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 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 […]
Did Dread Pirate Roberts get scammed on an alleged hit?
According to FBI documents, Dread Pirate Roberts claims to have carried out one hit and was haggling on price for another. But was he the victim of an elaborate hoax? According to the FBI’s Criminal Complaint, Silk Road’s owner, the Dread Pirate Roberts, sought to engage a hitman to deal with a blackmailer who was […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]