Re: [tor-talk] Operation Onymous against hidden services, most DarkNet markets are down

[Jon Tullett <jon.tullett@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 7 November 2014 20:13, Juan <juan.g71@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Fri, 7 Nov 2014 13:04:38 +0200
> Jon Tullett <jon.tullett@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> On 7 November 2014 05:39, Juan <juan.g71@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >         So why would people be tracked in the first place? Are
>> >         you saying that the US government nazis track all of US
>> >         subjects all the time, and that's how they find people who
>> > run 'hidden' services?
>>
>> Well, I wouldn't want to rule anything out :) But in this case, we're
>> talking about hidden services which proxied for drug dealers. Whatever
>> your personal feelings about it, the war on drugs is a given. So the
>> reality is that there are enormous intelligence and law enforcement
>> operations targeting people in the drug trade. If one of them starts
>> to operate (or do business with) a hidden service, is it so unlikely
>> that that service could get caught up in the investigation?
>
>
>         That is possible, but I'm not sure I'm fully following. Suppose
>         that some "off line" dealer has his phone tapped, and then he
>         starts selling through a market like silk road. What of it? Why
>         would that lead in any way to finding out who the hidden
>         service's owner/admin is?  The hidden service's owner isn't
>         going to talk on the phone with the dealers who use his site.
>         That is not his 'business model'.

That's an assumption, and it may be incorrect. It is alleged that some
HS operations were infiltrated early on - that sort of foolish trust
is just the sort of basic mistake law enforcement thrives on. And
infiltrating target organisations is something the LEO agencies do for
a living, after all.


>         In the case of silk road 2 apparently the owner was a 26 year
>         old who even worked for SpaceX for a while. Not exactly a
>         memeber of the italian mafia, I'd say. So why would this
>         person's communications be monitored? Some genius government
>         employee said : let's tap some random guys' phones out of 300
>         millions and see if we find silk road's owner?

Or some agent gets lucky and is appointed a moderator on a darknet
marketplace forum, proceeds to socially engineer his way from there.
Hey trusted moderator friend, can you recommend software to do X? Why,
sure I can, download Y from Z.


>> If anything, I'd have thought that the coordinated takedowns lend
>> credibility to that argument - it's not like dealers would only do
>> business through a single marketplace at a time. Compromise or turn a
>> big dealer or two, and you'd probably be able to target a whole lot of
>> marketplaces at once.
>
>
>         Like I said, I'm not seeing the connection between dealers and
>         hidden services admins.

It's not just about dealers. It's about the entire ecosystem. The drug
economy is just that: an economy. Dealers are just retailers - there's
an entire supply chain and supporting players extending back from that
point (though online commerce certainly flattens the structure a lot!)
Every part of that ecosystem is fair game for investigators, and any
compromise can be leveraged along the chain. For a retail analogy,
think Target, which was compromised via an HVAC contractor who
probably thought they weren't a target (heh) at all.

Again, I'm not suggesting this theory is correct, just that it's an
option. At this stage, there's a ton of speculation and I'm cautioning
against jumping to conclusions.

That said, if you're running a hidden service, you absolutely should
assume the worst and tighten your security practices, not just after
an incident like this but on a regular basis. Risk management is a
thing.

-J
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