‘Silk Road Reloaded’ launched on a network more secret than Tor
The high profile dark web drug and contraband marketing website, Silk Road seems to have made a comeback in a new form. A new anonymous online drug market called ‘Silk Road Reloaded’ has emerged but it is not known whether it is linked to its predecessors Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0.
Silk Road Reloaded however has dumped the Tor anonymiser network used by earlier versions and uses a very little known “I2P” alternative.
“Silk Road Reload?ed” was launched yesterday by its makers and is only accessible by downloading th I2P software, or by configuring your computer in a certain way to connect to I2P web pages, called ‘eepsites’, and which end in the suffix .i2p.
What is I2P protocol
The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) is a computer network layer that allows applications to send messages to each other pseudonymously and securely. Uses include anonymous Web surfing, chatting, blogging and file transfers. The software that implements this layer is called an I2P router and a computer running I2P is called an I2P node.
The software is free and open source and is published under multiple licenses. The name I2P is derived from Invisible Internet Project, which, in pseudo-mathematical notation, is represented as I²P.
All Cryptocurrencies accpeted
Unlike Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0 which only accepted Bitcoins, the new avatar will accept all cryptocurrencies and process transactions in other cryptocurrencies by converting them into Bitcoin through the site’s built in wallet.
In addition to Bitcoin, the other cyrptocurrencies being accepted on Silk Road Reloaded are Anoncoin, Darkcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin etc. In all, eight different cryptocurrencies are being accepted as of now and others are slated to join soon.
“All functions are completely enabled and fully functional,” says a message on the site, posted today. “Sample data is being removed. Current vendor(s) your products will show shortly. Thank you all for making the site launch a success!”
It remains to be seen how long Silk Road Reloaded manages to remain online and how soon FBI and other law enforcement agencies manage to track it and take it down.
nice to see. Maybe this time the Feds will be powerless against their buggy ass code.