Silk Road forums
Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: dkmonk on August 23, 2012, 06:02 am
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http://www.indystar.com/article/20120822/NEWS/120822024/Feds-confirm-statewide-raid-under-way-arrests-reported
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57498556-504083/prison-meth-ring-busted-in-indiana-40-accused-including-corrections-workers-feds-say/
The dumb bikers get raided every year. Outlaws clubhouse has been raided by the feds once already this summer and last summer. Apparently all you need to be an outlaw is a badge. There are probably more feds in the MCG than there are actual Outlaw's.
It doesn't say much information, but this will lead to the Aryan Brotherhood and Mexican Mafia. The Aryans work with the Mexican Mafia to distribute dope to other Aryans and bikers on the street. Aryans always snitch, so there might be a lot of high up cartel members across the country getting arrested from this.
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I will show you how a few busts lead to things like this. Since somebody in another thread didn't think a few busts was worth much. I will back up my claims with the newspaper article linking each bust until it gets to this one.
It starts out in Terre Haute, Indiana and the meth ring there. Their supplier was Oscar Perez's (mentioned in above newspaper link) relative Edgar Perez as you can see here http://tribstar.com/news/x1049390135/18-indicted-on-meth-charges/print
The bikers become involved, because they work with the Aryans in the prison to distribute the meth to other club houses and other MCG's throughout the state. As you can see in these next few articles the bikers aren't the smartest tool in the shed. Each article is a seperate bust all with in a couple year range.
http://www.wthitv.com/dpp/news/crime/feds%3A-100-percent-pure-meth-in-gang-case 2011
http://articles.wsbt.com/2012-07-11/outlaws-clubhouse_32637045 2011
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/31262860/detail.html This one is just last month.
So, take a few people telling here and there and you have a Fed raid on 3 prisons and a bunch of cities in Indiana. They haven't said how many cities they went to yet. The Perez's contacts are high level suppliers in California and Arizona with direct links to the cartels. I am sure they are already crossing the border back to Mexico after this shit storm.
So, whoever it was that said a few busts mean nothing you don't research much.
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Fucking Darby...
Thanks for the info dk. This having a chilling effect the SR vendors doesn't seem like much of a stretch and probably explains alot of the MIAs and low profiles lately.
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like ima ever vote for obama again - douchbag!!!
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I am not sure what you mean by that Christy.
Was Obama mentioned in one of the articles? I might of skimmed over it.
The DEA pretty much runs it self with very little interference from other sectors of government.
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Well this is why the darknet market's business model is so much better than the traditional one. You cannot move up. Only down or sideways. If you augment the model with strong crypto and similar, you can produce swarming behavior that is essentially impossible to effectively combat even using technical means like DDOS or exploits. It's an entirely new business model, one the world hasn't actually seen before so far as I have read, which is what makes this so interesting.
Cue PolyFront:
Organization
Introduction
By viewing the drug forum scene as a network, we can analyze its security against various human intelligence attacks. Human intelligence is the primary means of attack used by the Drug Enforcement Administration, and consists of managing networks of undercover agents and informants as well as gaining assets (informants). The DEA has very large human intelligence networks and traditionally when a group or dealer is busted it is the result of a human intelligence operation. We manage to majorly counter human intelligence by using technical and tactical security measures. However, there is still some risk that can be partially mitigated through organizational structure. By improving our organizational structure and expanding our technical security, we can protect further from human intelligence and a variety of other attacks.
.. stuff on product transfer..
Likewise, financial transfer can be seen as taking place over a hierarchial pyramid, from bottom level consumers to top level suppliers. This is also true of all distribution networks. Financial network analysis can be hindered to various degrees by using various techniques (EX: E-currency, Fake documentation, Bitcoin + Mixing is particularly secure).
Communications take place in both directions between neighbors. Communications can be secured by protecting from hackers (with correctness, isolation and randomization), communications / open source intelligence (by using encryption) and signals intelligence (by using anonymizers).
Traditionally, law enforcement move up through drug distribution networks by using human intelligence. They control networks of informants and undercovers who report back to them. There are two scenarios which may result from law enforcement human intelligence operations; they may immediately do a controlled buy and potentially try to recruit the arrested individual as an asset, or they may gather raw intelligence which is then analyzed into reports which are then distributed to task forces for major operations. In general, law enforcements tends to start low in distribution networks and work their way up by compromising one node at a time on the path back to top level suppliers. In some cases, they may also use surveillance techniques to work their way up to a top level supplier.
