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FBI raids alleged online drug market Silk Road, arrests owner

1101 points by RockyMcNuts 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
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acron0 13y ago
So The Dread Pirate Roberts == Ross Ulbricht? Was just a matter of time. I'd be interested in knowing how they traced him, considering how overtly cautious he was known to be.
- locofacetwice 13y ago
  I bet it had something to do with U.S. gov "helping" TOR network couple of months ago.
- bpicolo 13y ago
  Not cautious enough to not be in the US
  - sneak 13y ago
    Leaving the US is not sufficient. Snowden had to institute the help of one of the largest countries on Earth not to get taken. Also, leaving friends/family/network in the US behind is very, very difficult.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  The criminal complaint says that he used the same username to publicize the site as well as on Bitcoin forums, where he listed his Gmail account and asked for help. From there, there's a whole lot of coincidences. They also got an image of his server, but no details on how they found the server are given. The complaint notes that another user warned him "an external IP is leaking", so the FBI might have found a weakness in his PHP setup. All it'd take is one command on the server...
- bitwize 13y ago
  The thing about the Dread Pirate Roberts is, it's the name that inspires the necessary fear. So he probably has a successor and/or is a decoy.
  - Havoc 13y ago
    He did mention somewhere that he is not the first.
CodeCube 13y ago
:-O wow, I really really want to read about how they found him ... just curious to know considering all of the self-professed safeguards he had set up for himself
- nly 13y ago
  The information they used to find him came from before he set those safe guards up. Long story short, he was sloppy in the early days.
- pwenzel 13y ago
  Here's a summary of his capture, noting his activities on Stack Overflow and drug forums, summarized from the warrant: https://medium.com/p/d48995e8eb5a https://medium.com/p/d48995e8eb5a
RockyMcNuts 13y ago
Criminal complaint - http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ulbric...
reso 13y ago
It's unclear what is happening and this may be a prank. The initial reports that the FBI had seized the domain appear to be a sarcastic "down for maintenance" page on the part of Silk Road. I've yet to find a real source on the alleged arrest of http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1nl5ne/shutdown_is_a_joke_calm_down_proof/ http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1nl5ne/shutdown_is... However, there also appears to be a criminal complaint out for the founder. http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ulbric... EDIT: Seems like this is real. Reuters reports that Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, was arrested in San Francisco. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-raid-idUSBRE9910TR20131002 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-...
- aplusbi 13y ago
  There is also this Reuters blurb: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-raid-idUSBRE9910TR20131002 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-...
shazow 13y ago
Found this in one of the recent HN submissions: http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ulbric... / Mirror: http://www.scribd.com/doc/172773407/Ulbricht-Criminal-Complaint-Silk-Road http://www.scribd.com/doc/172773407/Ulbricht-Criminal-Compla... According to the filing, they found him through a combination of posting his personal @gmail.com address on the bitcointalk forum from the same account used to market Silkroad. Further, they found that his LinkedIn account somewhat corroborated the timeline/interest in what Silkroad is. Page 24 for the juicy details of how they identified him. Also there is a section about murder-for-hire in Canada. Pretty wild stuff. Update: Also he posted on Stackoverflow asking questions about Tor with his real name, then later changed his name. Supremely conspicuous.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- dave_sullivan 13y ago
  "All told, the site has generated sales revenue totaling over 9.5 million Bitcoins and collected commissions from these sales totaling over 600,000 Bitcoins. Although the value of Bitcoins has varied significantly during the site's lifetime, these figures are roughly equivalent today to approximately $1.2 billion in sales and approximately $80 million in commissions." Incidentally exactly how much Walter White made... That's a strange coincidence, or perhaps one of the clerks that gets paid to make up statistics for drug related criminal complaints is a breaking bad fan...
  - acallahan 13y ago
    I think you should flag this as breaking bad spoilers - not everyone has finished watching the show
    - atlbeer 13y ago
      That's a year and a half old info. It can't be a spoiler forever.
jadeddrag 13y ago
Reuters reporting seems to confirm the news http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-raid-idUSBRE9910TR20131002 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-...
gesman 13y ago
Someone from Ross' close circle didn't get his proper share!
bsullivan01 13y ago
If they want to get you, they will. Reading how they got him, but I wouldn't be surprised if NSA handed them the info informally and then the FBI had to find another way to justify it. When you know the end results, "connecting the dots" is much easier. Parallel construction http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUKBRE97409R20130805 http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUKBRE9... and all.
- untog 13y ago
  When you know the end results, "connecting the dots" is much easier. True, but "connecting the dots" is much easier when it's your job, and something you've spent decades practicing. Not to say that you're wrong, but there's no evidence to back you up. We might as well assume that the NSA is behind everything, ever.
  - kevincennis 13y ago
    Not sure why this appears to have been downvoted. Seems like a pretty reasonable point, even if you happen not to agree with it.
  - Larrikin 13y ago
    In this current age, its more likely that the NSA is behind it. We are at a point where we need evidence that the NSA didn't help.
    - dubfan 13y ago
      Then at that point you are no better than 9/11 truthers and moon landing hoaxers.
      - Larrikin 13y ago
        Theres no basis in reality for 9/11 truthers and moon landing hoaxers though
        13y ago
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Pxtl 13y ago
Now the question is who will step in to fill his shoes. How much of Silk Road's infrastructure is open and reusable? The market has been created, the users exist - they'll be looking for a replacement. Of course, after this I think most would-be entrepreneurs might be having second thoughts.
- dsl 13y ago
  Atlantis Market was spun up not to long ago, including a full length animated commercial for the site. Many believe it was just an elaborate honey pot ran by law enforcement to entrap users, and it failed to gain any adoption. Black Market Reloaded is where most of the SR users will go.
  - josephagoss 13y ago
    Atlantis was a scam, read the posts of all the people that could not withdraw their Litecoins and Bitcoins in that week they said they were going to stay open for withdrawals. Then the site went dark and took everything.
- samgeneric 13y ago
  We released code for a Bitcoin market yesterday, opened it up to the community. The code is good, tested, and is now OS. So have at it. I think that Bitcoin has had enough press in recent months that there is enough traction for a few more companies to really make legitimate marketplaces if they can build the infrastructure. Hopefully the Coinpost project provides them with that. https://github.com/brighton36/CoinPost https://github.com/brighton36/CoinPost
llamataboot 13y ago
His linkedin page is pretty transparent if you know anything about him "Now, my goals have shifted. I want to use economic theory as a means to abolish the use of coercion and agression amongst mankind. Just as slavery has been abolished most everywhere, I believe violence, coercion and all forms of force by one person over another can come to an end. The most widespread and systemic use of force is amongst institutions and governments, so this is my current point of effort. The best way to change a government is to change the minds of the governed, however. To that end, I am creating an economic simulation to give people a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force."
- defen 13y ago
  And yet, he appears to have paid to put a hit out on somebody...
  - llamataboot 13y ago
    So he's a hypocrite and/or got corrupted by money and fear...not saying he is a good person, just that in retrospect his linkedin page is pretty transparent to confirm who he is and what he's doing based on his market anarchist writings posted under the DPR name, etc
    - aw3c2 13y ago
      You can write anything online and you can read many things into things people write. You can easily create personas only and lie and invent people.
  - njharman 13y ago
    Systematic force means laws, government, and the like. Hiring hitman is the libertarian free market at its best.
    - Jtsummers 13y ago
      Systemic (not systematic) means "of or related to a system". This is not, strictly, governments. It can be any system from the ad hoc (Occupy movement) to the deliberately constructed (governments, corporations). It can be social systems, economic systems, anything. Systemic use of force, then, is a situation where the use of force against some parties is inherently part of the system. Whether it be physical, legal with threat of physical, emotional force or violence. If the particular economic sphere he's running in relies on violence (based on my experience in Las Vegas in the 90s, I'd say the drug world is one such system), then this isn't libertarian free market at its best, it's just the systemic use of force typical of the illicit drug industry.
lizzard 13y ago
Somewhat amusing list of YouTube videos recently liked by this guy: "How to Get Away with Stealing" and "Privacy: A PostMortem" are right on top. http://www.youtube.com/user/ohyeaross http://www.youtube.com/user/ohyeaross
- pkfrank 13y ago
  Good find. He (or this account) even lists a personal phone number on a video uploaded two years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D16fm5NgsA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D16fm5NgsA
- misiti3780 13y ago
  he has (had) a sweet truck too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D16fm5NgsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D16fm5NgsA
calvintennant 13y ago
In other news: http://imgur.com/6XRxpkk http://imgur.com/6XRxpkk
- ihsw 13y ago
  Looks like any other day to me.
  - calvintennant 13y ago
    It continues: http://imgur.com/6XRxpkk http://imgur.com/6XRxpkk
llamataboot 13y ago
Also posted to Stack Overflow using his personal name and email address about Tor questions generally
untog 13y ago
The weirdest part of the criminal complaint is that he tried to hire a hitman on Silk Road. Will be interesting to see how this pans out.
- skore 13y ago
  Hypothetical Twist: The hitman is actually the same guy he's trying to have killed, just under a separate, anonymous account. Hypothetical Meta Twist: DPR actually suffers from multiple personality disorder and is also the guy he's trying to kill and thus also the hitman. A truly anonymous system really poses some hard problems, man.
  - mrtksn 13y ago
    well, actually it seems to be at least his 2nd hire if he is not using it as a bargain chip. if he is saying the truth, he previously managed to get somebody executed for 80k.
    - skore 13y ago
      True, also, it seems like my first hypothetical twist might not have been that far off as I thought. Other comments[0] readily theorize it to be a likely scenario. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6483382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6483382
    - shawn-furyan 13y ago
      I read it as a clumsy bargaining strategy, especially since he wasn't at all successful in reducing the quoted price.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - unimpressive 13y ago
      Please don't start up Reddit style "Jokes about other stories on the site.", it's one of the aspects of Reddit that makes it suck. (Or at least include a link or something.)
duiker101 13y ago
I really don't understand, why stay in the US doing that stuff when it's the most controlled place ever? even if he was pretty well hidden just leaving the US would have made his life a lot easier...
- andrewfong 13y ago
  Perhaps he really likes In and Out burgers.
  - cstavish 13y ago
    Thank you Donny.
- icebraining 13y ago
  That was my first question. It'd be pretty funny if we were to find out during the trial that the guy caught wasn't the real DPR.
  - bestdayever 13y ago
