DeSnake says that the new AlphaBay has been built to last, using secure and audited code, bulletproof servers, and safeguards against disruptions caused by hardware failure, police raids, or seizures. DeSnake aims to develop an autonomous and anonymous Decentralized Market Network where anyone can set up a marketplace. Some users claim that mr_white and his team from WHM are to blame for last week’s DDoS while others speculate that HugBunter himself could be mr_white. Interestingly, AlphaBay’s former moderator “Disc0” also chimed in, but using a lowercase “d” this time. The year of 2021 has seen the rise of alternative social media platforms. Discover the top illicit discussion topics we monitored on these sites.
- After almost two months of operation, the market has a handful of vendors, with only a couple of hundred listings across drugs and fraud goods.
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- Shadow online marketplace AlphaBay is shut down in a sting operation reminiscent of the Silk Road takedown in 2013.
- Two men were arrested in Germany in June and accused of operating Hansa Market.
- CoinDesk journalists are not allowed to purchase stock outright in DCG.
The decentralization plan, for instance, would require collective buy-in from a large number of developers and network operators for what would likely be seen as an essentially illegal project. Gray points out that DeSnake hasn’t published any code for either that system or AlphaGuard and questions why he would relaunch AlphaBay four years after its takedown without any real progress toward his decentralization dream. “He hasn’t really demonstrated anything besides launching a marketplace,” Gray says. “I’m distrustful of DeSnake, and I think across the communities there’s a general distrust.” A kind of practical paranoia permeated DeSnake’s messages to WIRED, both on a personal level and in his plans for AlphaBay’s revamped technical protections.
Accessing Dark Web
DeSnake announced on a dark web forum that the AlphaBay Market has been reopened and is ready for business. DeSnake claims the new market is extremely secure and has safeguards against disruptions caused by hardware failure, police raids, or seizures. The operation to seize AlphaBay coincided with efforts by Dutch law enforcement to shut down the Hansa Market, another prominent Darknet marketplace that was used to facilitate the sale of illegal drugs, malware, and other illegal services. After AlphaBay’s shutdown, criminal users and vendors flocked to Hansa Market, where they believed their identities would be masked. The new AlphaBay is claimed to be run by the other administrator, a threat actor operating under the alias DeSnake. On GhostBin, DeSnake claimed they are bringing back the forum because of the poor state of operating darknet marketplaces, and to honor the legacy of the previous moderator Alpha02 , who died by suicide in Thailand after his arrest following the seizure of the original forum.
The encrypted-email company, popular with security-conscious users, has a plan to go mainstream. DeSnake tells WIRED, however, that he’s developed a few forms of protection that give him confidence he’ll continue to stay a step ahead of the feds. Perhaps most importantly, he claims to be based in a former Soviet country that has no extradition treaty with the US. His choice for AlphaBay to use only Monero, rather than Bitcoin, may make the sort of blockchain analysis that contributed to the original site’s takedown far more difficult. And he claims to have built complex technical protections that include redundant infrastructure in multiple countries, along with a system called AlphaGuard that’s designed to automatically relaunch the site on new servers in the case of a bust.
Dark Web Com
The book truly takes off in Part 2 with a series of stories featuring law enforcement agents from California to Bangkok chasing dark web drug kingpins on the web, on the blockchain and in real life. Authorities said the law enforcement action was one of the largest ever taken against criminals on the dark web, part of the internet that is accessible only through certain software and typically used anonymously. While the infamous Silk Road made a lot more headlines, another dark web market place had many more members and a wider reach.
A week later, Cazes apparently took his own life while in custody in Thailand. “Suspected AlphaBay founder dies in Bangkok jail after shutdown of online black market”. This is the book’s first wow moment, and it comes at the end of Part 1, which is mostly spent setting the stage and explaining the technology behind Bitcoin and how it was used to facilitate online drug trafficking.
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Log in to your Bitdefender account and manage security for what matters. He said that European authorities took “covert control” of Hansa a month ago with permission of Dutch judicial authorities before AlphaBay was shut down. But Gray said that is all part of the growing pains of a new cybercriminal enterprise.
On August 6, 2021, former AlphaBay security administrator “DeSnake” announced that AlphaBay Market had relaunched. The original AlphaBay, founded by Alexandre Cazes (aka “Alpha02”) in September 2014, was taken down by law enforcement’s Operation Bayonet in July 2017. At the time, AlphaBay was considered to be one of the most popular and comprehensive darknet marketplaces, selling a wide array of illicit and illegal products and services. Drug sales are the main driver behind the plethora of darknet markets. Following Silk Road, most markets opened their policies to include many items, including guns and stolen data. Botnets, hacking services, and other cybersecurity-related goods also appeared on new markets, attracting impulse buyers who otherwise would have had no access.
The ethereum network’s transaction backlog has ensnared a number of cryptocurrency exchanges. With bitcoin bouncing off $10,500, Markets Daily is back with another time-saving crypto update. To request access this dataset you will need to login with an IMPACT account. Stay informed with cybersecurity news and analyst recommendations. From heightened risks to increased regulations, senior leaders at all levels are pressured to improve their organizations’ risk management capabilities.
The investigation into AlphaBay culminates when around 20 agents from the DEA, FBI, DOJ, IRS and DHS travel to Bangkok to arrest Cazes, who was the founder and administrator of the site. In a scene that would otherwise be hard to believe, some of the agents were hanging out in the lounge of a luxury five-star hotel, when Cazes himself parks his Porsche at the entrance and strolls right past them. The very first of these marketplaces to pair the darknet with Bitcoin was the Silk Road. Over the next two years, the Silk Road set the standard for darknet marketplaces. By the time it was shut down in October 2013 and Ross Ulbricht arrested, the site had traded an estimated $183 million worth of goods and services.
AlphaBay has been relaunched by DeSnake in August 2021 with a new design but with the same admin as before and is once again planning to become the biggest darknet market in history. “The usernames and passwords of thousands of buyers and sellers of illicit commodities have been identified and are subject to more follow-up investigation by Europol and our partner agencies,” he said. Cazes, 25, apparently took his life a week later while in Thai custody, the justice department said. He faced charges relating to narcotics distribution, identity theft, money laundering and related crimes.
