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A car pulls up to the edge of a forest, not far from Moscow’s Circular metro line. The driver surreptitiously got out of the car, dropped a package containing a pistol and ammunition at the road sign, and buried it with leaves. A few hours later, the buyer arrives and picks up the goods without anyone noticing.
This is a typical Russian underground trading process.
Sellers have been doing this for years. In the eyes of family, colleagues and friends, he was a great nature lover and loved to travel to the countryside. What they didn’t know, however, was that he was also an underground Arms dealer in Moscow who went by the pseudonym Korabas and had a small workshop in the center of the city assembling weapons and ammunition for sale on Runion, Russia’s largest dark e-commerce platform, on Dark Taobao.
Five years ago, Korabas found the dark platform through a very accidental opportunity. He was interested in all the things he could not buy on the market: documents with official seals, passports, drugs, and weapons and ammunition.
He soon registered his shop on Runion under the name Korabas, a mythical dragon. Of course, a site like Runion wouldn’t be able to send out small ads everywhere the way any underground site would. Users have to use the “Onion Router” (Tor) to find it — a technology akin to Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak that allows them to communicate anonymously on the Internet, or to reach a site like Platform 9 3/4, where Google can’t find it anyway.
The Onion router, first developed by a US Naval laboratory for US government communications, has become one of the most popular hacking techniques in the world after it was breached by a third party. In 2013, Snowden used the Onion router to deliver documents and reports he had stolen from the U.S. government, and the New Yorker magazine used it to contact anonymous informants.
Korabas learned a lot about gun manufacturing through the Onion router and soon began experimenting with making his own.
Although he spent far more on guns than he had budgeted for, when he hung the freshly made guns from his workshop at Runion, the deal was quick — and much hotter than he had expected.
Korabas decided to make a little money by renting a workshop in central Moscow anonymously and buying lathes, but there was no heating, so he could only start work in the spring and summer. “Winter is really boring. I have to sit there all day waiting for orders.” Korabas said.
Runion is the largest dark e-commerce platform in Russia
Small underground businesses are thriving.
Korabas soon contacted various ammunition suppliers and began making silencers. It didn’t take long for his shop to become Runion’s “star shop” and the main supplier of guns to the platform.
Korabas makes his products mainly from raw materials. He can convert a legally purchased signal gun into a 9x18mm pistol. As this is the main pistol caliber of the Soviet era, ammunition is also easy to obtain, very popular with buyers, once launched, it immediately became the dark taobao hot style guns.
Korabas also tests each new gun after installing silencers in its workshop in the city centre, so it is “absolutely reliable”.
“I just don’t want to go out in the forest and test products. The gun with the silencer in the movie is really silent, but in fact it only makes 50 percent less shooting noise.” Korabas said.
Selling weapons via the onion route is Korabas’ only hobby. Each gun sells for 60,000 rubles (7,000 yuan), one or two guns are sold every month, and the annual turnover is at least 500,000 rubles (58,000 yuan).
“It’s certainly not as simple as lying in bed and counting money.” Korabas says with a laugh that he has always spent his money on other hobbies. “I never spend Runion money at the family level, underground money has to be spent underground. The less the family knows about my other identity, the better.”
Korabas is cautious because he knows he risks being arrested at any time. For example, he uses only The Linux operating system on a daily basis, encryles all hardware, accesses the Internet only through the onion route, and draws income from the dark web only through the foreign credit cards of acquaintances, and so on.
In Russia, thousands of people like Korabas run small businesses on the dark web, and 2,000 to 3,000 people visit Runion alone every day. On the site, both administrators and buyers and sellers, who have something to do with criminal activity, do not talk to reporters, believing such indiscretions are highly likely to attract the attention of the intelligence services.
Korabas’ Dark Web Ads’
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On June 18, 2016, Nikkon, the “most Respected person” on Runion, was interviewed by the media. Nikkon is the site’s administrator and guarantor, whose main job is to make sure that every transaction is valid.
The atmosphere on the dark Web was so tense that the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, began considering the Yarovaya Bill. The bill is intended to pass a number of “anti-terrorism” laws, including anti-Internet privacy provisions (it was introduced on June 24, 2016 and Signed by Putin on July 7). Nikkon, in an interview, expressed concern that the bill would further squeeze Runion’s living space.
He sees the dark Web not just as a haven for drug dealers and pedophiles, but as a place for people who want to breathe free air.
In the fall of 2014, an acquaintance at Runion approached Nikkon with an unusual request, asking him to sell an emerald — illegal reselling is a criminal offense in Russia.
