Silk Road: anonymous marketplace. Feedback requested :)

[hans030390]

I recently found out about Silk Road through an article on Kotaku, which contained quite specific instructions on how to use it...then I realized that this "news" had spread to quite a few other websites. Is anyone else worried about the potential attention this might attract?

Um, no?

Ha, ok then. I just figured that something like this wouldn't benefit from a bunch of attention. I think one of the news articles that reposted it mentioned that a DEA agent could potentially post something for sale (or buy?), which wouldn't be good. I figure there's at least someone in the DEA that could figure out how to use it.

But, hey, if you aren't worried, then that's a relief.

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[BitterTea]

I recently found out about Silk Road through an article on Kotaku, which contained quite specific instructions on how to use it...then I realized that this "news" had spread to quite a few other websites. Is anyone else worried about the potential attention this might attract?

Um, no?

Ha, ok then. I just figured that something like this wouldn't benefit from a bunch of attention. I think one of the news articles that reposted it mentioned that a DEA agent could potentially post something for sale (or buy?), which wouldn't be good. I figure there's at least someone in the DEA that could figure out how to use it.

But, hey, if you aren't worried, then that's a relief.

If it can't handle attention then it is not secure enough to trust in the first place.

[dropper25]

any chance you guys at the silk road r gunna accept anything besides bitcoins? im super new to everything bitcoin and have no idea wtf im doing. i tried mining with no results. i tried to buy some but couldnt figure it out. i downloaded a bunch of different programs and each one seemed like it needed another one to work.

[BitterTea]

I really doubt they will ever accept anything but a distributed pseudonymus currency.

[lemonginger]

this is still the most significant contribution to the BTC economy so I think. good work silk roaders.

[AaronM]

Well, current practices are definitely not providing the anonymity people desire, there are a lot of things people can do to improve that.  For one thing, always use an anonymizer to hid submitted transactions.

The tradeoff for good anonymity is the time it takes for the funds to be transferred from buyer to seller -- a lot of time is needed to hide the origin of bitcoins.

Other than IP addresses, various things to consider are secure communication of addresses (both bitcoin and postal), amount sizes, the "roundness" of number (compare these amounts: 1000, 1986.62, 1986.62792413).  The standard bitcoin client is probably not the best tool for this -- more fine-grained control is needed.

Alternatively, there could be truly anonymous virtual currencies established that are redeemable for bitcoins.  One implementation idea is: http://www.echeque.com/Kong/anon_transfer.htm

[marcus_of_augustus]

An Open Transactions layer on top of bitcoin would provide true anonymity if somebody wanted it,

https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki

client gui
https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Moneychanger

Just issue your own truly anonymous, bitcoin-backed currency 

But it transfers much of the financial risk to a centralised issuer of the bitcoin-backed OT tokens, unless there were a network of OT servers or someone large like a bank or MtGox (which is already a somewhat centralised risk anyway).

[BitterTea]

An Open Transactions layer on top of bitcoin would provide true anonymity if somebody wanted it,

https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki

client gui
https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Moneychanger

Just issue your own truly anonymous, bitcoin-backed currency 

But it transfers much of the financial risk to a centralised issuer of the bitcoin-backed OT tokens, unless there were a network of OT servers or someone large like a bank or MtGox (which is already a somewhat centralised risk anyway).

I was just discussing with a friend the idea of a Bitcoin bank that existed solely in cipherspace. In order to establish trust and hedge against risk, the bank could create an account accessible by some majority of investors in case of fraud, theft, or data loss. Perhaps this could be done with a multi-signed transaction?

It seems like OpenTransactions provides the perfect toolset to do this on top of Bitcoin. I'm pretty sure I've seen discussion on ways for some entity to prove that it is holding full reserves.

[marcus_of_augustus]

An Open Transactions layer on top of bitcoin would provide true anonymity if somebody wanted it,

https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki

client gui
https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Moneychanger

Just issue your own truly anonymous, bitcoin-backed currency 

But it transfers much of the financial risk to a centralised issuer of the bitcoin-backed OT tokens, unless there were a network of OT servers or someone large like a bank or MtGox (which is already a somewhat centralised risk anyway).

I was just discussing with a friend the idea of a Bitcoin bank that existed solely in cipherspace. In order to establish trust and hedge against risk, the bank could create an account accessible by some majority of investors in case of fraud, theft, or data loss. Perhaps this could be done with a multi-signed transaction?

It seems like OpenTransactions provides the perfect toolset to do this on top of Bitcoin. I'm pretty sure I've seen discussion on ways for some entity to prove that it is holding full reserves.

For some assets you issue will need to prove reserves somehow.

But for bitcoin-backed OT currencies I'm not sure that you will even have to prove reserves, but do not quote me on that because I need to look into it some more. May depend on how the issuing is performed. The whole thing could be put up on Tor, call them TorCoin, issued from an OT server driven Tor-issuer ... right next door to the Tor shop of your choosing.

