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I'd never buy heroin from a website, but I see the Silk Road as cyber-civil-disobedience, and I hope the persona of DPR and the site itself are as unsinkable as
by andrewljohnson 13y ago
I'd never buy heroin from a website, but I see the Silk Road as cyber-civil-disobedience, and I hope the persona of DPR and the site itself are as unsinkable as they claim.
The drug war is a ghastly thing, and the number of people we lock up in the US is more shameful than our foreign policy. You can begrudge the first DPR his lame security, shady murder contracts, and ill-gotten fortune, but he's the product of our system, and his shame is our shame.
- gasull 13y agoThe current DPR is allegedly the third one, and the one in jail is the second, as he said in an interview with Forbes.
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- m_ram 13y agoForbes interviewed DPR (Ulbricht or not) in August. "Roberts isn’t actually the site’s founder, he revealed in our interview. He credits Silk Road’s creation to another, even more secretive entrepreneur whom he declined to tell me anything about and who may have used the “Dread Pirate Roberts” nom de guerre before it was assumed by the person I interviewed." http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/meet-the-dread-pirate-roberts-the-man-behind-booming-black-market-drug-website-silk-road/2/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/meet-th...
- clarkm 13y agoYeah, he was just saying that to throw people off his trail.
- the_watcher 13y agoNOTE: I live in Austin and am acquaintances with a few people who knew him a bit while he was here. From what I understand, at the time of Silk Road's creation, he was not nearly technically capable of creating a site like it. He seems to have learned enough to administer and update the site, but the initial construction was done by another.
- jes5199 13y agoSR was just a glorified rails app, and my understanding was that it was initially pretty buggy. It's within reason that someone could pick up the knowledge they need within a few months to build such a thing, at least enough to get it rolling.
- JustinAiken 13y agoI thought it used PHP? At least the question on StackOverflow that allegedly led to his demise asked about PHP issues.
- jes5199 13y agoI don't actually know - what I mean is, it's a basic CRUD app without much special sauce.
- thornofmight 13y agoIt used CodeIgniter (PHP).
- hyperpape 13y agoAre there holes in the timeline that connected Ulbricht to Silk Road? Because that timeline didn't really leave any time for there to have been a first DPR.
- jeffbr13 13y agoReports indicate that the original DPR retired to Patagonia 15 years ago, and has been living like a king ever since.
- chris11 13y agoHow does work? Wikipedia says that the silk road started in February of 2011. And if that was months, it would still only give him around a year and a half on the site.
- carbocation 13y agoPrincess Bride joke.
- dcposch 13y agoThis one's the Fed Pirate Roberts :p The way this site launched so soon after the original was shut down--with the same name, same styling, even the same "Dread Pirate Roberts" moniker--makes me very suspicious.
- lallysingh 13y agoMeh, nothing more than a recursive wget will do that.
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y agoI am beginning to see the significance of the name "Dread Pirate Roberts". In The Princess Bride, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/ it was actually a title that was handed down, and the current Dread Pirate Roberts is the third one. The Princess Bride has wonderfully quotable dialogue, e.g. "Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts."
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- corin_ 13y agoAre you saying heroin specifically because you do buy it but not from websites, or because some drugs you'd trust to a website (regardless of whether you personally buy them or not) but heroin not, or were you just naming a random drug?
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- tslathrow 13y agoI will never understand why Silk Road is easier than just hitting up your dealer
- corin_ 13y agoI've never used SR (or similar site), but there's plenty of drugs which I couldn't get locally if I wanted them - I'm sure they are sold near me, but I wouldn't know how to find them. Heroin, LSD... etc. Hitting up a dealer is only easy if you know how to find a dealer. (Personally I've looked for mushrooms in the past with absolutely no joy. So I've never done mushrooms.) For all drugs, it's quite possible that online offers better quality. I've known cocaine users whose local dealers only sold shitty quality, afaik I don't know anyone who has bought online but it might make sense for them in that case. And drugs like weed, might well be that you want a choice of strains whereas most dealers just have whatever they managed to buy, not a supermarket range of choices.