As the official guarantor of Taobao Runion, Nikkon’s main business is drugs and weapons: his job is to determine the authenticity of transactions and then collect a commission, earning him $3,500 a month.
“But the administrators at Runion were not happy with the business model.” In fact, As Nikkon himself well knows, the black market is far from rich. “This trading pattern is likely to change over the next few years as the market expands.”
Nikkon’s job is simple, but there are risks. First he has to go to the buyer and make sure the buyer has the money and the deal is real. Then wait for the seller’s instructions, the goods to the buyer; In addition, a third independent body to test the quality of emeralds.
Nikkon has been in the business for almost a year, first accessing the dark Web through fraudulent forums that steal money from credit cards. In the year 2000, such forums sprang up all over the web, earning thousands of dollars on a single transaction in good times. But by the mid-2000s, one forum after another was shut down and its administrators jailed.
Most of these vets sought work in cybersecurity after their release. Dmitry Naskovets, a former Belarusian credit card fraudster, famously set up an IT company in New York City to help large companies spot security holes in their internal networks.
In 2016, the media also reported that Ukrainian hacker Popov helped the FBI destroy Carderplanet, the largest Internet credit card fraud platform. Popov used sophisticated techniques to monitor the chats of a fraudster and gather evidence to arrest him. The hacker returned to Ukraine and started a cyber security company.
Nikkon claims he does not engage in credit card fraud at all, but enjoys “watching them quietly”. He himself uses Onions only because, “I want to be immersed in a sea of dark knowledge, constantly learning.”
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Russia’s dark web consists mainly of four forums: Runion, RAMP, R2D2 and Amberoad, which they call the “big four,” all of which narrowly avoided a server shutdown.
The Silk Road was the forerunner of the “big four”.
In 2010 Ross Ulbricht, a young American librarian, hit on the idea of building a “tracking website where you can buy and sell anything anonymously”.
A few months later, silk Road made its debut and became the world’s largest underground e-commerce platform. The first item Ulbricht sold was his own psychedelic mushroom, which could be used to make psilocybin. It’s a powerful hallucinogen, and the single use of large amounts of psilocybin can change a person’s personality for up to a year, some permanently.
Silk Road was the first website to use the Onion router, and the first to be able to trade with Bitcoin. The transaction is simple compared to the complex log-in method, where the item is usually delivered to the buyer via express delivery in a DVD box.
The Silk Road has even completed the popularization of science among netizens, introducing them to the amazing technology of onion routing and the charm of anonymous Internet access.
The Existence of Silk Road was soon discovered by national security authorities, who organized a task force in 2012 to track down the mastermind behind the site. By this time the Silk Road had become so popular that Ulbricht was making $25,000 a month through it and went by the online name “Robert the Terrible Pirate.”
Making money is not Mr Ulbricht’s main aim. His pleasure lies in spreading anarchist “declarations of freedom” : “I have created a truly free economy where people can enjoy freedom and peace in complete disregard of power.” He believes that each silk Road transaction is a small step towards “ultimate freedom”.
Ulbricht was eventually arrested in a San Francisco library by U.S. intelligence and sentenced to life in prison in May 2015. Before sentencing, Ulbricht wrote a letter to the judge: “The original intention of the Silk Road was to give people freedom based solely on individual will. Unfortunately, people only use it to feed their addictions. I finally understand that freedom is bad for those who don’t learn to use it.”
Ulbricht, born in 1984, was sentenced to life in prison without parole
The story is not finished.
The Internet knows no borders. Ross Ulbricht inspired many, followed in the footsteps of the Silk Road, and Runion was born, with Russians coming up with their own “declaration of freedom” : “The existence of the Internet threatens those who want to blindfold the people. We want to be free and not let those people’s dirty hands interfere with our speech.”
Runion users, on the other hand, claimed to be “people who want justice” – selling weapons to “give people the ability to protect themselves and their families”; Drugs are sold because “people have the right to decide what gets into their bodies and blood”.
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Zed, the administrator of Runion, took over the Dark forum from founder Xbit four years ago and co-authored a manifesto of freedom with other users.
The site was supposed to be Russia’s first dark web, and after Runion was set up, Xbit disappeared from the scene and has never been heard of since. Zed is just as mysterious. Very little is known about him, not even his colleagues. Zed, whose face is a red circle with a capital Z, is extremely well versed in security and hacking techniques for achieving security. Zed did almost the whole thing by himself, but he never talks about himself. He’s a very mysterious guy. Nikkon said.
