7 ms·

He seems like a smart guy and a good guy overall...(yes, I know he allegedly attempted to hire a hit-man and we can't tolerate crime etc. etc.). It's a shame t

by jqm 12y ago

He seems like a smart guy and a good guy overall...(yes, I know he allegedly attempted to hire a hit-man and we can't tolerate crime etc. etc.). It's a shame to see his entire life wasted for an (admittedly rather large) youthful indiscretion. I keep thinking there has to be a more efficient, a more just way of discouraging criminal activity. As an aside... Sometimes it apparently doesn't pay to be overly smart. Or rather, smart enough to get into trouble, but not smart enough to avoid the dangers.

eastbayjake 12y ago
Isn't this trial the sort of thing that "discourages criminal activity"? There were a lot of people who thought they could violate federal law under the anonymity of Tor, and now a lot of would-be perpetrators are aware that federal investigators do have the resources to find you. They're definitely making an example of DPR, and I don't have a problem with that. Money laundering? Drug trafficking? Hiring hit men? If a New Jersey mobster had faced these charges for meatspace crimes, he'd certainly be spending the rest of his life in jail. (We can have a conversation about whether consenting adults should be able to purchase and use drugs, but there's no doubt he intentionally and repeatedly violated many existing federal laws.)
- jMyles 12y ago
  > Money laundering? Drug trafficking? Hiring hit men? One of these things is not like the others.
- jqm 12y ago
  Na, the Jersey tough guy would probably just rat out some accomplices and soon be living under an assumed identity in Arizona. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Gravano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Gravano Unlike DPR, this guy had a lifetime of criminal history dating back to childhood and actually did personally commit a number of murders.
  - genericuser 12y ago
    Yes, and if there were a person above DPR he was willing to rat out I am confident they would let him do the same.
- WalterBright 12y ago
  The justice system should be about justice, not making an example, or sending a message, or those other things.
  - eastbayjake 12y ago
    Let me rephrase that: the goal of the justice system here is to punish someone who violated some serious federal laws, but the media attention around the case has the side-effect of deterring others from believing Tor can help you commit crimes with impunity. It seems just that DPR is being treated like any mobster or gangster who laundered money earned through illegal activity.
  - aidenn0 12y ago
    I think people disagree with that. At least some of the point for punishing people for crimes is to serve as a deterrent.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  >Money laundering? Drug trafficking? Hiring hit men? Best left to the professionals: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-...
FireBeyond 12y ago
Youthful indiscretion? Come on, he's about to turn thirty. It's not an indiscretion to spend a few years running a drug dealing marketplace and planning to find fame through publicity deals, books, movies, beyond the mere quarter of a billion dollar fortune amassed.
- jqm 12y ago
  Haven't you heard? Peter Thiel is planning to live to 120. We are now authorized to play the "youthful indiscretion" card until age 35.
tptacek 12y ago
He seems like a smart guy and a good guy overall...(yes, I know he allegedly attempted to hire a hit-man and we can't tolerate crime etc. etc.) This is one of the all-time great HN quotes.
- baby 12y ago
  He does seem like a normal good guy sometimes and I guess that's what parent focused on. After all, he's kind of like us, spending a lot of time coding in front of his computer and he doesn't look that stupid. > 09/30/2013 > Had revelation about the need to eat well, get good sleep, and meditate so I can stay positive and productive. (excerpt from his journal: http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/GX-241.pdf http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/GX-241...)
  - Retra 12y ago
    No, he's not stupid, he just subscribes to a "there's nothing really wrong with black market drug rings and murder" ideology. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how dumb that is.
  - mike_hearn 12y ago
