DEF CON 22 - Adrian Crenshaw- Dropping Docs on Darknets: How People Got Caught
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points to it to show that most Tor busts came from poor operational security by the user rather than a flaw in Tor itself.
What it is
Adrian Crenshaw's DEF CON 22 talk gives an overview of Tor and I2P, then goes through real cases where darknet users were caught. These include Silk Road and its operator.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2015 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec at-fates-hands · 2015-01 · on “Feds found Silk Road 2 servers after a six-month attack on Tor?”
Not sure why I can't edit my original comment, but whatever. Here is the presentation Adrian Crenshaw gave at DefCon 22 called "Dropping Docs on Darknets: How People Got Caught" Great presentation: [this video]
Recommends andai · 2017-07 · on “18yo arrested for reporting a bug in the new Budapest e-Ticket system”
In case anyone feels like doing something like that, this talk is worth a listen: [this video] A talk on how Tor users got caught. In a nutshell: it wasn't Tor's fault, but bad OPSEC on the part of the users.
Recommends friendlybus · 2020-01 · on “Who Deserves This? (2018)”
Most cases are closed on circumstantial evidence. Weird to see the same podcast that hosts freeross information as also hosting bitcoin podcasts. Adrian Crenshaw the security researcher has a good defcon talk on how ross went down for SR. Don't post your tech problems for an illegal service on stackoverflow! [this video]
Cites apecat · 2016-05 · on “Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people”
"VPNs opened" was poor wording. Clarifications provided by the guys below seem to match what I remember from listening to talks on Tor by the project's developers. Operational security and Tor is such an interesting and frankly, quite scary subject. I've mainly used and instructed people on Tor for read-only uses of the web. For my own needs, masking the origin of an actively participating persona is out of scope. I generally warn people about doing anything that requires sign-on/nicknames etc without very careful research. I recognize that my lack of a need for serious anonymity for basic political activism etc is a huge privilege. So I try to give back by running a bunch of Tor middle rela
Cites burningChrome · 2024-09 · on “Is Tor still safe to use?”
I remember Adrian Crenshaw doing a speech at Def Con 22 about how people got busted using Tor. Even then he point out in most of the cases, it was bad OpsSec by the person, and had nothing to do with Tor. How applicable do people think this information is now 9-10 years later? DEF CON 22 - Adrian Crenshaw- Dropping Docs on Darknets: How People Got Caught [this video]
Cites Vicinity9635 · 2024-09 · on “Is Tor still safe to use?”
Yup, that's how they got Ross Ulbricht. Idiot used "rossulbricht at gmail dot com" under the same username he advertised silk road. Timpestamp link about Ross: [this video]