You finally picked up the courage to visit
the dark web and you took every necessary
precaution to stay invisible to the authorities.
At first, you were only going to look around
and not actually purchase anything, but after
a few of your buddies came around to your
house you all decided you’d buy a big bag
of illegal pills…not only that, after a
few drinks you watched a video you shouldn’t
have watched.
You weren’t concerned, you used a VPN, your
IP address couldn’t be seen by any prying
eyes.
And then, BOOM, one day the cops burst through
your door.
How on Earth did that happen?
How did they find you?
That’s what we’ll discuss today.
5.
Hacking
First of all, you should know that a lot of
people use the dark web for good reasons.
Maybe they are journalists, or political dissidents
in countries with strict regimes, so some
human right advocates are happy that the authorities
can’t find people in the dark web.
That’s why it was controversial when a cybercriminal
named Eric Eoin Marques was arrested in 2013
and later got a prison sentence of 30 years.
This guy was certainly in the wrong, and was
hosting websites within the dark that were
selling drugs, hacking techniques and money-laundering
operations.
He was huge, and it’s thought his cloud
computing company, Freedom Hosting, was hosting
almost half of the sketchy websites within
the dark web.
The FBI got him.
They found his server in France and subsequently
tracked him down to Ireland.
This shouldn’t have happened of course.
The Tor network this guy used was supposed
to be impenetrable.
But then one day users started seeing something
weird, a new code running in websites hosted
by Freedom Hosting.
Suddenly, all the websites went down.
That weird code exploited a Firefox vulnerability
and so not only did the websites go down,
but people using those websites were unmasked.
Well, they were until they could update their
software.
Tens of thousands of IP addresses were exposed
and some of those people that were exposed
were arrested.
That could have been you and you might have
been seen buying bags of Columbia’s finest
powder, but private email systems were also
run on Freedom Hosting so journalists or freedom
fighters may also have been exposed.
So, that’s one way you could be found out
using the dark web.
The government might get its crack team of
hackers together and create a code that exploits
a vulnerability in some software.
It might not mean they come knocking at your
door, but your name will certainly be saved
in the FBI’s database.
You’ve been flagged.
Thousands of people around the world have
been arrested this way.
In the U.S., the FBI won’t say how it hacks
its way into the dark web, while in other
countries, governments also keep their surveillance
under wraps.
In the U.K., the government gives its intelligence
agencies something called “Bulk Powers”,
which allows them to spy on people.
The thing is, the agencies don’t have to
submit any information to the court as to
exactly how they got you.
That remains a secret.
If you’re worried about being hacked by
the government though, wait till you hear
how they can get you without hacking you at
all!
4.
Cops go undercover
Sometimes the government doesn’t really
have to get technical... the authorities can
use techniques they use on the streets…cops
can go undercover.
Let’s say you’re on the dark web and you
find a place where you can get the illegal
substance MDMA.
All the reviews are positive regarding the
seller, so you think, ok, I’ll take 500
pills because you’re in college and you
want to pay your tuition fees off.
Well, you might just be buying your pills
from a cop who's been undercover posing as
Rick the Raver, the merchant of molly.
Time and again cops have done this, with drugs,
guns, poisons and images of children.
You see, you buy the stuff and you remain
anonymous, but you still have to get your
contraband delivered.
That’s when the cops can grab you.
There are ethical concerns, though.
The cops can’t oversell their stuff.
They can’t say, “Hey, take those 500 pills,
but I’ve got some great cocaine, too.
Do you want that?”
That’s called entrapment.
They can’t say, take 1,000 pills and I’ll
throw in a gun.
That’s just not ethical.
Then you’ve got those images of kids that
float around the dark web.
There has been a lot of controversy regarding
the FBI putting out their own images and setting
up what is called a “honey pot.”
The problem is, once those images are out
there they can be copied and spread all over
the web.
But you can avoid in-person delivery and avoid
an undercover agent, right?
Well, if you think other means of scoring
your gear are safe, stay tuned...
3.
The postal service
You don’t have to be set up to have the
cops knocking at your door.
A huge amount of contraband is seized before
it even gets to the buyer.
The post office can intercept a package, find
a few ounces of cocaine, and then they can
get in touch with the police.
The police can then start an investigation,
and while the buyer might not get arrested
because the package never arrived, the cops
in the past have watched post office videos
and have been able to arrest the sender of
the package, or packages.
In other cases they weren’t able to find
the seller, so police allowed the post office
to deliver the package in what they called
a, “controlled delivery.”
As soon as you pick it up, they swoop in on
you.
It’s unlikely police will get involved if
someone is buying, say, one single pill of
something, but if the package is big enough,
there is always a risk.
Sometimes though, you can get busted and it’s
not even your fault!
2.
A dealer’s data
One outstanding case of someone being caught
selling drugs on the dark web was a kid in
Germany who was arrested by police in 2015.
This 20-year old guy, who still lived with
his mom, was found with a whopping 320 kilograms
of drugs in his bedroom.
Yep, you heard that right.
He pretty much ran a drug empire from his
bedroom and sold drugs from the dark web to
people in Germany and in countries all over
the world.
He would usually use a PO Box, not a house
or apartment number, and the person who picked
the package was never the person’s name
on the package.
If the person was ever caught picking up the
drugs, he or she could just say, “Hey, that’s
not my name.”
The thing is, this kid still needed to pick
up the drugs.
320 kilos is quite a pile of powders and pills,
and it was when he was picking up one of his
packages that the cops got him.
But guess what, when the cops looked on this
kid’s hard drive they found all the names
and emails of all the people he’d been selling
to.
That included guys just buying for personal
use – which was not much use to the cops
– but it also included bulk buyers who were
selling on the streets of Germany and beyond.
Someone on the dark web managed to get to
this kids profile and leave a message.
That message read, “Dealers, run for your
lives.”
That’s the thing with the dark web…if
someone else gets caught, your information
might be on their computer.
That kid became a millionaire very fast, but
now he’s in prison and will be for possibly
another decade.
The problem is, no sooner than the kid was
behind bars, someone else had taken over his
dark web domain.
Sometimes though, you can get busted without
even visiting the dark web!
1.
Advertising
The last way people are caught is when they
advertise their dark web marketplace on the
very visible normal web that we all use.
Yep, they use the normal web to direct people
to the dark web.
It’s a little silly, but Ross Ulbricht,
the guy that ran the notorious Silk Road marketplace,
did just that.
He ran ads on a bitcoin web forum for the
Silk Road, and those ads could be traced back
to him.
For such a smart guy, he definitely missed
several big brain moments.
Now you need to watch this show, “Why You
Should Never Visit The Dark Web” or watch
this show, “Can You Really Order A Mystery
Box from The Dark Web?”