Definitely worth a look and looks like the development is on-going, pretty close to having something functional I'd say.

[FatherMcGruder]

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/libertarian-dream-a-site-where-you-buy-drugs-with-digital-dollars/239776/


If you visit the bitcoin wiki page on anonymity --
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity -- the first sentence is

    While the Bitcoin technology can support[link] strong anonymity,
    the current implementation is usually not very anonymous.

With bitcoin, every transaction is written to a globally public log, and the lineage of each coin is fully traceable from transaction to transaction. Thus, /transaction flow/ is easily visible to well-known network analysis techniques, already employed in the field by FBI/NSA/CIA/etc. to detect suspicious money flows and "chatter."  With Gavin, bitcoin lead developer, speaking at a CIA conference this month, it is not a stretch to surmise that the CIA likely already classifies bitcoin as open source intelligence (no pun intended).

Further, if Silk Road truly permits deposits on their site, that makes it even easier for law enforcement to locate the "hub" of transactions.

Attempting major illicit transactions with bitcoin, given existing statistical analysis techniques deployed in the field by law enforcement, is pretty damned dumb. 



HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! Now I think this is great in theory...but what the FUCK people?!?!? REALLY!?? Honestly thinking this is a legit way to do things...lmfao

So, authorities can follow transactions between addresses with no names attached to them that, in the case of Mt. Gox and Silk Road, don't get reused. How would they find that useful? How is that less secure than cash in the mail?

[ene]

So, authorities can follow transactions between addresses with no names attached to them that, in the case of Mt. Gox and Silk Road, don't get reused. How would they find that useful? How is that less secure than cash in the mail?

Nobody said it's less secure than cash in mail. Just that it's imperfect.

[MoonShadow]

So, authorities can follow transactions between addresses with no names attached to them that, in the case of Mt. Gox and Silk Road, don't get reused. How would they find that useful? How is that less secure than cash in the mail?

Nobody said it's less secure than cash in mail. Just that it's imperfect.

Perfection is the enemy of the good.  I see a great future in Bitcoin because it's a world better, not because I think it's perfect.  But even acknowledging that it could be improved does not mean that I would favor screwing with it over small gains.

[error]

It seems like the site is down?

I'm running TOR fine, and could access the site yesterday, but now I get a:

'504 Connect to www.ianxz6zefk72ulzz.onion:80 failed: General SOCKS server failure'

Tor hidden service addresses don't use "www." So remove that and you'll be fine.

[Locke]

I am especially interested in hearing from anyone with alot of experience in network security about how to improve the anonymity of the site beyond running it as a tor hidden service.  How would YOU do it?  What are some worse case scenarios?

Well, as was previously mentioned in this thread, you might want to look into TrueCrypt.  It's not network security, per sae, but it is pretty much the best hard-drive encryption method currently out there.  You can also encrypt your entire OS.  Plus there's always hidden recessed volumes.  Basically what it means that if the server (god forbid) ever gets seized the feds/etc have virtually zero* chance of reading any of the stored data.  It's well worth looking into IMO.  I'll leave the network security discussion up to others, as it's not really my forte.  Just make sure you keep all your software, expecially databases, php installs, etc etc etc up-to-date as that should protect you against the most common inject attempts, etc.

*Yes, I know cold boot attacks are theoretically an issue.  That said, they've had problems doing them in labratory settings never mind in the real world.  Not a big risk, IMO

[Drifter]

Senators Target Internet Narcotics Trafficking Website Silk Road

Edit: Didn't notice until now this topic was already posted in the press thread, but from Sac. Bee and not Huffington Post. Bitcoin isn't mentioned in either article, though.

[error]

Senators Target Internet Narcotics Trafficking Website Silk Road

Edit: Didn't notice until now this topic was already posted in the press thread, but from Sac. Bee and not Huffington Post. Bitcoin isn't mentioned in either article, though.

Didn't you see the big fat (AP) at the beginning, indicating that it came from the Associated Press?

Anyway, I guess they're climbin up in our windows now! You need to hide your kids, hide your wife and hide your husband cuz they're rapin everybody out here!

[Drifter]

Didn't you see the big fat (AP) at the beginning, indicating that it came from the Associated Press?

As I said, I didnt know the article was posted on the forum already before I posted it here.

[natobombs]

Hey, I keep trying to access the site with tor enabled, i was able to get to the main page a couple of times however whenever i tried to get to one of the categories or sellers i get the 502: Server dropped connection.

Now I'm not even able to access the main page without this error, any thoughts? I just downloaded Tor, does it take time to function properly?

Thanks for the help, I'd really like to start shopping

[error]

I would guess that Silk Road is overloaded from all the publicity it's gotten recently.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I would guess that Silk Road is overloaded from all the publicity it's gotten recently.

Does it even exist? I've never been able to find it. I think it might be some joke they are playing on the politicians ... it just sounds too far-fetched to be possible.