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Archive of all Silk Road forum posts attributed to Dread Pirate Roberts

45 points by tjaerv 13y ago

rd108 13y ago
From: What_is_the_goal_of_Silk_Road.txt It is interesting to hear your perspective Kandra. Stick around a while and hopefully you can get to know everyone better and even become a part of the community that has formed here. As far as non-drug items go, it's not that surprising. This is a niche market for things you can't get more easily from places like amazon, ebay, and retail shops. There is an added cost to doing things the way we do, and at least for the time being, you're going to be able to get legal goods more cheaply and easily from these other places. Eventually, we may win out because of our advantages over these other markets (e.g. vendors don't have to pay taxes on their profits from sales here). From what I've seen, despite some problems like attracting scammers, the market has only gotten better as more people have joined in. More buyers means more competition among sellers in the form of excellent customer service, low prices, and quality goods. More sellers means an expanding array of offerings, which attracts even more buyers. So far, this is the virtuous circle that has driven growth here IMHO. More people and a diversity of opinions is a good thing, and I would be hesitant to lump our diverse community into two opposing categories. By and large, there is much more cooperation and camaraderie than conflict and I'm generally impressed with the level of discourse. Maybe you have a point, though. There very well could be a place for multiple similar markets that cater to different folks. In fact I hope that is the case. I'd rather Silk Road be the leading market in a growing industry, than trying to take on the establishment alone
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- aclevernickname 13y ago
  > This is a guy that ordered at least 2 known about hits/kills . In pallandt's America, people are guilty until proven innocent.
  - mikegogulski 13y ago
    On his Hacker News and the website I created too, apparently.
  - pallandt 13y ago
    I've deleted my original comment because I noticed a FAQ on the site with more info, apparently the owner of the site is not anonymous as I originally thought, so I didn't want to risk confusing other post readers. However, have you actually read the official criminal complaint and accompanying docs? There were transcripts of this guy's conversations where he literally was ordering a hit and mentioning he had ordered another one in the past. Start reading with page 21 if you haven't: http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/UlbrichtCriminalCompl...
    - mikegogulski 13y ago
      I've read every word of every legal document I've found and had pointed out to me, and am probably closing in on having done so twice. I am not convinced that the Dread Pirate Roberts cited ordering killings is the same Dread Pirate Roberts of the libertarian vision and expansive writings to that end. Reading an essay on Ross's Facebook account, I'm convinced that if he was Dread Pirate Roberts, he wasn't the only person using that moniker. Part of the purpose of this documentation archive is to facilitate comparative linguistic analysis (stylometry) to demonstrate the Multiple Dread Pirates Roberts Theory (https://www.rossulbricht.org/multiple-dread-pirates-roberts-eileen-ormsby-inquires-before-and-after-the-bust/ https://www.rossulbricht.org/multiple-dread-pirates-roberts-...) “[The Dread Pirate] Roberts had grown so rich, he wanted to retire. He took me to his cabin and he told me his secret. ‘I am not the Dread Pirate Roberts’ he said. ‘My name is Ryan; I inherited the ship from the previous Dread Pirate Roberts, just as you will inherit it from me. The man I inherited it from is not the real Dread Pirate Roberts either. His name was Cummerbund. The real Roberts has been retired 15 years and living like a king in Patagonia. Then he explained the name was the important thing, for inspiring the necessary fear. You see, no one would surrender to the Dread Pirate Westley.” – Dread Pirate Roberts IV, The Princess Bride
- mikegogulski 13y ago
  Er, my identity is disclosed on the site, on the FAQ page and in the page footer of every blog page. My name is Mike Gogulski. Previously, I registered bradleymanning.org and co-founded the Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning Support Network, among other things. Namecheap's system screwed up when I ordered the domains and blinded the whois information. I tried disabling it, waiting a few days, and it's still blinded. I opened a ticket a few hours ago. But yeah, you go, there, with your presumptions of guilt in your last line, and five sentences at the start showing clearly that you're way into "scam! scam!" before bothering to actually read.
  - pallandt 13y ago