    In previous postings DPR has indicated he inherited the site from the original owner, it would be funny if he knew they were closing in and sent the phony papers to the first DPR in an effort to give himself some time to escape.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  His actions were so sloppy (according to the evidence listed) that even if was living somewhere else, they would have found him. And places that'd make it really hard for the USG to prosecure are not places that you'd want to live in the first place. He should have operated as if he lived on the DEA's front lawn.
mikeyouse 13y ago
Wow, what a complete shitbag (DPR = Dread Pirate Roberts): DPR sent a message to "redandwhite" stating that "FriendlyChemist" is "Causing me problems" and adding: "I would like to put a bounty on his head if it's not too much trouble for you. What would be an adequate amount to motivate you to find him?" And then Later that same day, redandwhite sent DPR a message quoting him a price of $150,000 or $300,000 "depending on how you want it done" - "clean" or "non-clean" DPR responded: "Don't want to be a pain here, but the price seems high. Not long ago, I had a clean hit done for $80k. Are the prices you quoted the best you can do? I would like this done ASAP as he is talking about releasing the info on Monday. DPR and redandwhite agreed upon a price of 1,670 Bitcoins - approximately $150k - for the job. In DPR's message confirming the deal, DPR included a transacation record reflecting the transfer of 1,670 Bitcoins to a certain Bitcoin address. Made $80mm in commissions running a drug trafficking network, paying hundreds of thousands to have people executed, mail fraud, money laundering, conspiracy.... He's looking at cartel level prison time.
- Touche 13y ago
  As someone who's never participated in a bounty what is the difference between a "clean" vs. "non-clean" hit?
  - readme 13y ago
    I would infer clean means no trace, where non-clean means just do it, don't worry about cleaning up.
    - Touche 13y ago
      But wouldn't the hitman want to clean up since... they did it?
      - 6d0debc071 13y ago
        Depends how they did it. Shoot someone with an unregistered or stolen rifle from long distance, capture your brass, destroy the rifle and brass. Obviously a murder, if it were done that way. Very little effort involved, and what've the cops really got then? You'd probably create more evidence trying to make it look like an accident than you'd clear up just by doing it some easier way.
josephagoss 13y ago
Well my Bitcoin investment is about to vanish...
- yk 13y ago
  In much the same way online piracy vanished when Napster was shut down...
  - untog 13y ago
    Not really the same. If you had bitcoins stored with SR, presumably they are long gone.
    - josephagoss 13y ago
      I've never used the road, but rather I fear it was central to the high value of Bitcoins. I would love to be wrong but I can see my investment dropping and I don't have the guts to sell back into fiat.
      - untog 13y ago
        Yep. Value of Bitcoin has tanked since this announcement.
      - weavejester 13y ago
        I guess it depends on whether you believe cryptographic currencies have significant use cases outside of criminal enterprise. If, on the other hand, you believe that the greatest value of bitcoins comes from their use by criminals, doesn't that make your investment in them a touch morally questionable?
        sthatipamala 13y ago
        Unless one believes the enterprise on SR is criminal but not immoral.
      - JohnTHaller 13y ago
cloudgeek 13y ago
Isn't the federal government supposed to be shut down right now?
- mpyne 13y ago
  The government still exists, but there's no legal authority for many (but not all) of the federal employees to do work for the government, since there is no appropriation in force to pay for that work. Those who are working are essentially working for the promise of payment at some indefinite time in the future (except for the military, who apparently really are a sacred cow...).
  - rprospero 13y ago
    Government employee here. Many of us aren't working on the promise of payment - we've already been paid. My salary was already "paid" two years ago. Congress passed a bill, the president signed it, and the DOE gave us the money. Now, if the government shutdown lasts until May, we'll probably be out of that money then I'd stop receiving paychecks. Of course, I hope to have a new job by that point, anyway.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      Are you a government employee, or a contractor? I know that there are some persons paid for by multi-year appropriation bills, but those are comparatively rare. Most expenditures are handled via a single-FY appropriation (and my understanding is that this covers all APF employees). If you're a contractor, on the other hand, then you're not a government employee (legally), so the whole discussion doesn't apply to you directly.
- 67726e 13y ago
  Only the good, useful agencies. The normal, shitty, "Fuck the Constitution" government is still open for business.
- _delirium 13y ago
  Government shutdowns are done in a way that retains a certain subset of services that are either paid for through unaffected funding mechanisms, or have been designated essential. That includes soldiers' salaries, payments to military contractors, operations of the FBI and DEA, and small to medium-sized portions of other agencies (e.g. the EPA is mostly shut down, but the Superfund and Mine Safety divisions will stay open).
tudorconstantin 13y ago
this might be a fruit of the fact that feds infected the tor network last month.
moepstar 13y ago
Just in case the PDF is down for anyone else, here's a link to CoralCDN: http://krebsonsecurity.com.nyud.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf http://krebsonsecurity.com.nyud.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/...
piratebroadcast 13y ago
Heres the complaint- Notable that, on page 30, it seems the fBI was able to partially deduce his identity based in part by his stack overflow questions. http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ulbric...
- aqme28 13y ago
  Here's the relevant question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15445285/how-can-i-connect-to-a-tor-hidden-service-using-curl-in-php http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15445285/how-can-i-connec... It doesn't seem like it's how they caught him, but it's some circumstantial evidence towards his guilt. He changed his username from his real name to "frosty" at some point.
- nattaggart 13y ago
  Yeah really interesting. My takeaways: When operating an underground network 1) don't post to SO questions regarding Tor 2) keep distinct login names for everything
  - GuiA 13y ago
    3) Don't live in the US
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    keep distinct login names for everything It's probably best to keep distinct OS containers for everything. Don't trust the browser at all.
nether 13y ago
Not totally surprising since SR was mentioned before Congress over a year ago, and some leaked documents mentioned ongoing investigation. I've been telling people it's just a matter of time before it's shut down and that you should stockpile now before it's too late. Let's hope SR hasn't been keeping any real identifying transaction records, or I bet we'll see a spate of high-profile arrests from tech companies.
known 13y ago
http://www.lietaer.com/2010/03/the-worgl-experiment/ http://www.lietaer.com/2010/03/the-worgl-experiment/
jl6 13y ago
I wonder what the FBI will do with the seized bitcoins!
gcr 13y ago
Here's a question: How did the FBI manage to shut down a hidden Tor site? Did they merely sieze the server hosting the site and ask apache to serve something else?
- AmVess 13y ago
  My guess is they caught DPR and beat him with a wrench XKCD style until he gave up the information about the server.
patmcguire 13y ago
I wonder if the timing on this is deliberate. The office that handles FOIA requests is part of the government shutdown, but the three-letter agencies aren't. So the only information that's going to come out on this for the time being is whatever the people running the investigation want to come out... Maybe it's not deliberate, but keep that in mind. There's going to only one source on this story for a long time.
trevorcreech 13y ago
Summary of how he got caught: https://medium.com/p/d48995e8eb5a https://medium.com/p/d48995e8eb5a
pcrh 13y ago
Unsurprisingly, bitcoin is currently experiencing a loss of value.
- w_t_payne 13y ago
  But maybe a longer term uptick in credibility? It will do Bitcoin no good in the long term if people think it is just for drugs. I'd rather it developed a more serious, legitimate reputation.
  - dwaltrip 13y ago
    The $360 billion annual drug trade figures haven't dented the image of government currencies. Some hold the view that silk road actually provided legitimacy to bitcoin. Source: www.drugwardistortions.org/distortion19.html
MrJagil 13y ago
A reddit user[1] suggests http://sheepmarketplace.com/ http://sheepmarketplace.com/ as an alternative. Is anyone familiar with it? [1]http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1nl8hz/lets_talk_alternatives/ccjljtk http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1nl8hz/lets_talk_a...
aaronbrethorst 13y ago
Here's his LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rossulbricht http://www.linkedin.com/in/rossulbricht (browse logged-out to see the full thing. If you're logged in and not connected to him, you won't see anything.)
- Nicholas_C 13y ago
  Why does LinkedIn do this? It seems so stupid and such a waste of time. Anyone know?
  - aaronbrethorst 13y ago
    I assume it's because they want the SEO juice and Google frowns on showing different content to the Googlebot vs a human being, but they also want their users to make more connections. So, they sometimes show more content to logged-out visitors.
    - corin_ 13y ago
      Not just because of SEO, although that's one reason. Logged in users are already sold on LinkedIn, so LinkedIn wants to encourage them to make more connections. The aim for guest visitors is to get them to sign-up, so showing them a more useful page is a better way of showing what value LinkedIn can offer them.
    - Nicholas_C 13y ago
      Interesting. Someone should build a browser add in that shows logged out views of LinkedIn profiles even if the user is logged in, with the ability to toggle between the two views.
  - joshfraser 13y ago
    SEO
  - webhat 13y ago
    They don't think people know. Or they assume you won't logout to look at somebody's page, I guess somebody forgot to tell them about Incognito browser windows.
thekevan 13y ago
Is anyone else surprised that it took this long to shut it down? With all the surveillance that has been in the news, I assumed Silk Road was entirely operated in a foreign country which didn't have good information exchange relations with the US. No matter what the precautions someone takes, my bet is that they will eventually get caught if they engage in illegal activity online.
davmre 13y ago
Apparently the FBI managed to track down the actual server running the site: During the course of this investigation, the FBI has located a number of computer servers, both in the United States and in multiple foreign countries, associated with the operation of Silk Road. In particular, the FBI has located in a certain foreign country the server used to host Silk Road's website (the "Silk Road Web Server"). Pursuant to a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty Request, an image of the Silk Road Web Server was made on or about July 23, 2013 and produced thereafter to the FBI. This server image seems to have been the source of a lot of the evidence leading to the arrest warrant: the IP logs that matched his location, an account name that matched his StackOverflow account, and of course all the private messages and chat logs regarding his personal location (messages indicating Pacific time), operation of the site (payments to other admins), and the extortion attempt/attempted hit. What the complaint doesn't specify is how the FBI managed to locate the Silk Road server. It's possible that they already had some suspicion of DPR's identity, and managed to bug his computers or otherwise track his activity well enough to figure out what systems he was logging into. But given how coy the complaint is about this, I wonder if in fact this is the result of a sophisticated analysis of Tor network traffic (possibly in collaboration with the NSA?). If that's the case, it betrays a level of capability that ought to be frightening for the operators of other anonymous Tor services. Anyone with more Tor expertise want to comment on how likely this is? Edit: the excerpt quoted is from the (now unsealed) FBI complaint, first linked elsewhere in this thread: http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ulbric.... The whole thing is pretty interesting reading.
- Aloisius 13y ago
  Running this kind of service becomes infinitely more difficult if you can't hide your hidden services. Also I wonder how they got a server image without him noticing since it is typically something you'd need to shut down the machine for. Was the whole thing running off a hosting service? It would be pretty impressive if he physically had servers in multiple countries. Just setting them up without involving other people seems difficult. Edit: He did use hosting services which probably used virtualization so it is easy to clone drives for. The complaint has him buying fake ids (which were confiscated in transit!) in order to rent more servers.
