UPDATE (05/04/2013 2120 UTC): The site is back up. I'm not going to say we are out of the woods yet, but unless something unexpected happens, we should remain up for the foreseeable future. UPDATE (05/05/2013 0100 UTC): We're still doing battle with this attacker. It seems he has prepared for this for a long time and has many tactics. We continue to use every resource at our disposal to overcome this situation. Thank you for your patience. UPDATE (05/03/2013 0545 UTC): The attacks have been coming non-stop since my last update. We've been able to keep the site open more than half the time with only minor issues such as limited image uploading for vendors. Every hour we are making progress and I am feeling much more confident that we will come out on top within the next few days. Still, expect some unannounced down-time here and there. UPDATE (05/01/2013 0238 UTC): Silk Road is open and accessible. As soon as the attacker finds out, he will likely change his tactics and try to take the site down again. Hopefully he won't be able to, but time will tell. UPDATE (04/30/2013 2022 UTC): Still working on a solution. I haven't given up hope that we will be able to go forward as a public market without limiting access. We are putting all of our efforts into making that a reality. If that changes, I will let you know here. UPDATE (04/30/2013 0035 UTC): We have come a long way in the battle, but still do not have the upper hand. It's looking more and more like a restructuring of the tor software or even the tor network will be required to mitigate the kind of attack we are under. If this can be solved by modifying the tor client software running the silk road .onion, then it will be a matter of patching and redeploying the hidden service. If it is a network issue, it will require the cooperation of the Tor developers, or running a new network of nodes. I haven't given up hope for a faster solution, but if one can not be found, then we will move to a semi private scheme where users will be given access through many private URLs. I'll keep everyone updated on how we will move forward, but please be prepared for a few more days at the least of no access. UPDATE (04/29/2013 0715 UTC): Just want to let you all know I'm still here and we're still doing battle behind the scenes to get the forums and main site running again. It is incredibly discouraging to have everything we've worked so hard for taken down by some anonymous and malevolent person, but your kind words of encouragement do wonders for our moral. We are on the cutting edge of anonymity technology here. The attacks being used against us MUST be overcome if Silk Road and any anonymous public sites are to have a future. Thank you again for your patience with all of this, and pray that we make it through stronger than we started. We are being attacked once more. This time the forums are under attack as well. Access is intermittent, so hopefully some of you can read this. We are doing everything possible to overcome this latest attack. Please be patient while we find a solution.