
The Untold Story of Silk Road, Part 2: The Fall - jmhuret
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/
======
fiatmoney
"the local FBI wanted to mount a dramatic raid on Ross’ house. Tarbell ... was
worried about repeating the mistake made during his first big cybercrime case
... a SWAT team charged into Hammond’s apartment throwing flash grenades,
immediately alerting Hammond in the back room, who shut the lid of his laptop,
encrypting it forever... Still, the assault strategy remained in place."

So take note - the FBI is populated by the kind of people who enjoy roughing
up suspects, even when it harms a larger investigation.

~~~
MichaelGG
In the first part, it talks about how the agent loves breaking down doors at
6am in his Doc Martens. I.e. loves being a literal jackbooted thug.

My only consultation is that hopefully one day prohibition will be fixed, and
these agents will reflect and see their careers contributed nothing of value
to the world. That they just caused trouble, like a bully. That countless
lives, marriages, children got screwed up due to their pointless actions. I
know, probably they'll remain delusional, but one can hope.

------
nickysielicki
I don't understand why you guys are accepting that the server hosting the
hidden service randomly responded over the clearnet.

This is so incredibly improbable, to me.

------
late2part
Great article, I continue to be worried about the perceived disregard for due
process in these law enforcement investigations

------
futuretext
This would make an amazing movie.

~~~
maxcasey
I just hope they make it more real documentary style like "The Internet's Own
Boy as opposed to stupid and dumbed down like the Steve Jobs movie. No matter
where you fall on the legal/ethical spectrum, you have to admit it's an
awesome story.

------
caseysoftware
While the "topless girl" is part of the story, was anyone else surprised to
see a drawing?

When did Wired become NSFW?

~~~
forgotpasswd3x
I seriously cannot imagine a work environment where it's ok for you to be
reading this article sans images, but it wouldn't be ok to be reading this
article with the graphics.

> When did Wired become NSFW?

More like when did caseysoftware decide to work somewhere stupid.

I work at a generic corporate america job. I've got a generic corporate
america boss, and you know what? He wouldn't get any more upset with me for
reading an article with that image in it than he'd get upset with me for
reading some article so completely unrelated to work on the clock.

Women have breasts. If you work somewhere where images of breasts are more of
an issue than you know... not working at work, then maybe you should just not
work there. It's not Wired that's at fault. It's your ridiculously backwards
employer.

~~~
caseysoftware
I usually don't respond to trolls but this time I will.

I'm less concerned about my employer - after all we have the post-slaughter
Charlie Hebdo cover framed on the wall - and thinking more of female
coworkers. In case you haven't noticed, there is a huge "women are oppressed!"
theme being pushed.

True or not, something like this is likely to set them off and result in
negative consequences for you.

------
amyjess
tl;dr: Ross was a colossal idiot who ignored warnings about the shoddy state
of his opsec.

I hate to say it, because Ross and I have a few mutual friends, but the guy
was an idiot, and it's looking more and more like he deserved what he got for
being so utterly _stupid_.

~~~
ufmace
Calling him stupid seems to kinda miss the point to me. I think it's more that
when you're up against the Feds, especially on something so deeply entrenched
as being illegal worldwide as distributing drugs on a massive scale, you're
going to get caught eventually, because it only takes one mistake. Sure, he
was kinda dumb and made a lot more than one mistake, but how much better could
anybody here do? Enough to keep the Feds away for how long, exactly? Another
year or two maybe?

I kinda sympathize with his position in a way. He was clearly in over his head
both on the technological front and on the administration front, despite
making piles of money. When that happens in a normal business, you hire some
help. But how do you find help to hire for such a massively illegal operation?
Finding anyone who could be trusted is a tough problem, much less someone who
can be trusted and also has strong technical skills.

~~~
hurin
> but how much better could anybody here do?

Well, Kim Dotcom is still kicking it.

As for Ross, the evidence might have been circumstantial at best if his un-
encrypted notebook wasn't grabbed.

~~~
jaryd
What always gets me is how (in this situation) he would ever operate a laptop
that was usable without being plugged in... If he had simply removed the
battery and kept the thing plugged then the laptop would have powered off
immediately after it was grabbed.

~~~
mburns
That would have been an improvement, but even basic computer forensic
gathering knowledge would get around this without trouble. What he needed to
do is keep his sensitive files encrypted separately from his laptop login.
Like on a USB drive encrypted with GPG and a nice long passphrase.

Even then, the FBI grabbed him with his laptop logged into the management
interface for Silk Road... So he still would have been in some hot water.

~~~
jaryd
If the laptop turned off and the drive was encrypted by what basic method
could they extrapolate the same information as if the computer was decrypted
and powered on? Are you referring to some kind of memory attack? Wouldn't they
need to be prepared to do that kind of forensic work in the extremely near
term (or have some equipment on-hand to preserve the memory at least)? I'm
pretty uninformed in this area and would appreciate a lesson.

~~~
mburns
You wouldn't turn off the device, particularly if you thought that turning it
off could make you lose access to information.

That can be achieved by (1) transferring the machine to a portable battery
unit without interrupting the power feed from the AC wall adapter and/or (2)
imaging the machine's memory and mounted drives in-place.

These are things the FBI has in its toolbox, precisely because "yank the power
cable" is how many criminals rely on protecting their otherwise encrypted
data.

------
junto
I know this is in hindsight, but having watched The Matrix, I would have been
distrustful of an online handle called "Cirrus".

~~~
dvdfvo
Cirrus?

~~~
_broody
Cyrus was the name of the traitor in The Matrix. Coincidence...

... Surely.

~~~
runaway
The character's name was actually Cypher. Not sure if the Matrix reference was
a mistake or if I'm not catching onto something else.