powertower 13y ago
For anyone that's going to the SR URL - Notice: 1. The SilkRoad Camel image in the background. 2. "THIS HIDDEN SITE HAS BEEN SEIZED" text. These are not standard parts to the image, based on previous seizures. (though I'll admit those all were clear-web seizures that just took over the DNS and resolved back to a gov controlled IP hosting a image - here the image is hosted on-site). So there is a chance that this is DPR's "dead-man" script running after DPR was not able to communicate with the site for X hours. It's hard to tell if the actual site (with it's data) has been taken over or compromised. There is also the possibility it's only the onion domain-name that has been taken, though I'm not sure how TOR/ONION works (if that's possible without access to the server). In any way, I hope that none of you used a plain-text (vs a PGP'ed one) home address for your recent orders, nor have any tracking #s lingering in messages from the vendors in your accounts. If I recall correctly, messages are deleted after 30 days. But who knows what type of backups where maintained. It will be intresting to see if - 1. There are admins that have access to the data + site that can get it back up and operational. 2. The forums (which are still working) will produce another site. 3. BMR (BlackMarketReloaded) and another one I'm not familiar with called Sheeps Market will continue to operate and/or pick up the majority of SR's business. ...and also if the DEA and FBI will go after the users (and not just the vendors) that they can find enough "conspiracy to commit" evidence on to make a point.
- MrDrone 13y ago
  In the document they released they made it clear that the server had been located and compromised. An image of the server from July 2013 was part of the evidence in the indictment. While I hope a dead man switched was flipped it doesn't look good for the integrity of the site. Hopefully everyone involved was smart enough to encrypt.
  - powertower 13y ago
    I have not read it yet, but from what others have quoted, it looks like a disk image was made and handed over in July. Nothing else. The disk image would of course contain the heavily encrypted data of SR (wallets, transactions, messages). So unless the private key was on the server right next to the public key (AKA the Linode Incident), or the site did not encrypt that data (which goes against what we have seen so far), the disk image would not compromise that much.
patrickg_zill 13y ago
Not surprised. The CIA hates to have competitors?
ianstallings 13y ago
What baffles me is why the FBI would shut it down and let this information out when they could have just sat there and collected information on crime after crime. Was the impetus because of the violence alluded to in communications? I know that if they are watching the mafia and they intercept a message about a homicide they have, in the past, notified the intended target. Either way, intriguing story. If it's true he's really up shit's creek. And I have no problem with that, if it's true. An old 'hood motto: I'm not the law, break it, I don't care. But when you get caught, remember that I don't care.
- diydsp 13y ago
  'tis the season to justify wire-snooping. Congress closes session in a month or so.
- moeadham 13y ago
  How are you sure this has not already happened?
  - ianstallings 13y ago
    I'm not but usually in a case where a bunch of suspects are rounded up they will announce the sting operation publicly to make sure everyone knows they are on the job. I assumed they didn't because the FBI was built on publicity and it's part of their institution. But you might be right, they may be doing this to just shake the tree or they've already moved on people.
- smacktoward 13y ago
  They want the big fish, not the little fishes that school around him. Is there a bigger fish in the Silk Road story than DPR?
- notahacker 13y ago
  The FBI's paymasters are ultimately elected by the public, who mostly prefer the FBI to pursue one high profile kingpin reportedly linked with violent crime rather than all of their neighbours who made the mistake of experimenting with online drug orders.
alx 13y ago
naspter-like moment in internet history
crystaln 13y ago
Any word on whether we can expect customers and sellers to be hunted down? I had heard rumors for months that DPR he been compromised. I know quite a few people who used Silk Road, many carelessly so.
- gwern 13y ago
  > Any word on whether we can expect customers and sellers to be hunted down? So far the known tally, from reading the forums & Reddit, is: a SR employee (arrested, unknown), DPR (arrested, charged), a UK vendor (arrested, probably won't be charged), and a WA vendor (arrested, charged). If anyone knows of other arrests/charges/convictions, please tell me. I've been trying to maintain a complete list at http://www.gwern.net/Silk%20Road#safe http://www.gwern.net/Silk%20Road#safe
- nether 13y ago
  Most plausible outcome I've heard is that the Feds will only pursue high-volume users, either vendors, or buyers who intended to distribute. Buyers for personal use wouldn't be worth the trouble, though I think they could just distribute that info to local LE.
wnevets 13y ago
based on my training and experience, wow crazy read.
shocks 13y ago
It'll be interesting to see how this effects the value BTC trades at...
bdr 13y ago
Silk Road discussion forums are still up (and buzzing): http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/ http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/
- computer 13y ago
  Clickable link without tor: https://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion.to/ https://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion.to/
  - dmerrick 13y ago
    Neat, how does this work? It seems to violate the idea of the internal Tor web.
    - computer 13y ago
      The servers are still hidden, it's simply proxy software that trades user anonimity for convenience (and speed I believe, since the tor2web software uses fewer tor relays in its circuits, not trying to be anonymous) See http://tor2web.org/ http://tor2web.org/
znowi 13y ago
This is a good time to buy cheap bitcoins :)
mscarborough 13y ago
Meanwhile, down the street from my work it's pretty easy for people to buy/sell in person across the street from the State Capitol in Denver, CO. In a park in broad daylight. Way to go, feds. Go justify that budget with scare tactics while we have open-air drug markets all over the US that you can't even shut down.
- ktd 13y ago
  Roleplaying time! You've just been appointed to head the FBI-- congratulations, Director! Which of the following things do you want to send your agents after? * An international marketplace doing millions of dollars of business in drugs, weapons, and fake IDs * A few drug dealers in a public park in a city where you might not even have jurisdiction If there are drug dealers in the parks, that's a shame-- but that's really not the type of issue that the FBI is supposed to handle. Take it up with your local police department.
elwell 13y ago
This, in the wake of the Breaking Bad finale.
holmesworcester 13y ago
Someone should put together a timeline from the affidavit. It looks like a lot of pieces start coming together at the same time in June/July. The fact that they intercepted his fake travel documents during a routine search of mail at customs when they were already that close to him seems unlikely. But maybe I'm reading this wrong, or maybe they actually do intercept a high percentage of fake passports moving across the border.
marincounty 13y ago
1. I've never felt TOR was secure. I think the American government knows exactly how to track down a suspicious IP. 2. I think they left SR alone, because they have bigger concerns-- terrorism, foreign surveillance? They still want the world to think VPN's are private? 3. If you can't make money in this system-- I understand. I don't think I've every met a wealthy person who wasen't a psychopathic hypocrite--usually with a very advanced degree. I live among these hypocrites, and it's nauseating. I won't even start on how many parasitic people in Marin County start up nonprofits, and no one bothers to find out how much they make--all legal. 4. If you are going to do something that could land you in jail Don't Tell Anyone What You Are Doing. That includes the person you bed with...... 5. Never take advantage of the poor, animals, children, or the environment. It's pathetic I needed to make a list, but some of you repress what you are doing.
- camus 13y ago
  TOR IS secure , humans just made mistakes. they are indeed humans.
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    Presumably the same species programmed Tor, no? And since humans are involved, aren't they open to normal human failures and weakness? Or were these special people who programmed Tor?
PhilipA 13y ago
This makes up for a good movie plot. I guess he can have some money in prison, when selling the story to Hollywood.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  Not allowed to profit from one's own criminal story, I'm afraid.
  - aaronem 13y ago
    Mitnick published an autobiography.
    - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law
      - undoware 13y ago
        Sorry to be rude, but did you read that link before posting it? " In an 8–0 ruling on Simon & Schuster v. Crime Victims Board, the court ruled the law unconstitutional.[5] The majority opinion was that the law was overinclusive, and would have prevented the publication of such works as The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, and even The Confessions of Saint Augustine."
        alexeisadeski3 13y ago
        I'll be damned. Good catch, and you're definitely not being rude by correcting my ignorance! Thank you :)
deleted 13y ago
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Aloisius 13y ago
Interesting. He apparently lived in San Francisco in the Mission and rented a room for $1000/month. For someone who should have had $80 million in profit, that seems a bit strange. I suppose cashing out $80 million in bitcoin and then laundering must be incredibly difficult.
- aestra 13y ago
  Walking around buying houses in cash might raise some red flags, however, maybe he just liked where he was living?
- datalus 13y ago
  It helps to provide cover. He's just another 20-something in the bay area. One of the smarter moves he made, some of the others not so much.
rdl 13y ago
As I've said for the past few years, he essentially fucked himself. 1) using a low latency onion routing network, rather than a mixnet like an anonymous remailer or other 1990s blacknet, was a big problem. You could maybe get away with throwaway front end nodes as a web interface, stateless, to package up transactions, run by third parties, but for long running anonymity vs traffic analysis or server compromise, low latency bidirectional connections are impossible. 2) repeatedly sticking his dick into the hornet nest by provoking the FBI in the press 3) remaining in the USA while doing all of this Acting in ways which make him a less sympathetic defendant (connection to assassinations? Really?) doesn't help
- dwaltrip 13y ago
  Using his real email address/non-anonymous usernames while mentioning silk road related activities and later ordering fake IDs to his home address were by far the most enormous of fucks ups.
- justincormack 13y ago
  Being in San Francisco is er kind of stupid...
- dobbsbob 13y ago
  you left out sitting in a public library and logging into your online cartel that anybody could watch and get the IP you ssh into
ssharp 13y ago
A fascinating read. The traditional method of catching drug kingpins has been to flip the lower-levels of the organization until you can finally stick something on the leader. Here, the feds were able to go straight to the source. I'd expect more prosecutions of SR's larger vendors as part of the fallout. If I were one of those vendors, I'd be ordering dust filter for my Hoover MaxExtract PressurePro model 60. I think the pseudo-anonymity that Tor, Bitcoin, and computers in general can provide gave DPR too much confidence. But like every other ringleader who has been caught, a new one will take over and play the game smarter.
MaysonL 13y ago
So now the question will be: how many of the people who have used SR recently will be/have been arrestd, and how much of their bitcoin has been/will be seized?
- qq66 13y ago
  My guess is that they will go after the few or few dozen people who profited most heavily from illegal activity on the site.
malandrew 13y ago
So question: If you were running a massive online black market that can be set up and operated from anywhere in the world and making 80mm in commissions, wouldn't it make sense to not only set up the servers outside the US but also fly out of the US to a country with no extradition treaty with the US and low law enforcement cooperation with the US. By doing so, they have committed all crimes outside US jurisdiction. Near as I can tell this means that no crime they are charged with should stick, however IANAL. Can anyone elaborate if it is possible to manage a site like this in a way where all actions associated with its operation never constitute crimes prosecutable in the US?
