Washington Post Article About Evolution

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/22/a-complete-tally-of-the-weird-disturbing-and-hilarious-things-for-sale-on-the-internets-largest-black-market/


Comments


[3 Points] None:

There's also an odd obsession with "free pizza." the guy is selling credit cards and he thinks its pizza LMAOO


[1 Points] USPSinspectorgadget:

That is a well written article.


[1 Points] Cloudkidd:

Great read, with very valid points.


[1 Points] its_not_me_promise:

I died when he was talking about the pizza listings. Guess he did not do any investigating. SMH I don't even use the market but a quick google of one of the mentioned pizza delivery people told me everything I needed to know.


[1 Points] ScorchedTerran:

I Want My Free Pizza!!!


[1 Points] Cashin-out:

Can someone explain the pizza thing


[0 Points] Deafcunt:

On a well-hidden corner of the Internet, a user going by the name of "FRIM" has a question: "Ever wanted to start your own reactor or build nukes? Well, this is probably the only missing component you needed and couldn't get until now!" The "missing component" FRIM promises is a small quantity of uranium ore -- on sale for 0.2549 Bitcoins, or about $100.

FRIM is selling uranium on Evolution, which is currently the largest of the so-called "darknet" marketplaces on the Internet, where enterprising vendors offer everything from drugs to weapons to stolen credit card numbers. The markets tend to have a short shelf-life, and the first and most well-known, Silk Road, was shut down nearly a year ago by the FBI. Its successor, Silk Road 2.0, was seized just last month.

FRIM knows this. "Who knows how long Evolution will last?" he/she asks at the end of the uranium listing. "That's why you need to order lots of Uranium now so you don't miss out on your dreams to threaten the U.N. with nukes in your life time ;)"

For the uninitiated, it can be hard to find Evolution. You have to use a specialized Web browser, called Tor, which bounces your traffic across dozens of computers around the world. You then have to do a bit of Googling to find Evolution's address -- a string of random characters followed by .onion, rather than .net or .com.

But once there, illicit commerce is as almost easy as ordering from Amazon or eBay -- and many of the items for sale aren't illicit at all, but simply weird, spammy, or not quite what they seem. FRIM's uranium, as it turns out, is just a tiny piece of ore. You can buy ones just like it on Amazon for only $39.95, a fraction of FRIM's price. They're often used to calibrate geiger counters.

The world of the darknet, including its dozens of online markets, in many ways fails to live up to the terrifying reputation bestowed upon the sites by law enforcement officials -- the FBI called them "noxious online criminal bazaars." While darknet gained notoriety as a place to buy drugs and is a reservoir of information that could be used for illegal activity like identity fraud, there are a lot of other goods for sale in the bazaars as well. Some are illegal, but many are not.

I wanted to quantify just what, exactly, the darknet was offering. Once I logged into Evolution -- the hardest part of which was typing in the Captcha code that the site uses to prevent spambots from trawling it -- I took a tally of all 22,000 items listed for sale as of Nov. 17.

I was immediately struck by how much Evolution looks and feels like every other e-commerce site I've ever used. The site is mobile-friendly, and it has a support page, a community forum and a wiki. A menu on the home page lists all the categories, as well as the number of items in each category for sale.


[0 Points] vvv99fjjj:

A smarter law enforcement strategy might involve targeting the markets selling the more dangerous items, or specifically targeting the vendors selling these items. But this would require differentiating between the markets that espouse a radical "anything goes" philosophy, and those that are scrupulous about only fostering victimless crimes, like some of Evolution's smaller competitors.

Should be titled: Washington Post writer Christopher Ingraham took drug money from black market Evolution to write whitewashed hit piece on competitors