p.114 ‘“Legal teen” content has always been . . .’ Ogas, O. and Gaddam, S., ‘A Billion Wicked Thoughts’, pp.21–8.
p.115 ‘According to the Internet Adult Films Database . . .’ http://gawker.com/5984986/what-we-can-learn-from-10000-porn-stars.
p.115 ‘The three most commonly requested . . .’ This does not mean necessarily that thirteen is the most popular age overall: people are more likely to specify a very exact age if they have an interest in illegal pornography. If your preference is for adult pornography, you probably are not interested in specific age categories.
p.116 ‘According to research conducted by the charity . . .’ http://www.lucyfaithfull.org.uk/files/internet_offending_research_briefing.pdf.
p.117 ‘Another academic study found . . .’ Paul, B. and Linz, D. (2008) ‘The Effects of Exposure to Virtual Child Pornography on Viewer Cognitions and Attitudes Toward Deviant Sexual Behavior’, Communication Research, vol.35, no.1, pp.3–38.
p.118 ‘The authors suggest that this is . . .’ Ogas, O. and Gaddam, S., ‘A Billion Wicked Thoughts’, pp.176–7.
p.118 ‘She explains to me that offenders . . .’ Martellozzo, E., ‘Understanding the Perpetrators’ Online Behaviour’, in Davidson, J. and Gottschalk, P., Internet Child Abuse: Current Research and Policy, p.116. Also see Martellozzo, E., Grooming, Policing and Child Protection in a Multi-Media World; Abel, G.G., Becker, J. et al., ‘Complications, Consent and Cognitions in Sex Between Adults and Children’, International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 7, pp.89–103; Hudson, S. M. and Ward, T. (1997) ‘Intimacy, Loneliness and Attachment Style in Sex Offenders’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence 12(3), pp.119–213; Martellozzo, E., pp.118–19.
p.119 ‘One important aspect of John Suler’s . . .’ Suler, J., ‘The Online Disinhibition Effect’, CyberPsychology and Behaviour.
p.119 ‘Users of these “legal only” forums . . .’ Martellozzo, E., ‘Children as Victims of the Internet: Exploring Online Child Sexual Exploitation’, forthcoming.
p.120 ‘Most remarkably NAMBLA considers . . .’ I tried to contact NAMBLA via email, but unsurprisingly they replied saying that they would not respond to my questions.
p.121 ‘Notwithstanding the gravity of possessing . . .’ Kirwan, G. and Power, A. The Psychology of Cyber Crime: Concepts and Principles, p.123.
p.121 ‘Many internet sex offenders . . .’ Sheldon and Howitt, p.232.
p.121 ‘In the US, data aggregated . . .’ Finkelhor, D. and Jones, L., ‘Has Sexual Abuse and Physical Abuse Declined Since the 1990s?’ http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/CV267_Have%20SA%20%20PA%20Decline_FACT%20SHEET_11-7-12.pdf; http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/research/findings/howsafe/how-safe-2013-report_wdf95435.pdf. However, it is notoriously difficult to draw hard and fast conclusions from data sets like this. Tink Palmer suggested that changes in the way that child exploitation is recorded may account for the data; https://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/research/statistics/comparing-stats_wda89403.html.
p.121 ‘Despite fears about online predators . . .’ boyd, d., It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, http://www.safekidsbc.ca/statistics.htm; http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/resourcesforprofessionals/sexualabuse/statistics_wda87833.html.
p.122 ‘According to Peter Davies . . .’ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/10380631/Facebook-is-a-major-location-for-online-child-sexual-grooming-head-of-child-protection-agency-says.html; http://ceop.police.uk/Documents/strategic_overview_2008-09.pdf.
p.122 ‘A CEOP and University of Birmingham study . . .’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21314585.
p.122 ‘Eighty of them became virtual friends . . .’ Martellozzo, E., ‘Under-standing the Perpetrators’ Online Behaviour’, pp.109–12.
p.123 ‘They would slowly try to build . . .’ Martellozzo, E., ‘Children as Victims of the Internet’.
