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Ulbricht was caught because an FBI agent, who would read things slowly and twice, recognized these 4 letters : heyy. That's how Ulbricht sometimes spelled hey,
by ichydkrsrnae 5y ago
Ulbricht was caught because an FBI agent, who would read things slowly and twice, recognized these 4 letters : heyy.
That's how Ulbricht sometimes spelled hey, and the agent had seen that particular spelling before in his investigation, in an email from Ulbrict’s student email address.
Nick Bilton's book “American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road” is a great read, highly recommended.
- unobatbayar 5y agoThat's what they want you to think. He was caught because; Nothing can match against the surveillance arsenal of the NSA.
- ichydkrsrnae 5y agoThat's not what I think, that's what Nick Bilton thinks. The quality of his book makes me partial to his thesis, of course, but NSA conspiracy blah adds nothing. Also, lots more went into catching him than just heyy, but that was the lucky break that had him caught. Now he shares a prison with Dr. Unabomber Kazinsky.
- twobitshifter 5y agoThat could be the story but since parallel construction is routinely used to hide the existence of surveillance tools and back doors it’s not unreasonable to doubt it. I thought I had heard it was stackoverflow, is that looped in somehow?
- ichydkrsrnae 5y agoI don't recall StackOverflow being mentioned, no, but it's been a few years since I've read it.
- twobitshifter 5y agohttps://slate.com/technology/2013/10/silk-road-s-dread-pirate-ross-ulbricht-asked-stack-overflow-question-under-real-name.html https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/silk-road-s-dread-pirat...
- ichydkrsrnae 5y agoCorrection: He was transferred to a penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona.
- ichydkrsrnae 5y agoHave to admit. I was impressed with the USGOVs ability to recover bitcoin ransoms paid for cyberattacks. I'm not sure if impressed is the right word.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nyolfen 5y agoit strikes me as extremely naive to take this at face value. see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R2013... much more likely -- sigint tooling was applied to identify ulbricht, bulk metadata was turned over for his comms history, and it was pored over for things they could connect with sr to get warrants. imo, at least. but getting to claim you're such a sharp investigator that you can figure it out by noticing the word heyy makes for a much better story to tell an author.
- ichydkrsrnae 5y agoIt was more complicated than just heyy, but I won't spoil the book. It's been awhile since I've read it, but my impression was that solving the case was mostly traditional casework, and a lot of it, by many different people/agents/agencies. That Reuters article certainly gives pause. Thanks for the link.
- rzz3 5y agoWtf, who doesn’t add extra y’s to hey sometimes? That wasn’t evidence.
- ichydkrsrnae 5y agoI don't want to spoil the book; but, yes, that detail got him caught.
- acoard 5y agoIt’s not fiction you’re spoiling, but a factual conversation about events that you’re not going into due to spoilers. It is an odd defence that kills the conversation when other people bring up good points. The parallel construction argument seems way more plausible if there’s nothing else besides “heyy”. If there is more, please say what it is instead of mentioning it exists but refusing to say it.