AlphaBay, the Largest Online 'Dark Market,' Shut Down

&quot;&#x27;The so-called anonymity of the dark web is illusory,&#x27; said Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg of the DEA.&quot;<p>I wonder if this is true, or simply hyperbole. I&#x27;m extremely curios on the technical details of this bust.<p>Edit: It appears that some info can be found here <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.justice.gov&#x2F;opa&#x2F;press-release&#x2F;file&#x2F;982821&#x2F;download" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.justice.gov&#x2F;opa&#x2F;press-release&#x2F;file&#x2F;982821&#x2F;downlo...</a>. Look at the section &quot;Alexandre Cazes: Alphabay&#x27;s Founder and Operator&quot;<p>It looks like the founder was extremely careless. His personal hotmail email was included in the header of the welcome email and password reset emails to Alphabay users. He used the same username on Alphabay on at least one forum before creating Alphabay. This username was tied with his personal email and name.

This won&#x27;t stop people who want drugs from buying them. What it&#x27;ll do is prevent some people from buying them from reputable sellers with positive feedback. Now they might have to find some shady dealer who could be selling them rat poison.

Condolences to any users&#x2F;vendors who lost coin because of the takedown.<p>Anybody have info on how the admin was found? Was the method of DDoSing Tor nodes used to force traffic into honeypot&#x27;d Tor nodes?

They confiscated &quot;millions of dollars&quot; in cryptocurrencies. A similar darkweb site that just got taken down had 2 million euros in cryptocurrency confiscated.<p>The US federal (not state &amp; local) government will spend over 27 Billion dollars in 2018 on the war on drugs. This site was around 11,739 times smaller than that annual budget. The global drug market was estimated at over 350 Billion in 2009, making the site approximately 152,173 times smaller than the global market.

Don&#x27;t these people know that they will never kill this. Just like Napster&#x27;s death, and oink, and what, and so on. Every time they shut one of these down the next one will be harder to shut down.

Blockchain analysis investment perhaps delivering some ROI.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sandia.gov&#x2F;news&#x2F;publications&#x2F;labnews&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2016&#x2F;19-08&#x2F;bitcoin.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sandia.gov&#x2F;news&#x2F;publications&#x2F;labnews&#x2F;articles&#x2F;201...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;motherboard.vice.com&#x2F;en_us&#x2F;article&#x2F;7xz35e&#x2F;us-law-enforcement-have-spent-hundreds-of-thousands-on-bitcoin-tracking-tools" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;motherboard.vice.com&#x2F;en_us&#x2F;article&#x2F;7xz35e&#x2F;us-law-enf...</a>

Anyone else thing it&#x27;s dodgy as hell that he offed himself in custody? Surely with all the assets he had, he&#x27;d have a pretty comfy lifestyle behind bars.

Certainly a definitive source coming from the DoJ, but they were shut down several weeks ago, and the arrested founder apparently committed suicide 6 days ago.

You have to think eventually the criminals will evolve proper OPSEC - there is simply too much money to be made. Also, you really should be living in a place with no extradition - Thai police picking you up is a bad place to be. Vietnam is close by and has no extradition - a much better choice for aspiring criminals.

Any more info out there on the technical details of the bust?

Don&#x27;t laugh, but what and how much is sold on darknet(s) ? weed ? cocaine ? weapons ? people ?

::phew:: world is a safer place now<p>&#x2F;s

Or, you know, just don&#x27;t do illicit things.