{"id":13194,"date":"2021-10-14T21:54:12","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T21:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/deep-web-confusion-ostensible-alphabay-admin-desnake-claims-the-darknet-market-has-returned\/"},"modified":"2021-10-14T21:54:12","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T21:54:12","slug":"deep-web-confusion-ostensible-alphabay-admin-desnake-claims-the-darknet-market-has-returned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/deep-web-confusion-ostensible-alphabay-admin-desnake-claims-the-darknet-market-has-returned\/","title":{"rendered":"Deep Web Confusion: Ostensible Alphabay Admin \u2018Desnake\u2019 Claims the Darknet Market Has Returned"},"content":{"rendered":"

In mid-July 2017, the largest darknet marketplace (DNM) Alphabay went dark and patrons didn\u2019t know if the administrators were busted by law enforcement or if it was an exit scam. Not too long after the site went dark, law enforcement disclosed that an organized police task force, from various jurisdictions, infiltrated Alphabay alongside the DNM Hansa. Thailand police also arrested Alexandre Cazes, the alleged administrator for the Alphabay marketplace. Now over four years later, Alphabay (AB) has allegedly returned as the original AB admin \u201cDesnake\u201d has ostensibly \u2018proven control\u2019 over the AB administrators\u2019 PGP key.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The So-Called Return of the Alphabay, New Platform Unstable, Veracity of Desnake\u2019s PGP Key Questionable<\/h2>\n

During the last few weeks, darknet marketplace (DNM) users, researchers, and observers have been discussing the so-called return of the Alphabay (AB) marketplace. The DNM was the largest darknet market in 2017, and before the publication Deepdotweb was seized, it had shown that AB had a 96% approval rating. When the site went dark that summer four years ago, thousands of AB users flocked<\/a> to both Hansa and Dream DNMs. Little did Hansa users know the market had been seized<\/a> by international law enforcement.<\/p>\n

Netherlands Police and the Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office dismantled Hansa in early June and basically operated the DNM,<\/a> while users flocked to Hansa after AB went down. While operating Hansa, law enforcement collected lots of information on vendors and frequent patrons who leveraged the DNM and seized thousands of bitcoins. Then there was the so-called AB Kingpin Alexandre Cazes who was arrested by Thailand police. It was assumed, that Cazes was or played the role of the AB administrator dubbed \u201cDesnake.\u201d However, Cazes was found dead in his cell after his arrest in Thailand.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to today, Hansa is gone and the DNM Dream\u2019s administrators decided to close<\/a> down the shop. In August 2021, visitors who utilize the Dread forum noted the appearance of \u201cDesnake\u201d resurfacing. Desnake also ostensibly proved its identity by leveraging the account\u2019s historical PGP key. Reportedly, a former AB moderator called \u201cdisc0\u201d vouched for Desnake as well. The researchers at darkowl.com published an in-depth report of findings<\/a> tied to the alleged Desnake\u2019s return and how the user promoted the newly launched Alphabay DNM \u201cwith services hosted on both Tor and I2P.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darkowl notes that the new AB has been \u201cunstable\u201d since it returned, and users experience \u201cfrequent 503 errors, user registration issues, and login timeouts.\u201d I2P services tethered to the new AB rarely loads and Darkowl claims the AB user base is much smaller than what Desnake has been boasting.<\/p>\n

\u201cDesnake claims there have been 15,000 user accounts created, 450 vendors registered, and over 400 listings published as of the time of writing,\u201d Darkowl\u2019s report finds.<\/p>\n

Darkowl Report Says New Alphabay Moderators Speak With \u2018Impeccable English,\u2019 Deep Web and Tor Researcher Dark.Fail Comments the Alleged Return<\/h2>\n

Darkowl researchers also suspect that it is possible the AB service on Tor is hosted \u201calongside Dread services.\u201d This is because the newly launched AB features similar DDoS protection and clock-captcha services as Dread. The in-depth findings Darkowl discovers further show the new AB marketplace is moderated by three individuals dubbed: \u201cTheCypriot,\u201d \u201ctempest,\u201d and \u201cwxmaz.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the moderators speak very formally with impeccable English and gush with unbridled passion about the need for a new concept of decentralized marketplaces, the complex tradeoffs and advantages of peer-to-peer networks, and a deep desire to establish a greater sense of community,\u201d Darkowl\u2019s report notes. \u201cDesnake\u2019s posts are particularly \u201cwordy\u201d with extensive lengthy posts on Dread and the market\u2019s About and FAQ section,\u201d the report adds.<\/p>\n

In addition to Darkowl\u2019s report, the anonymous journalist and researcher known as \u201cdark.fail\u201d (@darkdotfail<\/a>) tweeted about the return of the so-called Alphabay and gave a warning. \u201cAlphabay, a #1 darknet market seized by law enforcement four years ago, recently returned,\u201d dark.fail said on Thursday<\/a>. \u201cDesnake proved their control of [an] old PGP key, an original site admin. Many naive people are trusting it. We\u2019ll see how this plays out. [Law enforcement] can seize PGP private keys just like anything else,\u201d the researcher added.<\/p>\n

The ostensible return of AB follows the recent White House marketplace retirement<\/a> announcement which stresses that another White House marketplace will not return in the future. Oftentimes, malicious entities like to create phony DNMs with the names of legendary markets in order to gain more trust from the community. White House was a monero (XMR<\/a>)-only accepting DNM, and screenshots indicate that the new Alphabay features monero acceptance as well.<\/p>\n

Moreover, what if law enforcement (LE) officials are using the AB PGP keys to lure in unsuspecting victims in a similar fashion to the way Hansa was seized? There are many instances throughout history that show global LE has worked undercover to catch bigger fish. In the Hansa case, Dutch LE officers with partners from Germany, Lithuania, the U.S., and Europol infiltrated Hansa from the inside for more than a month collecting information on every participant.<\/p>\n

\u201cA total of more than 1,000 bitcoins have been seized,\u201d the Netherlands prosecutor\u2019s office detailed<\/a>. \u201cOn average, 1000 orders were made per day in response to some 40,000 ads. The marketplace counted 1,765 different sellers. Since the acquisition of Hansa Market\u2019s management, more than 50,000 transactions have been counted, especially for soft and hard drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do you think about the so-called return of Alphabay and the veracity of the Desnake PGP key? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Bitcoin News
\nNews, @Darkdotfail, AB moderator, Alexandre Cazes, Alphabay, alphabay market, Alphabay Return, Dark.Fail, darknet market, Darkowl, Darkowl.com, Deep Web, Desnake, DNM, DNMs, Dread Forum, Dream Market, hansa, Law Enforcement, PGP key, PGP private key, tempest, TheCypriot, Tor, US LE, Verification, wxmaz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In mid-July 2017, the largest darknet marketplace (DNM) Alphabay went dark and patrons didn\u2019t know if the administrators were busted by law enforcement or if it was an exit scam. Not too long after the site went dark, law enforcement disclosed that an organized police task force, from various jurisdictions, infiltrated Alphabay alongside the DNM…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blockchain-news","category-coin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}