lists for customers all over the world will be of significant interest to many global law enforcement agencies who specialise in darknet investigations."

    The raid came after weeks of surveillance.

    Source


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    I'm still in the dark


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