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So, you want to be a darknet drug lord...
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So, you want to be a darknet drug lord... | |
by nachash | |
nachash@observers.net | |
[The advice in this article can be adapted to suit the needs of other | |
hidden services, including ones which are legal in your jurisdiction. | |
The threat model in mind is that of a drug market. The tone is that of a | |
grandfather who is always annoyingly right, who can't help but give a | |
stream-of-consciousness schooling to some whippersnapper about the way | |
the world works. If this article inspires you to go on a crime spree and | |
you get caught, don't come crying to me about it.] | |
You've decided that you're bored with your cookie-cutter life of working | |
at a no-name startup, getting paid in stock options and empty promises. | |
You want a taste of the good life. Good for you, kid. I used to run a | |
fairly popular hidden service (DOXBIN) that was seized by the FBI after | |
3 1/2 years of spreading continuous butthurt, then subsequently | |
repossessed from the feds. Because I managed to not get raided, I'm one | |
of the few qualified to instruct others on hidden services and security, | |
simply because I have more real-world experience operating hidden | |
services than the average tor user. In other words, very little of this | |
advice is of the armchair variety, as you'll often find in abundance the | |
Internet. But enough about me. Let's talk about your future as an | |
internet drug lord. | |
1. Legal/Political | |
First things first, you need to cover the legal, historical and | |
political angles. Read up on various drug kingpins and cartels from the | |
20th century. Learn everything you can about how they rose and fell ( | |
you can safety ignore all the parts about intelligence agencies backing | |
one drug cartel over another, because that's not going to happen to | |
you). Once you've got a good command of that, read everything you can | |
about busted drug market operators and branch out into cybercrime | |
investigations as well. It wouldn't hurt to make yourself familiar with | |
law enforcement and intelligence agency tactics either. You'll find that | |
virtually all drug kingpins either get murdered or go to prison. Let | |
those lessons sink in, then find a good drug lawyer and make plans for | |
being able to pay them when The Man seizes everything you own. While | |
you're dreaming big about making fat stacks of fake internet money, do | |
some research on Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties and extradition treaties. | |
Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs) are self-explanatory. Country A | |
will help Country B do whatever it takes to aid a cybercrime | |
investigation should some aspect of the crime bleed over into Country A. | |
Figure out which countries don't provide legal assistance to your | |
country in these cases, then find hosting services that are based there. | |
You'll shorten this list by determining which hosts allow tor, or at | |
least don't explicitly forbid it in their Terms of Service (you don't | |
care about exit bandwidth. You just want relays. Remember this for later | |
in the article). Last but not least, sort out which hosts accept payment | |
options that don't make you sweat bullets over the fact that the NSA has | |
been monitoring global financial transactions since at least the 1970s. | |
You will want to avoid any host that advertises itself as bulletproof -- | |
they'll probably kit your box and siphon everything of value, in | |
addition to overcharging you for the privilege of running on older | |
hardware -- and any host which sells a cheap VPS and promises to | |
guarantee your privacy. | |
Extradition treaties mean that if you're in Country A and do something | |
that makes Country B want to prosecute you, Country A is most likely | |
going to give you a one way ticket to Country B. If or when your box | |
gets seized and you know the heat is on, you're going to want to beat it | |
to a place that won't send you back, where you will presumably live out | |
the rest of your days. Just make sure you've made enough money to grease | |
all the right palms in your new life, or the road ahead may be extremely | |
bumpy. If you're smart, you'll permanently move to this country well | |
before you have any trouble with law enforcement. | |
One last thing before moving on: Don't be so stupid as to attempt to | |
hire a hitman to kill anyone. Murder-related charges have no statute of | |
limitations, which means you won't get to write a tell-all book about | |
what a sly bastard you are when this wild ride is a distant memory. If | |
you've reached a point in your new career where murdering people makes | |
sense, it's time to walk away. Don't get corrupted like Dread Pirate | |
Roberts. | |
2. Technical | |
This section tries to be as operating system independent as possible. | |
You'll want to consult the documentation of your OS for specifics. The | |
technical side of running a hidden service and not getting owned by cops | |
is a lot harder than just installing stuff and crossing your fingers. | |
The recommendations in this section WILL NOT protect you from 0days in | |
