DEF CON 21 - Unexpected Stories From a Hacker Inside the Government

pneyzari at February 12,2017
His presentation, the visuals and content of the Silk Road and the events leading to the discovery of the man behind it was perhaps one of the most informative videos relating to cyber crime that I have seen. The bit where he signed off two of his posts utilizing the same words so as to institute a method of marking these posts to a possible single profile was a keen observation. In my opinion, law enforcement did a superb job in their persistence with this case, but of course with the length of time (I believe they mentioned 2 years) that it took to prosecute and with the amount of nifty and intelligent criminals out there ready to take on the internet underworld, particularly with the foundation that the Silk Road has now stamped onto the internet for them to utilize, I'd say that this has got to be a difficult battle and will continue to be so. The exchange that took place between the two parties from the video in order to rid FriendlyChemist inevitably goes to show just how easy and quickly these bad guys (who may neither know each other nor may never even meet) can accomplish that which they wish to accomplish over the internet.

thorner at February 19,2017
Great video showing each mistake DPR made and how the FBI capitalized. I'm surprised that it took the investigators so long with all of the breadcrumbs he left, especially using/posting his real name and email on a few sites - but I guess it takes a while to gather enough evidence to bring him in. The point at the end was a good one...2 years and millions of dollars and 5 more silk road type sites were already in the works. This shows how hard it is for law enforcement to keep up with hackers, especially with all of the rules authorities have to follow in order to make sure there are no holes in the case.

Wangja at February 28,2017
Silk Road was indeed a very tough case for the FBI to crack & they were smart enough to get the bitcoin wallets in the process. I read elsewhere when Ulbricht was busted in that library, a female agent bum rushed him & yelled something off the cuff, like "You're not good enough for me!" & snapped his unlocked laptop away from him while other agents piled on. Now the FBI has the administrative keys to the Silk Road servers. It must be a treasure trove of illegal activity of all those who didn't care enough to encrypt their communications.

student0 at March 13,2017
The narrator indirectly brings up a great question—what is the solution to combat darknet marketplaces? Given a two year investigation to take down this marketplace, what is a better way to combat the use of the internet for illicit activity other than to take down the creators of the marketplaces? The investigation seemed very thorough and appeared to be linked through forum postings and circumstantial evidence. The investigation into the murder payment seems rather tangential to the entire investigation. Was dreadpirateroberts ever convicted of attempted/planned murder?

echukalov at March 14,2017
I really liked this video. It covered in details all the steps detectives took to track down the criminal. Probably the main turning point in the investigation was obtaining an image from the Silk Road server. From there, the investigators were able to conduct timeline analysis and uncover evidence about important events. The FBI discovered chat history discussing a hit on FriendlyChemist, email addresses, trace the Google+ and StackOverflow accounts, SSH keys, etc. It is disturbing how fast such an illegal market like Silk Road can grow in just 2 years, while being led by a single hacker. Thankfully, the hard work of law enforcement agents paid off in the end and they were able to capture the criminal.