- wmf 13y ago
  If you allow US users to log in to your site the US will claim jurisdiction; see online gambling.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Unless you take measures to make sure American customers can't use your site, the U.S. would have jurisdiction.
  - malandrew 13y ago
    Would blocking all US IP ranges be sufficient even though it is served over TOR. Seems like that would meet the same bullshit requirement the NSA is using when it retains all traffic from outside the country.
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    Note that this is a one way rule. Never seen an American site owner be extradited to a foreign country for not respecting their laws.
patmcguire 13y ago
The alleged assassination transaction http://blockchain.info/en/tx/4a0a5b6036c0da84c3eb9c2a884b6ad72416d1758470e19fb1d2fa2a145b5601 http://blockchain.info/en/tx/4a0a5b6036c0da84c3eb9c2a884b6ad...
- wcfields 13y ago
  Is there a way to filter out high-value transactions?
  - patmcguire 13y ago
    This is as close as it gets http://blockchain.info/largest-recent-transactions http://blockchain.info/largest-recent-transactions I don't think the blockchain format is designed for that in the same way it is for recency or random access
adamnemecek 13y ago
This post from Ulbricht's Google Plus profile is pretty priceless. https://plus.google.com/101844174649242995101/posts/bbhPuSJHSCF https://plus.google.com/101844174649242995101/posts/bbhPuSJH... (screenshot in case it's removed http://i.imgur.com/GjqdYDe.png http://i.imgur.com/GjqdYDe.png) It's hilarious that his tagline is "spunky, funky, not so chunky".
mindcrime 13y ago
Damn, and I was this close to ordering some LSD from SR a few weeks ago. I've never tried it and was thinking about giving it a shot. Guess it's a good thing work sent me out of town, and I decided to wait, then got distracted and never got around to it. Still, this is disappointing. As a libertarian / ancap / voluntaryist / whatever-you-want-to-call-me, I totally support the Silk Road and other unregulated marketplaces.
- noname123 13y ago
  Bro, you got lucky. FBI's got a daily snapshot of SR server. So be glad your name and address is not in that database somewhere in FBI/DEA.
  - gwern 13y ago
    That'd only be a problem if he had been stupid enough to send his LSD vendor his name & address in the clear. The whole point of buyers encrypting their info to the seller's key was to avoid problems if LE attacked the server.
    - mindcrime 13y ago
      Yeah, I definitely would not be sending anything like that in the clear. Not knowingly, anyway! Funny thing though, I held off due to random shit that came up, not even anything to do with all the NSA/Snowden/Intelligence/Whatever stuff. And during those couple of weeks, is when all the FBI/Tor stuff broke, and that did serve to give me a little bit of pause. But I still probably would have made an order, except I got busy doing stuff and just never got around to it. I'd be tempted to try one of the alternatives, but now I'm worried that one or more of them might be LE honeypots or something. Damnit, what's a hacker to do, who just wants to try acid once before he dies? Sheesh. :-(
      - dreamdu5t 13y ago
        You should start going to music festivals, raves, and you'll meet people who have access to it. It's much easier to find in real life than online IMHO.
topbanana 13y ago
OK so he put out a hit on someone. Bizarrely I'm actually more annoyed that he didn't accept an answer on StackOverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15445285/how-can-i-connect-to-a-tor-hidden-service-using-curl-in-php http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15445285/how-can-i-connec...
mvbrasil 13y ago
Was Atlantis a decoy aiming Silk Road? https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/4d0dd63edb6 https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/4d0dd63edb6
deleted 13y ago
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kubatyszko 13y ago
weren't they supposed to be "not working" during shutdown ? ;)
Angelina12 13y ago
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Shivetya 13y ago
and here I have a dog site named silkroad.net that I gave to my mother years ago, needless to say her friends have been bombarding her with this story.
mkv138 13y ago
I thought the name Ross Ulbricht sounded familiar... turns out I had lunch with him a few years ago when he was working on a startup selling books online. I had some experience in the area, and he reached out to me after getting my contact details through a friend. He emailed me from rossulbricht@gmail.com, we made arrangements, had lunch and discussed selling books. That was the only time we met, and I've never heard from or of him since. It's known that the FBI and DEA get help from the NSA on high profile investigations, and they sometimes look at people 2 or 3 degrees of separation from their main person of interest. Given what we've learned in the last few months about the government's intelligence apparatus, it seems I can reasonably assume that my emails, texts, phone call history etc. have all been scrutinized because I was in this guys email history. And it's not unreasonable to wonder if the same can be said of anybody I've ever emailed, or chatted with on facebook etc. because that's only 2 degrees of separation. While I don't think the government will be scooping me up in a black van or kicking my doors in over this, I wouldn't be remotely surprised if I get special attention from the TSA next time I'm going through an airport because now I'm on some list. I guess this is what it means to live in a surveillance state. Having to be afraid of what this might mean for myself, and for my friends and family, because I once exchanged a couple of emails with a guy who years later got into some very shady things.
- mahyarm 13y ago
  Most of the US tech industry is probably 2 or 3 degrees from each other on linkedin. I'm a 3rd degree connection to this guy I've never met. I'm probably a 3rd degree connection to Bill Gates, Barak Obama and Marissa Mayer too. The TSA is not scary compared to US customs although.
zainali 13y ago
You can get t-shirts here from my new startup http://freedreadpirateroberts.com/ http://freedreadpirateroberts.com/
- ballard 13y ago
  Love it.
lnanek2 13y ago
Pretty strange he was confident enough to live in the US, especially with everything being revealed.
jlgaddis 13y ago
Wow, I just read through the whole indictment. It's pretty convincing. :/
manicbovine 13y ago
Did anyone think this could go on? It's not just about narcotics, this is about the government's ability to regulate and tax. The US government has refined its ability to tax so well that, if you make a large amount of money illegally, you still need to pay taxes on it (e.g. laundering). This has been the case since before computers enabled massive surveillance. That's incredible! I can imagine that, had the Silk Road specialized in consumer goods and threatened to become popular, then it'd have been brought down much, much faster.
JulianMorrison 13y ago
Remember when they took down Napster, and it ended music piracy?
EGreg 13y ago
Freenet does not have such problems as Tor. That's because the informaton is distributed around the entire network and accessed via a DHT. So there is no need for onion routing nor is there one host to take down. All people can be arrested for is running the program, if it can be proven that they did.
mindcrime 13y ago
OK, just for the sake of argument, let's assume the FBI (with the help of the NSA friends, or otherwise) have "broken" Tor in some sense. Whether it's by controlling enough nodes to do traffic analysis, or a fundamental flaw in the software, or a backdoor or whatever. Given that, if you were going to run a SR like site, are any of the other anonymizing networks of various sorts (Freenet, I2P, whatever) a valid alternative? And would any of those deals be better than Tor in any meaningful way?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
DonGateley 13y ago
This is big news for John McAfee and his new enterprise. Once again he'll be laughing all the way to the bank.
yarou 13y ago
Rather than simply have a "looking for hitman" service, DPR would have been wise to have an Assassination Market (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market). It's much harder to assign criminal liability in these types of prediction markets, and given that transactions in SR were denominated in bitcoins, it may have been an interesting way to cover his tracks.
gwern 13y ago
I've been archiving web pages related to the owner: http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1nmiyb/compiling_all_dprrelevant_pages_suggestions_needed/ http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1nmiyb/compiling_a...
- cypherpunks01 13y ago
  the subreddit has been closed.. are you mirroring it on your site or anywhere else?
  - gwern 13y ago
    I think the subreddit is open again, but I do plan to put it up on my own site once I think I've gotten everything.
Natsu 13y ago
Is it just me, or the the word 'alleged' really out of place in their headline? It should be 'arrests alleged owner'. I have yet to hear anyone deny that Silk Road was an online drug market.
philfreo 13y ago
So how did they know that his original Stack Overflow name was changed?
- dylz 13y ago
  SO logs all changes permanently. All message edits, name changes, email changes.
  - philfreo 13y ago
    Where can I see his original name?
WhoIsSatoshi 13y ago
You can't catch the Dread Pirate Roberts. Another will rise.
siliconc0w 13y ago
There is definitely missing information how the actual server was compromised. Without that, a lot of the evidence wouldn't be possible. It seems likely that eventually a SR type service cannot be stopped. The theory is there, the market is there, just the implementation remains. (please don't raid me NSA/FBI)
ballard 13y ago
Lessons learned: - Fewer people, the better. - Trust is earned, especially in criminal enterprises, slowly. - Checks and controls are important when participants are inherently shady. - If you're the head of the world's largest criminal exchange, being extremely careful to ensure actual anonymity is difficult but required. One slip, and it's all over. - Tor might help, but a distributed app (vaguely like BitTorrent) might be more "SWAT proof" than having centralized servers.
exodust 13y ago
We're finally protected from the evils of cheap pills and acid, anonymously purchased over the internet and delivered to our doors... HANG ON A SECOND!!
blar 13y ago
I get the accusations of money laundering and narco-trafficking, but where are the computer hacking accusations coming from? I didn't see anything in the complaint that specifically alleged deliberate intrusions into any systems. Does this mean Justice is going to accuse him of computer hacking because he hired virtual servers and used them to run a criminal market place? That would sound like a stretch of hacking laws, right? What am I missing?
nyarlathotep 13y ago
I notice it's stated that around 3.6 million USD worth of bitcoins were seized in the arrest, taken from Silk Road's wallets. Am I correct in assuming that because it came from SR's wallet it was the escrow fund? The FBI complaint posted earlier states the escrow fund held around 2.2 million USD at some earlier date (page 15). Why aren't they mentioning the ~80 million USD generated in commisions? I can only assume because it was not seized.
tzury 13y ago
The site: https://silkroadvb5piz3r.onion.lu/ https://silkroadvb5piz3r.onion.lu/ I guess ASAC Shrader's guys were finally able to handle this case once most of their resources became available again thanks to the Gilligan's shut down few days ago...
eatmyshorts 13y ago
With respect to the references to FriendlyChemist, why didn't the government charge him with attempted murder on top of his other charges? I'm no lawyer, so my understanding of criminal law is limited. Is it likely the government will add additional charges when this goes to trial?
CurtMonash 13y ago
He's somebody of no consequence.
CurtMonash 13y ago
Inconceivable.
runn1ng 13y ago
- Freedom Hosting is down - SilkRoad is down - the Atlantis drug store is down ...all of that leads me to believe Tor hidden services are very, very unsafe to use, since all bigger illegal services that used them have been brought down eventually.
bencollier49 13y ago
Interesting that the bitcoin price has slumped on this news.
cynoclast 13y ago
So who's going to be the next Dread Pirate Roberts?
cynoclast 13y ago
So who's going to be the next Dread Pirate Roberts?
noemit 13y ago
They arrested Inigo, not DPR (also there's been 2 DPRs so far, it was planned that DPR changed once a year.) Not sure how the case will go, but I think that you can't say beyond a reasonable doubt Ross is DPR (Because, well, he's not.) I'm sure he'll get great lawyers that can get him out of this.
primitive_type 13y ago
I don't see what's so controversial http://www.joymax.com/silkroad/ http://www.joymax.com/silkroad/

