Dread is Five Years Old

~4 min read | Published on 2023-02-22, tagged Dread using 806 words.

Dread is the darknet's reddit-like forum that supports free speech. Dread has been in existence since its launch on February 15, 2018. It has been the most popular forum for darknet users in that period.

Dread's landing page


Unlike most darknet services, Dread has managed to survive the numerous DDoS attacks it has faced since its inception. In the last five years, Dread has been the one of most important resources for the dark web community. We are going to look into some of its biggest contributions to the community in that period.

Zero Censorship


HugBunter launched Dread to foster free speech following the ban of hundreds of subreddits by Reddit. Dread has allowed its users to discuss anything through various subdreads on the forum.
For obvious reasons Dread does not support the sharing of personal information, and hate speech. The sale of restricted substances through the forum is also banned. Users are free to join discussions about darknet markets and vendors on the /d/DarknetMarkets subdread.
Dread's support for free speech was highlighted in June 2020 after Paris, one of the forum's admins created the /d/BlueLeaks subdread. Dread users were able to freely discuss BlueLeaks through the subdread.

Endgame DDoS protection


In a bid to stop the unabating DDoS attacks that plague dark web services, Dread participated in the creation of Endgame, a DDoS protection filter.
Endgame was released in early 2020 and has played a big role in the mitigation of DDoS attacks. Services that implemented Endgame were able to withstand attacks. The now-defunct Empire market and the largest darknet market at the time, implemented Endgame after it was launched and was able to stay online for four consecutive months.

Keeping the community Informed


In addition to having subdreads that educate its users on topics such as privacy and Operations Security, Dread has been the go-to resource for the latest occurrences on the dark web.
Access to information is crucial to the survival of darknet users. Lack of access to accurate information could lead to the loss of one's funds and privacy. Dread has played a big role in keeping its users informed.
In late March 2019, Dream Market's admin announced that the market was going to shut down at the end of April 2019. Dream Market had been in operation for six years. It is through Dread that an official Dream Market moderator issued an official explanation to the community. The shutdown was attributed to a DDoS attacker who wanted a $400,000 payout to stop attacking the market. Dream's admins decided to close the market because paying the attacker would not have been a lasting solution.
Dread gave darknet market users a platform to discuss and find markets to move to following Dream's exit.
Towards the end of April 2019, Hugbunter warned Dread's users of Wall Street Market's imminent exit scam. The market's exit was characterized by the movement of bitcoin from the market's wallets. An official moderator explained that the bitcoin was being moved manually after a server problem had made it impossible for the market to synchronize its bitcoin wallets with the blockchain. The market exit scammed at the end of April. On May 2, 2019, Europol announced that the market had been seized in a global operation.
In late August 2020, Empire Market exit scammed leaving its more than a million users stranded. The market's admin pocketed approximately $30 million of users' funds. The only explanation the market's users received was from a post on Dread by one of Empire's moderators, Se7en.
In the post, Se7en said the market's admins had been paying an attacker and they may have decided to exit after a second attacker who could take down Endgame links came into the picture. Se7en claimed the exit would not have happened had Tor implemented PoW to stop the attacks.
At the end of April 2021, Dread quickly warned its users after DarkNetLive and DarkDotFail's domains got hijacked by an unknown attacker. The attacker hosted phishing sites on the domains. Dread's warning saved those who saw it from losing their cryptocurrency and credentials to the attacker. DarkDotFail estimated that those who used links posted by the attacker may have lost a total of more than 250,000 euros.

Recon


In march 2020, Hugbunter launched Recon, a search engine for darknet markets. Recon hosts a collection of vendor profiles and darknet market listings from as far as the Silk Road era. When online, Recon provides darknet users with a comprehensive archive of darknet market's data. Recon allows darknet users to easily research darknet markets and vendors.
Dread will obviously continue to be one of the most crucial players in shaping the future of the darknet community.

[Edit] The point about "zero censorship" has been disputed due to ongoing concerns on the link between Dread and Alphabay. I'll put it as "much less censored" when compared to Reddit, and "zero to non censorship" on non-market related content.

Comments (32)


fuckoff2023-02-22
559ebe1b

Zero Censorship lmao

whatajoke2023-02-23
8ce4ace9

yeah biggest bullshit of the year

dreadsimp2023-02-22
38a2ceda

you're aware dread has been offline because of ddos for like... months now, right? itll be back soon, i know. devs are working as hard as they can, give them some peace to do so. dread is literally lifesaving, and deserves the best and everyone's respect. so if you're mad, shut the fuck up, and let hugbunter and paris do their shit.

