We have had news stories before about international law enforcement agencies banding together to take down websites that deal in illicit goods or counterfeit merchandise. Yesterday the U.S, Canada and European agencies made another round of takedowns, the difference this time is that they hit the “Dark Web” websites using stuff like the onion router or TOR.
USA Today covered the story:
Police in 17 countries arrested at least 17 website administrators, vendors and cybercriminals as part of the operation that targeted cyber storefronts where vendors put illegal goods on display much like Amazon or eBay sell legal goods.
One European official was quoted as saying, “We are not just removing these services from the open Internet,” he said. “This time we have also hit services on the Darknet using TOR, where, for a long time, criminals have considered themselves beyond reach. We can now show that they are neither invisible nor untouchable.”
The administrator on DeepDotWeb made the remark, “No doubt that the 6th of November 2014 will be remembered as one the darkest days in the Dark Net Markets history,” the site’s administrator wrote, noting that at least four sites had been seized.
Read more on USA Today
A bit misleading guys. .ONION domains are not assigned, issued or managed by any authority. As such they cannot really be seized. Indeed many hidden services (Tor sites) change their domains often. Law enforcement agencies took down **websites** engaged in illegal activities, primarily Silk Road 2, along with a couple not-so-popular marketplaces.
Websites (files on servers) and domain names are not synonymous. In a decentralized system like the .ONION TLD (or .i2p or .bit or similar) the domains themselves cannot be seized (or stolen, for all practical purposes) because there is no ICANN involvement, no registry, and no registrar. Domain seizures are an important topic to shed some light on. But that simply did not happen here.
I agree with the technicality you pointed out Mike, I believe what happened Mike was they took the sites down, they seized the actual servers too. I also used that exact quote because that is was the authorities are phrasing it as.
authorities seized the servers that hosted the illegal marketplaces and took control of more than 400 .onion domains. The marketplaces knocked offline include SR2, Hydra, RepAAA, Hidden Empire, Cloud Nine, Black Market and Cannabis Road, Pandora, Blue Sky and Golden Nugget, Europol said. Police dubbed the operation “Onymous,” the antonym of anonymous.
Thank you for the comment and the info Mike.
For a second there, I thought The Onion was in trouble. 😀 TGIF!