Nor is Runion merely a “dark taobao”, where people not only buy and sell illicit goods, but also exchange information. Every month, the forum gives a Bitcoin bonus to the author of the “most popular article of the month.” The articles ranged from “How do I hack INTO VK?” to “How do I hack into VK?” “How do you steal money from the company without being discovered?” “How to make money through divorce” and so on.
In the “Needs” section, users can post to find the right people to help them. For example, the most popular topic in 2015 was: “If someone with insight is hired to help avenge a crime, there will be a reward.” Such posts are often accompanied by detailed instructions, such as “stalking, damaging property, maiming, threatening, threatening or even assassinating.” Other top postss include phone calls, requests for grenade launchers and controlled chemicals.
RAMP (Russian Anonymous Marketplace/ Russian Anonymous Marketplace) is the number two site on the dark Web. Unlike Runion, the site’s main function is to buy and sell drugs and doesn’t have much interesting information.
RAMP currently has more than 100 stores across Russia. Its home page, like Taobao’s, is filled with flashy ads, all of them drug messages, charging $3, 000 to $10, 000 per spot. In its website introduction, RAMP claims to provide “patient and friendly service” that “meets all your needs” and “provides protection.”
RAMP is run by drug Lord Darkside, who is known on forums as Big Boss or Maharajah and has a face on brad Darkside from the Fight Club movie. Pitt’s image, and a resounding signature personality: “Reality is illusory, instant is eternal.” In the address column, he quotes the Star Wars opening line: “A galaxy far, far away.”
Trading sites’ credit is important, so Darkside often acts as a guarantor of a deal.
However, unlike Runion and The Silk Road, Darkside is not allowed to discuss politics, munitions, hacking, classified documents and other topics in forums. “Politics always attracts a lot of attention, and we just want to make a lot of money quietly.” “The drug kingpin said in an interview in late 2014. He said the main reason RAMP has so far been able to get away with this is that Russian law enforcement has little interest in cybercrime.
Instead of taking a commission on silk Road deals, RAMP charges no commission and each seller is required to pay a $300 monthly rental for their online store.
Currently, RAMP has $250,000 in annual revenue, but the shopping experience isn’t great.
Of course, no one expects drug trafficking to be as easy as shopping on Amazon, where each transaction requires a secret agreement between the buyer and the seller, and each transaction is negotiated in detail on its own.
Those who knew Darkside said he was a ‘special person’.
“What long-term use of drugs given away for free by the seller has personally affected Darkside is not a topic of concern to me.” “But no one can deny that Darkside was a very visionary who saw the problems that were going to come out of RAMP early on and built the platform into a solid platform,” said one RAMP moderator. He is still running RAMP himself. Someone said that Darkside had been out of touch for a long time. Maybe he was just busy counting money and building a team. Maybe he was out of touch.
With the exception of RAMP and Runion, R2D2 and Amber Path of the four dark networks were all closed in 2015.
The administrators of R2D2 tried to turn the discussion board into a trading platform, but the transformation was not successful, which led to a sharp drop in traffic. Later, “even the administrators didn’t log in much, and ended up running away with the buyers’ money. Five thousand dollars in all.” Nikkon said.
Another source with knowledge of Amber Road’s history said the site ran into a lot of trouble in 2014 when police arrested a seller, administrators banned him from doing business and, shortly after, the site was hacked by a well-known hacker known as a sleepwalker. Sleepwalker says he has discovered a major security flaw in Amber Road: administrators use very simple passwords, and many transactions are made through unencrypted internal messages — something that is impossible on the dark web.
New dark web forums are springing up, leaving a void left by the closure of the old ones, but most of them survive for only a few months.
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In 2013, Russia’s legal body declared onion routing illegal.
In July 2014, the Central Ministry of Economy and Information Industry commissioned the Interior Ministry to conduct an investigation into “the possibility of cracking anonymous user information on the Onion router.” The project was budgeted at 4 million rubles ($62,000). A year later, the Ministry of Information Industry (TsNII EISU) told the press that the results of the study could not be made public for confidentiality reasons.
In February 2016, a spokesman for the Anti-extremism bureau of the Russian Interior Ministry announced to the media that the research results showed that it was possible to conquer the Onion router. On July 27, 2016, the director of the National Security Agency (FSB) announced that the Onion router had been hacked, making it impossible for anyone to hide online, and that several dark web players had been captured.