1101 points by RockyMcNuts 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

So The Dread Pirate Roberts == Ross Ulbricht? Was just a matter of time. I'd be interested in knowing how they traced him, considering how overtly cautious he was known to be.

locofacetwice 13y ago
I bet it had something to do with U.S. gov "helping" TOR network couple of months ago.
bpicolo 13y ago
Not cautious enough to not be in the US
- sneak 13y ago
  Leaving the US is not sufficient. Snowden had to institute the help of one of the largest countries on Earth not to get taken. Also, leaving friends/family/network in the US behind is very, very difficult.
MichaelGG 13y ago
The criminal complaint says that he used the same username to publicize the site as well as on Bitcoin forums, where he listed his Gmail account and asked for help. From there, there's a whole lot of coincidences. They also got an image of his server, but no details on how they found the server are given. The complaint notes that another user warned him "an external IP is leaking", so the FBI might have found a weakness in his PHP setup. All it'd take is one command on the server...
bitwize 13y ago
The thing about the Dread Pirate Roberts is, it's the name that inspires the necessary fear. So he probably has a successor and/or is a decoy.
- Havoc 13y ago
  He did mention somewhere that he is not the first.

CodeCube 13y ago

:-O wow, I really really want to read about how they found him ... just curious to know considering all of the self-professed safeguards he had set up for himself

nly 13y ago
The information they used to find him came from before he set those safe guards up. Long story short, he was sloppy in the early days.
pwenzel 13y ago
Here's a summary of his capture, noting his activities on Stack Overflow and drug forums, summarized from the warrant: https://medium.com/p/d48995e8eb5a https://medium.com/p/d48995e8eb5a

RockyMcNuts 13y ago

Criminal complaint - http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ulbric...

reso 13y ago

It's unclear what is happening and this may be a prank. The initial reports that the FBI had seized the domain appear to be a sarcastic "down for maintenance" page on the part of Silk Road. I've yet to find a real source on the alleged arrest of http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1nl5ne/shutdown_is_a_joke_calm_down_proof/ http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1nl5ne/shutdown_is... However, there also appears to be a criminal complaint out for the founder. http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ulbric... EDIT: Seems like this is real. Reuters reports that Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, was arrested in San Francisco. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-raid-idUSBRE9910TR20131002 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-...

aplusbi 13y ago
There is also this Reuters blurb: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-raid-idUSBRE9910TR20131002 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-...

shazow 13y ago

Found this in one of the recent HN submissions: http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ulbric... / Mirror: http://www.scribd.com/doc/172773407/Ulbricht-Criminal-Complaint-Silk-Road http://www.scribd.com/doc/172773407/Ulbricht-Criminal-Compla... According to the filing, they found him through a combination of posting his personal @gmail.com address on the bitcointalk forum from the same account used to market Silkroad. Further, they found that his LinkedIn account somewhat corroborated the timeline/interest in what Silkroad is. Page 24 for the juicy details of how they identified him. Also there is a section about murder-for-hire in Canada. Pretty wild stuff. Update: Also he posted on Stackoverflow asking questions about Tor with his real name, then later changed his name. Supremely conspicuous.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dave_sullivan 13y ago
"All told, the site has generated sales revenue totaling over 9.5 million Bitcoins and collected commissions from these sales totaling over 600,000 Bitcoins. Although the value of Bitcoins has varied significantly during the site's lifetime, these figures are roughly equivalent today to approximately $1.2 billion in sales and approximately $80 million in commissions." Incidentally exactly how much Walter White made... That's a strange coincidence, or perhaps one of the clerks that gets paid to make up statistics for drug related criminal complaints is a breaking bad fan...
- acallahan 13y ago
  I think you should flag this as breaking bad spoilers - not everyone has finished watching the show
  - atlbeer 13y ago
    That's a year and a half old info. It can't be a spoiler forever.

jadeddrag 13y ago

Reuters reporting seems to confirm the news http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-raid-idUSBRE9910TR20131002 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-...

gesman 13y ago

Someone from Ross' close circle didn't get his proper share!

bsullivan01 13y ago

If they want to get you, they will. Reading how they got him, but I wouldn't be surprised if NSA handed them the info informally and then the FBI had to find another way to justify it. When you know the end results, "connecting the dots" is much easier. Parallel construction http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUKBRE97409R20130805 http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUKBRE9... and all.

untog 13y ago
When you know the end results, "connecting the dots" is much easier. True, but "connecting the dots" is much easier when it's your job, and something you've spent decades practicing. Not to say that you're wrong, but there's no evidence to back you up. We might as well assume that the NSA is behind everything, ever.
- kevincennis 13y ago
  Not sure why this appears to have been downvoted. Seems like a pretty reasonable point, even if you happen not to agree with it.
- Larrikin 13y ago
  In this current age, its more likely that the NSA is behind it. We are at a point where we need evidence that the NSA didn't help.
  - dubfan 13y ago
    Then at that point you are no better than 9/11 truthers and moon landing hoaxers.
    - Larrikin 13y ago
      Theres no basis in reality for 9/11 truthers and moon landing hoaxers though
      - 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Pxtl 13y ago

Now the question is who will step in to fill his shoes. How much of Silk Road's infrastructure is open and reusable? The market has been created, the users exist - they'll be looking for a replacement. Of course, after this I think most would-be entrepreneurs might be having second thoughts.

dsl 13y ago
Atlantis Market was spun up not to long ago, including a full length animated commercial for the site. Many believe it was just an elaborate honey pot ran by law enforcement to entrap users, and it failed to gain any adoption. Black Market Reloaded is where most of the SR users will go.
- josephagoss 13y ago
  Atlantis was a scam, read the posts of all the people that could not withdraw their Litecoins and Bitcoins in that week they said they were going to stay open for withdrawals. Then the site went dark and took everything.
samgeneric 13y ago
We released code for a Bitcoin market yesterday, opened it up to the community. The code is good, tested, and is now OS. So have at it. I think that Bitcoin has had enough press in recent months that there is enough traction for a few more companies to really make legitimate marketplaces if they can build the infrastructure. Hopefully the Coinpost project provides them with that. https://github.com/brighton36/CoinPost https://github.com/brighton36/CoinPost

llamataboot 13y ago

His linkedin page is pretty transparent if you know anything about him "Now, my goals have shifted. I want to use economic theory as a means to abolish the use of coercion and agression amongst mankind. Just as slavery has been abolished most everywhere, I believe violence, coercion and all forms of force by one person over another can come to an end. The most widespread and systemic use of force is amongst institutions and governments, so this is my current point of effort. The best way to change a government is to change the minds of the governed, however. To that end, I am creating an economic simulation to give people a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force."

defen 13y ago
And yet, he appears to have paid to put a hit out on somebody...
- llamataboot 13y ago
  So he's a hypocrite and/or got corrupted by money and fear...not saying he is a good person, just that in retrospect his linkedin page is pretty transparent to confirm who he is and what he's doing based on his market anarchist writings posted under the DPR name, etc
  - aw3c2 13y ago
    You can write anything online and you can read many things into things people write. You can easily create personas only and lie and invent people.
- njharman 13y ago
  Systematic force means laws, government, and the like. Hiring hitman is the libertarian free market at its best.
  - Jtsummers 13y ago
    Systemic (not systematic) means "of or related to a system". This is not, strictly, governments. It can be any system from the ad hoc (Occupy movement) to the deliberately constructed (governments, corporations). It can be social systems, economic systems, anything. Systemic use of force, then, is a situation where the use of force against some parties is inherently part of the system. Whether it be physical, legal with threat of physical, emotional force or violence. If the particular economic sphere he's running in relies on violence (based on my experience in Las Vegas in the 90s, I'd say the drug world is one such system), then this isn't libertarian free market at its best, it's just the systemic use of force typical of the illicit drug industry.

lizzard 13y ago

Somewhat amusing list of YouTube videos recently liked by this guy: "How to Get Away with Stealing" and "Privacy: A PostMortem" are right on top. http://www.youtube.com/user/ohyeaross http://www.youtube.com/user/ohyeaross

pkfrank 13y ago
Good find. He (or this account) even lists a personal phone number on a video uploaded two years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D16fm5NgsA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D16fm5NgsA
misiti3780 13y ago
he has (had) a sweet truck too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D16fm5NgsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D16fm5NgsA

calvintennant 13y ago

In other news: http://imgur.com/6XRxpkk http://imgur.com/6XRxpkk

ihsw 13y ago
Looks like any other day to me.
- calvintennant 13y ago
  It continues: http://imgur.com/6XRxpkk http://imgur.com/6XRxpkk

llamataboot 13y ago

Also posted to Stack Overflow using his personal name and email address about Tor questions generally

untog 13y ago

The weirdest part of the criminal complaint is that he tried to hire a hitman on Silk Road. Will be interesting to see how this pans out.

skore 13y ago
Hypothetical Twist: The hitman is actually the same guy he's trying to have killed, just under a separate, anonymous account. Hypothetical Meta Twist: DPR actually suffers from multiple personality disorder and is also the guy he's trying to kill and thus also the hitman. A truly anonymous system really poses some hard problems, man.
- mrtksn 13y ago
  well, actually it seems to be at least his 2nd hire if he is not using it as a bargain chip. if he is saying the truth, he previously managed to get somebody executed for 80k.
  - skore 13y ago
    True, also, it seems like my first hypothetical twist might not have been that far off as I thought. Other comments[0] readily theorize it to be a likely scenario. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6483382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6483382
  - shawn-furyan 13y ago
    I read it as a clumsy bargaining strategy, especially since he wasn't at all successful in reducing the quoted price.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - unimpressive 13y ago
    Please don't start up Reddit style "Jokes about other stories on the site.", it's one of the aspects of Reddit that makes it suck. (Or at least include a link or something.)

duiker101 13y ago

I really don't understand, why stay in the US doing that stuff when it's the most controlled place ever? even if he was pretty well hidden just leaving the US would have made his life a lot easier...

andrewfong 13y ago
Perhaps he really likes In and Out burgers.
- cstavish 13y ago
  Thank you Donny.
icebraining 13y ago
That was my first question. It'd be pretty funny if we were to find out during the trial that the guy caught wasn't the real DPR.
- bestdayever 13y ago
  In previous postings DPR has indicated he inherited the site from the original owner, it would be funny if he knew they were closing in and sent the phony papers to the first DPR in an effort to give himself some time to escape.
MichaelGG 13y ago
His actions were so sloppy (according to the evidence listed) that even if was living somewhere else, they would have found him. And places that'd make it really hard for the USG to prosecure are not places that you'd want to live in the first place. He should have operated as if he lived on the DEA's front lawn.

mikeyouse 13y ago

Wow, what a complete shitbag (DPR = Dread Pirate Roberts): DPR sent a message to "redandwhite" stating that "FriendlyChemist" is "Causing me problems" and adding: "I would like to put a bounty on his head if it's not too much trouble for you. What would be an adequate amount to motivate you to find him?" And then Later that same day, redandwhite sent DPR a message quoting him a price of $150,000 or $300,000 "depending on how you want it done" - "clean" or "non-clean" DPR responded: "Don't want to be a pain here, but the price seems high. Not long ago, I had a clean hit done for $80k. Are the prices you quoted the best you can do? I would like this done ASAP as he is talking about releasing the info on Monday. DPR and redandwhite agreed upon a price of 1,670 Bitcoins - approximately $150k - for the job. In DPR's message confirming the deal, DPR included a transacation record reflecting the transfer of 1,670 Bitcoins to a certain Bitcoin address. Made $80mm in commissions running a drug trafficking network, paying hundreds of thousands to have people executed, mail fraud, money laundering, conspiracy.... He's looking at cartel level prison time.

