Buying a handgun on the dark web ‘just like buying a bar of chocolate’

By Bruce Brown August 13, 2016

A hand on a laptop in a dark surrounding.

It’s too easy to buy guns illegally online. Due to the growth of online gun sales, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has established a new team to investigate online gun sales, especially those made via the dark web, as reported on CNN.

The ATF has shut down gun traffickers in Kansas and Alabama who were operating dealerships on the dark web that sold firearms made by Glock, Beretta, Uzi, Highpoint, and Walther, among others, to buyers around the world. According to a teenager who bought a handgun and other weapons materials on the dark web (and who is now serving a life sentence after being found guilty for plotting mass murder), buying a Glock online was “just like buying a bar of chocolate.”

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The gun dealers selling on the dark web, the internet’s notorious underbelly, were of course not out in the open. In order for buyers to find and communicate with the gun dealers, they had to use Tor software to browse the dark web, also called deep web or darknet. But the ATF agents found them anyway.

The dark web isn’t just a place to buy and sell guns. Carnegie Mellon University’s Nicolas Christin said that dark web illegal gun sales comprise less than 3 percent of the illegal trading that takes place there, according to Fast Company. According to Christin, most of trade is in illegal drugs. However, guns are sold via the dark web, as well as child porn, stolen social security and credit card data, and other identity theft data.

The ATF is focused on stopping illegal firearms and ammunition sales online. The agency has allocated $4 million to that effort and will hire 200 new agents to track sales, reports Fast Company. The ATF’s Internet Investigations Center, staffed by federal agents, full-on tech specialists, and attorneys, uses the latest technology to identify and provide “actionable intelligence” to ATF field agents.

In other words, the inside agents, legal experts, and techies find the evidence needed to make legal arrests or further an investigation. The field agents take that evidence and either bust, infiltrate, turn, or further investigate suspects, to either gather more evidence or to work their way farther up the supply chain.

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W-2 tax forms for 2016 can be bought and sold on the dark web at $20 or less

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Security researcher Brian Krebs reports that hackers are now selling W-2 tax forms on the dark web, a collection of websites that requires special software or authorization to access and can’t be found using Google or Bing. It’s an online world where pirated software can be obtained and cybercriminal shops can thrive, selling goods like PayPal account credentials, stolen credit cards, and now apparently last year’s tax forms.

According to Krebs, the W-2 tax form data was up for sale on an unnamed dark web shop under the “other” category. The data stemmed from more than 3,600 residents from Florida and included their employer’s name, employer ID, and employer address. The info also included the taxpayer’s personal information such as address, social security number, 2016 wage information, and the taxes withheld.

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To buy a bag of Chernyi Black coffee, you'll need to visit the dark web

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To the ordinary internet user, the dark web may seem like an ungovernable area of the web where online black marketplaces such as Silk Road reside. To a small team of coffee lovers from Russia, however, it's the only place they ever considered selling their unique brand of java, dubbed Chernyi Black. Accessible only by web users who've downloaded Tor -- the tool that lets anyone anonymously surf the web -- Chernyi Black won't be popping up in your local New Seasons anytime soon.

By attempting to eschew the popular connotation that the dark net only consists of illegal or shady practices, the team -- named the Chernyi Cooperative -- still wants to attract those who frequent these backchannels. In its own words, the Chernyi Cooperative has its sights set on "trendsetters who already have access to plenty of interesting content." Though Tor mainly helps people make purchases, communicate, and share data anonymously, the team feels confident it can leverage these aspects to keep Chernyi Black in the dark web's spotlight.

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Coen brothers to write screenplay for ‘Dark Web’ film based on Silk Road

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Wired’s two-part story unearthing the murky details behind Ross Ulbricht’s illegal online marketplace "The Silk Road" will hit the big screen, with two of Hollywood’s most highly praised filmmakers at the helm.

Titled Dark Web, the Fox-made movie will enlist the help of the Coen brothers (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, True Grit, and more) to write the film’s screenplay. Engadget reports that it’s not clear whether or not the brothers will also direct the movie.