Recent News: Lavabit, Silk Road, and Calif. revenge porn bill

Lavabit used 4-point type in attempt to prolong Snowden SSL key release
Edward Snowden's e-mail provider, now-defunct Lavabit, attempted to defy the government's request for Snowden's SSL keys by printing the 2,560 characters in 11 pages of 4-point type. That way, the FBI would have to retype the key manually. Read more from Wired.

Silk Road closed by FBI, others promptly take its place
The FBI shut down Silk Road earlier this week, but the Huffington Post reports that many alternatives exist, and black market vendors have already made the move.

“I am now offering all of my inventory at a discounted rate due to the fall of SR!” wrote [a] vendor at Black Market Reloaded.

Read past Cybercrime Review posts about Silk Road here.

California bans revenge porn
California governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law a bill that could punish violators with up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for posting revenge porn. Revenge porn is when a person posts sexual photos of an ex on the Internet in an act of revenge.

Read more about the law from CNN, and more about revenge porn in an earlier Cybercrime Review post.

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Around the Net: Deleting your Internet presence, More on Silk Road, Credit ratings based on Facebook friends, and more

Here are a few links to some good articles from around the Internet:

• Find out how to delete all of your data on social networking sites in a one-stop website with this article on Wired.
• The Economist discusses Silk Road which "allows dealers in drugs and other illegal products to meet online without leaving any trace of their identity." (Read more from Cybercrime Review on Silk Road here.)
• New companies evaluate credit worthiness based on your Facebook friends. Find out more from CNN Money.
• Miss Teen USA uses position and personal experiences to help fight cybercrime as a reported by the Today Show.

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"The age of narcotics e-commerce has arrived" says Andy Greenberg, demonstrates Silk Road online drug purchase in Forbes article

Andy Greenberg, a Forbes journalist focusing on technology, privacy, and information security topics, authored two startling articles about the online drug market. Both Justin and Jeffery have touched on the increased attention that online drug markets (like Silk Road, the focus of Greenberg's articles) have received over the past year. Greenberg's recent reports, however, provide a new look into the illicit trade, and both articles are a must read.

Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, The Man Behind Booming Black Market Drug Website Silk Road, Forbes, August 14, 2012
Greenberg's first article provides a rare interview with the self-proclaimed "center of trust" for one of the web's most notorious online drug exchanges, Silk Road. Greenberg's interview with "Dread Pirate Roberts," the site's operator, details how Silk Road has amassed, according to Forbes' estimates, an "annual run-rate of $30 million to $45 million." The interview with Dread Pirate Roberts details how Silk Road uses anonymity software (such as Tor) and open-source cryptocurrency (such as BitCoin) to facilitate the purchases on the site. Even more interesting is Greenberg's take on how, "[a]s with physical drug dealing, a turf war has emerged" in the online drug trade. This article is also set to appear in the September 2, 2013 issue of Forbes.    

Here's What It's Like To Buy Drugs On Three Anonymous Online Black Markets,  Forbes, August 14, 2012
Taking his investigative report on the online drug trade a step further, Greenberg and the team at Forbes actually tested the drug-buying process. Using "the three most well-known online anonymous black markets: The Silk Road, Atlantis and Black Market Reloaded," Greenberg's article describes how he and his team "purchased  . . . small amounts of marijuana." Don't worry, as Greenberg's article explains, the team's lawyer insisted he destroy the "product." This video, released by Forbes, accompanied Greenberg's articles (and documents the "product's'" distruction)

These recent articles by Andy Greenberg and the Forbes team are quite compelling and demonstrate how the drug trade, unfortunately, has started to transform and grow in a digital age.

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Australian man to be sentenced for drug activities on Silk Road

According to Australian newspaper The Age, an Melbourne man has pleaded guilty to drug crimes after being caught purchasing and selling drugs including cocaine, LSD, and methamphetamine on the black market website Silk Road.

The website is hidden behind the Tor network and is a marketplace for nearly all types of contraband. According to Wikipedia, the site's monthly sales are estimated at about $1.2 million. Sales are conducted using Bitcoin, an online currency providing anonymity to transactions.

The defendant began using the site due to financial pressure from having to close another business. He claims to have learned of Silk Road from an article published in a newspaper (which leads me to wonder if us continuing to write about Silk Road is just going to convince you to become account holders). The defendant faces up to 25 years in prison.

Silk Road has been a tough one to crack for governments around the world. Read more about what little is known of the U.S. government's response here.

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Carnegie Mellon study on Silk Road

You may recall that in May I wrote a post about what Bitcoins could buy you in the criminal underground, appropriately titled "What Bitcoins can buy you in the criminal underground."

In that post I mention Silk Road - a site that is pretty much an illicit drug bazaar. To follow up on that, I'd like to draw attention to a new study that has come out, authored by Nicolas Christin, which details the revenue made by the site, and other usage statistics - including a very high satisfaction rate with the transactions.

The study can be found here:

Traveling the Silk Road: A measurement analysis of a large anonymous online marketplace

H/T to Forbes: Black Market Drug Site 'Silk Road' Booming: $22 Million In Annual Sales

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