Dread (forum)

Dread is a Reddit-like dark web discussion forum featuring news and discussions around darknet markets. The site's administrators go by the alias of Paris and HugBunter.^[3]

Dread

Type of site	Dark web forum
Available in	English
Owner	HugBunter and Paris
Created by	HugBunter
URL	g66ol3eb5ujdckzqqfmjsbpdjufmjd5nsgdipvxmsh7rckzlhywlzlqd.onion (Accessing link help)[1] dreadtoobigdsrxg4yfspcyjr3k6675vftyco5pyb7wg4pr4dwjq.b32.i2p (Accessing link help)[2]
Registration	Optional
Launched	2018; 6 years ago (2018)
Current status	Active (.onion only)

History

Dread is a popular community hub which has been described as a "Reddit-style forum" and the successor of the seized DeepDotWeb for discussion around market law enforcement activity and scams.^[4][5] It came to prominence in 2018 after Reddit banned several darknet market discussion communities, rapidly reaching 12,000 registered users within three months of being launched, and 14,683 users by June 2018.^[6] In September 2019, HugBunter's dead man's switch was triggered,^[7] accompanied by a weeks-long absence, signifying the temporary loss of control over the site. The site would be reinstated in November,^[8] with a revamped user interface, and remains active as of September 2022. It became known that the cause of the outage was a server failure, according to HugBunter,^[8] despite rumors^{[by whom?]} concerning a potential compromising from a third party or law-enforcement authority.

Activities

In May 2019 a moderator of Wall Street Market posted its hidden IP address to Dread, potentially leading to its exit scam and seizure shortly after.^[9][10][11] Stolen data is sometimes sold via Dread.^[12] The site features in-depth guides around manufacture of illegal drugs.^[13] The shutdown of Dream Market was announced on Dread in March 2019.^[14] Major denial-of-service attacks have been launched against Dread and other markets exploiting a vulnerability in the Tor protocol.^[15]

References

1. "tor.taxi". tor.taxi. Retrieved March 10, 2024.
2. "tor.taxi - Dread". tor.taxi. Retrieved March 6, 2023.
3. Power, Mike (10 April 2019). "The World's Biggest Dark Net Market Has Shut Down—What's Next?". Archived from the original on 15 December 2019. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
4. Greenberg, Andy (5 September 2019). "Feds Dismantled the Dark-Web Drug Trade—but It's Already Rebuilding". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on 26 October 2019. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
5. Popper, Nathaniel (11 June 2019). "Dark Web Drug Sellers Dodge Police Crackdowns". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2020-07-01. Retrieved 2020-07-08.
6. Mason, James (22 June 2018). "Darknet markets: everything changes but nothing's different". Archived from the original on 30 July 2020. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
7. "HugBunter's Deadman has been Switched". Darknetlive. 27 Sep 2019. Retrieved 13 Sep 2022.
8. "Dread Forum". dnstats.net.
9. Cimpanu, Catalin (2 May 2019). "Law enforcement seizes dark web market after moderator leaks backend credentials". Archived from the original on 17 July 2019. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
10. Lloyd, Tim (23 April 2019). "Exit Scam: Suspicion Grows Over Dark-Web Market's $30 Million Crypto Theft". Archived from the original on 26 October 2019. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
11. Muncaster, Phil (25 April 2019). "Dark Web's Wall Street Market Suspected of Exit Scam". Archived from the original on 26 October 2019. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
12. Memoria, Francisco (20 January 2019). "Hacked Customer Data From World Leading Cryptocurrency Exchanges For Sale On The Dark Web?". Archived from the original on 26 October 2019. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
13. Kiel, Tom (19 February 2019). "Inside the Dark Web Forum That Tells You How to Make Drugs". Archived from the original on 3 August 2019. Retrieved 31 October 2019.
14. Cimpanu, Catalin (26 March 2019). "Top dark web marketplace will shut down next month". Archived from the original on 8 March 2020. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
15. Cimpanu, Catalin (5 July 2019). "Tor Project to fix bug used for DDoS attacks on Onion sites for years". Archived from the original on 17 July 2019. Retrieved 26 October 2019.