Quote from: Evanescence on February 02, 2012, 05:18 amQuote from: pine on January 31, 2012, 05:46 pmThe latter.Ok then here's what I would try:1) Monitor Tor nodes to find the most active IP address based in the US. Assume the most active IP is a vendor/big buyer. Setup your own Tor nodes and you get this without a warrant and no decryption is necessary.2) Use the IP address to geo-locate a home address. Use address to get your identity. Use identity and IP address to correlate the shit out of activity on the clear Internet. Full list of facebook, friends, posts, everything natually "leaked" on the net.3) Bring down the station and interrogate with lame tatics: "Obviously we know everything or you wouldn't be here right now...". At this point identity is known and all standard LE techniques apply for a full investigation.Not a slam dunk but enough to put them fully on the ass of all the top SR participants.By TOR nodes, I'll assume you mean the computers which are at the periphery of the TOR network i.e. the outer shell of the onion.Some objections to your thought experiment:1. How do you even know you have a periphery node or exit node? Sure, you can setup your own TOR nodes. But I'm really not sure you can specify that you have an exit node. And I'd imagine with more nodes, the layers of the onion grow deeper, since that seems to make sense.Some experienced TOR geek should chime in here on that subject.2. Ok, assuming for arguments sake that you do have an IP address of a user. You get data to geo-locate from ISP et al.The problem with your idea of of IDing everything in clearnet, is that 99.99% of us have *no idea* who the others on the Silk Road are. For all we know, Silk Road himself/herself could be a 90 year old witch doctor in the Congo. At the most, you get 1 guy or girl. Either a frequent buyer/seller. At most you're picking up a couple of grams or ounces of some drug, most likely weed. Doesn't seem worth it to me economically, but maybe it would be done as scare tactics or something.3. How is frequently using the TOR network probable cause? I mean, don't judges have to sign things like arrest/search warrants? Hurr Durr, this guy uses TOR a lot isn't exactly indicative of him being a major SR seller. Hell, you'd probably find more pedophiles and conspiracy theorists this way!4. If you use/operate your own bridge, which I assume smart sellers would, then the ISP doesn't even know that the seller is accessing the TOR network full stop.5. Assuming you bust ALL USA sellers somehow. The Silk Road still lives on. There's a heavy preponderance of English, Australians and others here. Congratulations LEO, you just managed to increase profits for ex-USA sellers.6. Silk Road itself is not small, it is big. 150,000 people are on it. Even assuming 1 out of 10 are legitimate buyers or sellers means you would need to arrest 15,000 people. I mean, wat? Meanwhile back in RL the big fish are running rings about LEO due to their resource exhaustion.