A Naked Security reader pointed us at an intriguing story: news of the implosion of yet another
Dark Web online store.
Most computer users will have heard of Silk Road, without doubt the best known and most notorious Dark Web market.
Silk Road, it seems, sold almost anything: illegal drugs, fake ID, guns, computer hacking tools and even assassination services.
Silk Road stopped trading because its founder and (for want of a better term) CEO, Ross Ulbricht, was tracked down after years of anonymity and prosecuted.
It didn’t end well for Ulbricht: he was
found guilty on five different criminal charges and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
In fact, Ulbricht got two life terms, plus a 5-year, a 15-year and a 20-year stretch thrown in for good measure, with the cold comfort of having the sentences run concurrently.
We’ve also written about the trials and tribulations of other underground marketplaces, such as
Silk Road 2.0 (site busted by law enforcement),
Evolution (founders ran off with the money) and
Agora (self-suspended during security troubles due to a software vulnerability).
