A new claim from the Free Ross Ulbricht foundation has claimed the FBI’s explanation of how they found Silk Road’s servers is impossible.
The explanation came from ex-FBI agent Christopher Tarbell, who gave a technical testimonial on how they did it. He explained they used a strategy called “packet sniffing” of an IP through leaks.
The FBI claims not to have needed the NSA’s help, and discovered the IP address of the Silk Road servers through a misconfiguration on Silk Road’s login page. This allowed them to raid the Silk Road servers without a warrant.
Disbelief
However, several online security specialists have come out in opposition to the FBI’s claims, with some calling the situation unlikely, and others calling it altogether impossible.
Nik Cubrilovic wrote an analysis of Tarbell’s explanation, going into deep technical detail. He points out the main issue in the Ulbricht case is whether the FBI breached his Fourth Amendment right to privacy when they were tracking down the Silk Road’s servers. He put together a virtual simulation of their claims, and came to the conclusion that the FBI’s method of “packet sniffing” was impossible.
Robert Graham also believes the FBI’s claims equally incredulous, saying “as a top expert in my field, I know that the IP address of Silk Road would never appear in packet headers as the FBI claims.” He went on to describe the FBI’s claims as “technically inaccurate and confusing, but not necessarily deception,” and that “my personal belief is that they are lying.”
FBI’s Defense
The FBI, of course, denies any wrongdoing in their proceedings against Ulbricht. However, the conclusion here could have serious consequences for the Ulbricht case. If the FBI cannot prove their actions did not violate Ulbricht’s Fourth Amendment rights, the state must then drop all charges against him.
Ulbricht, meanwhile, remains in custody, having spent a full year in prison as of today. He is awaiting his trial, which is scheduled to begin November 10th.
Security Experts Call FBI's Claims "Impossible", "Inaccurate" In Ross Ulbricht Case
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