The road’s closed to these drugs
Hey, if the person who emailed me an encrypted message headed “Scoop” and said they wouldn’t be going back to that email addy could re-send it, I got a Decryption Failed (no public key) error. I need your public key. Use the safe-mail addy in my About page if you want. I have a new […]
How many pirates are there? An update
If the Bitcointalk hackers are reading this, can you please let me know if I’m a lousy journo and missed the smoking gun, or if it was part of a deleted post? I originally wrote the below in response to a lengthy, well thought-out comment by a reader on a previous blog about the changing […]
The Race to Create Silk Road 2.0
Whilst many vendors and buyers have migrated to Silk Road’s two remaining competitors, Black Market Reloaded and Sheep Marketplace, other members have been working around the clock to develop and launch Silk Road 2.0. Ex-Atlantis mod, Heisenberg2.0, claims to have counted “at least 5 publicly stated projects with the said aim of becoming “Silk Road […]
The beginning of the end?
And so timezones screwed me over and I’ve just woken up to the news that the Dread Pirate Roberts has been arrested. I haven’t even had my second coffee yet, nor have I been able to digest what’s happened, but I’m pretty sure my blog is well on its way to most hits ever for […]
When drug dealers get all warm and fuzzy
Some Silk Road drug dealers are promising to donate a percentage of this week’s sales to charity Black markets are supposed to be dangerous places. Drug dealers are bad guys. Drug users are selfish hedonists who would steal from their Grandma for a fix. Except when they’re not.
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 […]
(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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
Competition for (black) market share hotting up
With the media reporting that internet drug dealing is on the rise, it’s no great surprise that new marketplaces have started popping up wanting a piece of the action. Most of these seem to be wannabes with no real hope of making a dent into the big boy’s market share. But a couple seem determined […]