back to article German cops arrest student suspected of running infamous dark-web souk

A 22-year-old student German federal police believe to be the administrator of one of the largest German-speaking, dark-web forums has been arrested.  The man, whose identity has not been released, has been charged with operating a criminal trading platform and faces up to a decade behind bars if convicted. He was collared in …

  1. MachDiamond Silver badge

    Registered users?

    What rocket surgeons would register on a dark web sales site? It's the same thing as signing up at a warez site, stupid and possibly a trap.

    1. Duke of Source

      Re: Registered users?

      Must have been something to do with the operator being from Gen Z: https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/19/millennials_gen_z/

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Registered users?

      That's how they all operate. How do you think the sellers send the goods?

      Most 'smarter' people use PGP on them though.

    3. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: Registered users?

      How did you expect it to work? Somehow, you have to identify yourself to the site so that you can post adverts for illegal stuff and people can send money to you to receive them. A site could be set up where people contact you directly, but that wouldn't make the admins any money so they are unlikely to do it and just because you're selling drugs doesn't mean you know how to correctly organize your own anonymous communication and payment systems.

      It doesn't mean they gave the site a lot of useful information, but they would have had to set up an account of some kind to sell things.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Registered users?

      >> What rocket surgeons would register on a dark web sales site?

      The same people that registered with their company email at Ashley Madison.

      Working at a global pharmaceutical company and grep'ing through the A-M dump, people with MSc and Doctoral degrees found in there. Not too far from rocket surgeons or brain scientists some of them!

  2. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

    Hail Hydra. It'll be back. Most possibly it's back, but hidden a bit better.

    Anyway.

    Deutschland im Deep Scheiße is more apt, don't you agree?

  3. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

    No anonymity

    Tor websites and servers can be uncloaked by LEA. Tor users visiting those websites, however, cannot.

    So running an illegal marketplace on the Deep Web is very risky, unless you're managing it from a remote location via...Tor. The physical location of such the Tor website can be discovered so Tor admins need to cover their tracks more thoroughly by physically seperating themselves from the machines.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: No anonymity

      Tor admins need to cover their tracks more thoroughly by physically seperating themselves from the machines

      Maybe it's just me but I am glad they catch them. I have no love or pity for criminals abusing the tools originally designed to protect people's online safety.

      1. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

        Re: No anonymity

        You keep forgetting that some people use Tor to circumvent censorship and even prosecution by their own government for speaking out.

        Also, drug related offenses are IMHO questionable since some narcotics have already been legalized, such as marijuana in the U.S.

    2. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

      Re: No anonymity

      If you believe the NSA created Tor and released it to the world, but didn't make sure they could access everything with ease, then you probably also believe in fairies and unicorns.

  4. Macs1000

    Sanctions

    "US Treasury Department sanctioned the dark-web monstrosity."

    It's a funny thing, isn't it, but in English English, to sanction something is to allow it!

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like