DNSTARS, the self-described "independent drug testing and publishing platform" is shutting down. The forum is most well known for hosting the results of drug identification or purity tests from Energy Control, EcstasyData, Wedinos, and other drug testing laboratories. Read more

Dread is back online after an extended period of downtime. The forum relaunched with a large set of new features including UI improvements, chatrooms, and better spam management tools. The new infrastructure should prevent some of the frequent 502 errors and increase the overall speed of the site. Read more

Dread suffered a crash that resulted in the loss of two weeks worth of data, including account changes, posts, comments, and even new accounts. HugBunter will have the forum up and running again in the next few days, according to a status update posted on the DreadAlert subreddit. Read more

A 43 year old man from Pforzheim, Germany is suspected of running a dark web child pornography forum from a server located in his home since 2015. The man has been indicted by the cybercrime department of the Mannheim public prosecutor's office. The defendant and the other members of the forum used the forum to exchange child abuse and exploitation videos. Read more

The Department of Justice recently announced the takedown of the child abuse site Welcome to Video. Now, users of similar forums are producing and sharing more advanced OPSEC guides for themselves and other users, providing insight into how these communities exist and stay online. Read more

Richard Huckle, the target of a complex investigation into a darkweb forum, was stabbed to death in his prison cell where he was serving multiple life sentence for various crimes involving child abuse and the distribution of illegal content on darkweb forums and chatrooms. Read more

Reports from Slovenia disclosed that German authorities arrested a Slovenian citizen on request of the U.S. government. The accused is suspected of being one of the founders and administrators of the now-defunct Darkode forum that was once described as "the most sophisticated English-speaking forum for criminal computer hackers in the world." He is also accused of authoring and selling a botnet malware software. Read more

More than a week after Dread went down for maintenance, HugBunter's deadman switch was triggered, indicating that the owner of the largest darkweb forum no longer had control over the forum or his own equipment. His staff, in a message on the Dread homepage, said to assume the worst. Read more