‘Bath Salts’ Feel Like A Drug From The Past—But They’re Still Wreaking Havoc
The most notorious of all Dark Web marketplaces was Silk Road which, at its peak, catered to over 100,000 buyers. “More and more people are aware of the ease of accessing them, and we are seeing the number of users rise quite dramatically,” said Dana Haynie, professor of sociology and director of Ohio State’s Criminal Justice Research Center. The stark, white walls of the Cyber Crimes Center are a direct contradiction to the work that takes place within them. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations’ (HSI) Cyber Crimes Unit investigators submerge themselves in the world of illicit criminal activity that takes place in the shadows of the Darknet. The FBI also worked with law enforcement agencies across Europe to take down Hive ransomware infrastructure in January.
Understanding the Current State of Darknet Markets
This part of the internet also hosts vast amounts of child pornography, with some websites reaching tens or hundreds of thousands of users. Interestingly, the rise of social media as an emerging drug market has also impacted purchasing trends. Self-reported data suggests that social media platforms have become favourable for low-level transactions of cannabis, ecstasy and cocaine, whereas new psychoactive substances are still sold to a greater degree via the darknet. As encryption, anonymity and privacy are central to the design of the darknet and its various drug markets, up-to-date information on drug trends is difficult to come by.
Thus, almost 80% of counterfeits listed were represented by only five (of the 16) categories of products. Inspired by previous research (Wegberg et al., 2018), we used the annotated listings to train a multiclass classifier to predict the labels of the remaining unlabeled counterfeits. Obtaining labels for all the listings has the advantage of allowing us to conduct our analyses for the whole dataset, including the price or individual texts of the listings, which would be more difficult through estimations from a sub-sample. We generated text features from the merged product title and description to train the classifier. We then tokenized the text, removed all English stop words, and stemmed the remaining words. Subsequently, we generated part of speech tags, unigrams, and bigrams, which were weighted with a tf-idf (term frequency-inverse document frequency) score.
Thus, border seizures might miss counterfeits originating from countries suggested by dark markets, such as the US. For example, Tobacco, pharmaceuticals, metals, electronics, and accessories (e.g., sunglasses) could be scanned for counterfeits when originating from the US. Similarly, cosmetics seem to originate from Austria more frequently, and pharmaceuticals from Australia. Alternatively, counterfeits from the US might be more heavily purchased domestically, leading to limited exportation, which would avoid border controls. Moreover, dark market listings represent the availability of a product rather than the actual supply of them. Although knowing which country counterfeits are available is helpful, products must be purchased first and subsequently shipped to be found at a border.
Over the last 18 months, 15 English language darknet markets stopped operations. Right now the oldest English language darkent market is Empire which is 3 years younger than Hydra. If the new Hydra darknet marketplace does indeed begin operations, it would become a significant part of the cybercriminal environment in the English language sphere.
But the key to attracting users to these platforms is providing cryptocurrency and fiat currency-laundering services, the research shows. Fast forward 10 months after the demise of Russian-based Hydra, and the Dark Web marketplace ecosystem is still struggling to recover. Namely, it’s been tough to replicate or replace Hydra’s money-laundering services for cybercriminals. Competitor markets working to replace Hydra’s money-laundering services for cybercriminals. Sanctioning the various actors in the global cryptocurrency laundering and cashout ecosystem has caused disruptions for these services.
- We noted that many keys were created long before White House Market went online, some almost 7 years earlier.
- With the heavy marketing and advertising that Brian’s Club has been investing in, it seems that the longtime attempts of marketing to credit card traders may be finally paying off now that Joker’s Stash is out of the picture.
- The market now has an established reputation among cybercriminals, which means that any stolen credentials for sale on there are likely to provide valid access to systems, services, or apps.
- It and other darknet marketplaces organized internal controls to ensure that market transactions could be quick and efficient even when operating in the outlawed space.
The question why are all the darknet markets down has become increasingly relevant in recent discussions surrounding online illicit activities. Darknet markets have faced numerous challenges over the years, but a notable number of them appear to be offline at the same time. Let’s delve into the factors contributing to this situation.
Therefore, the captcha services used on darknet marketplaces are self-hosted and mostly self-developed, often based on publicly available open source libraries. This makes them usually much easier to solve automatically than professionally developed captchas like Google’s ReCAPTCHA. Also, images on darknet marketplaces are often directly embedded in HTML as base64-encoded data URLs2 which simplifies scraping such web pages. While the study is based on historical data, we showed that examining dark market counterfeits in more detail can contribute to our understanding of the counterfeit market. With an increasing emergence of darknet markets and single vendor shops, offers of counterfeits are also likely to increase. Thus, examining current dark market data would be valuable in future analyses of IP crime, which would provide us with more up-to-date insights.
1. Law Enforcement Crackdowns
One of the primary reasons behind the downfall of various darknet markets is a coordinated effort by law enforcement agencies worldwide. These operations have included:
- Increased Surveillance: Agencies have enhanced their monitoring of darknet activities, making it easier to track and disrupt operations.
- Global Collaborations: International cooperation among law enforcement has enabled more effective investigations and takedowns.
2. Cybersecurity Threats
Another important factor is the prevalent cybersecurity threats that plague these markets:
- DDOS Attacks: Many darknet markets face Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that incapacitate their servers, making them unstable and ultimately inaccessible.
- Hacking Incidents: Reports of hacking incidents where marketplace data is stolen or servers are shut down can deter users and owners alike.
3. Market Saturation and Scams
Darknet markets have experienced saturation, leading to a decline in trust among users:
- Scamming Issues: Frequent scams and frauds have made users cautious, causing a decline in market activity.
- Alternative Platforms: The emergence of new, decentralized platforms has fragmented the user base, leading to the decline of older markets.
4. Exit Scams
Another critical issue hampering market stability is the occurrence of exit scams:
- What is an Exit Scam? An exit scam occurs when operators of darknet markets steal users’ funds and shut down the platform.
- Impact on Trust: Such events erode trust among users, making them hesitant to engage with other markets.
5. Technological Shifts
The technological landscape is constantly evolving, further complicating the functioning of darknet markets:
- Improved Blockchain Solutions: More robust technologies can help create more secure and anonymous spaces, which some darknet users are migrating towards.
- Advancements in Privacy Tools: As privacy technology improves, users are looking for more secure platforms, leaving traditional marketplaces obsolete.
FAQs about Darknet Markets
Q: Are all darknet markets permanently down?
A: Not necessarily. While many are down temporarily due to law enforcement actions or technical issues, others may never return.
Q: What can users do to stay informed about changes in the darknet?
A: Users should follow trusted forums and cybersecurity news to keep their knowledge up-to-date about the situation.
Q: Is it safe to use darknet markets?
A: Using darknet markets carries significant risks, including legal repercussions and exposure to scams. Users should exercise extreme caution.
In conclusion, the question why are all the darknet markets down can be attributed to a combination of law enforcement actions, cybersecurity threats, market saturation, exit scams, and technological shifts. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for anyone interested in the ongoing developments within the darknet ecosystem.
