Think you know Silk Road?
Next week is the tenth anniversary of the shutdown of Silk Road and the arrest of its founder, Ross Ulbricht (currently serving life without the possibility of parole). Silk Road was the true OG darknet market that paved the way for all those that came after. It should be remembered as the revolution it was. […]
Tying up Silk Road’s loose ends: Redandwhite
The Silk Road saga continues with the indictment of James Ellingson, known by numerous aliases on the platform, most famously as ‘redandwhite’. But is he in the US? Is he possibly even in the same establishment as Variety Jones? Last week, a certain James Ellingson was charged with drug and money laundering offences connected to […]
Tying up Silk Road’s loose ends: Variety Jones
A decade on from the dramatic implosion of Silk Road, a fascinating character waits in the wings for his fate to be decided – Roger Clark, the man behind the Variety Jones moniker and the instigator of the now infamous murder-for-hire plots. Or was he? It’s closing in on ten years since Silk Road shut […]
Dark web drugs markets – more TripAdvisor than Amazon
They used to be known as the “Amazon” or “eBay” of drugs, but modern dark web drug sales use a system more comparable to Yelp or TripAdvisor Ever since Silk Road, the first mass-market point-and-click dark web drugs bazaar, made its debut in January 2011, the DNMs (darknet markets) have been invariably compared to popular […]
That time I visited Roger Clark, aka Mongoose, aka Variety Jones
The man alleged to be Silk Road’s Variety Jones, Roger Thomas Clark, has finally been extradited from Thailand, where he has spent 2 1/2 years in Bangkok Remand, to face trial in the USA. Variety Jones was basically unheard of until the trial of Ross Ulbricht, where he was revealed as a sort of behind-the-scenes […]
DNM Vendors, have your say
Below is a callout to DNM vendors to share their views about DNMs and the perceptions of others about what you do. I know some of the independent researchers involved in this initiative personally, the others by reputation, and they have my full confidence that they will pull out all the stops to maintain confidentiality and […]
Dark Web LSD stalwarts jesusofrave in their own words
Jesusofrave is one of the most enduring brand names of the darknet markets, as a wholesale supplier of MDMA and LSD. They have some major plans for the near future, including providing significant assistance and donations to organizations using psychedelics in therapy. Here they talk about how they started and why they do what they do
Silk Road users wanted for research project
Silk Road may be gone and Silk Road v.2 yet to prove itself, but the site has become culturally significant enough to attract the attention of some serious academic researchers. And unlike the plethora of tabloid news pieces, their starting position is not always that the online black market is a den of evil inhabited […]
And the winner is…
There are certainly winners from last week’s shutdown of Silk Road, the online black market where every illicit drug imaginable could be bought at the click of a button. But it’s not a win for the War on Drugs, nor for people affected by drug addiction, or for the Australian taxpayer. The people who will […]
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 […]