I’m fascinated by the technology behind darknet marketplaces and how they are able to operate anonymously. Can someone knowledgeable about this topic explain to me how it works? I’d love to learn more about it.
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Jump down a rabbit hole search of of “Tor hidden services” on Google, and also read through the stuff on the Tor web site. That’s not said trying to blow you off or anything, just pointing you to some really good explanations of the technology at hand. You are very right that its some REALLY interesting stuff, just get ready for your brain to hurt until some of it gels (laughing). When that brain fog happens just let it soak in a while and then one night you’ll wake up and think “Oh shit – NOW I get it!!!!”. It all started with spies & the US Navy & DARPA, and trying to protect the lives of people who put their asses on the line each and every day doing shit we can’t even fathom. Seriously fun stuff to learn about – and a very valuable resource for very smart people who honestly need it to protect peoples lives.
Some markets run (believe it or not) on Raspberry PI boxen hidden in some unbelievably creative or funny places (hell, one market ran off a PI stashed in the ceiling of a prison). Others use a very sophisticated group of interconnected servers spread all over the world. If you enjoy tech and learning about it, a load of fun awaits you.
Lots of exceptionally smart people are to be found here on Reddit but you really have to push through that basic brain fog first or they may just giggle & ignore you.
Nice try FBI.
The site itself is just HTML code running in your browser. The marketplace servers are configured to use tor onion routing to obfuscate the host IP and Location. They also work all day and night improving their network and site security just like companies do. It’s way to much information to give you in a simple reddit reply. But you can learn about tor hidden services at d/HiddenService.
You are asking an OpSec question, so not sure that you’re going to get too much detail from anybody.
So again, in addition, I am familiar with the basics of TOR, the only question I have is how darknet marketplaces can remain so completely anonymous, because as far as I know, it is not completely anonymous when you move around normally on the darknet.