Touche 13y ago
As someone who's never participated in a bounty what is the difference between a "clean" vs. "non-clean" hit?
- readme 13y ago
  I would infer clean means no trace, where non-clean means just do it, don't worry about cleaning up.
  - Touche 13y ago
    But wouldn't the hitman want to clean up since... they did it?
    - 6d0debc071 13y ago
      Depends how they did it. Shoot someone with an unregistered or stolen rifle from long distance, capture your brass, destroy the rifle and brass. Obviously a murder, if it were done that way. Very little effort involved, and what've the cops really got then? You'd probably create more evidence trying to make it look like an accident than you'd clear up just by doing it some easier way.

josephagoss 13y ago

Well my Bitcoin investment is about to vanish...

yk 13y ago
In much the same way online piracy vanished when Napster was shut down...
- untog 13y ago
  Not really the same. If you had bitcoins stored with SR, presumably they are long gone.
  - josephagoss 13y ago
    I've never used the road, but rather I fear it was central to the high value of Bitcoins. I would love to be wrong but I can see my investment dropping and I don't have the guts to sell back into fiat.
    - untog 13y ago
      Yep. Value of Bitcoin has tanked since this announcement.
    - weavejester 13y ago
      I guess it depends on whether you believe cryptographic currencies have significant use cases outside of criminal enterprise. If, on the other hand, you believe that the greatest value of bitcoins comes from their use by criminals, doesn't that make your investment in them a touch morally questionable?
      - sthatipamala 13y ago
        Unless one believes the enterprise on SR is criminal but not immoral.
    - JohnTHaller 13y ago

cloudgeek 13y ago

Isn't the federal government supposed to be shut down right now?

mpyne 13y ago
The government still exists, but there's no legal authority for many (but not all) of the federal employees to do work for the government, since there is no appropriation in force to pay for that work. Those who are working are essentially working for the promise of payment at some indefinite time in the future (except for the military, who apparently really are a sacred cow...).
- rprospero 13y ago
  Government employee here. Many of us aren't working on the promise of payment - we've already been paid. My salary was already "paid" two years ago. Congress passed a bill, the president signed it, and the DOE gave us the money. Now, if the government shutdown lasts until May, we'll probably be out of that money then I'd stop receiving paychecks. Of course, I hope to have a new job by that point, anyway.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Are you a government employee, or a contractor? I know that there are some persons paid for by multi-year appropriation bills, but those are comparatively rare. Most expenditures are handled via a single-FY appropriation (and my understanding is that this covers all APF employees). If you're a contractor, on the other hand, then you're not a government employee (legally), so the whole discussion doesn't apply to you directly.
67726e 13y ago
Only the good, useful agencies. The normal, shitty, "Fuck the Constitution" government is still open for business.
_delirium 13y ago
Government shutdowns are done in a way that retains a certain subset of services that are either paid for through unaffected funding mechanisms, or have been designated essential. That includes soldiers' salaries, payments to military contractors, operations of the FBI and DEA, and small to medium-sized portions of other agencies (e.g. the EPA is mostly shut down, but the Superfund and Mine Safety divisions will stay open).

tudorconstantin 13y ago

this might be a fruit of the fact that feds infected the tor network last month.

moepstar 13y ago

Just in case the PDF is down for anyone else, here's a link to CoralCDN: http://krebsonsecurity.com.nyud.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf http://krebsonsecurity.com.nyud.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/...

piratebroadcast 13y ago

Heres the complaint- Notable that, on page 30, it seems the fBI was able to partially deduce his identity based in part by his stack overflow questions. http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ulbric...

aqme28 13y ago
Here's the relevant question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15445285/how-can-i-connect-to-a-tor-hidden-service-using-curl-in-php http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15445285/how-can-i-connec... It doesn't seem like it's how they caught him, but it's some circumstantial evidence towards his guilt. He changed his username from his real name to "frosty" at some point.
nattaggart 13y ago
Yeah really interesting. My takeaways: When operating an underground network 1) don't post to SO questions regarding Tor 2) keep distinct login names for everything
- GuiA 13y ago
  3) Don't live in the US
- jessaustin 13y ago
  keep distinct login names for everything It's probably best to keep distinct OS containers for everything. Don't trust the browser at all.

nether 13y ago

Not totally surprising since SR was mentioned before Congress over a year ago, and some leaked documents mentioned ongoing investigation. I've been telling people it's just a matter of time before it's shut down and that you should stockpile now before it's too late. Let's hope SR hasn't been keeping any real identifying transaction records, or I bet we'll see a spate of high-profile arrests from tech companies.

known 13y ago

http://www.lietaer.com/2010/03/the-worgl-experiment/ http://www.lietaer.com/2010/03/the-worgl-experiment/

jl6 13y ago

I wonder what the FBI will do with the seized bitcoins!

gcr 13y ago

Here's a question: How did the FBI manage to shut down a hidden Tor site? Did they merely sieze the server hosting the site and ask apache to serve something else?

AmVess 13y ago
My guess is they caught DPR and beat him with a wrench XKCD style until he gave up the information about the server.

patmcguire 13y ago

I wonder if the timing on this is deliberate. The office that handles FOIA requests is part of the government shutdown, but the three-letter agencies aren't. So the only information that's going to come out on this for the time being is whatever the people running the investigation want to come out... Maybe it's not deliberate, but keep that in mind. There's going to only one source on this story for a long time.

trevorcreech 13y ago

Summary of how he got caught: https://medium.com/p/d48995e8eb5a https://medium.com/p/d48995e8eb5a

pcrh 13y ago

Unsurprisingly, bitcoin is currently experiencing a loss of value.

w_t_payne 13y ago
But maybe a longer term uptick in credibility? It will do Bitcoin no good in the long term if people think it is just for drugs. I'd rather it developed a more serious, legitimate reputation.
- dwaltrip 13y ago
  The $360 billion annual drug trade figures haven't dented the image of government currencies. Some hold the view that silk road actually provided legitimacy to bitcoin. Source: www.drugwardistortions.org/distortion19.html

MrJagil 13y ago

A reddit user[1] suggests http://sheepmarketplace.com/ http://sheepmarketplace.com/ as an alternative. Is anyone familiar with it? [1]http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1nl8hz/lets_talk_alternatives/ccjljtk http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1nl8hz/lets_talk_a...

aaronbrethorst 13y ago

Here's his LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rossulbricht http://www.linkedin.com/in/rossulbricht (browse logged-out to see the full thing. If you're logged in and not connected to him, you won't see anything.)

Nicholas_C 13y ago
Why does LinkedIn do this? It seems so stupid and such a waste of time. Anyone know?
- aaronbrethorst 13y ago
  I assume it's because they want the SEO juice and Google frowns on showing different content to the Googlebot vs a human being, but they also want their users to make more connections. So, they sometimes show more content to logged-out visitors.
  - corin_ 13y ago
    Not just because of SEO, although that's one reason. Logged in users are already sold on LinkedIn, so LinkedIn wants to encourage them to make more connections. The aim for guest visitors is to get them to sign-up, so showing them a more useful page is a better way of showing what value LinkedIn can offer them.
  - Nicholas_C 13y ago
    Interesting. Someone should build a browser add in that shows logged out views of LinkedIn profiles even if the user is logged in, with the ability to toggle between the two views.
- joshfraser 13y ago
  SEO
- webhat 13y ago
  They don't think people know. Or they assume you won't logout to look at somebody's page, I guess somebody forgot to tell them about Incognito browser windows.

thekevan 13y ago

Is anyone else surprised that it took this long to shut it down? With all the surveillance that has been in the news, I assumed Silk Road was entirely operated in a foreign country which didn't have good information exchange relations with the US. No matter what the precautions someone takes, my bet is that they will eventually get caught if they engage in illegal activity online.

davmre 13y ago

Apparently the FBI managed to track down the actual server running the site: During the course of this investigation, the FBI has located a number of computer servers, both in the United States and in multiple foreign countries, associated with the operation of Silk Road. In particular, the FBI has located in a certain foreign country the server used to host Silk Road's website (the "Silk Road Web Server"). Pursuant to a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty Request, an image of the Silk Road Web Server was made on or about July 23, 2013 and produced thereafter to the FBI. This server image seems to have been the source of a lot of the evidence leading to the arrest warrant: the IP logs that matched his location, an account name that matched his StackOverflow account, and of course all the private messages and chat logs regarding his personal location (messages indicating Pacific time), operation of the site (payments to other admins), and the extortion attempt/attempted hit. What the complaint doesn't specify is how the FBI managed to locate the Silk Road server. It's possible that they already had some suspicion of DPR's identity, and managed to bug his computers or otherwise track his activity well enough to figure out what systems he was logging into. But given how coy the complaint is about this, I wonder if in fact this is the result of a sophisticated analysis of Tor network traffic (possibly in collaboration with the NSA?). If that's the case, it betrays a level of capability that ought to be frightening for the operators of other anonymous Tor services. Anyone with more Tor expertise want to comment on how likely this is? Edit: the excerpt quoted is from the (now unsealed) FBI complaint, first linked elsewhere in this thread: http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ulbric.... The whole thing is pretty interesting reading.

