How Telstra stole my identity
You can’t have a burner phone without a prepaid SIM, so I guess it’s only fitting that Telstra is using my Fake ID to illustrate their identity requirements There is a long history of people having their photos nicked without attribution and payment by large corporations. It is the reason the very excellent ‘for exposure’ exists. I’ve […]
Real Folk of the Dark Web
A couple of weeks ago I got back from an 8-week trip around the globe to meet with all manner of dark web types in preparation for my upcoming book, Darkest Web. Here’s a taster of what went down with each. THAILAND Variety Jones – mentor to Dread Pirate Roberts Well, at this point, still […]
Some interesting titbits to come out of the latest Silk Road “rogue agent” allegations
I was digging through my Silk Road archives when researching parts of my new book, and came up with a couple of little nuggets surrounding the latest “rogue agent” allegations that I don’t think have been reported yet. TL;DR: What we assumed to be a simple Silk Road scam in early 2013 may have been […]
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
What OzFreelancer* did next
A couple of people have asked me about the book I mentioned in my last post. I recently threw in my nice, steady, well-paying but ultimately creatively unfulfilling tech-writing job. So here’s all the things I have in the pipeline that I’m finally getting around to. Another non-fiction book First, I’m working on a proposal for my agent for […]
A word from one of the Silk Road “Old Guard”
There’s nothing like an inaccurate, poorly-written, unresearched defamatory piece of garbage journalism to bring people out of the woodwork. So I have to thank one Ms Margi Murphy for this laughably bad piece of trash I often lament the loss of Silk Road (v.1.0). I was so entrenched in that place, spending hours a day in the […]
On being part of the stolen genre
What do me and Charles Bukowski have in common? Okay, that may be a little hyperbolic, but for the answer you are going to have to check out my guest blog for the Melbourne Writers Festival.
If you found it by browsing, it’s probably not dark web
Fun fact: the proper technical term for dark web sites is hidden services. It’s easy to forget what this implies, but as I’ve been researching the past couple of months for a new book, I’ve been reminded of how the dark web is designed to work. When people ask what’s on the dark web, those […]
Mea culpa – Silk Road prosecutors respond to SSBD story
Yesterday I posted Silk Road moderator Peter N’s story. It gained a lot of attention from supporters and haters alike. It also got noticed by someone else. And I’m no longer sure which category they belong in. n I was surprised to receive not only a comment on the blog, but also a personal email […]
Silk Road from the inside: Moderator SSBD tells his story
18 months after being arrested in Brisbane, Australian man Peter N. has been sentenced to time served by a United States judge. That means he is a free man. It must have been disappointing for the prosecution who asked for an extra 10-12 years to add to the 18 months he’s already spent inside.[EDIT: See correction here] In […]