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Hello and welcome to Darknet Demystified.

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This is our first podcast, first episode.

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I created this podcast
because I had a ton of people

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who asked for it, so

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I might as well make it.

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My name Sam Bent.

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My alias online was 2happytimes2,

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and Killab and a bunch of other aliases too.

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I was a previous darknet Vendor

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market admin paralegal,

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an author,
a hacker, a nerd, a pirate, and a agorist.

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And among many other things
that I call myself and other people.

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And they tend to call me.

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In this podcast,
I'm going to be discussing

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a ton of different stuff,
like the Darknet.

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Operational security
and other kind of random

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and interesting
tidbits of information that

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I find and learn about as time goes on.

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And I hope that you'll be there
on that journey with me today.

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Some of the topics
that I'm going to be covering are address

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poisoning I2P's New Update.

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And lastly, I'll be

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talking about how Larry Harman

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was the creator of Grams,
which is a dark web

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search engine and Helix,
which is a Bitcoin tumbler,

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which is completely useless, basically.

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His brother ended up stealing

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a bunch of Bitcoin,
which we'll get into last now.

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That said, I'm
pretty excited to be doing this podcast.

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It's the first episode I'm going to be
posting this first and foremost on YouTube

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on my channel that's on there,
which is called DoingFedTime.

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All one word majority of the stuff on
there is stuff that relates to,

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you know, cryptocurrencies, mainly Darknet

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markets and federal prison,

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which is I know a super eclectic mix

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of different things,
but that's what's there.

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If when you're listening to this podcast,
you're like, Oh, it's you know,

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the audio is not perfect
and you know, you kind of jumps around.

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You're absolutely right.

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At the end of the day,
it's literally just me producing this.

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And at the same time that I'm producing
this, I'm also making YouTube videos

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and writing books
and, you know, doing a regular 9 to 5 job.

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And so, like,
you know, it's definitely a ton of stuff.

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And, you know,

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if you guys have any constructive
criticism, I'm definitely open to it.

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I'm always looking to improve, but that
said, let's get on with the main event,

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which is going to be, you know, the topics
that we're covering today.

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This first episode
is going to be super short.

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Just because I'm dipping my toes
into the water and, you know,

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getting familiar with the software
that I'm using and all that kind of stuff.

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So I really appreciate you guys
muscling through it with me and,

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you know,
giving me any feedback that you might find

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time to be helpful or insightful.

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I'm definitely open
to hearing from you guys.

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All of my social media contact
information is right there on YouTube.

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My show on Twitter @doingfedtime

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So well.

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That said, let's get into the actual news.

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There's a company called Metamask,

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which is basically a crypto wallet
provider that's, you know, warning

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its users of a new scam
that's called address poisoning.

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This basically tricks users
into sending funds to a scammer

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instead of the like, the intended person
that they want it to be.

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Send to the scam where it's basically
by poisoning the wallets.

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Transaction history with that person

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or that scammers address that look similar

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to the address of the person
who's going to get scammed.

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Recent transactions actions.

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So to prevent this,
basically the company Metamask recommends

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that users be diligent
when copying addresses and to make

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use of their built in address book
feature to save known or valid addresses.

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They also suggest searching
for a known valid transaction and grabbing

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the full address from the blockchain
explorer

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like Etherscan.

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However, as Etherium addresses
are very long and may cause some issues

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in the user interface design,
this is a lot

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like when we see a darknet.

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You know, go down or
we see someone who loses their bookmarks

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or we see someone who,

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you know, installs the Tor browser
and they don't have any bookmarks

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and they didn't export them and save them,
or there are a new system or whatever,

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and they kind of just like hop on Reddit
and find a random user

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who's like, Oh, hey, you know, X, Y,
z, market, and here's the dot onion for it.

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And they just kind of randomly go to that.

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You know, they get phished.

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I think they

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you know,
we see a lot of throughout the history of

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cybersecurity,
we've seen a lot of those kind of things

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where it's like an old scams
that's just renewed and refreshed

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and put into a new kind of context,

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which, you know, then it works.

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You know, it works like if you have,

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you know, the reason why a lot of scammers
use these old kind of scams

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is because at the end of the day,
they're predictable and they work.

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And that's just it's something
that it's interesting to see.

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Like when I had originally checked out
the article

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on address poisoning,
you know, I'm thinking, you know,

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like arp poisoning, you know, I'm thinking

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something way kind of cooler.

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I guess the the
this is going to be this lame, but it was

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yeah, it is pretty lame.

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It's basically like, you know,
don't get phished, you know, smarten up.

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So that was
that was definitely interesting.

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Building a lot of those out there,
you know, kind of look forward to updates.