p.123 ‘“They spend hours monitoring their” . . .’ Malesky, L. A., ‘Predatory Online Behaviour: Modus Operandi of Convicted Sex Offenders in Identifying Potential Victims and Contacting Minors Over the Internet’, Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 16, pp.23–32; Wolak, J., Mitchell, K. and Finkelhor, D., ‘Online Victimization of Youth: Five Years Later’, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Bulletin, http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/CV138.pdf.
p.123 ‘Many online groomers are extremely cautious . . .’ (Incidentally, as young people share an increasing amount about themselves online, creating a believable and authentic fake profile for police sting operations becomes more complicated. Your fake person now needs a fake network too, full of friends, interests and history.)
p.124 ‘One had even posted naked photos . . .’ Martellozzo, E., ‘Understanding the Perpetrators’ Online Behaviour’, p.107.
p.126 ‘In 2006, the IWF registered . . . The 2006 report is available online at the following address: http://www.enough.org/objects/20070412_iwf_annual_report_2006_web.pdf.
p.126 ‘In 2013 this was down to . . .’ https://www.iwf.org.uk/resources/trends.
p.126 ‘Today an image could be created . . .’ Quoted in Wortley and Smallbone, Internet Child Pornography.
p.127 ‘The overwhelming majority of the material . . .’ This is partly a result of how the IWF works. Obviously accidental finds are more likely on the surface web. The 600,000 people looking for child pornography in the deep web are unlikely to phone up the IWF.
p.128 ‘After Freedom Hosting was taken . . .’ http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-fbi-says-it-busted-the-biggest-child-porn-ring-on-the-deep-web-1.
p.129 ‘In 1999, the FBI seized . . .’A married couple, Thomas and Janice Reedy, were convicted of trafficking child pornography via Landslide in 2001. http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/74690/operation-ore-exposed.
p.131 ‘Pornography of all types is now . . .’ https://shareweb.kent.gov.uk/Documents/health-and-wellbeing/teenpregnancy/Sexualisation_young_people.pdf; p.45. http://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/content/publications/content_667.
p.131 ‘Although data is highly variable . . .’ Ringrose, J., Gill, R., Livingstone, S. and Harvey, L., ‘A Qualitative Study of Children, Young People and Sexting’, NSPCC: http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/resourcesfor professionals/sexualabuse/sexting-research-report_wdf89269.pdf.
p.132 ‘According to the IWF . . .’ ‘Threat Assessment of Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse’ (PDF): CEOP. Other statistics put it slightly lower, but still at around 20 per cent; http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Teens-Social-Media-And-Privacy.aspx.
Chapter 5
On the Road
p.133 ‘Approximately 50 per cent of all global . . .’ Nielsen Global Digital Shopping Report, August 2012; http://fi.nielsen.com/site/documents/NielsenGlobalDigitalShoppingReportAugust2012.pdf (accessed 19 April).
p.134 ‘Using the Arpanet account . . .’ Markoff, J. What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry, p.75.
p.134 ‘According to an FBI indictment . . .’ http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2012/04/WILLEMSIndictment-FILED.045.pdf; Powers, M. Drugs 2.0, chapter 9, ‘Your Crack’s in the Post’.
p.134 ‘With a sophisticated traffic encryption system . . .’ In fact, Silk Road was only one site among many. In June 2011, Black Market Reloaded was founded. While Silk Road had a few restrictions on sale, Black Market Reloaded would sell anything. Others followed: the Russian Anonymous Market Place (2012), Sheep Market (February 2013), Atlantis Online (March 2013 – again announced on bitcointalk). Academics from the University of Luxembourg have recently conducted a clever analysis of Tor Hidden Services. They located around 40,000 sites, the majority of them in English. Adult content – and a proportion of that will be child pornography – accounts for 17 per cent of the sites; drugs 15 per cent; counterfeit goods 8 per cent; and hacking information 3 per cent. However, 9 per cent of all sites they found are about politics, 7 per cent cover hardware-/software-related subjects, and 2 per cent are about art. There are also sites for games, science and sports. Given the nature of Tor H
idden Services, it’s highly unlikely that the researchers were able to capture all of them. While they found that Tor Hidden Services were in fact quite varied in terms of content, the most popular sites in terms of visits were command and control centres for botnets and resources serving adult content. Biryukov, A., Pustogarov, I. and Weimann, R., Content and Popularity Analysis of Tor Hidden Services.
