The FBI Finally Says How It ‘Legally’ Pinpointed Silk Road’s Server

[littlefish]

As the trial of alleged Silk Road drug market creator Ross Ulbricht approaches, the defense has highlighted the mystery of how law enforcement first located the main Silk Road server in an Icelandic data center, despite the computer being hidden by the formidable anonymity software Tor. Was the FBI tipped off to the server’s location by the NSA, who used a secret and possibly illegal Tor-cracking technique?

[lihuajkl]

Even the anonymity software Tor is not really anonymous，which can be cracked down by NSA.

[ForgottenPassword]

A better article on this here:
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/09/dread-pirate-sunk-by-leaky-captcha/

Seems only Zerocoin would be safe from them as long as no back doors or police/nsa doors etc are not in it.

Did you even read the link? the SR was taken down by an extremely dumb mistake when implementing an anti-spam captcha. Nothing to do with Bitcoin whatsoever.

[odolvlobo]

http://ia700603.us.archive.org/21/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.422824/gov.uscourts.nysd.422824.57.0.pdf

[yayayo]

Insightful information. A dumb mistake indeed. On the other hand, it's easy to overlook potential security loopholes when you're working on a bigger project.

As a general rule: Be always wary of implementing external services, especially when they employ Javascript.

ya.ya.yo!

[leotheminer]

Thanks for the better link to the pdf. Interesting to see that nothing 'spooky' (like NSA) was involved in the trace, just a clever agent finding DPR's mistake with the CAPTCHA install.

[Ayers]

tor doesn't belong to the government? if it is so then the thing is explained, tor was never secure, it was expected

[BeeTeeSea]

Seems only Zerocoin would be safe from them as long as no back doors or police/nsa doors etc are not in it.

LOL at Zerocoin, Monero in any case. ALso BItcoin had nothing to do with this. Re-read.

[iluvpie60]

i like when people defend this guy. go defend someone who runs a drug dealing business in real life too then. i dont get why anyone talks about dread pirate moron at all. he was dumb, he is dumb, he did illegal things that were totally illegal to start with, and the majority of people agreed it is illegal except some "bitcoin wackjobs"... th emore and more people who talk about this guy like he is something to be respected, the more and more the media is goign to say bad things about bitcoin.

get it? got it? good.

granger, for the ones who get it done.

[bigasic]

If this was truly the way that they found the server, then why haven't they found silkroad number 2 or whatever number they are on? I believe its an exact copy. there is almost no way someone could have written fresh code in less than a month. If what the govt is saying is true, most of the darknet sites are being followed or being copied. if SR had an issue, then im sure there are many sites that use tor that would have the same.. im not buying their excuse.... I believe that there is either a back door to tor or NSA was involved. Or there is another way that they found it, but want to keep it secret as iim sure every dark web site is figuring out the hole and going to try and plug it..

But, i dont know if any of the other sites are using capthca's... Its very apparent that DPR was not very smart when it came to security. He didn't know what he was doing.. Im just taking the governments excuse with a grain of salt. IF the NSA was involved, do you expect them to say so?

[BTCTIME247]

i like when people defend this guy. go defend someone who runs a drug dealing business in real life too then. i dont get why anyone talks about dread pirate moron at all. he was dumb, he is dumb, he did illegal things that were totally illegal to start with, and the majority of people agreed it is illegal except some "bitcoin wackjobs"... th emore and more people who talk about this guy like he is something to be respected, the more and more the media is goign to say bad things about bitcoin.

get it? got it? good.

granger, for the ones who get it done.

Its not a question of the guy being an idiot or doing something illegal. The point is the U.S government is over-reaching like they have a long history of doing. Look what they did to
online gaming. They arrested guys who had a business in another country where it is legal. WTF!?

BTW drug dealers are not the problem. Drug users are. Solve the root cause of drug abuse and there will be no need for dealers.

[shawshankinmate37927]

i like when people defend this guy. go defend someone who runs a drug dealing business in real life too then. i dont get why anyone talks about dread pirate moron at all. he was dumb, he is dumb, he did illegal things that were totally illegal to start with, and the majority of people agreed it is illegal except some "bitcoin wackjobs"... th emore and more people who talk about this guy like he is something to be respected, the more and more the media is goign to say bad things about bitcoin.

Just because something is illegal doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong and just because something is legal doesn't mean it's right.  A lot of people struggle with making the distinction between legality and morality.  Personally, morality is a bigger concern to me than legality.  Hopefully he gets someone on his jury that believes in jury nullification if all he is accused of is facilitating transactions between buyers and sellers of drugs.

[Jungian]

i like when people defend this guy. go defend someone who runs a drug dealing business in real life too then. i dont get why anyone talks about dread pirate moron at all. he was dumb, he is dumb, he did illegal things that were totally illegal to start with, and the majority of people agreed it is illegal except some "bitcoin wackjobs"... th emore and more people who talk about this guy like he is something to be respected, the more and more the media is goign to say bad things about bitcoin.

get it? got it? good.

granger, for the ones who get it done.