    See my 2nd comment.
    - mikegogulski 13y ago
      Whois is now updated with my personal info showing for {,free}rossulbricht.{org,net,com}
patrickmclaren 13y ago
https://www.rossulbricht.org/srforum/html/dpr_posts_page_01_start_000.html https://www.rossulbricht.org/srforum/html/dpr_posts_page_01_... There has been more than one occasion where I have wanted to quit as well. Without going into details, the stress of being DPR is sometimes verwhelming. What keeps me going is the understanding that what we are doing here is more important than my insignificant little life. I believe what we are doing will have rippling effects for generations to come and could be part of a monumental shift in how human beings organize and relate to one another. I have gone through the mental exercise of spending a lifetime in prison and of dying for this cause. I have let the fear pass through me and with clarity commit myself fully to the mission and values outlined in the Silk Road charter. If you haven't read it yet, please do.
- mikegogulski 13y ago
  I spotted that during my analysis of the texts. It's a hell of a thing to say, really. Direct link, with datestamp: https://www.rossulbricht.org/srforum/messages/20130920-1909-6-Some_thoughts_on_Atlantis_closing.txt https://www.rossulbricht.org/srforum/messages/20130920-1909-...
- pallandt 13y ago
  This is very interesting. The language he's using suggests he suffered at least at some point from psychosis in a certain degree, most certainly caused by the level of stress he was experiencing on a daily basis and perhaps even by the potential 'substances' he may have been sampling (pure speculation though). Unfortunately we'll most likely never know if once he starts levelling to a normal state, he starts regretting those planned hits, regardless of whether they actually happened or not. There was some speculation that the person(s) he contracted were actually FBI.
  - baddox 13y ago
    What about the language he's using suggests that he suffered from psychosis?
    - 13y ago
drakaal 13y ago
So are we to "Free Ross" because he was a great guy who had people killed? Ran a site dedicating to breaking laws? What thing are we supposed to be sad he got busted for? My expectation is if he hadn't tried to have someone killed that it would have been deemed that SilkRoad was a better way to track dealers down than it was at promoting sales. Normally the feds would have taken over the site, tracked its users then made 100 busts at once. I think Murder sped that up a lot. I don't feel sorry for Ulbircht at all.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  Firstly, I'm unaware of anyone actually being killed. He "ordered hits" but it appears that no murders happened. As far as taking over the site to make 100 busts... First, SR doesn't know the identities of the buyers or sellers. Unless you deliberately give your identity in plaintext to SR, they don't have that info. Now some lazy users may have decided to avoid PGP, but those probably aren't people the "feds" are interested in going after. Grab 100 kids for possession charges? Not too interesting. (Edit: Except maybe as a deterrent, and even then, it's really just and advertisement for PGP.) Dealers have no reason ever to publish their info. The way to compromise them is to sign up for lots of buyer accounts, order from the most prolific sellers, then try to correlate packages back to a shipper. That'll depend entirely on the opsec of the sellers, and isn't as likely to generate the same PR that taking down SR did. Finally, the laws he helped people break (drug laws) are ridiculous and plenty of hacker-minded people view fighting such laws to be ethical. Edit: Also, LE can't become a big seller and try to make busts on big users (say, people buying 20 pounds of a substance at once), because they'd actually have to sell illegal drugs in significant volume to get reputation. I think they are prohibited from doing that. They may be able to get a large-scale seller to turn over their account (if they found them somehow), then accept some large orders and bust those buyers without shipping. But, it'd be hard to prove the identity of the buyer. Anyone could sign up and order a delivery for someone else.
  - pallandt 13y ago
    I think we should be thankful that no one was actually killed and that apparently the hired hitmen were law enforcement. The supposed kills were real for him though having even received (fake) confirmation from a contractor and the intent to take another person's life is not excusable or justifiable. I also believe many people have suffered due to unjust drug laws, but this guy took his 'mission' to a whole different level. Also, I sincerely doubt he would've continued the project out of sheer humanitarian kindness if it hadn't turned out to be highly profitable for him as well. This person needs to stop being glorified.