But as it turns out, the NSA didn’t solve the problem of the dark Web. They caught sellers on the dark Web because of their own negligence in real life.
In mid-June 2016, a 27-year-old chemistry student at the University of Yekaterinburg was arrested after someone in a dilapidated building on the edge of a forest near Sverdlovsk smelled a strong chemical smell and called the police. The police recovered gas masks, rubber hoses, chemical test tubes and countless bottles and cans from the ruined building. The lab was built on the second floor of a dilapidated building, covered with plastic sheeting, and an oven was placed on the test bed to dry the drugs. During the search, the FSB seized 5 kilograms of synthetic cocaine. During the interrogation, police found that the drugs were all used for online transactions and settled in Bitcoin.
There are many similar drug dealers in Russia, and similar cases have become common in the past few years.
In April 2016, the FSB cracked a case of “young people selling drugs through online forums” in Sverdlovsk, where they sold 20kg in a month. At the same time, a 19-year-old freshman in Yekaterinburg was arrested while delivering heroin, and it was bitcoin settlement that brought the dark Web to the surface.
In March 2016, a RAMP store was destroyed, and police seized nearly 1,000 pieces of the drug, a collection of anonymous bank cards and a drug-making lab. In February, drug dealers in St. Petersburg delivered a bucket of drugs to the gang by Courier and were caught red-handed picking it up.
Have dark web users been scared by these aggressive moves? Apparently, to the eyes of dark web users, all this hacking seems particularly ridiculous.
“When we saw the feasibility report, the whole forum laughed.” Nikkon said. “The Americans are a little harder and more productive, spending more than 10 times as much as the Russians.”
Carnegie Mellon did help the Pentagon decode some anonymous user information, leading to the arrest of The silk Road’s heir, Brian Farrell. Farrell was sentenced to eight years in prison in June 2016 and is still serving his sentence.
Previously, a Russian dark Web forum administrator had told the media: “It is possible that there are moles from the security services lurking in the forums, but we have not found any targeted actions so far.”
“It’s hard to lurk on forums, where there’s no gossip or big talk and everyone knows what they’re here for. It is a great taboo to ask questions which other people do not want you to know, so if they had the Mole they could not get any information out. ‘ Nikkon said.
“The Agency’s hands are far from the Onion router, and they don’t actually take the Onion router very seriously.” Korabas added.
“They’re just interested in the big deal sites, the RAMP type. But the real threat is that more and more people are coming into the dark web, and the dark web has a long way to go.” “Said the hacker sleepwalker.
Recently, some active users have suddenly disappeared from the Russian dark web. “If you look at past cases, these people could be in a bad way.” “But experience tells us that there is no reason to doubt that the FSB has actually cracked the Onion router. I never underestimate an enemy, but I don’t want to be paranoid all the time and get nervous,” Said Nikkon.
But sometimes law enforcement does get involved with the dark Web in one way or another.
The media once interviewed a former employee of Russia’s drug service who claimed that drug dealers wanted to hire him and his colleagues to deal drugs. But soon an official disclaimer from drug dealers appeared on the RAMP page.
“He’s been licking the ass of the press, none of us ever called him, shameless liar!” On the RAMP’s main page, the post read, “What if they don’t take Bitcoin?” And a passage from the Old Testament book of Levi.
“You must not make unjust judgments, whether in length, breadth, or quantity.”
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In his long career as a guarantor at Runion, Nikkon’s most memorable deals were a packet of fake LSD and a real anti-tank missile launcher.
“The buyer could be some crazy survivalist, or they could just read about it on the news and want to buy one. I’ll never know who these people are.”
Now, says the owner of a darknet shop, 90% of transactions are drug-related, only 5% are weapons and the rest are illegal documents and other unexpected jumbles.
As a chemical engineer, Nikkon had serious discussions with other experts about teaching people how to make explosives on the dark Web. Synthetic explosives are dangerous and can easily blow themselves up if not handled properly. Runion administrators are also vague on the issue of explosives. “Everyone should be held accountable for their actions,” Nikkon says. This is the basic consensus of the dark Web.”
“I’ve never known the motives of people buying guns from me.” “I knew from my conversations that these people weren’t idiots,” Korabas said. “At least they were proficient with the Onion router, encryption software and Bitcoin. These educated people might just want to buy a gun to play with without going through the screening and screening process.”