the wild, but should help somewhat with damage control. Remember, if | |
they want to own your hidden service, it will probably happen eventually. | |
Before you even think about installing bitwasp and tor, you need to | |
really understand how tor works. Go to freehaven.net and read the white | |
papers until your eyes glaze over, then continue reading until you're | |
out of papers to read. Pay particular attention to the hidden service | |
papers. If you feel like you didn't understand something, come back to | |
that paper again when you have more knowledge. A lot of the papers | |
explain some of the same concepts with slight differences in the intros. | |
Don't skim over them, because you might read someone's rewording that | |
will clarify an idea for you. Check back with freehaven regularly. Once | |
you're up to speed, a good next step is to keep up with the tor | |
project's mailing lists. [1] | |
While you're doing all of this reading, it's (mostly) safe to go ahead | |
and install tor on a box on your local network, purely for | |
experimentation. Keep in mind that the NSA will start scooping up all of | |
your packets simply because you visited torproject.org. That means don't | |
post code questions related your drug market on Stack Exchange, if you | |
want to avoid giving The Man morsels he can use for parallel | |
construction. Once you've gotten hidden services working for http and | |
ssh, you're going to take the first baby step towards evading casual | |
discovery: Bind your hidden services to localhost and restart them. | |
The next step in your journey towards changing the drug business forever | |
is to grab the transparent proxying firewall rules for your operating | |
system to make sure they work. [2] They will guard against attacks that | |
cause your box to send packets to a box the attacker controls, which is | |
useful in thwarting attempts to get the box IP. You may wish to have a | |
setup similar to an anonymous middle box, preferably without public IPs | |
where possible, so if your application gets rooted tor isn't affected. | |
Speaking of applications, do everything you can to ensure that the | |
application code you use to power your hidden service isn't made of | |
Swiss cheese and used bandaids. To protect against other types of | |
attacks, you will want to identify any pre-compiled software that your | |
users will touch and compile it yourself with hardening-wrapper or it's | |
equivalent, plus any custom flags you want to use. If you keep | |
vulnerabilities from the application and server to a minimum, your | |
biggest worries will be tor-related. | |
You will only connect to your production box via a hidden service. It's | |
a good idea to get into that habit early. The only time deviating from | |
this pattern is acceptable is when you have to upgrade tor, at which | |
time you'll want to have a script ready that drops your firewall rules | |
and unbinds ssh from localhost just long enough for you to login, do the | |
upgrade, re-apply the firewall rules and bind ssh to localhost again. If | |
you're not ready to deal with the latency, you're not ready to do any of | |
this. Don't forget to transparently proxy the machine you use too, so | |
you don't slip up by mistake. | |
On the subject of the machine, you need to automate the process of both | |
setting up your hidden service and of destroying it. Proactively change | |
servers every few months, in order to frustrate law enforcement attempts | |
to locate and seize your site. Your creation script should install | |
everything your site needs as well as all configuration files. Your | |
clean-up script needs to destroy all evidence, preferably with a tool | |
like srm. | |
Regarding time-related issues: Always select either UTC or a time zone | |
that doesn't match the box's location. You will also do this to the box | |
you use to interact with your hidden service every day. If you read the | |
whitepapers, you will probably note a recurring theme of clock | |
skew-related attacks, mostly directed at clients, in some of the older | |
papers. Tor won't even start if the clock skew is off by too much. | |
If you want to have some fun at the expense of business in the short | |
term, intentionally take your service offline periodically in order to | |
mess up attempts to match your downtime with public information. If | |
you're the kind of person with access to botnets, you could DDoS | |
(Distributed Denial of Service) some provider at the same time on the | |
off chance that someone might connect the dots. This counter-measure | |
will only work on researchers looking at public info, not nation state | |
actors with an ax to grind. | |
I've saved some of the hardest stuff for the last part of this section. | |
It's hard because you have to make choices and it's unclear which of | |
those choices are the best. It's a bit like a Choose Your Own Adventure | |
book. In that spirit, all I can do is lay out the possibilities in as | |
much of a Herodotus-like way as possible. | |
One thing you have to consider is whether you want to run your hidden | |
service as a relay or not. If it's a relay, you'll have extra cover | |
traffic from other innocent tor users. But if your relay goes down at | |
