German Cops Bust Dude Who Bought Weed on Silk Road Years Ago

Post by Zaphod on The Hub- http://thehub7gqe43miyc.onion/index.php?topic=19824.0

People here should take note. PGP or death

Since I first showed up on Silk Road, some 4 years ago, now, I've been preaching the word according to Phil (Zimmermann).

Anyone who has read my posts knows my security philosophy: "Better to have it, and not need it, than need it, and not have it."

One of the 'rebuttals' or retorts most often thrown at me over the years is that, "The police aren't interested in small buyers" or "The police are only after the dealers, not the users." I remember hearing shit like this from the mouth of RxKing, as part of his anti-PGP campaign.

The two most common arguments raised over the years were:

1) That DPR should have made the use of PGP mandatory for doing business on Silk Road. He was told, again, and again, and again, that should the server ever be located, that this would be the only protection the users would have.

He didn't listen, and when the server was seized, the Feds got their mitts on the data for an enormous number of people. (This was our worst nightmare come true.)

2) It was also stated by many people, that everyone needed to use PGP, for the reason(s) listed above. One of the most common arguments I heard in response was that it really wasn't necessary, as the police wouldn't go after small buyers.

Well, now the other shoe has dropped. The German police are going after small buyers, and anyone who failed to use PGP to protect themselves may find themselves in a similar situation as the subject of this article.

I hate to say "I told you so!" but I fucking told you so!

Zaphod

German Cops Bust Dude Who Bought Weed on Silk Road Years Ago Written by JOSEPH COX CONTRIBUTOR May 27, 2016 // 10:40 AM EST

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/german-cops-bust-dude-who-bought-weed-on-silk-road-years-ago

We've seen plenty of high profile and often technical busts on dark web sites targeting dealers, users, and administrators. In a recent case, German cops tracked down a marketplace user who placed orders for just a few grams of cannabis at a time, three years ago.

A German user of the original Silk Road and another dark web market was recently fined over €3,000 for ordering cannabis 17 times, according to independent researcher Gwern Branwen. Branwen said in a Reddit post that the buyer contacted him recently. He also uploaded an apparent March 2016 letter from German law authorities detailing the transactions. (Names and other information have been redacted from the letter, so Motherboard was unable to contact its supposed recipient).

According to the letter, the customer's 17 purchases varied from 1.5 and 7.4 gram quantities of cannabis, between January and October 2013.

Plenty of dark web customers have been punished before. Law enforcement often track down buyers of poisons or weapons and have also gone after buyers of "harder" drugs, such as MDMA or methamphetamine.There have been a handful of marijuana cases.

What makes this case stand out further is that police were still keen on tracking the buyer down years later; Silk Road was shut down way back in September 2013.

It appears the customer--who told Branwen he always encrypted his address when providing it to vendors--was identified after German authorities busted a cannabis seller who had kept records of all of their customers. From there, Branwen thinks the police may have gone through records of the Silk Road server to find more of the customer's purchases, since he consistently used one username.

It's not clear how the authorities would have discovered one of the customer's orders from Outlaw Market, which is still running. The letter adds that "communications" from Silk Road were used.

"Can a buyer, in the absence of any intercepted packages or possession of illegal drugs, be prosecuted or otherwise get into trouble?" Branwen writes on Reddit. "At least in Germany, the answer seems to be yes."

This case goes to show that even people who briefly used dark web markets may have to worry about law enforcement eventually tracking them down.

TOPICS: dark web, weed, cannabis, drugs, Silk Road, Gwern Branwen, Gwern, cybercrime, germany


Comments


[1 Points] sharkbetfarkets:

Gwern already posted this here. Also, i thought he used PGP and was fucked because of imaged market and/or busted vendor?


[1 Points] None:

Damn, fucking gestapo man.


[1 Points] swimpappy:

This is why you don't use the same username over and over. That's just damn dumb because you never know what the vendor is doing with your decrypted information.


[1 Points] Brebbs:

"the customer's 17 purchases varied from 1.5 and 7.4 gram quantities of cannabis" Are you fucking kidding me?


[1 Points] None:

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think this would fly in the US. Simply having your address on a DNM server shouldn't be enough for a conviction.


[0 Points] ForLol_Serious:

That sux, my first few orders Made on SR1 had no encryption. Looks like Im going to jail.