The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Interpol have allegedly seized proxy servers used in connection with Blockchain-based domains belonging to Joker’s Stash, a notorious fraud bazaar known for selling compromised payment card data in underground forums.
The takedown happened last week on December 17.
The operators of Joker’s Stash operate several versions of the platform, including Blockchain proxy server domains — .bazar, .lib, .emc, and .coin — that are responsible for redirecting users to the actual website and two other Tor (.onion) variants.
Joker’s Stash implemented the use of Blockchain DNS via a Chrome browser extension in 2017.
These Blockchain websites make use of a decentralized DNS where the top-level domains (e.g., .bazar) are not owned by a single central authority, with the lookup records shared over a peer-to-peer network as opposed to a DNS provider, thus bringing in significant advantages like bulletproof hosting.