See also Feds Arrest Alleged ‘Silk Road 2? Admin, Seize Servers
By Eduard Kovacs on November 10, 2014 The Tor Project and security experts are concerned about the implications of the recent global law enforcement operation in which hundreds of hidden services running on the Tor anonymity network have been shut down.
Last week, law enforcement authorities in the United States and Europe announced the arrests of 17 individuals suspected of being vendors and administrators on illegal online marketplaces that rely on the Tor network to keep the identity of their users and operators hidden. One of the arrested people is Blake Benthall, believed to be the operator of Silk Road 2.0, a black market bazaar for money laundering and drugs.
According to Europol, 410 Tor hidden services were taken down. In addition, $1 million in Bitcoins, and €180,000 ($224,000) in cash, dugs, silver and gold were seized as part of the campaign dubbed Operation Onymous.
Benthall was tracked down by authorities after agents infiltrated Silk Road 2.0 staff, but there are numerous unanswered questions regarding the methods used by law enforcement to locate the other targeted hidden services.
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Operation Against Tor Dark Markets Raises Security Concerns
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The following article is a update:
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Agora, the Tor network's largest black marketplace, has been temporarily shut down because its administrators worry the website is vulnerable to recent methods of exposing Tor Hidden Services.
Hidden services are websites that can only be accessed from within the Tor network, which is specifically designed to hide the IP address of both servers and users. The built-in anonymity safeguards have made Tor Hidden Services the preferred method for running online marketplaces that allow buying and selling illegal goods like drugs, guns, stolen credit card details and more.
The largest of these so-called dark markets was Silk Road, which was eventually shut down by the FBI in 2013. Many similar websites have appeared since then and some were targeted in subsequent international law enforcement raids, but Agora survived and surpassed even Silk Road in size and popularity.
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Security concerns prompt largest Tor dark market to suspend operations.
By Lucian ConstantinThe Agora black marketplace will be closed down until a fix for recent Tor de-anonymization attacks is found.
Agora, the Tor network's largest black marketplace, has been temporarily shut down because its administrators worry the website is vulnerable to recent methods of exposing Tor Hidden Services.
Hidden services are websites that can only be accessed from within the Tor network, which is specifically designed to hide the IP address of both servers and users. The built-in anonymity safeguards have made Tor Hidden Services the preferred method for running online marketplaces that allow buying and selling illegal goods like drugs, guns, stolen credit card details and more.
The largest of these so-called dark markets was Silk Road, which was eventually shut down by the FBI in 2013. Many similar websites have appeared since then and some were targeted in subsequent international law enforcement raids, but Agora survived and surpassed even Silk Road in size and popularity.
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