All Things Vice (Blog)

The Fall of Atlantis – a Moderator tells

“Atlantis admins shut down the site and ran away with the coins. It’s the truth.” – Cicero, Moderator of Atlantis Marketplace forum A little under six months ago – not long after they opened shop – I conducted the first in-depth interview with online drug barons Loera and Vladimir, founders of Atlantis Marketplace.  The two were excited at the prospect

Read More »

Silk Road Wiki Wars

Should Wikipedia draw a line at including links to illegal marketplaces or websites hosting objectionable content?  And does it have a duty to prevent its readers from becoming victims of phishing if they visit those links? For such a short Wikipedia entry, Silk Road has been responsible for a lot of behind-the-scenes drama. It started with a demand on 13

Read More »

Which Pirate is that?

Last week, Silk Road spokesman Dread Pirate Roberts broke a longstanding silence, granting an interview to Andy Greenberg of Forbes magazine.  In it, he finally admitted Silk Road’s worst-kept secret – the person posting as Dread Pirate Roberts and steering the ship was not the same person who founded Silk Road. Who’s holding the keys to Silk Road now? This

Read More »

The Outlaw Cult

My latest Fairfax feature appears in tomorrow’s edition of The Age, but is already up online.  I briefly mention the Rialto BASE jumpers and D.B. Cooper, but the article mostly focuses on father of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto and Dread Pirate Roberts of Silk Road fame.  Banksy also gets a look-in, but I was originally going to say a bit more

Read More »

(Info)war declared

Silk Road users have been shocked twice in the past two days when a forum member released names, addresses and order details of dozens of purported customers. The user – first calling themselves ‘Info Wars’ and, once that account was banned, ‘Infowars’ – pounded the forums with repeats of the same post – a list of names and addresses, along

Read More »

Silk Road responds to competition with improvements of its own

Atlantis Marketplace has undertaken aggressive marketing of its site over the past few months, touting superior features to those offered by Silk Road.  Its aim has been to both attract new customers and lure clients away from the incumbent giant, but so far they must be underwhelmed by the response. Attracting sellers has not been an issue.  Many of Silk

Read More »

Interview with the creator of THAT video

So, the past couple of days have been awash with stories about Atlantis Market’s aggressive marketing campaign, complete with ‘cutesy’ Youtube video advertisement.  At the time of writing this, the video was closing in on 30,000 views.  Here it is, in case you missed it: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXGlpI7W4Fg] Atlantis did contact me to let me know this was coming a few weeks

Read More »

The myth of the ‘Drug Pusher’

In Puberty Blues (the book, not the movie or TV show), there is a classic line where the protagonist’s mother warns her not to sit on the aisle at the movie theatre because “some pusher might come along and jab god-knows-what into your arm”. Growing up I was always being warned about malevolent people who would seek me out and

Read More »

Dear EnterTheMatrix…

…I know you read my blog.  🙂  Can you email me please?  My addy is on my About page. You know you want to.  Don’t forget to PGP sign your message.   Unsigned messages will be ignored.  🙂 (Apologies to anyone who thought there might be a post here.  Coming soon) Edit: the replies to this post are some of the

Read More »

Interview with a (virtual) drug tsar

“We will be an adversary not to be trifled with. We have big plans for Atlantis, and we’re here to stay.”. As online drugs marketplace Silk Road sustains blows from an ongoing attack its owner says “appears to be DoS in nature,” the forums are awash with queries, rumours and speculation about newcomer, Atlantis Marketplace.  Is it responsible for the

Read More »
Subscribe to my mailing list

… and receive an exclusive, FREE copy of a true crime story in ebook format.
You can unsubscribe anytime.

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website.