The deep web — the portion of the dark web only accessible through Tor — exists to serve the needs of hackers-for-hire, hitmen, internet drug kingpins, child pornographers, and their inevitable customers. That’s the public consensus. Read More >>
An anonymous bidder purchased 2,700 bitcoins worth about $1.6 million (£1.2 million) in an anonymous auction held by US Marshals Service on Monday. The Feds confirmed the sale to CoinDesk, a site that reports on the digital currency, and said that four bids were received in the auction. Read More >>
Former Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges is going to prison for 71 months, or nearly six years, for stealing over $800,000 in Bitcoin from drug dealers while investigating the Silk Road. Read More >>
The arrest, trial and conviction of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht (and his sentence of life in prison) was a stark reminder that 21st century policing of the internet is a complicated task. And judging by the shitshow that was the Silk Road investigation, it’s one that the police need to get better at. Read More >>
Online drug sales gained notoriety thanks to the Silk Road market, but the buying and selling of illegal mood-altering substances through computers goes a lot farther back. In fact, the very first online transaction was a drug deal. Read More >>
Two former US federal agents affidavit from a fellow officer paints a picture of a 15-year DEA veteran, Carl Mark Force IV, breaking bad in such an over-the-top fashion that it's hard to believe this isn't a twisted TV plot. Read More >>
Two US federal agents have been charged for stealing money while working on the investigation into the Silk Road, the infamous online drug marketplace that was seized in 2013. Read More >>
It took less than four hours for jurors to agree that Ross Ulbricht was the man behind the persona of Silk Road kingpin Dread Pirate Roberts, responsible for running an infamous online drug empire. It takes Deep Web, a new documentary about the Silk Road trial, less than two hours to poke apart the narrative prosecutors used to put Ulbricht behind bars. Read More >>
Evolution, the most popular online drug market since the Silk Road, has disappeared without warning. Users say more than £8 million in Bitcoin has also vanished. And it looks like a classic scam. Read More >>
It only took a few hours for a jury to convict Ross Ulbricht of running the infamous online drug marketplace Silk Road, so the urge to write off Ulbricht's lawyer's bid for a retrial as a desperate move is understandable. But desperate or not, a retrial is important, and it should be granted. Because the FBI evidence that led to Ulbricht's guilt may not have been collected legally. Read More >>
If you've always wanted to dabble in cryptocurrency speculation but you were just waiting until you could acquire some Bitcoin that you knew was FOR SURE used in digital drug deals, I have some good news for you: the United States Marshals Service is auctioning off 50,000 Bitcoin seized from Ross Ulbricht's personal computer. Read More >>
The Silk Road trial is over. A jury found Ross Ulbricht guilty on all seven charges, including money laundering, drug trafficking, and the "kingpin" charge. In the eyes of the Federal Court of Manhattan, Ulbricht's identity has been definitively linked to the pseudonymous digital drug bazaar runner Dread Pirate Roberts. He faces life in prison. Read More >>