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I remember back
when I used to run backtrack

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just like the predecessor to kali linux,
which is a hacking operating system.

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I would love seeing the updates
that came through, seeing the version,

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the new version numbers or, you know,
if you're really lucky, the new software

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that you know was created
that you were grabbing that was fresh out.

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I always like seeing those kind of updates
because I knew

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that it was going to enable me
to do more kind of stuff.

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Like George Washington said that,
you know, totally

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just kind of off
the top of the head, so if I 

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Screw this quote up just

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know, that's this is not verbatim

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that at the end of the day,

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if he had 4 hours to cut down
a cherry tree,

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he would spend the first three
sharpening his blade, basically

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speaking to, you know, being prepared
and being being ready.

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And, you know, the great thing about that
kind of thing

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is that at the end of the day
with us nowadays with things like,

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you know, updates on various things,
a lot of the times it gives us

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additional functionality
or makes things a little bit smoother.

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You know,
And I think this latest update of I2P

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Easy install bundle,
which is like version 2.1.0.

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I think basically includes
updates to the I2P router,

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which improves things
like performance connectivity

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and secures, you know, long term

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health of the I2P network in general.

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The release also includes improvements
to the browser profile launcher, compatible

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with the TOR browser bundle and updates

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to Firefox profile
and extensions and updates

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throughout the code base
and deployment process

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in general, however, users are advised

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to verify the check
some of the installer before using it

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as the release
is an unsigned exe installer,

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but the updates are signed and safe
and you know more details.

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You can go to I2p's blog at

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geti2p.net

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Talking about, you know, I2P.

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One thing I did want to point out
is that I actually have on that YouTube

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channel a new video coming out
that is all about the differences

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between Tor and I2P.

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The following for Tor
is massive in comparison to I2P,

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but the structure of both of them,
whether you're talking about,

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you know, how things are routed,
where like you know, Tor uses

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onion routing and I2P uses garlic routing

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like the structure and how everything
kind of is between the two.

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When you compare them
is really interesting because there are

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a lot of differences between the two and,
you know,

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the video that will be coming out either
today or tomorrow on my YouTube channel

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will point out those differences and it's

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meant to encompass like every difference.

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So they could possibly we think of or find
when comparing the two,

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it's meant to be,
you know, pretty verbose and detailed.

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That said, obviously I'm not perfect.

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I probably missed a whole bunch of them

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if I did go ahead and yell at me
in the comment section in that video.

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And you know, I'll definitely make
an amended version at some point.

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But that said,

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that video is definitely worth
checking out and learning about I2P

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as I've kind of taken this journey
where, you know, we're seeing

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the Tor browser and Tor in general,

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the tor project
kind of get hammered by DoS

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and DDoS attacks where, you know,
it's getting to a point where

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a lot of the sites just aren't usable,

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which is really,
really, really sad and unfortunate.

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But you have this natural
evolutionary shift

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where at the end of the day,
when one technology doesn't work,

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we're going to evolve,
you know, as a species

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we naturally evolve,
but as people that, you know,

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want to be able to have freedom,
we have a lot of different options.

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You know, there are actually a lot
of different darknets that are out there.

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Tor is not the only network or, you know,

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overlay network that has a darknet.

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You know, I2P does too.

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And that's why, you know, you irregardless

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of what we think about the website,

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you know, the Alphabay admin

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for example,
is names eluding me right now, but

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which is not a bad
there's a great thing you know

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kind of a side
topic is at the end of the day,

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you know, dealing with the guy who,
you know, has a horrible memory

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or really remember names.

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I was great for any coconspirators that I have

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that said

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he had advised, you know, the use of I2P,

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the current Alphabay Darknet admin.

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And I think that's,

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you know, very interesting
and it's very telling

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that we may be looking at this paradigm

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shift where a lot of the Darknet users

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that use the the Darknt on tor

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are going to start evolving

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and maybe switching over to
something like I2P,

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which would be really interesting
and I think might actually be better

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at the end of the day,
because I2P, from my understanding,

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is a lot better at things like,
you know, keeping a server secure

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and there's a little bit less latency
because it's a peer to peer network.

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And in order to do some of the attacks

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that we see in Tor all the time,
you have to compromise like twice

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as many nodes or, you know,
they call them routers in I2P

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that you would need to in Tor,
which again, that's pretty awesome.

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That added security.

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And like, you know, with Tor
they have like a centralized list of nodes

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or directory.

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Centralized directory, I'm sorry.

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And you know, with I2P
it's all decentralized.

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So I think there's a lot more resiliency

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in that network as well
as, you know, less latency.

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And I think that might be where,
you know, the kind of

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the Darknet community might be headed over
a long period of time.

