Summary: Criminals who surfed through the "darknets" of the internet, the black market of the internet, thought they were untraceable in their trade of illegal drugs, guns and porn. But they were mistaken. A series of arrests this month has led to the exposure of one of the biggest cyber back alley websites. The Silk Road, the name of the website, has a costumer friendly layout similar to amazon but replace books with cocaine and old nick nacks with fake passports, fake ID's, and fake drivers license. Hit men, forgers, and computer hackers can also be found on the website. The Silk Road stayed under the radar for so long and so well by using an underground computer network called the "Onion Router."It sent computer messages through three separate computer servers to disguise itself. The FBI simply had to beat the criminals at their own game, hacking.
Analysis: I find it really strange that such a large organization could be hidden to so many people. It mentioned in the article that this website alone made about 1 to 2 billion dollars a year. Thats more than most companies today but they managed to stay unknown for at least a few decades. But since it is such a huge discovery, it of course caused ripples in the illegal industry. Busting a website that deals out drugs and guns can lead to drug dealers and gangs being arrested as well. Sources that start from the website can branch out very far and cause major changes in the illegal business industry.
Link:
w.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/21/fbi-cracks-silk-road/2984921/
I think it's great that the FBI busted these people. It was really inevitable that a sight like this existed, and there are probably dozens of others like it out there. I honestly like the fact that it's called the 'Silk Road'.
ReplyDeleteWow! It's terrible that this went on undetected for so long and that they made such huge profits from it. I hope they're successful at catching more criminals as a result of this and it will turn out to be a good thing, since other criminals might be discouraged from using the internet as a means of carrying out underhanded practices for fear of getting exposed like this.
ReplyDelete-Hannah Selby 4th Period
I agree, that it's very interesting that the website was able to continue so long without getting caught. Even the criminals that don't get caught in the end will suffer from the loss of this website, as it was probably a substantial amount of income for those individuals.
ReplyDeleteAshley Barnes 2nd