Ronnie Raygun2023-02-22
9ff41a53

Dread promotes markets that pay them and bashes good markets that won't pay the fee. And yes, they censor many users and posts

joseph jesus goebbel2023-02-22
dc12280e

Zero Censorship I lough my ass off. Last year where Alpha did not pay some vendors they removed every post about it and called it fud even when desnake comfirmed it as a problem with the withdraw, and magicly dread was offline due alphabay exitscam. When Dread is back everything will go back to normal to support the next exit scam marke. Fucking jews heil hitler

zhyadb2023-02-23
796fbb2f

Jesus you're not very bright are you nazi? Dread has been down since December 2nd, long before AB stopped functioning. And when AB did go dark HB weighed in on reddit to stay away because desnake in his opinion was compromised or dead because he had been missing in the month prior to the 2fa dysfunction. Doesn't sound like magic to me.

LMAO2023-02-22
12c9618e

"Zero Censorship" Have you ever been on dread?

cockza2023-03-26
d8668407

man i wish

haha2023-02-23
510f6c54

Yeh I hope it comes back soon one question though why was dread asking for donations? Its kind of hard to believe a team full of the top hackers are broke lmao

crackbunter2023-02-24
f589602b

hugbunter must be dope sick again

krang2023-02-23
1ade448d

Dread is 5 year old but offline for one year so, Dread is 4 years old.

hi...2023-03-07
53a27cad

hlo.......

darkcognitomarket2023-02-23
eaf5d0a0

[Edit] The point about "zero censorship" has been disputed due to ongoing concerns on the link between Dread and Alphabay. I'll put it as "much less censored" when compared to Reddit, and "zero to non censorship" on non-market related content. HAHAHA fucking clown

censorship2023-02-23
a65c645a

Why comments censored so much?

Libre2023-02-23
6eb988c5

Fuck dread and fuck its corrupted admins.

ya mama2023-02-24
735d439f

zero censorship what a fucking joke

fir3332023-02-24
9ee76f95

talk shit about desnake = removed

censored2023-02-24
a7918a1e

Dread is a opsec risk to us all. Get your links independently from multiple sources and compare PGP. Bookmark the real link once you have confirmed it.

earthboundbliss2023-02-27
3841a29f

This is probably the most (and only) helpful/constructive comment here.

nigs2023-02-24
a869ef8b

Paris is a nigger loving kike, that retard shit forum dread censors and gets paid to do so, they are offline so alphabay could exit-scam over the last couple months, they removed posts of users and shills always respond with /you were phished even if you were not phished, fuck them all

whatever2023-02-24
190abdfc

u good bud?

dreadtober2023-02-25
94df3c7c

literally this ^^^ now incognito is their new cash cow

wtfe2023-02-24
df4e373c

wtf is this article

libre is run by2023-02-25
fb825ead

hugbunter

xxxx2023-02-25
5f629b61

Yes how many times tried to post anything about AB, after DS became the biggest donator they just censored -EVERY-DAMN-NEGATIVE-THING-ABOUT-AB... Notlike they did with Empire. Dread team made us again a huge loss, pushing allowing IF NOT creating this whole shitshow and market just like WORLD market. They are now Lovelace 3.0. Will be AB3.0 back run by thecryptriot? Who is also DeSnake, but the 2.0 version, not the original fraudster.

suckit2023-02-26
686c0b04

OG silkroad forum you could say whatever you want, spam nigger a thousand times and discuss your favorite childporn and the mods wouldnt do shit unless you were posted in the wrong area. ross was a real libertarian not this faggoty ass wannabe reddit community we got now thanks to dread playing the optics game. DNM mods are fully paid off and you cant even discuss anything that goes against their sponsors just like reddit, sick of this shit we need real decentralization. no mods, no admins, no servers to get knocked offline for months.

FEDERAL AGENT2023-02-27
0bf296bf

Are we now shit posting here guys ?

Guava2023-02-28
99a9c3c7

someone clearly hasnt been on dread before

vince bliss2023-03-01
57250662

ahehehe...wudup guys!

James Wong 0072023-03-02
29451b2d

Hugbunter and desnake are confirmed LE , the agents took control of DREAD , real hug and real desnake are compromised . If you talk shit about alphabay they ban you on dread . My best friend u/dontlaugh (the biggest motherfucker censor on dread , fuck you "Dontlaugh" now get back to normal life and ...SHUT the fuck up or we will ban you from other forums . MOuahahahahaha

Name2023-04-08
5893db35

This comment section is a whole mess

Downunda2023-10-17
f9371ba3

So I’m brand new and fucking stupid. I can’t even get on dread. Wtf