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Criminal Complaint against Ross Ulbricht aka "Dread Pirate Roberts" [pdf]
- ashray 13y agoI went through the evidence portion of this (page 24 onwards) and found that inspite of a pretty deep look into everything there isn't much to tie this guy to the Silk Road operation. There are a few things that could tie them together: - The fact that the SSH KEY on the server was for frosty@frosty.com which was the same thing he changed his Stackoverflow profile to.. - The fact that he asked on stackoverflow how to curl over tor - The fact that he apparently tried to promote Silk Road on two forums This stuff certainly points towards him being the guy, but is this evidence enough ? <BreakingBadSPOILER>And I'm asking this 'cause Jessie's video confession to Hank wasn't enough to get Walt... </BreakingBadSPOILER> What the document tantalizingly avoids is how they managed to find out where the Silk Road servers are. It mysteriously states that there are several Silk Road servers around the world and the FBI gained access and got an image of the server through cooperation with one of the hosts. How did they get to the servers behind the Tor network ? This is a very interesting technical question and honestly, I'm impressed. Following the whole Kim Dotcom debacle I'd like to see how this seriously loaded ($90MM) guy progresses through the justice system.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ceejayoz 13y agoI'd imagine the hard evidence connecting him comes from the raids. They clearly managed to locate the hardware the site was running on, and it's going to be a bit harder to hide connections to that.
- ashray 13y agoHe was apparently really careful about connecting to the server. The docs state that he logged in through a VPN provider and he logged into the VPN provider at an internet cafe (which was apparently close to his house). However, the document doesn't seem to state who the VPN provider was or if he was the customer tied to the VPN account (probably avoids this info because the VPN is account is in someone else's name). So again, can't prove via this route that it was him. I'm curious to know how they managed to find the Silk Road server though..
- ceejayoz 13y agoI'd be shocked if they don't have photos/video of him at the internet cafe showing his screen. I'd imagine he's been under surveillance a while.
- tikums 13y ago"He was apparently really careful about connecting to the server. " That is not, by any measure, careful. That's awful OPSEC, and what got him in the end. He thought Tor to be inconveniently "slow", and used VPN instead.
- jiggy2011 13y agoThanks for the spoiler!
- ds9 13y ago"I'd like to see how this seriously loaded ($90MM) guy progresses through the justice system" It won't help him if the US can seize the money - they do so whenever possible, to prevent defendants from affording a competent defence.
- ashray 13y agoHis money is in bitcoins. Not sure if they'll be able to seize it but that would be an interesting situation in itself.
- corin_ 13y agoDo you mean technically, in which case perhaps difficult, but if they've managed to track him down and take the site offline then it may well be possible, or legally, in which case surely it's no different than if a drug dealer kept his drug profits stored in gold bars rather than bank notes, and they'll still confiscate them.
- tptacek 13y agoExplain to me, game-theoretically, what the public policy answer is for prosecuting criminal conspiracies who have amassed enormous fortunes from their crimes?
- rsanders 13y agoAlleged criminal conspiracies. If the prosecution of an alleged criminal is undermined by his being able to afford competent defense, we've got a bigger public policy issue.
- tptacek 13y agoI stipulate that a practice of deliberately undermining defenses is problematic, but that doesn't respond to my question. What's the right public policy? Let's shift the frame to someone unsympathetic at the head of a lucrative conspiracy --- a murderous cartel, say, or an arms dealer.
- ctdonath 13y agoAphorism: "If you owe the bank $100,000 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100,000,000 that's the bank's problem." As such, I'm sure there are a lot of influential people interested in keeping this guy out of prison.
- justinjlynn 13y agoYou know... spoilers mate. <BreakingBadSpoiler>...</BreakingBadSpoiler>. I thought you just wanted me to read it in the context of the program's universe. sigh
- justinjlynn 13y agoThanks for updating your post's tags mate. I really appreciate it.
- ashray 13y agoHey no worries. Thanks for pointing it out, I just (wrongly) assumed that since the show was over everyone around the world had watched it. But definitely go ahead and get to it because it's incredible :D The parallels between the show and what just happened with this Ross guy are pretty mind blowing.. ($80MM is a key point, then the fact about him turning from a 'nice justice oriented dude' to a total bad guy)
- justinjlynn 13y agoActually, I'm right in the middle of season 3. I like to wait for a series to end before I watch it all at once (I can't stand waiting for serials) especially if other people say it's a great series (which it is). The hard part is avoiding spoilers -- there are heaps online! I'm looking forward to finishing it. Based on what I hear it's a really great closing.
- hoka 13y agoI was glancing down through the comments and caught the whole first sentence before processing the breakingbadspoiler tag. Might want to change it completely..or just remove it. Is the show still worth watching knowing what I saw? I had Six Feet Under spoiled for me in a similar manner :-(
- pauldino 13y ago> Is the show still worth watching knowing what I saw? Yes.
