Just one after the FBI seized and shut down Silk Road the Internet site known as the Amazon.com of drugs, weapons and worse it’s back month. Yup, in the annals of criminal history, this one has to be up there in the chutzpah department; it’s like the capabilities behind the website are totally thumbing their collective noses at U.S. federal authorities.

Are Bitcoins and Silk Road Founders Aligned?

Even more shocking, brand new allegations tie Silk Road’s founder Ross William Ulbricht aka Dread Pirate Roberts until their FBI takedown final month to the still publicly unidentified initial creator of Bitcoins, the digital currency solely used to pay for illegal goods and services on the old and site that is now new.

The allegations came to light after two Israeli boffins one a cryptographer readied a paper that is soon-to-be-published claims that the FBI seizure in fact only got their hands on roughly 22 percent of the $80 million in commissions Ulbricht’s web site had garnered from sales of an estimated $1.2 billion; sales on everything ranging from assault weapons to illegal narcotics of any kind and also for hit men services for hire.

Dorit Ron and Adi Shamir are the two researchers who’ve brought these allegations to light, including which they themselves have only been able to trace one-third of the total commissions the site pulled in.

However the story gets more fascinating; the two researchers have additionally been looking for a possible connection between Ulbricht and ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’, the shrouded and never-seen creator of the Bitcoin digital currency exclusively used on the unlawful web site, mostly due to its relative untraceability, since it is maybe not tied in to any banking system that is central. Bitcoins’ value is entirely determined by market demand, and lately, that demand was curiously skyrocketing, with one Bitcoin being valued at over $800 and climbing recently. Just What does it all add up to?

Connecting the Dots

The two Israelis have been able to trace some paths back and possess made some connections between Silk Road and Bitcoins that are more than simply business usage. They’ve been in a position to do so because even though the marketplace that is actual may present anonymously, the transactions themselves are totally public. The pair created their own graph so they could track statistically how users interacted on the Silk Road site after getting their hands on a complete listing of all the Bitcoin transactions made this year.

By doing this considerable research, the scientists uncovered a single transfer log that followed Bitcoins deposited into an account now known to be Ulbricht’s. That deposit stemmed from another account, developed in January 2009, which placed the latter at early Bitcoin system time; it had all just gone public a year prior. And while the Israelis state they can’t definitively prove that that early Bitcoin account was ‘Nakamoto’s’, there is good reason to think it extremely possibly could indicate an ‘investment’ of sorts in the first Silk Road site. Does this time up to a dark connection between Silk Road and Bitcoins?

It may. Another piece that is compelling of uncovered by the Israelis had been a 1,000 Bitcoin transfer made in March of this year. That amount would have translated to about $60,000; but with the current insane value surge in the cryptocurrency, it’s now about $847,000 worth at the time of transfer.

‘Such a single transfer that is large not represent the conventional behavior of a buyer who opens a free account on Silk Road in order to buy some narcotics (such buyers are anticipated to make an initial deposit of tens or hundreds of dollars, and to top the account off whenever they buy additional merchandise). It may represent either large-scale activity on Silk Road, or some kind of investment or partnership, but this is pure speculation,’ note the researchers.

More damning is that the depositor that is unidentified had some 77,600 Bitcoins apparently obtained through ‘mining’ operations; that quantity would now equal about $64 million in U.S. currency.

‘ The short path we found suggests (but does not show) the presence of a surprising link between the 2 mysterious numbers of the Bitcoin community, Satoshi Nakamoto and DPR,’ wrote Ron and Shamir. ‘DPR’ means Ulbrict’s Silk Road code title, Dread Pirate Roberts.

In a few ways, it turns out that Bitcoins’ perennial claim that it exists beyond the long arm of the law has proved become proper. The experts state the cryptographic design and veiled movement of winner room casino puebla this currency makes it even more difficult for law enforcement to seize it than, say, a drug dealer’s stash of thousands concealed in a house. The duo also speculate that there could have been a 2nd as yet undiscovered computer belonging to your Silk Road founder that the FBI hasn’t yet had the opportunity to locate.

Therefore far, the feds, not interestingly, haven’t any touch upon any of it. And if we know anything about anything, someone is in a production meeting in Hollywood appropriate now, casting ‘The Long and Winding Silk path’ for a cable series that is new.

Silk Road 2.0: How Were They In A Position To Get a Revised Web Site Up So Right After Power Down?

How could a high-profile, illegal website seized by the Feds be up and operating again one month later? Evidently, where there exists a will, there’s an easy method. A few billion dollars at stake does not harm either.

It took hardly a minute, it seems, for an anonymous previously active Silk Road user to email former top users about the intention to obtain the site alive once more. A forum called the ‘Vendor Roundtable’ was created, and on it, the framework for recreating the illicit website began.

The forum’s admin even put up a ‘Help Wanted’ ad for a ‘communication specialist’ somebody who would oversee and coordinate the different pieces components of the rebuilding process. ‘You will be assigned work to perform considering what has to be done,’ read the ad that is cryptic no mention of what type of money was involved, evidently.

And therefore, final week, voilà! Silk Road 2.0 appeared; the difference that is only in its absence, some competitive web sites had cropped up to fill the void, all run on the secretive Thor server. Like its predecessor, the latest Silk Road is really a cornucopia of illegal goods and solutions, from heroin hitting guys.

‘Silk path was a thing that had appeal,’ a shrouded and anonymous user told CNNMoney in a TV interview where also his voice was disguised. ‘That made it simple for individuals to carry on down that path. As long as you’ll persuade the majority of the biggest purchasers and sellers to move over to the latest platform, no matter what it is called.’

Word on the street is in this revised version, information safety will become more closely guarded and certainly will also be ‘baked’ into codes. The FBI did crack the site that is last so whether or not they are able to do therefore on Silk Road 2.0, remains become seen. FBI Special Agent Christopher Tarbel who helped split the initial site did say that Silk Road in its initial format was possibly the greatest and most sophisticated unlawful marketplace on cyberspace today.