By using secure product transfer topologies, anonymizers, encryption and secure financial exchange techniques, law enforcement can be prevented from using human intelligence to move upwards in a network. Lower levels of the network are not able to compromise upwards as they do not know much or anything about the vendor they are working with. It serves little purpose to snitch on an untraceable pseudonym. This changes the threat model from the traditional human intelligence model to the more modern technical security model. Law enforcement have a far more difficult time to use technical attacks against secured networks than they have to utilize their human intelligence networks. This is for a variety of reasons, one being they are not used to operating in this way and another being technical security measures can in many cases provably ensure security from a variety of attacks.
Unfortunately, law enforcement can still move down from a compromise (reverse sting) due to the fact that product must be picked up from a location known to the sender. Although it is impossible to protect from this downward movement in a network that deals with physical product, we can still consume law enforcement resources. If dead drops or packages are left to cool off for periods of time, an attacker at a higher position is forced into doing surveillance for periods of time. This consumes man hours and causes other expenses. An external attacker at a higher position (external meaning the mail facility versus the vendor, higher position meaning product goes through them first) can also move downwards in the network however this movement can potentially be detected prior to a compromise.
Customers can significantly reduce their risk of being compromised in a reverse sting by working with a small number of vendors. As every vendor is potentially law enforcement, every additional vendor a customer works with presents an additional chance of them working with law enforcement. Even if a customer works with a legal highs vendor that turns out to be law enforcement, their recorded address can still be used for intelligence leading to compromise when the customer orders illegal substances. Using fake identification boxes can also protect from this risk, it is not likely that an order of a legal substance will result in the surveillance required to determine fake identification boxes, but if the same box is used for legal and illegal highs the intelligence gathered from legal high purchases can still be used to flag a box.
Another way to reduce the risk of customers working with malicious vendors is via trust networks. This can be done in a decentralized fashion with GPG webs of trust, or in (usually) more centralized ways such as secure vendor review websites and internal forum trust rank systems managed by trusted staff.
Vendors can increase their security significantly by compartmentalizing their operation into dealing with customers and shipping. Here the important distinguishment between intelligence and evidence comes into play. An attacker may use intelligence (for example, a series of logs leading back to the vendor) to narrow in on evidence (drugs). By compartmentalizing the operation, intelligence can be made to lead to no strong evidence (drugs) but rather a person who deals with customers (although information stealing attacks may suffice as evidence, for example if the customer support vendor has their computer bugged. These attacks can also be protected from significantly, reducing the chances that any evidence can be gathered). It is certainly better if the DEA raids a clean house than if they raid a house containing drugs. One of the best methods of communication between customer support and shipper is via steganography in a crowded channel. One example of this would be a vendor hiding encrypted orders in images and then posting the images on a popular image hosting site with many visitors. Now the shipper can get the image (blending in with the crowd of everyone else who goes to the image hosting site) and use a secret key to pull the encrypted orders out of the image. If intelligence leads to the customer support, the link to the shipper will be obfuscated making them difficult to identify. This sort of organizational construct can gain some advantages if the shipper and customer support both highly trust each other and do not use anonymizers to communicate the steganographically hidden orders. This is to prevent two sorts of attack; first it prevents the shipper from being identified out of the crowd of people who view the image due to the fact that they are the only ones using an anonymizer. Secondly, if the shipper never uses an anonymizer from their base location (safe house) it offers strong protection from membership revealment + mail geolocation attacks narrowing in on the safe house. It is worth noting that this is largely a new strategy and serious analysis of the risks and benefits should be done before vending groups choose to use this technique. One of the things to take into consideration is dragnet attacks looking for steganographically hidden data in images, although steganography can protect from a human determining there is data hidden in an image (or other data) it is usually not as robust against computer algorithms. Another obvious risk is the fact that the shipper will need to reveal their IP address to customer support. A safer option may be if the shipper uses random Wifi to download the images, they will not stick out as being part of an anonymity network and can still protect their anonymity from customer support.
