The controversial Silk Road website has been shut down by the FBI. Silk Road was a black market site where users could buy and sell often illegal goods and services, and it could only be accessed through the Tor anonymous browsing network.
Launched in February 2011, the site quickly became well known. Being only accessible through Tor and using BitCoin for transactions gave it an air of anonymity and secrecy that appeared to put it beyond the reach of the law. However, the FBI unsurprisingly took an interest in this activity, and after months of investigation have arrested Ross William Ulbricht, allegedly the face behind Silk Road.
The site administrator goes by the name Dread Pirate Roberts, who the FBI believe to be Ulbricht, and have siezed and closed Silk Road. According to Wikipedia, in March of this year Silk Road had 10,000 products on sale, of which 70% were drugs that are illegal in most places. The seizure of the site by the FBI could mean contact details of registered users are now in the hands of law enforcement agencies.
This case highlights how so called anonymous internet services like Tor and Bitcoin are not out of the reach of law enforcement agencies. The Deep Web’s current lawlessness is reminiscent of when Napster appeared in 1999, causing chaos for the music industry. Eventually the law began to catch up with the disruption caused by file sharing, and the same will no doubt happen to services evading the law, hidden on the Deep Web.
