Silk Road forums
Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: tomski on October 03, 2013, 01:45 pm
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People are surprised the FBI and other agencies managed to shutdown the server so quickly after Ulbricht's arrest. Haven't people read the news story about the FBI's investigation tracked the source of the hosting and server? They got the actual access to the server a year ago, it seems, but allowed it to operate to gather evidence for their investigation.
I suspect the page we are seeing with the shutdown message is a backup server, and the original server is in the hands of the FBI who are forensics going over all the data. This is evident from news coverage and announcements by the FBI released information in the court complaint.
Those who think the shutting down of the the SR server and a single arrest is the end of this story are in for a rude awakening I think. This is a "war on the drugs" and just the beginning. We have already seen rapid arrests occurring in the UK (one of the biggest users of the SR market in Europe), so there is fast and effective evidence/communications flow between the FBI and the legal enforcement agencies in numerous countries, it seems. This was and is an international law enforcement and intelligence gathering effort.
So what are the legal implications now for both vendors and buyers?
The way I see it, the law enforcement are likely to focus primarily on big vendors and big volume buyers. In both cases, they're likely to be busily getting warrants or already knocking on doors (in some countries police don't need a search warrant if there's strong evidence or reason to believe drugs are stored, sold or used on the premises). And border agencies (Customs) definitely don't need a warrant if they have evidence drugs have been imported illegally.
So, knowing a little of the law, here's how I see the legal implications both for vendors, and buyers..
1) Despite whatever the FBI finds on SK and what communications/order evidence they have.. Physical evidence is going to be need to bring actual possession or "possession with intent to supply" charges and convictions against buyers and vendors. That means finding actual drugs on premises. Therefore, the main priority for buyers and vendors, should be house cleaning.
2) The second problem for vendors, is going to be money laundering and receiving money from the proceeds of selling drugs. Large sums of unaccountable money in bank accounts could lead to investigation and seizure, if vendors are traceable. Police can use powers to seize those monies and/or freeze bank accounts, until the money is shown to be legitimate or until they find evidence proving otherwise.
3) The volume, frequency and nature of the drugs sold/purchased are likely to be how the legal authorities now prioritise their ongoing investigation and begin making further arrests. Anyone dealing/buying Class A or high volume drugs will be top of the list.
Sensible buyers would have used PGP to encrypt their address details (this should have been mandatory for ALL users) and should be fairly safe. But SK users became complacent I think and too much trust was placed in TOR, Bitcoins and the SR site itself. Anyone who didn't use PGP should be worried. Their home address details could well now be in the hands of the FBI and passed to local police forces. It all depends on how well vendors followed the rules and deleted addresses, whether SR has a "format HDD" failsafe option, and whether FBI forensics will be able to recover deleted data (which is quite possible).
I *knew* this site was going to be taken down eventually and that it would be just a matter of time before the US government did it. I expected it. I warned over a year ago that it might be an inside job, i.e infiltration and that people should take care, not be overly complacent and assume it would continue indefinitely. I'm surprised it lasted this long really with all the weight and resources of the US government and other foreign government agencies thrown into bringing it down.
What I didn't expect and what has surprised me, is the amateur way the whole operation was setup and run from the details now emerging of how the FBI managed to track down the server and the guy running it so easily. With the level of wealth its reported he accumulated, one would have assumed, he would have been safely well beyond the reach of the US authorities running SR from some remote country with a network of people and failsafe infrastructure.
There was a total lack of safeguards and a series of errors made. Whoever takes up the mantle of making a new SR or marketplace will surely learn from those lessons and make the new marketplace much more secure, well protected and beyond the reach of the FBI.