- skwirl 13y agoThere's certainly enough there for a search and an arrest, which is what has happened so far. If he is actually guilty, unless he was very careful (which so far, it sounds like he was not) with him in jail and access to his property the evidence against him is only going to increase.
- runn1ng 13y agoReal life is not so overly complicated as Breaking Bad plot.
- wiredfool 13y agoThe intercepted fake ids too -- After being observed requesting them.
- Aloisius 13y ago> Following the whole Kim Dotcom debacle I'd like to see how this seriously loaded ($90MM) guy progresses through the justice system. He has been living in the Mission for $1000/month with roommates. I doubt he's liquid. Cashing out that many bitcoins is hard, doing it anonymously is harder and then laundering it so that you can deposit it a bank account harder still. I can't even imagine what kind of scheme is necessary to do that. You can't just claim your local business somehow made $40 million in cash this year.
- mattdeboard 13y agoYou can't just put a fucking breaking bad spoiler in your comment surrounded by pretend markup like that. Jesus christ.
- patio11 13y agoThat's pretty riveting reading. I suspect HNers will be inclined to pit several technical nits with the affiant, which might distract from the murder-for-hire plot described in lurid detail therein. (Alice claims to owe money to Bob, who Alice represents as a drug dealer. Alice threatens to expose SR users unless DPR pays Alice's debt with Bob. DPR asks to speak to Bob. Bob messages DPR. DPR attempts to recruit Bob to be a drug dealer on SR and, separately, asks if Bob can arrange for the murder of Alice. Bob quotes a price, which DPR says is twice the last price that DPR has arranged a murder at. DPR eventually agrees to the price, pays, and instructs Bob to take a photograph of the corpse with a random alphanumeric string in the frame, to ascertain that the photograph was indeed produced after the request. Bob reports that the murder is complete and sends the photograph, which DPR accepts as genuine. The affiant believes the likely conclusion -- that Alice and Bob are the same person and that DPR has been successfully extorted to the tune of $150,000 or so.)
- mdisraeli 13y agoYou make a good case there - the fact that Canadian investigations drew a blank definitely seemed strange!
- MichaelGG 13y agoDPR's responses to the murder are silly and obviously load him up on charges he doesn't need. But putting murder charge risks side, it's not a terrible negotiation tactic is it? The original guy wanted $500K, and DPR paid significantly less, while perhaps making it seem like he'd go to any lengths to stop someone.
- patio11 13y agoIn this scenario, the extortionist and the drug dealer are the same party. The goal of the scam isn't extort $500k. That number is as real as my uncle's Nigerian inheritance. The goal is to extort the mark of $150k, and make him a) maximally disinclined to attempt to tell about the scam (by making him complicit in a "murder", much like 419 scammers generally try to make the marks complicit in defrauding Nigeria) and b) give the scammers the opportunity to come after him again, in the future. (One possible scenario: the "hitman" "hired" by the "drug dealer" for the "murder" attempts to shake down DPR in the future, threatening to expose his involvement in the murder unless he is paid off. The hitman is still the drug dealer is still the extortionist.) The game theory of scam artists is really simple: your expected probability of scam N+1 working goes way the heck up if you've successfully worked that mark in scam N. That's why you can literally find people selling lists of folks who've fallen for 419 scams.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- galapago 13y agoI wonder what the goverment is going to do with all the sized bitcoins..
- MichaelGG 13y agoDo you have a cite for them seizing bitcoins? It'd be most hilariously pitiful if a large amount of SR's money was in /root/wallet.dat with no passphrase or the passphrase in /tmp/unlock.php.
- ziel 13y agoThese articles (among others) mention the seizure... but I don't see any details about the process. http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/10/02/end-of-the-silk-road-fbi-busts-the-webs-biggest-anonymous-drug-black-market/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/10/02/end-of-... http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/02/alleged-silk-road-website-founder-arrested-bitcoin http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/02/alleged-si... Edit: updated whitespace
- naterator 13y agohttp://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-raid-idUSBRE9910TR20131002 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-crime-silkroad-...
- andrewhillman 13y agoThis is a great read - no jargon. The special agent did a really nice job with it. I can almost visualize it all. I never thought Silk Rd would be something based out of the Valley.
- pcrh 13y agoI smell a rat over the hitman claims. If there is no evidence for a body, or other evidence such as the funds transfer, why include it in the indictment?
- wiredfool 13y agoThe solicitation is a crime. There was a transfer of ~ 1600 btc noted.
- pcrh 13y agoAssuming it wasn't a sting.
- jtbigwoo 13y agoIf you're paying for someone to be murdered, it matters little that the person you're paying has no intention of actually following through.
- hoka 13y agoWhile slightly nitpicky and not 100% relevant to the discussion, I hope you aren't misunderstanding what entrapment is (and is not!). Learn more at http://nationalparalegal.edu/public_documents/courseware_asp_files/criminalLaw/defenses/Entrapment.asp http://nationalparalegal.edu/public_documents/courseware_asp...