“I never ask my clients why they need guns.” Baron_black, who is one of the leading arms sellers in the CIS region, says, “I think firearms’ lethality is greatly exaggerated in our society. Look at how many people die each year from smoking and drinking alcohol, which are all legal, and a psychopaths who shoot at each other in the street kill only a few a year. Governments don’t ban guns to protect their right to do whatever they want, after all.”
In addition to handguns, Baron_black sells a type of miniature gun called the spy pen. It looks like a prop from a James Bond movie, looks like a pen, and can even be whisked away from security to take on a plane.
The spy pen is all the rage on the Internet, and there are all sorts of easy ways to make it
As a marketing tool, Baron_black has also appeared in commercials for her products, including a short film in which she shoots a gun at wood while music plays in the background. ‘Dude, are you in trouble? Let’s play! Dude, you live in a slum? You’ve got to get laid!”
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There are more powerful things to be found on the dark web than guns and drugs. For example, you can fake a whole new identity.
The famous hacker sleepwalker first became interested in the dark Web after a friend hacked the website of a government agency. Soon the friend was picked up by the police, so badly that he almost ended up in jail.
After the accident, sleepwalkers began researching how to fake their identities, and after discovering that many people had similar needs, they set up businesses.
In an interview, the sleepwalker said it was just one of his many identities on the dark Web. On the dark Web, sleepwalkers are known for providing information security services that attempt to hack into customers’ servers and then help them fill in the security holes, which, like many other businesses on the dark Web, are settled in bitcoin.
His exploits also included the hacking of “Amber Road”, one of the “big four”. Now, his main business is as an “information bodyguard” for drug traffickers – escorting their business on the Internet.
Not only can you find the right person with a fake online identity, but you can also find the right person with multiple, real identities, just like a CIA agent
Sleepwalkers grew up watching movies about hackers. “It’s so cool that a guy can just sit at home and hack into someone else’s computer. I just love watching the green characters flicker on the black screen, looking so high-tech and mysterious.”
At Runion, sleepwalkers have also published an article, “Want to Hack? “, explaining his understanding of hacking, “The fun of hacking comes from solving problems and finding your own solutions and processes.”
Although sleepwalkers teach people “how to gather evidence on a suspect’s computer” and “how to hack into social media sites and get user information” on the dark Web, it’s interesting that he doesn’t hack social media sites himself — just for fun. In 2014, for example, on VK, he hacked the account of a college student after the inconsiderate kid had publicly asked how much it would cost to hire a sleepwalker to hack other people — disrespectful to hackers.
A few years ago, sleepwalkers hacked into a database that held scans of passports and other important documents. It was an accident. At first, he just wanted to break the administrator password of a dark web. Since then, he has offered fake documents and personal identification services on the Internet.
If you want a new identity, a sleepwalker will start by faking a personal history and then making it believable. To create a credible new identity, a hacker would need to register several social networking accounts, post photos of his life and add 200 to 300 friends. Fill in the details of personal interests and related details, and then according to the interests of a few posts, transfer a few posts, and even design the identity of the style of speaking; He then uses it to register with Yandex Money (Russia’s Baidu Pay) and QIWI (Russia’s Alipay), apply for a phone number and sometimes post a few posts on a forum.
Making a new identity is not easy. It will take a month to complete. In the past few years, sleepwalkers have sold about 100 new identities for $50 to $100.
“The first ingredient in creating a new identity is knowing what elements people believe in, and by getting those elements right, you can become anyone, ordinary or a policeman. The new identity can be used for many things, such as blackmail. This identity can do all the things that real identity can do on the Internet. For example, you can use this identity to send and receive money through online banking, not to mention communicate with others.”
To a sleepwalker, maintaining an identity is much harder than creating one. “Always be on your guard, always post in a language that matches your status, and avoid looking silly in your replies.”
“You may not believe it, but sometimes a fake identity is more welcome than the real thing. Once, I was commissioned to create a girl on social media. She was smart and beautiful, and the buyer wanted to use her to defraud foreigners on Facebook. You can’t imagine how popular she was!”
At different times, the sleepwalker has created several fake identities for himself, including students, extreme sports enthusiasts, and girls interested in the dark Web. He even created himself as an old fisherman for fun, along with a fake passport and fake Yandexi-Money and QIWI accounts.
He didn’t tidy up the old fisherman’s VK homepage. “You know this is an old fisherman, his homepage should look like this.”
The sleepwalker says he’s not used to the regular Internet anymore. “In a normal network, you have to take some responsibility for people and things, or you are more comfortable online anonymously.”
(The original article was published in Meduza magazine. Translated: Crazy Ivan, Wu Tatar)
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