Aloisius 13y ago
Running this kind of service becomes infinitely more difficult if you can't hide your hidden services. Also I wonder how they got a server image without him noticing since it is typically something you'd need to shut down the machine for. Was the whole thing running off a hosting service? It would be pretty impressive if he physically had servers in multiple countries. Just setting them up without involving other people seems difficult. Edit: He did use hosting services which probably used virtualization so it is easy to clone drives for. The complaint has him buying fake ids (which were confiscated in transit!) in order to rent more servers.

powertower 13y ago

For anyone that's going to the SR URL - Notice: 1. The SilkRoad Camel image in the background. 2. "THIS HIDDEN SITE HAS BEEN SEIZED" text. These are not standard parts to the image, based on previous seizures. (though I'll admit those all were clear-web seizures that just took over the DNS and resolved back to a gov controlled IP hosting a image - here the image is hosted on-site). So there is a chance that this is DPR's "dead-man" script running after DPR was not able to communicate with the site for X hours. It's hard to tell if the actual site (with it's data) has been taken over or compromised. There is also the possibility it's only the onion domain-name that has been taken, though I'm not sure how TOR/ONION works (if that's possible without access to the server). In any way, I hope that none of you used a plain-text (vs a PGP'ed one) home address for your recent orders, nor have any tracking #s lingering in messages from the vendors in your accounts. If I recall correctly, messages are deleted after 30 days. But who knows what type of backups where maintained. It will be intresting to see if - 1. There are admins that have access to the data + site that can get it back up and operational. 2. The forums (which are still working) will produce another site. 3. BMR (BlackMarketReloaded) and another one I'm not familiar with called Sheeps Market will continue to operate and/or pick up the majority of SR's business. ...and also if the DEA and FBI will go after the users (and not just the vendors) that they can find enough "conspiracy to commit" evidence on to make a point.

MrDrone 13y ago
In the document they released they made it clear that the server had been located and compromised. An image of the server from July 2013 was part of the evidence in the indictment. While I hope a dead man switched was flipped it doesn't look good for the integrity of the site. Hopefully everyone involved was smart enough to encrypt.
- powertower 13y ago
  I have not read it yet, but from what others have quoted, it looks like a disk image was made and handed over in July. Nothing else. The disk image would of course contain the heavily encrypted data of SR (wallets, transactions, messages). So unless the private key was on the server right next to the public key (AKA the Linode Incident), or the site did not encrypt that data (which goes against what we have seen so far), the disk image would not compromise that much.

patrickg_zill 13y ago

Not surprised. The CIA hates to have competitors?

ianstallings 13y ago

What baffles me is why the FBI would shut it down and let this information out when they could have just sat there and collected information on crime after crime. Was the impetus because of the violence alluded to in communications? I know that if they are watching the mafia and they intercept a message about a homicide they have, in the past, notified the intended target. Either way, intriguing story. If it's true he's really up shit's creek. And I have no problem with that, if it's true. An old 'hood motto: I'm not the law, break it, I don't care. But when you get caught, remember that I don't care.

diydsp 13y ago
'tis the season to justify wire-snooping. Congress closes session in a month or so.
moeadham 13y ago
How are you sure this has not already happened?
- ianstallings 13y ago
  I'm not but usually in a case where a bunch of suspects are rounded up they will announce the sting operation publicly to make sure everyone knows they are on the job. I assumed they didn't because the FBI was built on publicity and it's part of their institution. But you might be right, they may be doing this to just shake the tree or they've already moved on people.
smacktoward 13y ago
They want the big fish, not the little fishes that school around him. Is there a bigger fish in the Silk Road story than DPR?
notahacker 13y ago
The FBI's paymasters are ultimately elected by the public, who mostly prefer the FBI to pursue one high profile kingpin reportedly linked with violent crime rather than all of their neighbours who made the mistake of experimenting with online drug orders.

alx 13y ago

naspter-like moment in internet history

crystaln 13y ago

Any word on whether we can expect customers and sellers to be hunted down? I had heard rumors for months that DPR he been compromised. I know quite a few people who used Silk Road, many carelessly so.

gwern 13y ago
> Any word on whether we can expect customers and sellers to be hunted down? So far the known tally, from reading the forums & Reddit, is: a SR employee (arrested, unknown), DPR (arrested, charged), a UK vendor (arrested, probably won't be charged), and a WA vendor (arrested, charged). If anyone knows of other arrests/charges/convictions, please tell me. I've been trying to maintain a complete list at http://www.gwern.net/Silk%20Road#safe http://www.gwern.net/Silk%20Road#safe
nether 13y ago
Most plausible outcome I've heard is that the Feds will only pursue high-volume users, either vendors, or buyers who intended to distribute. Buyers for personal use wouldn't be worth the trouble, though I think they could just distribute that info to local LE.

wnevets 13y ago

based on my training and experience, wow crazy read.

shocks 13y ago

It'll be interesting to see how this effects the value BTC trades at...

bdr 13y ago

Silk Road discussion forums are still up (and buzzing): http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/ http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/

computer 13y ago
Clickable link without tor: https://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion.to/ https://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion.to/
- dmerrick 13y ago
  Neat, how does this work? It seems to violate the idea of the internal Tor web.
  - computer 13y ago
    The servers are still hidden, it's simply proxy software that trades user anonimity for convenience (and speed I believe, since the tor2web software uses fewer tor relays in its circuits, not trying to be anonymous) See http://tor2web.org/ http://tor2web.org/

znowi 13y ago

This is a good time to buy cheap bitcoins :)

mscarborough 13y ago

Meanwhile, down the street from my work it's pretty easy for people to buy/sell in person across the street from the State Capitol in Denver, CO. In a park in broad daylight. Way to go, feds. Go justify that budget with scare tactics while we have open-air drug markets all over the US that you can't even shut down.

ktd 13y ago
Roleplaying time! You've just been appointed to head the FBI-- congratulations, Director! Which of the following things do you want to send your agents after? * An international marketplace doing millions of dollars of business in drugs, weapons, and fake IDs * A few drug dealers in a public park in a city where you might not even have jurisdiction If there are drug dealers in the parks, that's a shame-- but that's really not the type of issue that the FBI is supposed to handle. Take it up with your local police department.

elwell 13y ago

This, in the wake of the Breaking Bad finale.

holmesworcester 13y ago

Someone should put together a timeline from the affidavit. It looks like a lot of pieces start coming together at the same time in June/July. The fact that they intercepted his fake travel documents during a routine search of mail at customs when they were already that close to him seems unlikely. But maybe I'm reading this wrong, or maybe they actually do intercept a high percentage of fake passports moving across the border.

marincounty 13y ago

1. I've never felt TOR was secure. I think the American government knows exactly how to track down a suspicious IP. 2. I think they left SR alone, because they have bigger concerns-- terrorism, foreign surveillance? They still want the world to think VPN's are private? 3. If you can't make money in this system-- I understand. I don't think I've every met a wealthy person who wasen't a psychopathic hypocrite--usually with a very advanced degree. I live among these hypocrites, and it's nauseating. I won't even start on how many parasitic people in Marin County start up nonprofits, and no one bothers to find out how much they make--all legal. 4. If you are going to do something that could land you in jail Don't Tell Anyone What You Are Doing. That includes the person you bed with...... 5. Never take advantage of the poor, animals, children, or the environment. It's pathetic I needed to make a list, but some of you repress what you are doing.

camus 13y ago
TOR IS secure , humans just made mistakes. they are indeed humans.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  Presumably the same species programmed Tor, no? And since humans are involved, aren't they open to normal human failures and weakness? Or were these special people who programmed Tor?

PhilipA 13y ago

This makes up for a good movie plot. I guess he can have some money in prison, when selling the story to Hollywood.

alexeisadeski3 13y ago
Not allowed to profit from one's own criminal story, I'm afraid.
- aaronem 13y ago
  Mitnick published an autobiography.
  - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law
    - undoware 13y ago
      Sorry to be rude, but did you read that link before posting it? " In an 8–0 ruling on Simon & Schuster v. Crime Victims Board, the court ruled the law unconstitutional.[5] The majority opinion was that the law was overinclusive, and would have prevented the publication of such works as The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, and even The Confessions of Saint Augustine."
      - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
        I'll be damned. Good catch, and you're definitely not being rude by correcting my ignorance! Thank you :)

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Aloisius 13y ago

Interesting. He apparently lived in San Francisco in the Mission and rented a room for $1000/month. For someone who should have had $80 million in profit, that seems a bit strange. I suppose cashing out $80 million in bitcoin and then laundering must be incredibly difficult.

aestra 13y ago
Walking around buying houses in cash might raise some red flags, however, maybe he just liked where he was living?
datalus 13y ago
It helps to provide cover. He's just another 20-something in the bay area. One of the smarter moves he made, some of the others not so much.

rdl 13y ago

As I've said for the past few years, he essentially fucked himself. 1) using a low latency onion routing network, rather than a mixnet like an anonymous remailer or other 1990s blacknet, was a big problem. You could maybe get away with throwaway front end nodes as a web interface, stateless, to package up transactions, run by third parties, but for long running anonymity vs traffic analysis or server compromise, low latency bidirectional connections are impossible. 2) repeatedly sticking his dick into the hornet nest by provoking the FBI in the press 3) remaining in the USA while doing all of this Acting in ways which make him a less sympathetic defendant (connection to assassinations? Really?) doesn't help

dwaltrip 13y ago
Using his real email address/non-anonymous usernames while mentioning silk road related activities and later ordering fake IDs to his home address were by far the most enormous of fucks ups.
justincormack 13y ago
Being in San Francisco is er kind of stupid...
dobbsbob 13y ago
you left out sitting in a public library and logging into your online cartel that anybody could watch and get the IP you ssh into

ssharp 13y ago

A fascinating read. The traditional method of catching drug kingpins has been to flip the lower-levels of the organization until you can finally stick something on the leader. Here, the feds were able to go straight to the source. I'd expect more prosecutions of SR's larger vendors as part of the fallout. If I were one of those vendors, I'd be ordering dust filter for my Hoover MaxExtract PressurePro model 60. I think the pseudo-anonymity that Tor, Bitcoin, and computers in general can provide gave DPR too much confidence. But like every other ringleader who has been caught, a new one will take over and play the game smarter.

