The government was shut down this past week, but apparently that fact does not necessarily mean that nothing was done. I suppose the folks over at the FBI were still working (probably without pay), because there were many internet crackdowns that took place, most notably on the black-market site ‘Silk Road.’
Silk Road, the “eBay for drugs”, was an international website which used bitcoins as its currency in an attempt to keep its users anonymous. Despite that precaution and many others, such as having prospective dealers pay an initial fee to begin selling on the site, Silk Road’s alleged founder Ross William Ulbricht (aka. Dread Pirate Roberts) has been taken into custody and transported to New York to face his charges.
Aside: “Nice one Ross! I like The Princess Bride too!”
These charges include: narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. Ulbricht has also been accused of attempting to hire a hitman to murder one of his former employees.
It seems as time goes by, the anonymity of those who use the internet continues to wane. Everyone’s identity is somehow exposed. Yet, there are still people wearing Guy Fawkes masks, claiming to be legion, and claiming to be anonymous.
Well, after this past week’s revelation of approximately 13 members of Anonymous, Indigo Montoya has something to say to those who claim anonymity.
That message is doubly true for the following individuals mentioned by the Verge:
“The Verge has learned that defendant Phillip Simpson is a 28-year-old IT professional who works for a test-preparation service. Anthony Tadros, 22, is a student at the University of Connecticut, who ironically once worked as a security analyst for the school, according to his Linked-In profile. Geoffrey Commander is 65 years old. And then there’s Ryan Gubele, a 27-year-old who is a former contract employee for Amazon. In June, Gubele began working as a site reliability engineer for Twitter — and is currently still employed there.”
Anonymous is best known for having shut down bank sites that had refused to process server payments for WikiLeaks and for supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is basically nonexistent now.