the same time as your hidden service, it will be far more likely to be | |
noticed. Federal criminal complaints make a big deal of seized hidden | |
services not being relays, but three relays were taken down at around | |
the same time as Operation Onymous, so that's not a guaranteed defense. | |
The choice is yours. | |
Remember when I said to take note of hosts that don't ban tor outright? | |
This is the part where you give back to the community in the form of tor | |
relays or bridges. [3] The feel-good aspects of this move are along the | |
same lines as drug barons who build schools and hospitals, but this is | |
more immediately self-serving. You're going buy several servers to set | |
up strictly as relays or bridges, then configure your hidden service box | |
to use only those relays or bridges to enter the tor network. Here's | |
where things start to get theoretical. | |
If an adversary is running a guard node discovery attack -- in which an | |
attacker is able to determine the node you're using to enter the tor | |
network -- against your service and you're using your own relays as | |
entry nodes, the damage they can do will be limited to DoS (Denial of | |
Service) if your relays are not linkable to your identity. However, if | |
you're entering the tor network with bridge nodes, an attacker will | |
probably say "WTF?" at first unless they determine they've found a | |
bridge node. Bridge nodes don't use nearly as much bandwidth as relays | |
because there is not a public list of them, so an intelligence agency | |
would have less traffic to sift through, which makes correlation easier. | |
On the other hand, using bridge nodes also allows you to run obfsproxy | |
[4] on both the bridges and your hidden service. obfsproxy allows you to | |
make tor traffic appear to be another type of traffic, which is a good | |
defense against non-Five Eyes entities. For example, your hosting | |
provider may decide to monitor for tor traffic for their own reasons. | |
Just make sure your relays/bridges aren't linkable to you or to each other. | |
One last thing about guard node discovery attacks: The Naval Research | |
Lab published a paper in July 2014 about the "Sniper Attack," [5] which | |
in short works like this: The attacker discovers your guard nodes, then | |
uses an amplified DoS trick to exhaust the memory on all of your nodes. | |
The attacker keeps doing this until your hidden service uses guard nodes | |
that they control. Then it's game over. If your hidden service's entry | |
nodes are all specified in your torrc file and they get DoSed, your | |
service will go offline. In this situation, if all of your relays are | |
down, you essentially have an early warning canary that you're being | |
targeted. In other words: This is the best possible time to book your | |
one-way ticket to your chosen non-extradition country. For those of you | |
with a background in writing exploits, this is similar in principle to | |
how stack smashing protection will render some exploits either unable to | |
function or will turn them into a DoS. Personally, I recommend an | |
ever-changing list of relays or bridges. Add a few new ones at a | |
pre-determined interval, and gradually let old ones go unpaid. | |
3. Operational Security | |
This section is critical, especially when things start to break down. If | |
everything else goes bad, following this section closely or not could be | |
the difference between freedom and imprisonment. | |
This is important enough to re-state: Transparently proxy your tor | |
computer. This is a good first line of defense, but it is far from the | |
only way to protect yourself. | |
Do not contaminate your regular identity with your Onion Land identity. | |
You're an aspiring drug kingpin. Go out and pay cash for another | |
computer. It doesn't have to be the best or most expensive, but it needs | |
to be able to run Linux. For additional safety, don't lord over your new | |
onion empire from your mother's basement, or any location normally | |
associated with you. Leave your phone behind when you head out to manage | |
your enterprise so you aren't tracked by cell towers. Last but not least | |
for this paragraph, don't talk about the same subjects across identities | |
and take counter-measures to alter your writing style. | |
Don't log any communications, ever. If you get busted and have logs of | |
conversations, the feds will use them to bust other people. Logs are for | |
undercover cops and informants, and have no legitimate use for someone | |
in your position. Keep it in your head or don't keep it at all. | |
At some point, your enterprise is going to have to take on employees. | |
Pulling a DPR move and demanding to see ID from high-volume sellers and | |
employees will just make most people think you're a fed, which will | |
leave your potential hiring pool full of dumbasses who haven't even | |
tried to think any of this out. It will also make it easier for the feds | |
to arrest your employees after they get done arresting you. If your | |
enterprise is criminal in nature -- whether you're selling illegal goods | |
and services or you're in a repressive country that likes to re-educate | |
