Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: slash on April 30, 2013, 05:12 pm
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A. TECHNICAL ISSUES
The theory:Silk Road is experiencing technical issues, which need to be sorted out and stability and security tested before the site can be made available to members again.
The argument: Before the site went down, Dread Pirate Roberts posted that it was running slowly and had ‘issues’ due to ‘explosive growth’.
DPR and the administrators have been posting semi-regular updates and the site has been sporadically available in the past couple of days. Sites do go down and due to the nature of this particular beast, the less information that is provided publicly, the better.
Occam’s Razor favours this scenario.
The counter-argument: This is by far the most boring and un-newsworthy explanation, simply not befitting of the subversive Silk Road. Members also questioned why, a short while after making the ‘explosive growth’ announcement and knowing that the site was experiencing issues, DPR ‘went away’ for 24 hours, completely incommunicado, even from his administrators.
LIKELIHOOD: Highly likely
B. THE MEGA-SCAM
The theory: The site’s owner, Dread Pirate Roberts, has taken off with all the money in the accounts, which may be in the tens of millions.
The argument: Nobody believes Silk Road can last forever. DPR has earned millions of dollars over the past year and could probably retire quite comfortably, especially if he has access to all the money sitting in escrow and vendors’ and buyers’ accounts. Silk Road is no stranger to the mega-scam, Tony76 having taken off with thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of dollars of customers’ money earlier this year.
The counter-argument:Silk Road accounts for the largest single Bitcoin wallet. Cashing out that sort of money would not only be extremely difficult without alerting the authorities, it would cause the value of the Bitcoin to nosedive. If DPR wanted to run the scam, surely he would disable the forums as well so that members could not discuss the issue. Furthermore, he has been making semi-regular updates and when the site was temporarily restored, several vendors reported being able to withdraw from their accounts.
LIKELIHOOD: Very unlikely
C. LAW ENFORCEMENT INFILTRATION
The theory: Law enforcement has finally cracked Silk Road and is now setting up a massive honeypot.
The argument:Silk Road has become a high profile problem, making a mockery out of politicians and law enforcement as it not only operates, but flourishes, quite openly. Closing down the site is not enough, as law enforcement wants to be seen to be making arrests. Either the server or DPR has been compromised and law enforcement, acting as DPR, is attempting to reopen the site to gather intelligence for worldwide arrests. The administration accounts of many/all administrators have been disabled. There have been some issues with DPR’s PGP signature. He posted just before the site went down saying he was making an effort to be more bland in his writing to be unidentifiable. New vendors popped up during the blackout.
The counter-argument: While $22million per year may seem like a lot, in the context of the worldwide illicit drug trade it is miniscule. What’s more, that amount is spread across hundreds of vendors. Silk Road operates peacefully, without violence and actually reduces drug-related crime. The chance of any law enforcement agency having the resources to commit to such a sting, especially a cross-border sting, seems remote. Even if they infiltrated the Road, any vendor who practices basic safety precautions will not be at risk of identification.
LIKELIHOOD: Unlikely
D. HACK ATTACK
The theory: A malicious hacker has launched a DDOS attack on Silk Road.
The argument: An anonymous user has been posting claims of blackmail, including some ‘evidence’ (unintelligible to non-geeks like me) that he/she is responsible for hacking and/or launching a DDOS attack on Silk Road. DPR reported receiving threats and indicated it was a possibility they were for real.
The counter-argument: There was no pre-warning from the alleged perpetrator, merely claims of responsibility after the fact. The forum has its fair share of trolls.
LIKELIHOOD: Very possible
E. SILK ROAD HAS BEEN SOLD
The theory: DPR has sold Silk Road as a going concern and the downtime was due to issues when migrating the server.
The argument:Silk Road is a valuable asset with no real competition and there would be no shortage of buyers for the infrastructure and goodwill of the name. DPR’s handle suggests he always had the intention of passing the mantle on at some point. Always a loquacious chap, he recently posted saying he was sorry for sounding different but “It’s safer to make my writing style bland so it is less identifiable”. It could take months or years before anyone realises it’s happened, so nobody – neither ripped-off site users or law enforcement – would be looking for the fugitive.
The counter-argument: Making such a sale would invariably require some real-life dealings, which would be fraught with danger. Why would anyone take such a risk to get rid of something so profitable?
LIKELIHOOD: Possible
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I'm gonna go with DoS attack considering it's posted everywhere you look.
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Thats from the downtime in November I think? Or maybe farther back
???
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DoS attack since there's no reason to not believe it.
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Yeah some kind of ddos seems likely, I just hope someone isn't really doing this as extortion that sucks to deal with.