- pcrh 13y agoAccording to your link, "if a person is induced to commit a crime by a private citizen, he cannot use the entrapment defense". Unsurprisingly, in the complaint there is no suggestion that a law enforcement officer was behind the threats to expose silk road accounts, such threats therefore appear to be from a private citizen, and not subject to the entrapment defense. Further, simply agreeing to pay to have someone killed (whether they are eventually killed or not) is sufficient to be found guilty of conspiracy to murder, and significant jail time. However, while we don't know who issued those threats, we do know that (apparently) no one was harmed as a result of the contracted "hit" being executed, despite the defendant receiving a picture of an apparent execution. It is the discrepancy between the apparent killing and the lack of a body that raises my suspicion that there was no actual threat and no actual killing. Edit: It occurred to me that investigators could set-up such a "sting" not specifically to entrap the defendant into a murder charge, but to provide a clear and traceable link between him and a higher-level involvement in the running of silk road, which was manifestly illegal.
- mdisraeli 13y agoVery good write-up indeed, managing to skip the actually superfluous technical details and focusing on the relatively simple claims. All In all, this seems to support two great truisms: 1. Committing crime is very easy. Not getting caught is hard 2. When it comes to gathering evidence, you're only as good as your biggest screw-up I believe this is just an arrest warrant, rather than the full set of evidence they will be using to using to prosecute. Whilst the links between the elements may seem tenuous, that's exactly how forensic investigations work, and I often use similar techniques as part of investigations
- bayesianhorse 13y agoI have no sympathies for the real "Dread Pirate Roberts". He was running an enterprise whose primary purpose was to facilitate criminal activity, and he profited handsomely from it.
- VMG 13y agoThere are currently many people who are engaged in moral activities that are considered criminal by the government they are ruled by. Not saying that DPR isn't a scumbag but morality is not the same as legality.
- ketralnis 13y ago> morality is not the same as legality Fine, but the site sells and even has categories for things like hitman services, ATM skimmers, fraud how-to pamphlets, and lists of stolen credit cards. "Morality may not be legality" is a trendy thing to say but there's significant overlap, and that statement is meaningless anyway when much of the behaviour that we're on about is both immoral and illegal
- dwaltrip 13y agoThe pamphlet part might be true (I think this would be considered protected free speech anyways), but the other things you list are not on silk road.
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- jcampbell1 13y agoI wonder how they got the location of the web server. They started getting images on July 23rd. Once they had the location of the web server and were getting images (apparently every 6 hours), he was all but caught. I wonder if there was an exploit that revealed the IP.
- Sanddancer 13y agoHe was caught by not using TOR to access the server to admin it, he used pretty straightforward ssh and vpns, which are a lot easier to track. They had a good suspicion that he was DPR from looking around at forum postings and the like, and the server was just the final dot that was connected.
- pbhjpbhj 13y agoIsn't it well known that USA secret services have been operating a large part of the TOR network [or am I falling to conspiratorial banter]? By analysing traffic flow as they access SR - eg by also having access to major carriers - wouldn't they be able to just push in packets and see where they pop out (to be facile about it)?
- jes5199 13y agoThey may (or may not?) control TOR exit nodes, but that's different from controlling the TOR network as a whole. While it's possible to watch traffic exiting TOR onto the clear web, it's harder - still presumed impossible - to find a hidden service within TOR.
- pbhjpbhj 13y agoThe traffic on the physical layer has to exit to the server housing the service though surely. The hidden service isn't distributed is it? I read in another thread that they're reported to have hacked PHP to expose a vulnerability that gave them an admin IP address that was being allowed through the firewall. Seems reasonable.
- chancancode 13y agoPage 13: "Bitcoins are not illegal in and of themselves and have known legitimate uses"
- eshvk 13y agoCan someone explain to me why it says New York when he was caught in San Francisco? Does the FBI not need to file a complaint in the state where he was arrested?
- dlgeek 13y agoHis alleged crimes spanned multiple jurisdictions, so they're allowed to venue shop. As to why they chose it, I imagine it's convenient for the attorneys or LEOs who worked the case. If you read the complaint, they actually make sure to point out that agents had drugs shipped to that district to proves that it's valid.
- tbirdz 13y agoForget Walter White, we need a show about Ross Ulbricht
- Bud 13y agoRoss Ulbricht apparently wasn't smart enough to not do business at an Internet cafe a few yards from where he lived. I'm not sure he'd be that fascinating as a protagonist. But I admit I'd still watch the first episode to find out.
- NKCSS 13y agoAwesome story ( http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/10/feds-take-down-online-fraud-bazaar-silk-road-arrest-alleged-mastermind/ http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/10/feds-take-down-online-fra... ); this will keep the feds busy for a while :P
- TheGrimDerp 13y agoFibs don't like competition...
- kenbellows 13y agoAwesome read, but it's a little grating how many times the phrase "based on my training and experience" is used. I'm assuming it's somehow required to show that the guy isn't just spewing hearsay but is making educated deductions.