- subpixel 13y agoI don't see the Silk Roads of the world making much difference with regard to the drug war. Right now Silk Road is the eBay of drugs, where convenience is it's competitive advantage. I can get some drug without visiting a shady person in some shady place, but the drugs (in general) are still coming to the US the bloody, violent way via paramilitaries, druglords, etc. A huge part of the US war on drugs takes place among and between those parties, with the US not always supporting the side you might expect. I'd be more excited about an Etsy of drugs, where people could buy whatever they want straight from the source, bypassing the blood trail. Good luck getting packages delivered from Afghanistan or Colombia though.
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- joshontheweb 13y ago| but the drugs (in general) are still coming to the US th bloody, violent way via paramilitaries, druglords, etc. Not necessarily. A lot of them appear to be shipped in via post from outside the US direct to the buyer.
- subpixel 13y agoI was trying to point out that the drug war doesn't begin or end at the border.
- jbackus 13y agoYes, but that is where most of the enforcement is and therefore most of the violence.
- XorNot 13y agoWow, this is incredibly uninformed. For one thing, no one's bothering to attack the US border, whereas in Brazil the government is fighting numerous active paramilitary groups which are basically all just fighting each other for control of the drug trade.
- rhgraysonii 13y agoI completely agree with this. Looking at it from a civil disobedience standpoint really exemplifies what we need to do to protect our freedom on the web in the coming future. With the onslaught of information with PRISM, spying, etc. the general public becoming aware of these sort of "rogue web pirates" is quite important to raising awareness even if it is only due to shock value that the general media is reporting it.
- JackFr 13y ago> You can begrudge the first DPR his lame security, shady murder contracts, and ill-gotten fortune, but he's the product of our system, and his shame is our shame. That is probably the dumbest thing I've read in months.
- mtinkerhess 13y agoI agree that andrewljohnson's statement is debatable but I think it's also defensible. I'm envious of the quality of your reading material if you haven't read anything dumber in months.
- Geep 13y agoHow about you back that up with something... It's actually quite spot on. The only reason the Silk Road is used is because there's a need for it. A need that's created by our current litigious and unproductive drug laws.
- JackFr 13y agoI presume that you are not actually looking for my reading list for the past month, but rather an explanation of why what you think is 'spot on' strikes me as 'dumb'. Let's parse it: > You can begrudge the first DPR his lame security, shady murder contracts, and ill-gotten fortune, I spent a decent amount of time trying to figure out what that meant until finally it occurred to me that the OP simply does not seem to know what the word begrudge means. He saw a similar construction used in a well written piece and copied it. > but he's the product of our system, Utter abnegation of personal responsibility. What about the rest of us who don't try to have people killed? Are we not also products of the system? > and his shame is our shame. Most assuredly not. I have on occasion behaved shamefully. I have not tried to have people killed. I have not facilitated what I consider dangerous and debilitating behavior. His shame is not my shame, nor is mine his. Society is not to blame. You say "The only reason the Silk Road is used is because there's a need for it." Nothing could be further from the truth. The only reason the Silk Road exists is because there is a desire for it. In the language of the moral theorists, not all desires are ordered desires. It's a tough pill for the libertarians to swallow, but disordered behavior does not warrant the same privilege as well-ordered behavior.
- mkramlich 13y agoI didn't produce him, or it. Thus I feel no shame.
- speeder 13y agoBut you pay taxes that finance the government stupidity and violence.
- mindcruzer 13y agoIt's not like he has a choice.
- speeder 13y agoThere is choices, it is not easy to do, but there are ways. Because everyone gives up that government do shit.
- miguelrochefort 13y ago> I'd never buy heroin from a website I'd rather buy heroin from Silk Road (where it's peer-reviewed and often tested by third-parties) than on the street. Buying online is just overall less risky.
- dobbsbob 13y agoUsed to be less risky now they slam you with interstate trafficking charges which can climb to 10+yrs whereas getting jacked on the street and losing $50 doesn't sound too bad in comparison.
- lfmb 13y agoMaybe if you are a USA resident.
- lowkeykiwi 13y agoDepends how well you know your dealer.
- loceng 13y agoThe one glaring problem with anonymous purchasing of items is assassinations / hits that people seem to be hired for through it. There are other bad things too. Society could become a very fucked up place - even more so than now as people gain trust for that system.