MaysonL 13y ago

So now the question will be: how many of the people who have used SR recently will be/have been arrestd, and how much of their bitcoin has been/will be seized?

qq66 13y ago
My guess is that they will go after the few or few dozen people who profited most heavily from illegal activity on the site.

malandrew 13y ago

So question: If you were running a massive online black market that can be set up and operated from anywhere in the world and making 80mm in commissions, wouldn't it make sense to not only set up the servers outside the US but also fly out of the US to a country with no extradition treaty with the US and low law enforcement cooperation with the US. By doing so, they have committed all crimes outside US jurisdiction. Near as I can tell this means that no crime they are charged with should stick, however IANAL. Can anyone elaborate if it is possible to manage a site like this in a way where all actions associated with its operation never constitute crimes prosecutable in the US?

wmf 13y ago
If you allow US users to log in to your site the US will claim jurisdiction; see online gambling.
rayiner 13y ago
Unless you take measures to make sure American customers can't use your site, the U.S. would have jurisdiction.
- malandrew 13y ago
  Would blocking all US IP ranges be sufficient even though it is served over TOR. Seems like that would meet the same bullshit requirement the NSA is using when it retains all traffic from outside the country.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  Note that this is a one way rule. Never seen an American site owner be extradited to a foreign country for not respecting their laws.

patmcguire 13y ago

The alleged assassination transaction http://blockchain.info/en/tx/4a0a5b6036c0da84c3eb9c2a884b6ad72416d1758470e19fb1d2fa2a145b5601 http://blockchain.info/en/tx/4a0a5b6036c0da84c3eb9c2a884b6ad...

wcfields 13y ago
Is there a way to filter out high-value transactions?
- patmcguire 13y ago
  This is as close as it gets http://blockchain.info/largest-recent-transactions http://blockchain.info/largest-recent-transactions I don't think the blockchain format is designed for that in the same way it is for recency or random access

adamnemecek 13y ago

This post from Ulbricht's Google Plus profile is pretty priceless. https://plus.google.com/101844174649242995101/posts/bbhPuSJHSCF https://plus.google.com/101844174649242995101/posts/bbhPuSJH... (screenshot in case it's removed http://i.imgur.com/GjqdYDe.png http://i.imgur.com/GjqdYDe.png) It's hilarious that his tagline is "spunky, funky, not so chunky".

mindcrime 13y ago

Damn, and I was this close to ordering some LSD from SR a few weeks ago. I've never tried it and was thinking about giving it a shot. Guess it's a good thing work sent me out of town, and I decided to wait, then got distracted and never got around to it. Still, this is disappointing. As a libertarian / ancap / voluntaryist / whatever-you-want-to-call-me, I totally support the Silk Road and other unregulated marketplaces.

noname123 13y ago
Bro, you got lucky. FBI's got a daily snapshot of SR server. So be glad your name and address is not in that database somewhere in FBI/DEA.
- gwern 13y ago
  That'd only be a problem if he had been stupid enough to send his LSD vendor his name & address in the clear. The whole point of buyers encrypting their info to the seller's key was to avoid problems if LE attacked the server.
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    Yeah, I definitely would not be sending anything like that in the clear. Not knowingly, anyway! Funny thing though, I held off due to random shit that came up, not even anything to do with all the NSA/Snowden/Intelligence/Whatever stuff. And during those couple of weeks, is when all the FBI/Tor stuff broke, and that did serve to give me a little bit of pause. But I still probably would have made an order, except I got busy doing stuff and just never got around to it. I'd be tempted to try one of the alternatives, but now I'm worried that one or more of them might be LE honeypots or something. Damnit, what's a hacker to do, who just wants to try acid once before he dies? Sheesh. :-(
    - dreamdu5t 13y ago
      You should start going to music festivals, raves, and you'll meet people who have access to it. It's much easier to find in real life than online IMHO.

topbanana 13y ago

OK so he put out a hit on someone. Bizarrely I'm actually more annoyed that he didn't accept an answer on StackOverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15445285/how-can-i-connect-to-a-tor-hidden-service-using-curl-in-php http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15445285/how-can-i-connec...

mvbrasil 13y ago

Was Atlantis a decoy aiming Silk Road? https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/4d0dd63edb6 https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/4d0dd63edb6

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

kubatyszko 13y ago

weren't they supposed to be "not working" during shutdown ? ;)

Angelina12 13y ago

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Shivetya 13y ago

and here I have a dog site named silkroad.net that I gave to my mother years ago, needless to say her friends have been bombarding her with this story.

mkv138 13y ago

I thought the name Ross Ulbricht sounded familiar... turns out I had lunch with him a few years ago when he was working on a startup selling books online. I had some experience in the area, and he reached out to me after getting my contact details through a friend. He emailed me from rossulbricht@gmail.com, we made arrangements, had lunch and discussed selling books. That was the only time we met, and I've never heard from or of him since. It's known that the FBI and DEA get help from the NSA on high profile investigations, and they sometimes look at people 2 or 3 degrees of separation from their main person of interest. Given what we've learned in the last few months about the government's intelligence apparatus, it seems I can reasonably assume that my emails, texts, phone call history etc. have all been scrutinized because I was in this guys email history. And it's not unreasonable to wonder if the same can be said of anybody I've ever emailed, or chatted with on facebook etc. because that's only 2 degrees of separation. While I don't think the government will be scooping me up in a black van or kicking my doors in over this, I wouldn't be remotely surprised if I get special attention from the TSA next time I'm going through an airport because now I'm on some list. I guess this is what it means to live in a surveillance state. Having to be afraid of what this might mean for myself, and for my friends and family, because I once exchanged a couple of emails with a guy who years later got into some very shady things.

mahyarm 13y ago
Most of the US tech industry is probably 2 or 3 degrees from each other on linkedin. I'm a 3rd degree connection to this guy I've never met. I'm probably a 3rd degree connection to Bill Gates, Barak Obama and Marissa Mayer too. The TSA is not scary compared to US customs although.

zainali 13y ago

You can get t-shirts here from my new startup http://freedreadpirateroberts.com/ http://freedreadpirateroberts.com/

ballard 13y ago
Love it.

lnanek2 13y ago

Pretty strange he was confident enough to live in the US, especially with everything being revealed.

jlgaddis 13y ago

Wow, I just read through the whole indictment. It's pretty convincing. :/

manicbovine 13y ago

Did anyone think this could go on? It's not just about narcotics, this is about the government's ability to regulate and tax. The US government has refined its ability to tax so well that, if you make a large amount of money illegally, you still need to pay taxes on it (e.g. laundering). This has been the case since before computers enabled massive surveillance. That's incredible! I can imagine that, had the Silk Road specialized in consumer goods and threatened to become popular, then it'd have been brought down much, much faster.

JulianMorrison 13y ago

Remember when they took down Napster, and it ended music piracy?

EGreg 13y ago

Freenet does not have such problems as Tor. That's because the informaton is distributed around the entire network and accessed via a DHT. So there is no need for onion routing nor is there one host to take down. All people can be arrested for is running the program, if it can be proven that they did.

mindcrime 13y ago

OK, just for the sake of argument, let's assume the FBI (with the help of the NSA friends, or otherwise) have "broken" Tor in some sense. Whether it's by controlling enough nodes to do traffic analysis, or a fundamental flaw in the software, or a backdoor or whatever. Given that, if you were going to run a SR like site, are any of the other anonymizing networks of various sorts (Freenet, I2P, whatever) a valid alternative? And would any of those deals be better than Tor in any meaningful way?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

DonGateley 13y ago

This is big news for John McAfee and his new enterprise. Once again he'll be laughing all the way to the bank.

yarou 13y ago

Rather than simply have a "looking for hitman" service, DPR would have been wise to have an Assassination Market (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market). It's much harder to assign criminal liability in these types of prediction markets, and given that transactions in SR were denominated in bitcoins, it may have been an interesting way to cover his tracks.

gwern 13y ago

I've been archiving web pages related to the owner: http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1nmiyb/compiling_all_dprrelevant_pages_suggestions_needed/ http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1nmiyb/compiling_a...

cypherpunks01 13y ago
the subreddit has been closed.. are you mirroring it on your site or anywhere else?
- gwern 13y ago
  I think the subreddit is open again, but I do plan to put it up on my own site once I think I've gotten everything.

Natsu 13y ago

Is it just me, or the the word 'alleged' really out of place in their headline? It should be 'arrests alleged owner'. I have yet to hear anyone deny that Silk Road was an online drug market.

philfreo 13y ago

So how did they know that his original Stack Overflow name was changed?

dylz 13y ago
SO logs all changes permanently. All message edits, name changes, email changes.
- philfreo 13y ago
  Where can I see his original name?

WhoIsSatoshi 13y ago

You can't catch the Dread Pirate Roberts. Another will rise.

siliconc0w 13y ago

There is definitely missing information how the actual server was compromised. Without that, a lot of the evidence wouldn't be possible. It seems likely that eventually a SR type service cannot be stopped. The theory is there, the market is there, just the implementation remains. (please don't raid me NSA/FBI)

ballard 13y ago

Lessons learned: - Fewer people, the better. - Trust is earned, especially in criminal enterprises, slowly. - Checks and controls are important when participants are inherently shady. - If you're the head of the world's largest criminal exchange, being extremely careful to ensure actual anonymity is difficult but required. One slip, and it's all over. - Tor might help, but a distributed app (vaguely like BitTorrent) might be more "SWAT proof" than having centralized servers.

exodust 13y ago

We're finally protected from the evils of cheap pills and acid, anonymously purchased over the internet and delivered to our doors... HANG ON A SECOND!!

blar 13y ago

I get the accusations of money laundering and narco-trafficking, but where are the computer hacking accusations coming from? I didn't see anything in the complaint that specifically alleged deliberate intrusions into any systems. Does this mean Justice is going to accuse him of computer hacking because he hired virtual servers and used them to run a criminal market place? That would sound like a stretch of hacking laws, right? What am I missing?

nyarlathotep 13y ago

I notice it's stated that around 3.6 million USD worth of bitcoins were seized in the arrest, taken from Silk Road's wallets. Am I correct in assuming that because it came from SR's wallet it was the escrow fund? The FBI complaint posted earlier states the escrow fund held around 2.2 million USD at some earlier date (page 15). Why aren't they mentioning the ~80 million USD generated in commisions? I can only assume because it was not seized.

tzury 13y ago

The site: https://silkroadvb5piz3r.onion.lu/ https://silkroadvb5piz3r.onion.lu/ I guess ASAC Shrader's guys were finally able to handle this case once most of their resources became available again thanks to the Gilligan's shut down few days ago...

eatmyshorts 13y ago

With respect to the references to FriendlyChemist, why didn't the government charge him with attempted murder on top of his other charges? I'm no lawyer, so my understanding of criminal law is limited. Is it likely the government will add additional charges when this goes to trial?

CurtMonash 13y ago

He's somebody of no consequence.

CurtMonash 13y ago

Inconceivable.

runn1ng 13y ago

- Freedom Hosting is down - SilkRoad is down - the Atlantis drug store is down ...all of that leads me to believe Tor hidden services are very, very unsafe to use, since all bigger illegal services that used them have been brought down eventually.

bencollier49 13y ago

Interesting that the bitcoin price has slumped on this news.

cynoclast 13y ago

So who's going to be the next Dread Pirate Roberts?

cynoclast 13y ago

So who's going to be the next Dread Pirate Roberts?

noemit 13y ago

They arrested Inigo, not DPR (also there's been 2 DPRs so far, it was planned that DPR changed once a year.) Not sure how the case will go, but I think that you can't say beyond a reasonable doubt Ross is DPR (Because, well, he's not.) I'm sure he'll get great lawyers that can get him out of this.

primitive_type 13y ago

I don't see what's so controversial http://www.joymax.com/silkroad/ http://www.joymax.com/silkroad/