[zbanks]

Not being too familiar with the Tor network, how hard will it be for the government to shut this site down?

I mean, it will have to be problematic if they can't even get an IP, right?

And they obviously can't get Bitcoins directly...

[seanalltogether]

The goods have to be shipped from somewhere to somewhere. How hard would it be for the feds to find the origin of the packages?

[zbanks]

Its tough separating the wheat from the chaff. Presumably, Silk Road merchants aren't the first to ship drugs: it's pretty tough to detect without slowing everything down.

[weavejester]

You can't shut down a Tor hidden service without compromising or shutting down the entire Tor network. Same deal with Bitcoins.

[VMG]

I think maybe the endpoints can be targeted where bitcoin is traded into dollar. But I have a limited understanding.

[catnip]

It's simple. I will monitor your networks and if I see somthing that looks like TOR(omg) I send my police buddys to shoot you in the face.

[eqdw]

Exactly. It would be exceedingly difficult to locate the silk road server, but trivially easy to find someone who was going to it

[weavejester]

No it wouldn't. You can determine if someone is running Tor, but not which sites they are visiting with it. That's sort of the whole point.