45 points by tjaerv 13y ago

rd108 13y ago

From: What_is_the_goal_of_Silk_Road.txt It is interesting to hear your perspective Kandra. Stick around a while and hopefully you can get to know everyone better and even become a part of the community that has formed here. As far as non-drug items go, it's not that surprising. This is a niche market for things you can't get more easily from places like amazon, ebay, and retail shops. There is an added cost to doing things the way we do, and at least for the time being, you're going to be able to get legal goods more cheaply and easily from these other places. Eventually, we may win out because of our advantages over these other markets (e.g. vendors don't have to pay taxes on their profits from sales here). From what I've seen, despite some problems like attracting scammers, the market has only gotten better as more people have joined in. More buyers means more competition among sellers in the form of excellent customer service, low prices, and quality goods. More sellers means an expanding array of offerings, which attracts even more buyers. So far, this is the virtuous circle that has driven growth here IMHO. More people and a diversity of opinions is a good thing, and I would be hesitant to lump our diverse community into two opposing categories. By and large, there is much more cooperation and camaraderie than conflict and I'm generally impressed with the level of discourse. Maybe you have a point, though. There very well could be a place for multiple similar markets that cater to different folks. In fact I hope that is the case. I'd rather Silk Road be the leading market in a growing industry, than trying to take on the establishment alone

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

aclevernickname 13y ago
> This is a guy that ordered at least 2 known about hits/kills . In pallandt's America, people are guilty until proven innocent.
- mikegogulski 13y ago
  On his Hacker News and the website I created too, apparently.
- pallandt 13y ago
  I've deleted my original comment because I noticed a FAQ on the site with more info, apparently the owner of the site is not anonymous as I originally thought, so I didn't want to risk confusing other post readers. However, have you actually read the official criminal complaint and accompanying docs? There were transcripts of this guy's conversations where he literally was ordering a hit and mentioning he had ordered another one in the past. Start reading with page 21 if you haven't: http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/UlbrichtCriminalCompl...
  - mikegogulski 13y ago
    I've read every word of every legal document I've found and had pointed out to me, and am probably closing in on having done so twice. I am not convinced that the Dread Pirate Roberts cited ordering killings is the same Dread Pirate Roberts of the libertarian vision and expansive writings to that end. Reading an essay on Ross's Facebook account, I'm convinced that if he was Dread Pirate Roberts, he wasn't the only person using that moniker. Part of the purpose of this documentation archive is to facilitate comparative linguistic analysis (stylometry) to demonstrate the Multiple Dread Pirates Roberts Theory (https://www.rossulbricht.org/multiple-dread-pirates-roberts-eileen-ormsby-inquires-before-and-after-the-bust/ https://www.rossulbricht.org/multiple-dread-pirates-roberts-...) “[The Dread Pirate] Roberts had grown so rich, he wanted to retire. He took me to his cabin and he told me his secret. ‘I am not the Dread Pirate Roberts’ he said. ‘My name is Ryan; I inherited the ship from the previous Dread Pirate Roberts, just as you will inherit it from me. The man I inherited it from is not the real Dread Pirate Roberts either. His name was Cummerbund. The real Roberts has been retired 15 years and living like a king in Patagonia. Then he explained the name was the important thing, for inspiring the necessary fear. You see, no one would surrender to the Dread Pirate Westley.” – Dread Pirate Roberts IV, The Princess Bride
mikegogulski 13y ago
Er, my identity is disclosed on the site, on the FAQ page and in the page footer of every blog page. My name is Mike Gogulski. Previously, I registered bradleymanning.org and co-founded the Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning Support Network, among other things. Namecheap's system screwed up when I ordered the domains and blinded the whois information. I tried disabling it, waiting a few days, and it's still blinded. I opened a ticket a few hours ago. But yeah, you go, there, with your presumptions of guilt in your last line, and five sentences at the start showing clearly that you're way into "scam! scam!" before bothering to actually read.
- pallandt 13y ago
  See my 2nd comment.
  - mikegogulski 13y ago
    Whois is now updated with my personal info showing for {,free}rossulbricht.{org,net,com}

