Silk Road is Making a Comeback

Following the arrest of the Dread Pirate Reports, ABC's George Stephanopoulos quoted Digital Citizens Alliance fellow Garth Bruen, "This is not going away" just because of the arrest. Now, barely a month later, Silk Road is back up and running allegedly run by former employees of the old site. Certainly, as we predicted the $1 billion in traffic and $80 million in fees was just too tempting to leave alone. Now, armed with the experience of Ross Ulbricht's mistakes, new rogue players are prepared to revamp the operation and draw back all the customers desperate to access all the illicit goods Silk Road had to offer including the vast selection of drugs.

It is important to note that while Silk Road is the best known TOR-based marketplace, it is by no means the only one. The Dark Web is loaded with secrets well beyond this highly publicized service. Here, at Digital Citizens we did not stop looking at the Dark Web after the Ulbricht bust, rather our research in this area intensified. As we said, TOR is not going away and neither are illegal online shopping malls. We will be here every step of the way to document the dangers to the public. Keep in mind, this did not happen in some far-flung exotic location, it happened in a cozy San Francisco neighborhood with an apparently all-American boy.  The next DPR might be your roommate.