It is worth noting that it is not entirely accurate to look at the network as a closed two diemensional hierarchy. Many people ordering from vendors do so to supply local networks. If the local networks are not secured then there is a risk of human intelligence 'moving sideways' (either up or down, but from outside of the closed system discussed here and into it). This can be protected from to a few degrees although in the end it is not realistic for a vendor to dead drop personal use amounts of drugs. Eventually distribution will get to the point that the amounts are so small that face to face transactions are essentially required. Regardless, vendors supplying local areas are wise to begin doing so pseudonymously and via dead drops. Smaller amounts can be distributed face to face through small 'cells' of friends. Even if a cell is compromised by human intelligence, the risk of large amounts of product being seized or a dealer facing long prison terms are significantly reduced. The fact that prison terms for smaller amounts of drugs will be less also makes asset recruitment more difficult thus protecting small friend cells from human intelligence in this way. Asset recruitment is also less effective in friend networks (typically phase I of the developmental smuggling model) due to social relationships being stronger than business relationships.
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Wait wait wait wait wait, Nazi's working with Mexicans? What? Anyone else confused by this? lol. But they're violent so I can't say I think it's wrong of them to be arrested. IMO the only people who should be in jail are rapists and murderers. But again, just my opinion.
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Not nazis lol Aryan Brotherhood prison gang that controls the whites in most prisons throughout the States. It is all about money and white people like meth and the Mexicans have it.
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Eh close enuff :P lol. But regardless of that they both still murder people and I don't fuck with that shit
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N.B.
I should say that that this ^^^^ is true, but not if you simultaneously do business in RL and SR. If you work in RL, then retailing on SR is just another (lucrative) market due to geographical arbitrage. But if you work exclusively on SR (security ideal) to distribute product, then dealing to customers in RL is like the Giant Freaking Laser of Death for you. There is an order of magnitude more risk to distribution in RL than through SR proper for obvious reasons.
I don't want to prescribe a "one size fits all" philosophy here, but people should really be thinking about the big picture, what's its going to be in 5 or 10 years time. If I were a retailing in RL today, I would move my business online ASAP as a matter of urgency. Even if you were making the same dough, the risk is far lower.
We are here to make risk adjusted returns, or we are fools. Would you prefer to make S1 million in six months at 50% risk of being busted, or 200,000 per year for 5 years with almost zero risk of getting busted? Your calculator will tell you the average is 1,000,000 either way, but you know those probabilities are not really the same... this is not an investment of money, but mostly your time, labor capital etc. You cannot earn if you're in prison for the next 20 years. Securing future earnings capability in a high ROI low risk environment is the key thing! Consider the opportunity cost! Any professor from Cornell or Harvard Business School would tell you the same thing.
I believe that vertically integrated business strategies coupled with swarmed global distribution are the key to the highest returns and the lowest risks. Retailing heroin, although something I've never done since I dislike opiates, would probably be the most profitable thing in RL for a vendor if you had a monopoly from manufacture to distribution (ah, unlikely without seriously powerful pals). Potential margin is 15,000% or so, maybe even 30,000%, but I doubt it once your costs bear down on you. I am saying we can better than margin by five, ten, twenty times over if we follow the V model using swarming with next to no maintenance costs in comparison. And what guess, no bullet to the head, so no insurance costs either. Practical stuff!
I feel like banging my head against the wall with some people I see in RL because they're taking enormous risks for no upside. People are simply not calculating the risks and doing the math. It's simple, you move to the darknet markets or you go home, that is all. That applies from the tiniest operation like a student or consumer retailing on the side to stave off loans/purchases costs to the oldest and largest retailers who currently think they're above it all. They're all going down the tube ultimately, the darknet markets will eventually eat any market share of anybody else that doesn't have an extremely direct connection to manufacture/agronomy. In fact, I also think darknet markets will lead to downward pressure on the prices of synthetics, leading to the humbling of the Cartels in S.A and other places. Drugs compete too.
Economy is like a force of nature, like gravity. Eventually the most efficient capitalists usurp the existing order of things, that has been the way for hundreds of years, it ain't going to change now. It's slow, I'm not saying it's happening next year, or even within five years, but it's going to happen because there is really no other way for it not to.
tldr; Get onto darknet markets exclusively and vend to anonymous consumers only, or you will eventually go under. If you do this you will become wealthy, otherwise the odds are not stacked in your favor. I like real money as opposed to hypothetical dollars if-absolutely-everything-went-according-to-plan-&-nobody-made-mistakes, don't you? "The Feudal Age" for the black market is over since February 2011, now we just watch it all play itself out over the rest of the century.