patrickmclaren 13y ago

https://www.rossulbricht.org/srforum/html/dpr_posts_page_01_start_000.html https://www.rossulbricht.org/srforum/html/dpr_posts_page_01_... There has been more than one occasion where I have wanted to quit as well. Without going into details, the stress of being DPR is sometimes verwhelming. What keeps me going is the understanding that what we are doing here is more important than my insignificant little life. I believe what we are doing will have rippling effects for generations to come and could be part of a monumental shift in how human beings organize and relate to one another. I have gone through the mental exercise of spending a lifetime in prison and of dying for this cause. I have let the fear pass through me and with clarity commit myself fully to the mission and values outlined in the Silk Road charter. If you haven't read it yet, please do.

mikegogulski 13y ago
I spotted that during my analysis of the texts. It's a hell of a thing to say, really. Direct link, with datestamp: https://www.rossulbricht.org/srforum/messages/20130920-1909-6-Some_thoughts_on_Atlantis_closing.txt https://www.rossulbricht.org/srforum/messages/20130920-1909-...
pallandt 13y ago
This is very interesting. The language he's using suggests he suffered at least at some point from psychosis in a certain degree, most certainly caused by the level of stress he was experiencing on a daily basis and perhaps even by the potential 'substances' he may have been sampling (pure speculation though). Unfortunately we'll most likely never know if once he starts levelling to a normal state, he starts regretting those planned hits, regardless of whether they actually happened or not. There was some speculation that the person(s) he contracted were actually FBI.
- baddox 13y ago
  What about the language he's using suggests that he suffered from psychosis?
  - 13y ago

drakaal 13y ago

So are we to "Free Ross" because he was a great guy who had people killed? Ran a site dedicating to breaking laws? What thing are we supposed to be sad he got busted for? My expectation is if he hadn't tried to have someone killed that it would have been deemed that SilkRoad was a better way to track dealers down than it was at promoting sales. Normally the feds would have taken over the site, tracked its users then made 100 busts at once. I think Murder sped that up a lot. I don't feel sorry for Ulbircht at all.

MichaelGG 13y ago
Firstly, I'm unaware of anyone actually being killed. He "ordered hits" but it appears that no murders happened. As far as taking over the site to make 100 busts... First, SR doesn't know the identities of the buyers or sellers. Unless you deliberately give your identity in plaintext to SR, they don't have that info. Now some lazy users may have decided to avoid PGP, but those probably aren't people the "feds" are interested in going after. Grab 100 kids for possession charges? Not too interesting. (Edit: Except maybe as a deterrent, and even then, it's really just and advertisement for PGP.) Dealers have no reason ever to publish their info. The way to compromise them is to sign up for lots of buyer accounts, order from the most prolific sellers, then try to correlate packages back to a shipper. That'll depend entirely on the opsec of the sellers, and isn't as likely to generate the same PR that taking down SR did. Finally, the laws he helped people break (drug laws) are ridiculous and plenty of hacker-minded people view fighting such laws to be ethical. Edit: Also, LE can't become a big seller and try to make busts on big users (say, people buying 20 pounds of a substance at once), because they'd actually have to sell illegal drugs in significant volume to get reputation. I think they are prohibited from doing that. They may be able to get a large-scale seller to turn over their account (if they found them somehow), then accept some large orders and bust those buyers without shipping. But, it'd be hard to prove the identity of the buyer. Anyone could sign up and order a delivery for someone else.
- pallandt 13y ago
  I think we should be thankful that no one was actually killed and that apparently the hired hitmen were law enforcement. The supposed kills were real for him though having even received (fake) confirmation from a contractor and the intent to take another person's life is not excusable or justifiable. I also believe many people have suffered due to unjust drug laws, but this guy took his 'mission' to a whole different level. Also, I sincerely doubt he would've continued the project out of sheer humanitarian kindness if it hadn't turned out to be highly profitable for him as well. This person needs to stop being glorified.