The developers of the Tor Project published an interesting blog post titled “ Thoughts and Concerns about Operation Onymous“, in which they have explained the possible techniques adopted by authorities to locate the hidden services and de-anonymize the operators that managed the most popular black markets, including Silk Road 2.0. The operation is considered an important success in the fight agaisnst cybercrime, but many experts have begun to question how law enforcement was able to locate the servers hosting hidden services and operators who ran the illegal activities. Coordinated by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), Operation Onymous hit the criminal organization that exploited the Tor network to manage black markets. Police and intelligence agencies in a joint effort conducted the takedown of several illegal marketplaces as part of Operation Onymous. Since the publication of the last post, a blow was dealt by the authorities to the cybercriminals that use the Tor network for illegal purposes.

There is also another option for authorities: to try secretly to destroy the overall Tor architecture or attack the hidden services to interfere with the traffic that flows to them.

The tor network