Its not a question of the guy being an idiot or doing something illegal. The point is the U.S government is over-reaching like they have a long history of doing. Look what they did to
online gaming. They arrested guys who had a business in another country where it is legal. WTF!?

BTW drug dealers are not the problem. Drug users are. Solve the root cause of drug abuse and there will be no need for dealers.

Neither drug users nor dealers are a problem. They do nothing wrong. They only ones doing something wrong is the state for bringing violence in to the equation.
Also. There is no "problem" to be solved. It's perfectly fine to use drugs.

[Jungian]

i like when people defend this guy. go defend someone who runs a drug dealing business in real life too then. i dont get why anyone talks about dread pirate moron at all. he was dumb, he is dumb, he did illegal things that were totally illegal to start with, and the majority of people agreed it is illegal except some "bitcoin wackjobs"... th emore and more people who talk about this guy like he is something to be respected, the more and more the media is goign to say bad things about bitcoin.

get it? got it? good.

granger, for the ones who get it done.

Oh boo hoo, some people will say bad things about bitcoin. Cry me a river.

DPR did the world a favor by offering a place to conduct business in a safer manner than had previously been possible.

Also, you might want to learn how to spell before accusing others of being dumb.

[dankkk]

i like when people defend this guy. go defend someone who runs a drug dealing business in real life too then. i dont get why anyone talks about dread pirate moron at all. he was dumb, he is dumb, he did illegal things that were totally illegal to start with, and the majority of people agreed it is illegal except some "bitcoin wackjobs"... th emore and more people who talk about this guy like he is something to be respected, the more and more the media is goign to say bad things about bitcoin.

get it? got it? good.

granger, for the ones who get it done.

Its not a question of the guy being an idiot or doing something illegal. The point is the U.S government is over-reaching like they have a long history of doing. Look what they did to
online gaming. They arrested guys who had a business in another country where it is legal. WTF!?

BTW drug dealers are not the problem. Drug users are. Solve the root cause of drug abuse and there will be no need for dealers.

If it was not for drug dealers then drug users would never be able to get ahold of drugs, nor would they have ever gotten into using illegal drugs. Also drug dealers will often take advantage of a person's addiction and do things like extend credit and give a discount to a person who is unable to pay to prevent them from potentially breaking their habit.

[TheButterZone]

i like when people defend this guy. go defend someone who runs a drug dealing business in real life too then. i dont get why anyone talks about dread pirate moron at all. he was dumb, he is dumb, he did illegal things that were totally illegal to start with, and the majority of people agreed it is illegal except some "bitcoin wackjobs"... th emore and more people who talk about this guy like he is something to be respected, the more and more the media is goign to say bad things about bitcoin.

get it? got it? good.

granger, for the ones who get it done.

Its not a question of the guy being an idiot or doing something illegal. The point is the U.S government is over-reaching like they have a long history of doing. Look what they did to
online gaming. They arrested guys who had a business in another country where it is legal. WTF!?

BTW drug dealers are not the problem. Drug users are. Solve the root cause of drug abuse and there will be no need for dealers.

If it was not for drug dealers then drug users would never be able to get ahold of drugs, nor would they have ever gotten into using illegal drugs.

Wrong. Drug lusers can get addicted to any substance, and do whatever it takes to manufacture it for personal use.

[leopard2]

drug dealers offer more choices (= more freedom)

government pigs deprive us of choices (= less freedom)

it is not a question whether drugs are good or bad. FREEDOM is always good, that is the point. People should have the freedom to harm themselves if they want as long as they don't harm others. Police should focus on those that "harm others" rather than those that "violate laws".

[wasserman99]

If this was truly the way that they found the server, then why haven't they found silkroad number 2 or whatever number they are on? I believe its an exact copy. there is almost no way someone could have written fresh code in less than a month. If what the govt is saying is true, most of the darknet sites are being followed or being copied. if SR had an issue, then im sure there are many sites that use tor that would have the same.. im not buying their excuse.... I believe that there is either a back door to tor or NSA was involved. Or there is another way that they found it, but want to keep it secret as iim sure every dark web site is figuring out the hole and going to try and plug it..

But, i dont know if any of the other sites are using capthca's... Its very apparent that DPR was not very smart when it came to security. He didn't know what he was doing.. Im just taking the governments excuse with a grain of salt. IF the NSA was involved, do you expect them to say so?

They could have potentially configured the site correctly. The FBI affidavit says that the service was configured improperly, not that there was something wrong with the code. I would also speculate that the code is somewhat different (I believe the UI is the same, but I would bet that the backend is different). If the new operators of SR2 were to properly configure all of the services running then their real IP address would not be leaked.

I do believe that the FBI agents were likely doing more then just "playing around" with the capha as is implied in the affidavit, I think what they were doing is much more advanced. I would also speculate that this was not the first way they attempted to break into the site.   

[Gleb Gamow]

Something about this capha story doesn't make sense, but I can't put my finger on it. To me, it reads like a red herring.

[jaberwock]

Tittle could be: FBI finally invented a plausible denial about how they localized the SR servers.

Since the Snowden leaks we know the NSA was working a way to de-anonimaze Tor