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Again, I'm a you know, I'm not an expert.

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I was just a I was a Darknet
vendor and Darknet market admin,

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but I'm definitely not like one of these
high end IT

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super dudes who like,
you know, their study and assembly and,

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and you know, they're writing,
you know, their own patches for,

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you know, BSD
and this is definitely not me.

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But that said,

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the last story that we had to cover

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is basically about a guy from Ohio.

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And you know, our story starts
with that name, Gary James Garment.

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And, you know, this guy pled guilty
to stealing cryptocurrency

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by accessing and taking over 712 Bitcoin
from a hardware wallet

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that was seized from his brother,

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who's Larry Dean Harmond by the feds.

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So, you know, the feds go and they seized
this wallet and they have the wallet.

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And you know, this guy, Gary,

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And you know, he goes and accesses.

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So, you know,
Larry was the creator and administrator

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of the now down and dead Grams Darkweb
search engine,

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which you could basically put in like,
you know, "cocaine".

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And it would search every darknet market,
you know, for that specific keywords

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you could do with vendors,
you could do with any kind of stuff.

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And it would instantly search
all these different sites and kind of

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bring you back very specific and detailed
information or show you listings

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for that particular product

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or Darknet vendor, or group or whatever it is
that you were looking for.

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And Helix
and Helix was like a Bitcoin tumbler

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that ran from 2014 to 2017,

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which, you

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know, in my opinion
is is a total waste of time.

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It's total trash,
like at the end of the day,

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laundering money by using a Bitcoin
tumblers is moronic at best.

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It was a really, really big thing
when I was Darknet

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vendor and a dark market admin and
I just never really saw the appeal to it.

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I actually have on my left wrist,
I have Monero symbol

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and a bitcoin symbol
tattooed on to my wrist

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and a bunch of other kind of,
you know, tattoos that are like that.

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But those those tattoos
are basically the symbol of like,

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you know, money laundering.

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Like, you know, if you have Bitcoin
or you're doing something illegal

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with Bitcoin, swapping it out into Monroe
and swapping it back

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is pretty much the equivalent
of like robbing a bank,

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taking the

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money you get from the bank, buying,
you know,

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a bunch of weed
selling that weed for cash.

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And now the cash that you have
as totally different serial numbers

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than the cash that you got from the bank.

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You know, it's like cleaning your money
and, you know, at the same time

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selling that weed,
you might actually net a profit.

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So, you know,
switching, switching obviously

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from one crypto to another, you're
not really going to net a profitable.

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My point is, at the end of the day,
the small fee

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that they're going to charge you to switch
from one currency to another

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is nothing in comparison
to like you know, with these crooks who,

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you know, run Bitcoin tumblers charge
and the fact that, you know,

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actually verifying that they're doing
their job is a whole nother thing.

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Like you're going to have to actually do
blockchain analysis

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to figure out if you know, they're doing
what they're supposed to be doing.

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And to me, like

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me requiring

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that level of investigation
when I when I was doing

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the amount of stuff that I was doing,
just was not worth it to me

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to have to invest that amount of time
and try to figure out

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to make sure that like a Bitcoin
tumbler was actually doing their job

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when the fee they were
charging was asinine to begin with.

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I wouldn't pay it so...

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And you know, people say,
Oh, you're cheaper.

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At the end of the day if I switch it from
if I should have my crypto from Bitcoin

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to, you know, XMR,
I know for a fact that it's switched.

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I don't have to confirm that.

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I don't have to do blockchain analysis.

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Like, most dangerous thing in an operation

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is, you know, not knowing
a particular thing.

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So, like, you know,

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if you're basing your operational security
on, you know, doing a particular thing

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00:17:37,156 --> 00:17:40,192
or operating in a certain way,
and at the end of the day,

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you don't know what's going to happen
at a certain timeframe.

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00:17:43,762 --> 00:17:45,998
That's a million different
things that can go wrong

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and even a minute timespan.

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So an unknown is an absolute red flag
when you're talking

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about operational security.

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And because I knew
it was a red flag to me and I avoided it.

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So anyways, back to the thing at hand.

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So Harmon was arrested in June of 21

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00:18:05,784 --> 00:18:09,588
and he pled guilty on January six of 23.

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He agreed to foreclose assets,
including more than

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647.41 Bitcoin 2.14.

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Etherium and 17,404,400.64 Dogecoin.

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You'll be sentenced on March 17th, 2023.

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His brother, Larry Harmon
pleaded guilty to money laundering charges

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in August 2021.

