Incognito Darknet Market ecxtorts its own users, claims there are tech issues

I’ve been pondering this article for quite awhile, and now that I got my show notes done, its time to do a dive in to this stuid article.

I’m not saying that Brian Krebs is stupid, but the fact that the actors he’s talking about in this article are stupid. Its bad enough to run a darknet marketplace, but then you decide that as part of the shut down process which may or may not happen, you tell your faithful customers who you sell to that you’ll put all the transaction history out for everyone to see.

This is what I mean by stupid article Brian, if you read this, I enjoyed this article and we talked about it as part of our recebtly released programming whether it was TSB or the security hour on TBSN.

web page

While this article is now some days older, 24 hours refers to the time before the article was first published.

In the past 24 hours, the homepage for the Incognito Market was updated to include a blackmail message from its owners, saying they will soon release purchase records of vendors who refuse to pay to keep the records confidential.

If I were in a business, which I do run, my goal is to protect any transaction history whether you are a vendor I pay for services or whether I bill as part of a deal or even services.

“We got one final little nasty surprise for y’all,” reads the message to Incognito Market users. “We have accumulated a list of private messages, transaction info and order details over the years. You’ll be surprised at the number of people that relied on our ‘auto-encrypt’ functionality. And by the way, your messages and transaction IDs were never actually deleted after the ‘expiry’….SURPRISE SURPRISE!!! Anyway, if anything were to leak to law enforcement, I guess nobody never slipped up.”

The next paragraph states:

“Whether or not you and your customers’ info is on that list is totally up to you,” the Incognito administrators advised. “And yes, this is an extortion!!!!” Why the hell should it be my responsibility to pay your sorry ass to protect my financial information from my customers? This is part of doing business, you stupid fucks! You do not extort people to pay you to keep records that you and your vendors confidential. >

A payment status page by vendor was set up by the actor and constantly updated with info on companies that used them paid the “ransom.”

Incognito Market said it plans to open up a “whitelist portal” for buyers to remove their transaction records “in a few weeks.”

The mass-extortion of Incognito Market users comes just days after a large number of users reported they were no longer able to withdraw funds from their buyer or seller accounts. The cryptocurrency-focused publication Cointelegraph.com reported Mar. 6 that Incognito was exit-scamming its users out of their bitcoins and Monero deposits.

To add insult to injury,

CoinTelegraph notes that Incognito Market administrators initially lied about the situation, and blamed users’ difficulties in withdrawing funds on recent changes to Incognito’s withdrawal systems.

So you’re flat out lying about the solvency of the business? What a crock of shit you are!

Incognito Market has priced its extortion for vendors based on their status or “level” within the marketplace. Level 1 vendors can supposedly have their information removed by paying a $100 fee. However, larger “Level 5” vendors are asked to cough up $20,000 payments.

That’s nice.

To read Brian’s full article, please read Incognito Darknet Market Mass-Extorts Buyers, Sellers. Brian, great job. These jackasses need to be exposed for who they are.

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