Cthulhu (developer)
British Tor hidden service developer and administrator
Thomas White, also known as Cthulhu, is a British computer programmer who co-founded Silk Road 2.0 and Distributed Denial of Secrets. In 2019, he was sentenced to five years in prison on various charges in the United Kingdom related to his operation of Silk Road 2.0 and for possessing indecent images of children.
Career
Thomas White, operating under the online handle Cthulhu, is a British computer programmer whose work spanned darknet market operations, Tor security consulting, and whistleblower-oriented data publishing. According to his LinkedIn profile, White claimed to have worked in a security-vetted role at Enhanced Developed Vetting (eDV) level from August 2013 to December 2016. During this period and beyond, he was consulted on a range of Tor-related security matters, including dark web scams, law enforcement raids, and the operational security of darknet markets.
Silk Road 2.0
In 2013, White co-founded Silk Road 2.0, a darknet marketplace that emerged as a successor to the original Silk Road following that platform's shutdown by law enforcement. The site operated on the Tor network and facilitated the trade of illicit goods. In November 2014, White was arrested and identified by authorities as a central figure behind the operation of Silk Road 2.0.
Data Publishing and Distributed Denial of Secrets
White established himself as a host of significant leaked datasets during the mid-2010s. In January 2016, he hosted a release of files hacked from the Fraternal Order of Police. He also hosted data dumps associated with other prominent breaches, including those linked to Hacking Team, Ashley Madison, and Patreon.
In 2018, White co-founded Distributed Denial of Secrets, an organization that has been described as a successor to the web leak depository WikiLeaks, focused on the publication and archiving of leaked documents and datasets.
Legal Proceedings
In April 2019, White pleaded guilty in the United Kingdom to charges stemming from his involvement with Silk Road 2.0, including drug trafficking and money laundering. He was also convicted on charges related to making indecent images of children. White was sentenced to a total of five years and four months in prison.