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00:18:42,955 --> 00:18:47,126
So, you know, at the end of the day,
a lot of these dudes, the really

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00:18:47,126 --> 00:18:52,164
the big downfall of a lot of these guys
is that you end up,

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you know, seeing these dudes
cooperate with law enforcement,

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which, you

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00:18:57,970 --> 00:19:01,740
know, is it's really unfortunate
at the end of the day that they do that.

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00:19:01,740 --> 00:19:06,245
Like, you know,
you end up putting other people in prison

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because, you know, a lot of times
they're scared to go to prison.

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00:19:10,983 --> 00:19:14,820
And, you know, it's just it's a it's a
it's like the

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00:19:15,154 --> 00:19:18,090
you know, for anyone who's ever
looked at kind of like the Salem

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00:19:18,090 --> 00:19:21,260
witch trials,
I think our justice system operates

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00:19:21,260 --> 00:19:26,064
in very much the same fashion
where it's like one person gets in trouble

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00:19:26,331 --> 00:19:30,302
and that person, you know,
because of their own cowardice,

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00:19:31,336 --> 00:19:36,241
freaks out and ends up, you know, bringing
five or six other people with them.

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00:19:36,241 --> 00:19:39,611
It's like, if I'm drowning and I grab you
and I push you under the water

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00:19:39,912 --> 00:19:43,115
to lift myself up,
to get a breath of fresh air for a minute.

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And, you know, I just keep pushing.

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00:19:45,217 --> 00:19:49,922
You wonder every time we try to come
up, like, that's exactly what we do.

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00:19:49,922 --> 00:19:53,559
But, you know, we if you do that to six,
seven, eight, nine, ten people,

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00:19:53,859 --> 00:19:55,661
20 people, you know, at a shot.

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00:19:55,661 --> 00:19:59,231
And it's just really and I'm not saying
that like at the end of the day,

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00:19:59,231 --> 00:20:03,268
this guy actually did that because I don't
know, I'd have to, you know, in order

325
00:20:03,268 --> 00:20:06,738
to know someone's your telling on someone,
you gonna have to hop on Pacer and

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00:20:07,072 --> 00:20:10,609
and look them up and read their paperwork
and see if there's anything like,

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00:20:10,976 --> 00:20:16,582
you know, rule 35(b),
which is when someone snitches

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00:20:16,582 --> 00:20:21,119
after they've been convicted
or if there's anything like,

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00:20:21,220 --> 00:20:24,990
you know, 5k1,
you know, 5K, 1.1 letters,

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00:20:25,424 --> 00:20:29,595
which are, you know, basically
it's the statute that gives people

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00:20:29,595 --> 00:20:34,132
downward departures or less time
for cooperating with law enforcement.

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00:20:34,132 --> 00:20:37,169
So I'm not sure whether he do it or not.

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00:20:37,169 --> 00:20:41,073
But it's just unfortunate that so many
people in the Darknet community tend to,

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00:20:41,540 --> 00:20:45,377
you know, assist the feds because,
you know, the feds are basically morons

335
00:20:45,377 --> 00:20:48,747
when it comes to the darknet,
from my experience.

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00:20:48,747 --> 00:20:49,381
Anyway,

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00:20:50,582 --> 00:20:51,083
I just

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00:20:51,083 --> 00:20:54,152
I you know, to me, they take the easy
way out

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00:20:54,152 --> 00:20:58,357
when you have people that, you
know, snitches are really investigations.

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00:20:58,357 --> 00:21:02,761
It's like you're being given the answers,
Like your job is to figure stuff out.

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00:21:03,028 --> 00:21:05,564
And at the end of the day,
if you don't figure that stuff out,

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00:21:06,732 --> 00:21:09,401
then you're being told with the answer is.

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00:21:09,401 --> 00:21:13,171
You know, it's like is a mathematician,
a mathematician if they use a calculator.

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00:21:13,538 --> 00:21:14,439
Right.

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00:21:14,773 --> 00:21:17,643
I just I always thought
that was kind of an interesting parallel

346
00:21:17,643 --> 00:21:20,545
to look at and kind of evaluate it with

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00:21:21,580 --> 00:21:25,651
in any case, I know this
first episode has been super short.

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00:21:26,218 --> 00:21:28,920
I'd love to hear you guys
feedback in terms

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00:21:28,920 --> 00:21:32,391
of what you like,
where you didn't like, how I can improve.

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00:21:32,824 --> 00:21:35,227
Definitely let me know in the comments
section.

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00:21:35,227 --> 00:21:38,230
Again, this it's going to go on
YouTube first and then depending

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00:21:38,230 --> 00:21:41,433
on the how that goes, I might,
you know, put it elsewhere.

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But thank you for listening
and I look forward to seeing

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00:21:44,436 --> 00:21:45,604
you guys in the next episode.