and/or kill dissidents -- an excellent way of flushing out cops is to | |
force them to get their hands not just dirty, but filthy, as quickly as | |
possible. Don't give them time to get authorization to commit a crime | |
spree. If there's a significant amount of time between when they're | |
given crimes to commit and the commission of those crimes, you need to | |
assume you've got an undercover cop on your hands and disengage. If they | |
commit the crime(s) more or less instantly, you should be fine unless | |
you've got the next Master Splynter on your trail. [6] | |
Disinformation is critical to your continued freedom. Give barium meat | |
tests to your contacts liberally. [7] It doesn't matter if they realize | |
they're being tested. Make sure that if you're caught making small talk, | |
you inject false details about yourself and your life. You don't want to | |
be like Ernest Lehmitz, a German spy during World War II who sent | |
otherwise boring letters about himself containing hidden writing about | |
ship movements. He got caught because the non-secret portion of his | |
letters gave up various minor personal details the FBI correlated and | |
used to find him after intercepting just 12 letters. Spreading | |
disinformation about yourself takes time, but after a while the tapestry | |
of deceptions will practically weave itself. | |
Ensure that your communications and data are encrypted in transit and at | |
rest whenever applicable. This means PGP for e-mail and OTR for instant | |
messaging conversations. If you have to give data to someone, encrypt it | |
first. For the tor-only box you use for interacting with your hidden | |
service, full disk encryption is required. Make a password that's as | |
long and complex as you can remember ("chippy1337" is not an example of | |
a good password). Last but not least, when you're done using your | |
dedicated tor computer, boot into memtest86+. Memtest86+ is a tool for | |
checking RAM for errors, but in order to do that it has to write into | |
each address. Doing so essentially erases the contents of the RAM. | |
Turning your computer off isn't good enough. [8] If you're planning to | |
use TAILS, it will scrub the RAM for you automatically when you shut | |
down. Once your RAM is clean, remove the power cord and any batteries if | |
you're feeling extra paranoid. The chips will eventually lose any | |
information that is still stored in them, which includes your key. The | |
feds can do a pre-dawn raid if they want, but if you follow this step | |
and refuse to disclose your password, you'll make James Comey cry like a | |
small child. | |
Use fake info when signing up for hosting services. Obfuscate the money | |
trail as much as possible and supply fake billing info. I prefer | |
registering as criminals who are on the run, high government officials, | |
or people I dislike. If your box gets seized and your hosting company | |
coughs up the info, or if a hacking group steals your provider's | |
customer database (It happens more often than you'd think), your hosting | |
information needs to lead to a dead end. All signs in Operation Onymous | |
point to operators being IDed because they used real info to register | |
for hosting service and then their box got decloaked. | |
Speaking of money, you're going to have to figure out how to launder | |
your newfound assets, and we're not talking about using a couple bitcoin | |
laundering services and calling it a day. You also shouldn't go out and | |
buy a Tesla. Living beyond your means is a key red flag that triggers | |
financial and fraud investigations. Remember, money is just another | |
attack vector. Washing ill-gotten gains is a time-honored drug business | |
tradition and one that you would be a fool not to engage in. You can | |
only use your hard-won profits to send shitexpress.com packages to | |
people you don't like so many times. | |
Take-away: If you rely only on tor to protect yourself, you're going to | |
get owned and people like me are going to laugh at you. Remember that | |
someone out there is always watching, and know when to walk away. Do try | |
to stay safe while breaking the law. In the words of Sam Spade, "Success | |
to crime!" | |
Sources: | |
[1] https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo | |
[2] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TransparentProxy | |
[3] https://www.torproject.org/docs/bridges | |
[4] https://www.torproject.org/projects/obfsproxy.html.en | |
[5] | |
http://www.nrl.navy.mil/itd/chacs/biblio/sniper-attack-anonymously-deanonymizing-and-disabling-tor-network | |
[6] http://www.pcworld.com/article/158005/article.html | |
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canary_trap&oldid=624932671 | |
[8] | |
https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/new-research-result-cold-boot-attacks-disk-encryption/ |
Mans really been up all night avoiding that History assignment like a pro!
bro think he walter white
Walter ‘wabbit’ White. Follow the White Wabbit.
here from Ironic!!!
for anyone wondering why I was here, just for curiosity purposes. FBI take me off that list please...
love
Thanks boss, gonna try this now, I'll return if I'm successful.
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bro think he walter white