2017-07-25 at 4:07 AM UTC
https://www.politie.nl/en/news/2017/july/20/underground-hansa-market-taken-over-and-shut-down.html
>As part of an extensive international investigation, the Netherlands Police and the Public Prosecution Service have dismantled, seized control of, and shut down one of the biggest illegal market places on the internet today. It is Hansa Market, currently the most popular dark market in the ‘anonymous’ part of the internet, the so-called darknet.
I love how Kmar put anonymous in scare quotes. Apparently the owner had his recovery email set to a hotmail adress linked to his real name and more PI.
Also.
>In the past weeks, the police have intercepted tens of thousands of non-encrypted messages between sellers and buyers about orders. They were also able to identify the delivery address for a large number of orders. Some 10,000 foreign addresses of Hansa Market buyers were passed on to Europol.
Kmar doesn't fuck around. But if you communicate without encryption you are kind of asking for it.
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2017-07-25 at 4:16 AM UTC
aldra
JIDF Controlled Opposition
Keep in mind that it's not just people who used cleartext to send delivery data, but also people who encrypted delivery data using the 'on-site' autoencrypt function... why you'd trust that to be secure is beyond me - it takes maybe a half hour to learn how to use GPG to send/receive messages.
I'm not certain how either site was taken though - they claim that beta's owner was found by finding his personal email address in the header of the 'welcome' email sent to new members joining the forum (ie. it was included in the relay list or something), but I've not seen anyone verify it independently.
They claim Hansa's owner was found by chance; he apparently downloaded a virus to his work computer, and when clearing it the IT techs found data relating to Hansa (as well as CP) and reported it to the authorities.
By all accounts Hansa's owner was fairly well-versed in tech; he apparently coded the marketplace from scratch so it seems very strange to me that he'd use a work computer of all things for site maintenance and porno. It sounds more likely that they found the data another way they don't want to reveal, either because it's legally questionable or because they simply don't want to reveal their methods.
2017-07-25 at 4:42 AM UTC
aldra
JIDF Controlled Opposition
Dream's still operating as normal, that's been discussed for years - it's apparently something the dev left in; looks like a local IP address they used for testing. Some people have complained that there have been issues with messaging and transaction finalisation but they've been intermittent and appear to be related to server load.
I have no idea about Valhalla though... Most of the guys on Reddit making claims like that are either highly paranoid or 'security testers' that don't appear to really understand the information they're turning up.
2017-07-25 at 4:58 AM UTC
It's weird that they got them both at the same time.
2017-07-25 at 9:15 AM UTC
The war on drugs (which, for the most part, taking down DNM is an assault on) can never be won. If there's a demand, there will always be someone to fill the supply. It sucks that there's a lot of decent people just trying to make a living (and some pieces of shit too, as is in everything) who'll have their lives ruined in this, but it'll just cycle again and again... another market will fill in eventually. As long as you (and me), and the rest of society continue to desire what others wish us not to have, someone will always step in to complete the deal.
Sad that DNM exist in the first place.
2017-07-25 at 11:24 AM UTC
Originally posted by hydromorphone
The war on drugs (which, for the most part, taking down DNM is an assault on) can never be won. If there's a demand, there will always be someone to fill the supply. It sucks that there's a lot of decent people just trying to make a living (and some pieces of shit too, as is in everything) who'll have their lives ruined in this, but it'll just cycle again and again… another market will fill in eventually. As long as you (and me), and the rest of society continue to desire what others wish us not to have, someone will always step in to complete the deal.
Sad that DNM exist in the first place.
The point is not for them to stop drug abuse, it's for them to continue making money off busting people. In that sense, they can always win.
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2017-07-25 at 12:40 PM UTC
anyone know what the current status quo on UK customs is? before i was busted i had two 2oz packages seized and sent a love letter for both. i have a real hunch that had something to do with the bust tbh. up until then i had regularly been getting all sorts of stuff sent from holland, germany, south africa and czech without a single problem. around that time there was talk on the srf that UK customs were upping their game. does that still seem to be the case? i know aus customs are shit hot on it, wouldn't surprise me if UK took some direction from aus.
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2017-07-25 at 12:43 PM UTC
aldra
JIDF Controlled Opposition
I've not heard anything about it, but yeah, getting stuff through Australian customs is a nightmare. Generally I just buy domestic even if it is more expensive.
2017-07-25 at 12:45 PM UTC
obviously UK gets way more mail to sort than aus tho.
thank fuck.
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2017-07-25 at 9:17 PM UTC
mashlehash
victim of incest
[my perspicuously dependant flavourlessness]
Hansa was a good man. He was one of my best comrades.