Remember Silk Road? The Dark Web is an underground internet where you can buy almost anything: drugs, guns, fake documents or hire assassins. Thanks to a study by IntSights Research Group, we know something more about the dark web.
The company observed a group named “TeamZero” that was trying to sell usage licenses (yes, licenses) for a darknet marketplace software.
According to Ido Wulkan, author of the Insights research, the software is sold for $4,500 in bitcoin and buyers will need to make significant modifications to make it stand out from the others.
The rise of platform-as-a-service (PaaS) marketplaces on the darknet should come as no surprise. The shutdown of Silk Road by US authorities created an incredible void in the market and provided opportunities for new players like Ross Ulbricht.
However, this news is alarming for the authorities, for many and various reasons.
First, it decentralizes the market. A fragmented market makes it much harder to detect markets and illegal sales by the authorities.
It also means that, in case law enforcement authorities manage to shut down some illegal market, there will be others very soon.
Above all, however, it proves that the conviction of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht failed to deter others from engaging in “sporting.”
Let us recall that Ulbricht’s sentence was not short (a life sentence without the right to appeal) and yet there are still too many markets and more will soon begin.