p.135 ‘By May 2011, there were . . .’ http://gawker.com/the-underground-website-where-you-can-buy-any-drug-imag-30818160; http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/09/silk-road-guide.
p.135 ‘As altoid suggested, the site . . .’ Vendors were allowed to sell anything they wanted, with a few exceptions. Child pornography, guns and information about other people were banned.
p.135 ‘The site was accessible only . . .’ http://antilop.cc/sr/files/DPR_Silk_Road_Maryland_indictment.pdf (First indictment).
p.136 ‘In October 2011, altoid returned . . .’ http://www.thedigitalhq.com/2013/10/03/silk-road-shut-drugs-hitmen-blunders/: ‘Who is Silk Road? Some call me SR, SR admin or just Silk Road. But isn’t that confusing? I am Silk Road, the market, the person, the enterprise, everything. But Silk Road has matured and I need an identity separate from the site and the enterprise of which I am now only a part. I need a name.’
p.136 ‘At that point, a team of between . . .’ The site charged a commission of 10 per cent of all sales under $25, which tapers down to 4 per cent for anything above $2,500.
p.136 ‘These administrators submitted a “weekly report” . . .’ www.scribd.com/doc/172768269/Ulbricht-Criminal-Complaint.
p.136 ‘Almost 4,000 anonymous vendors had . . .’ http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/25/majority-of-silk-roads-bitcoins-may-remain-unseized; http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/14/4836994/dont-host-your-virtual-illegal-drug-bazaar-in-iceland-silk-road; http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2013/silk-road/index.html.
p.137 ‘“We are NOT beasts of burden” . . .’ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/29/collected-quotations-of-the-dread-pirate-roberts-founder-of-the-drug-site-silk-road-and-radical-libertarian/6/; http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/meet-the-dread-pirate-roberts-the-man-behind-booming-black-market-drug-website-silk-road/.
p.137 ‘Across Tor Hidden Services forums . . .’ One user echoed the experience of many, posting the following in the Silk Road forum: ‘Like many others here, I discovered and first began using Silk Road because it was a place to get substances I would otherwise not have access to. For a long time that is all it was for me, until I discovered the forums. I truly feel and believe that if communities like this continue to thrive that we will someday change the opinions of those around us the same way my opinion has been altered. Perhaps someday even the “war on drugs” will end because the masses will understand us instead of fearing us. To sum up the entirety of this post and to answer your question, the Silk Road, to me, means hope.’
p.138 ‘On 1 October 2013 . . .’ http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/04/world/americas/silk-road-ross-ulbricht/, see also http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/silk-road-mastermind-unmasked-by-rookie-goofs-complaint-alleges/ and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24371894.
p.138 ‘He had told his housemates . . .’ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/10/ulbricht-delay/. The FBI’s investigation was led by Christopher Tarbell, the agent responsible for the 2011 New York sting that caught LulzSec hacker Hector Monsegur (aka Sabu). See the following sources: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-21/silk-road-online-drug-market-suspect-ulbricht-denied-bail-1-; http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/11/26/ross_william_ulbricht_red andwhite_did_the_alleged_silk_road_kingpin_lose.html?wpisrc=burger_bar; http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/03/five-stupid-things-dread-pirate-roberts-did-to-get-arrested.
p.138 ‘There swiftly followed the arrest . . .’ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10361974/First-British-Silk-Road-suspects-arrested-by-new-National-Crime-Agency.html; http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/08/silk-road-illegal-drugs-arrested-britain; https://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/10/feds-arrest-alleged-top-silk-road-drug-seller/; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2456758/Two-Dutch-Silk-Road-vendors-alias-XTC-Express-caught-red-handed-layer-MDMA-hair.html?ito=feeds-newsxml.
p.139 ‘Libertas and other site administrators . . .’ They offered all former Silk Road vendors accounts on the marketplace (vendors have to pay a small bond to be allowed to sell). ‘We will need to verify that you really were a vendor on S[ilk] R[oad],’ wrote Libertas. ‘To do this, we ask you PM me with a signed message with your old PGP, linking me to your PGP key on the old forums.’
