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How did the FBI locate the Silk Road?

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 07 Sep 2014 2:19 User comments (3)

How did the FBI locate the Silk Road? Alleged Silk Road creator and operator Ross Ulbricht is still facing trial for running the dark web site, and the FBI may have just rebuffed his biggest argument.
Ulbricht had been claiming that the FBI was able to find the Silk Road's location through illegal means, therefore making all the agency's evidence illegal to use in the case. The FBI says that is simply not true.

In their court filing, the FBI says the IP address of the server was "'leaking' from the site due to an apparent misconfiguration of the user login interface by the site administrator." The agency then exploited this bug to obtain the server's location.

The FBI found a way to use that login page to produce an IP address that was not hidden by TOR standards, and then used that IP on a regular browser. That IP then produced some code from the login page, confirming that it was in fact the true location of the Silk Road.

If the court agrees with the FBI's claim, the alleged Silk Road operator may have a tougher time defending his case.



Silk Road Prosecution 4th Amendment Rebuttall by Andy Greenberg

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3 user comments

18.9.2014 11:28

"the FBI says the IP address of the server was "'leaking' from the site due to an apparent misconfiguration of the user login interface by the site administrator."

I'm a network engineer and I've never heard of an IP address "leaking" as a result of misconfiguring the 'user login interface'.

User logins are created via AD and password protected.......There's NOTHING to leak from this.

This was an apparent hacking and the FBI is likely gonna lose this one as Ulbricht is a smart cookie that can certainly prove this an illegal hacking.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 08 Sep 2014 @ 11:31

28.9.2014 22:05

The FBI "evidence" is bullpuckey, simply because they already admitted they used a flaw in the then-extant Tor browser, not the flimflam they're trying to pull out of their collective tukhus. If they hadn't been so ready to gloat over it, maybe they'd have a leg to stand on.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 18 Sep 2014 @ 10:52

318.9.2014 07:01

Both of you are right on and of course the FBI is doing what they do best, lying!

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