Archives

State of the darkmarkets: Pandora compromised?

One of the members of Onionland recently created a searchable version of the original Silk Road forums.  As you do, I went on a little trip down memory lane. In August 2012 in response to the thread ‘Think Silk Road will be around for a while’ I wrote: I think that no matter what happens […]

Accused Silk Road staff: where are they now?

Whilst headlines and fund-raising efforts have been concentrated on Ross Ulbricht, accused of being Silk Road mastermind Dread Pirate Roberts, three other men have been stuck in limbo awaiting their fate outside of the limelight. But the three have been spending that time very differently indeed. In December last year, three arrests were made concurrently in three different countries […]

A little piece of Silk Road history

‘This could be it. This could be the killer application for bitcoin’ – Free Talk Live host, March 2011 Whilst researching the early days of Silk Road for my book, I came across a wonderful little piece of history: a radio show by Free Talk Live which ran a comprehensive piece on Silk Road on […]

Silk Road: The Play

VICE is onto the documentary, yours truly is bringing a book out. But who would’ve guessed that the most notorious online black market in the world could be coming to a theatre near you? Emerging playwright Alex Oates plans to bring his one-man play to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year. Like many young writers, […]

Games Pirates Play

Servers in North Korea, America (fuck yeah!) and literally in the clouds, buying their own country and winning an eBay bid to buy… well eBay. The Pirate Bay guys had some good times. Last month I attended a Q&A session with the cofounder of The Pirate Bay (and User No.7), Tobias Andersson. He was one […]

Did the REAL Satoshi just come out of the woodwork?

A surreal story has been playing out in the last 24 hours or so, ever since Newsweek promised the biggest story of the crypto-year. The unmasking of Satoshi Nakamoto. And the Real Satoshi may have just come out of the woodwork to respond. 50 minutes ago, this post appeared on the P2P Foundation forum, the same […]

I have a new PGP key…

I have a new PGP key. It can be found in the ‘About’ page of this site. I took may Mac to the Genius Bar recently and the genius decided I need to do a full clean reinstall. I had done a Time Machine backup before going, so I didn’t think much of it. Unfortunately, […]

Scales of Injustice – Silk Road’s SSBD

SSBD had no role to play in the Silk Road marketplace where drugs were bought and sold.  He was a moderator of the Silk Road discussion forum, which had its own URL and was hosted on a different server to the marketplace. So why is the US so determined to extradite someone who may or may […]

Nod with the Bitchin’ Tar

Sorry I’ve been too busy to update my blog recently, but for now, do yourself a favour and head over to the Daily Dot, where the talented Patrick O’Neill has written up an astonishing story of Nod, Silk Road heroin kingpin, DPR confidant and Homeland Security informant:  The final confessions of a Silk Road kingpin. […]