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I posted this on the "Online drugs marketplace SR held to ransom by hackers" (or something similar) thread, but thought it may be more apposite here:
How much is known about Atlantis? I understand it to be a relatively new site, and see that it accepts both Litecoins and BTC as exchangeable currencies - which is a definite development in the cryptocurrency arena.
However - and I want to clarify that this is pure speculation on my part (although I think a few other members may have drawn similar conclusions) - I was fucking about on the dark-web (as you do) looking for jobs payable in BTC (without having to get up off my arse) a few months back. Can't remember the site, but had been directed to it by one of the forum threads. Anyway, a job had been posted looking for someone capable of facilitating a ddos attack on an unnamed site for approx 10 days - 2 weeks. No amount stated as payment - only a contact site thru tor. As I don't have access to zombie bot networks or the technical know-how to instigate a ddos attack, I merely scrolled past it.
But now that SR is down and DPR and co are doing their damnedest to get us all back online, it got me wondering. How long has Atlantis been around, and is there any possibility that this ddos job could have been contracted out by it's administrators? - can any vendors or members provide an accurate timescale for this site - particularly as it claims to be able to undercut other virtual black markets without naming them (but I would imagine this is a direct reference to SR and BMR).
I am not making any allegations about Atlantis and the integrity/intent of those who created it, nor do I want to be accused of scaremongering, or even detracting potential business from another viable black market, but really would value the opinions of other members on this, and indeed vendors who have taken the decision to register a vendor account with Atlantis.
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One thing that was intriguing. He offered no commission sales when the site went back up. I hurried up to get some coins to SR. So I can take advantage of the sale. Two days later it goes down again. Now my coins are all locked out. I wonder how many ppl rushed to get there coins and get locked out like I did. Kinda make you say....Hmmmm ?
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I don't think so, DPR wouldn't do that to SR --
I too decided to take advantage and buy a bunch of crap but now I dunno if anythings gone out yet, the site was working fine all weekend for me, just went down yesterday morning so hopefully things will get better soon.
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theory- F
DPR went to Seychelles to enjoy its well-deserved gains, and has closed for holidays SR
probability:
good
against theory:
the DPR is actually a program AI advanced, and it rests and sleeps never
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I will say just say.
DPR makes a LOT of money off SR. Most small time buyers don't know this but every SR transaction is charged with commission at expense to the vendor. The commission fees are % amounts. Off daily transactions alone, SR makes as a site profits multiple thousands of dollars. This is just a ballpark number based on the number of bulk sells I know go on out of view of the public eye, it's probably even higher than that. A portion of this money I assume goes to pay off hedged sales that go up and down, but even in that regard when bitcoin prices raise, SR takes some of the hedged bitcoins to balance out the value.
DPR, and whoever make money off this site, make a LOT of money just off running it and the fees vendors have to deal with. If DPR decided to shut this site down now and take everyones money, that amount stolen would probably come no where close to the amount he can profit off of in a week or so off running the website. It's one of the reasons I laughed at the fact that the DDoSer demanded $5000 in ransom for the website, lmao.
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Christ, you really have nothing better to do? I'm going to assume it's a DDoS attack based on the fact it is a DDoS attack. This thread is stupid.
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Do we REALLY need another "Theory" thread?
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Oh look it's this thread again.
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I swear its this and "VENDORS LEAVE YOUR CONTACT INFO!!!" threads seem to pop up in droves, daily. Fuck!
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Leave contact info here so LE can find and utilize the info better. IDIOTS!
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Listing theories does nothing to help the situation. People need to calm their shit.
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I think the site is back up now and everything is fine. 6:00pm New York (Eastern Time)
Theories are fun to think up. There are valid points, the boss can't babysit this site every single day, he's bound to move on sometime.
Its pretty obvious it was a network attack of sorts, it went from the forums (which is a downloadable freeware forum for any site) to the site and even Atlantis got slow/offline a while. Their forums did too last night.
So, whoever was doing it was testing out all these sites. The busiest one and the easiest to cripple was SR. Its an easy target and its possible there wasn't even any money or motive behind it, just for fun. There is millions of connections in addition to some botnet(s) doing their thing with the attacks. So, it may not even have been anything that spectacular doing it. Maybe even a punk kid.
As for the boss running off with coins, I don't see him doing it based on his writings. He's very libertarian. But, I also think if the authorities were on their way, he would likely grab what he can on the way out fleeing. Anyone would be dumb not to, if its all going to go to the authorities anyway.
But, I like to ponder about the possibilities too. If I was a vendor, I would put my site on as many sites as I could, simply for the advertising. Advertising is expensive and getting listing on a market site is cheap. People can buy from other places or not, but the name gets reinforced and known either way. Hedging and diversifying is smart to keep business flowing. Seems logical.
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I knew of SR via the newspaper of my nation!! ???