p.139 ‘Inigo, one of Libertas’s fellow administrators . . .’ Not everyone was happy that Ulbricht had been arrested. ‘One day you will be out of jail and I will track you down and demand the $250,000.’ Many were frustrated that he had seemingly been so lax: ‘It’s almost like he did it for the fame, he wanted to get caught!’; ‘Running SR and living in the USA?? What the Fuck??’
p.140 ‘“Silk Road has risen” . . .’ https://twitter.com/DreadPirateSR/status/398117916802961409.
p.140 ‘Buyers and vendors who’d become . . .’ The following is a short timeline of Dark Market drug website activity in the aftermath of the original Silk Road being shut down by the authorities:
2 October 2013: Silk Road taken down.
9 October: Libertas announces Silk Road 2.0.
October–November: Silk Road’s two main rival sites, Black Market Reloaded and the Sheep Market, experience a surge in activity and vendors and buyers shift over.
October: Backopy, the admin of the Black Market Reloaded site, says the site will close after an admin leaked some webpage source code, but subsequently changes his mind when it becomes clear that the source code did not betray any vulnerabilities.
6 November: Silk Road 2.0 goes online. There are new security features, including double validation PGP encryption. It tries to make up for lost ground by validating old vendors automatically.
30 November: Sheep Market shuts down after $5.3 million in Bitcoin is stolen from the site. The site administrators claim that a vendor called EBOOK101 found a bug in the system and stole all of the marketplace’s money. Others allege that the administrators absconded with it.
December: The Black Market Reloaded, by now the largest online drugs market, closes. Backopy says they cannot handle the influx of new customers and sellers. Backopy hints at a 2014 relaunch.
December: The administrator of a new site, Project Black Flag, panics and runs off with users’ Bitcoins.
December: DarkList, the online drug dealer directory, is launched as a way of keeping track of all the disparate online drugs marketplaces. It closes again in late December.
December: Virginia resident Andrew Michael Jones, Gary Davis from Wicklow, Ireland, and Australian Peter Philip Nash are arrested. The FBI alleges they are the admins of Silk Road 2.0 (Indigo, Libertas and SameSameButDifferent). There is some speculation about FBI infiltration of the site.
December: Agora Market is founded.
19 January 2014: Drugslist Marketplace starts to offer a new type of security feature called ‘Multisig escrow’.
22 January: DarkList relaunches.
Late January: Cantina Marketplace launches. It is challenged by sceptical Reddit users for security specifics.
Late January (possibly 27 January): A group of hackers expose multiple security problems on Drugslist Marketplace. One hacker posts all the site’s internal information and user information.
2 February: CannabisRoad is hacked.
3 February: Black Goblin Market launches, and a day later is taken down due to amateurish security.
First week of February: Utopia marketplace is launched. It has a strong connection to Black Market Reloaded.
Early February: The White Rabbit marketplace is set up. It accepts Bitcoins and Litecoins, and runs on I2P, not Tor.
12 February: Dutch police seize Utopia, forcing it offline. They decline to discuss th
e details.
Early February: Silk Road 2.0 is hacked, $2.7 million in Bitcoins lost.
16 February: Agora Market becomes the most popular marketplace on the deep web.
Late February/early March: Agora is closed down, reopened and closed numerous times as a result of intensive distributed denial of service attacks.
Early March: Hansamarket, a new online drugs market, is opened; it is almost immediately exposed as insecure.
19 March: Pandora Marketplace hacked, $250,000 in Bitcoins are lost. The market stays up.
22 March: EXXTACY Market launched.
23 March: Reddit user ‘the_avid’ exposes EXXTACY as having poor security. The_avid also steals and publishes Red Sun Market server information.
24 March: Serious security issues exposed on White Rabbit Market.
p.141 ‘The Sydney Morning Herald warned . . .’ http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/riding-the-silk-road-the-flourishing-online-drug-market-authorities-are-powerless-to-stop-20110830-1jj4d.html, 30 August 2011.
The Dark Net Page 24