The dark web is indeed "dark" to most people. Not many people know about its existence, let alone venturing there. But no matter how obscure it is, the Deep Web is much larger than the Surface Web we know, and there is much in there than what meets the eyes.
Agora is one of the largest darknet's marketplace that replaced Evolution. While many darknet's marketplace come and go, there seems to be no end to this bitcoin-based market that sells narcotics and many criminal activities.
On August 25th, 2015, Agora announced that it will go offline for at least temporarily to bulk up its defenses against potential attacks it believes might expose its servers and its operators. In a message posted on both the market website and Reddit's "darknetmarkets" forum, Agora's anonymous administrators said that they've recently moved their servers after detecting a suspicious activity they believe was intended to break the protections offered by the anonymity software Tor.
Tor obscures IP addresses, making users anonymous. But with the many illegal activities in the Deep Web, especially on its marketplace, the law enforcement has made many seizure attempts to stop the dark e-commerce.
Agora administrators said that they're planning to implement a software update to protect the marketplace. But to initiate the update, the site needs to be offline. While the moment could be brief, but the administrators didn't say about when the marketplace would be back online.
"At this point, while we don't have a solution ready it would be unsafe to keep our users using the service, since they would be in jeopardy," reads the message. "Thus, and to our great sadness we have to take the market offline for a while, until we can develop a better solution. This is the best course of action for everyone involved."
Lessons Learned?
The move represents a major blow to many Deep Web's drug lords.
Deep Web's marketplace is relatively unstable. Furthermore, it's difficult to access by normal means, it's heavier to load and more dangerous for those who have no idea what it is. Agora is one of the marketplace that thrives within darknet with millions of dollars worth of market.
Because users of the Deep Web are somehow anonymous to one another, they have great privacy to do whatever they like. This has made the the Deep Web filled with many illegal activities including criminal services to drug selling.
Agora's choice to go offline, is seen as a "retreat". As the biggest marketplace for drugs, Agora is one of some marketplace that learned from previous veteran giants, notably Ross Ulbricht's Silk Road. So here, Agora seems to "quit" while it's still ahead and have the chance, or at least retreat and regroup before anything bad happens.
Agora is one of the online underground market which sells more than 17,000 drug listings out of its over 20,000 total listings that include counterfeits, drug paraphernalia and others. Previously, the site also sells guns.
Carnegie Mellon researchers estimated that the site was doing $150,000 a day in sales in February 2015. At that time, it was only the second largest market behind the competing marketplace Evolution. After Evolution went offline in March. Agora which was number 2, took over much of Evolution's market share.
Many people at Reddit's "darknetmarkets" forum, applauded Agora's decision to go offline rather than risk arrest, endanger customers or abscond with their funds as Evolution did.
"Props to Agora and their iron testicles," wrote one redditor. "Yes its a major inconvenience for vendors and users alike, but hey, who knows, maybe some people will even get clean during this period!"
During Agora’s downtime, competing market sites like Abraxas, Alphabay and Nucleus are replacing it, having the chance to absorb many of Agora's customers. While they may pick up the bits Agora is leaving, there is no saying who will be the next crowned king.
As long as the demand is still there, consumers won't go anywhere far. People who want they drugs are relentlessly seeking for new places, and there the new markets will rise.