    > After all, he's kind of like us, spending a lot of time coding in front of his computer and he doesn't look that stupid. He doesn't look stupid? Ulbricht was not a smart guy. This was obvious from his various writings, examples: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/an-interview-with-a-digital-drug-lord-the-silk-roads-dread-pirate-roberts-qa/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/an-inte... http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/29/collected-quotations-of-the-dread-pirate-roberts-founder-of-the-drug-site-silk-road-and-radical-libertarian/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/29/collect... He talks at length about his philosophy in a way that seems superficially intelligent, until you actually scratch the surface and discover that what he was saying was internally contradictory and had no intellectual merit. For example: Firearms and ammunition are becoming more and more regulated and controlled in many parts of the world. We actually had a site up called “The Armory” ... if we can find a model that works where people can get the equipment they need to defend themselves and their families despite what the state wants and often in defense of the state itself, I would be more than happy to provide that. The Armory, lest we forget, sold bazookas and RPG launchers. The awful oppression he is rallying against here ("in many parts of the world") is usually a highly popular policy that's completely uncontroversial. From the perspective of people living in these places being able to buy sub-machine guns online and have them delivered to your door is not some kind of non-violent libertarian utopia. It's just horrible. Just a few paragraphs later he is saying We don’t allow the sale of anything that’s main purpose is to harm innocent people His deep lack of technical knowledge was revealed by this sentence: I’m not one hundred percent on this, but I don’t think it’s possible to do a DDoS over Tor Ulbricht routinely conflated libertarianism, agorism and anarchism as if they are all the same. His knowledge of economics was as flaky as his knowledge of political systems: There is also nothing morally wrong with [cartels]. If a cartel were to form, I would not attempt to break it up unless its members were breaking other rules. If you want an explanation for why cartels are nearly impossible to maintain in a free market environment, please read “Man, Economy and State” chapter 10, part 2, section D I was curious what kind of economics textbook would state that cartels could not form in a free market. It turned out to be a book written by "the founder and leading theoretician of anarch-capitalism" (quote from wikipedia). The chapter he refers to is available online. It is a tedious text that contains no references to real world examples at any point. In fact the entire thing is abstract philosophical argument, without any attempt to cross-check against data, yet it purports to explain real economies. Nobody smart would actually make such an absurd claim or cite such a text to support it. Finally, for all you people who think Ulbricht was some heroic martyr for the war on drugs, here is what he had to say about it: If prohibition is lifted, most people here will go away. You’ll go back to your lives and get your drugs from whatever state certified dispensaries are properly licensed to sell to you. Drug use will be as interesting as smoking and drinking .... If prohibition is lifted, and the drug industry is placed under the yoke of the state, then we won in a small way, but lost in a big way. Ulbricht didn't actually want the war on drugs to end because ultimately what he wanted was anarchy.
baby 12y ago
The problem is that it can be so easy and at the same time so damaging to be a "cyber criminal" that you have to impose severe sentences even if the criminals were just being young and stupid. Now did he really do any damages by operating SR? I really don't know...
ninguem2 12y ago
Your definition of smart must be very different from mine. And of good as well, but never mind that.
dietrichepp 12y ago
> youthful indiscretion He's 29, and the "indiscretion" was a carefully planned and run drug trafficking empire, with millions of dollars in profit. This isn't some college kid who got caught selling Aderall to his friends.

by jqm 12y ago

eastbayjake 12y ago

Isn't this trial the sort of thing that "discourages criminal activity"? There were a lot of people who thought they could violate federal law under the anonymity of Tor, and now a lot of would-be perpetrators are aware that federal investigators do have the resources to find you. They're definitely making an example of DPR, and I don't have a problem with that. Money laundering? Drug trafficking? Hiring hit men? If a New Jersey mobster had faced these charges for meatspace crimes, he'd certainly be spending the rest of his life in jail. (We can have a conversation about whether consenting adults should be able to purchase and use drugs, but there's no doubt he intentionally and repeatedly violated many existing federal laws.)

jMyles 12y ago
> Money laundering? Drug trafficking? Hiring hit men? One of these things is not like the others.
jqm 12y ago
Na, the Jersey tough guy would probably just rat out some accomplices and soon be living under an assumed identity in Arizona. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Gravano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Gravano Unlike DPR, this guy had a lifetime of criminal history dating back to childhood and actually did personally commit a number of murders.
- genericuser 12y ago
  Yes, and if there were a person above DPR he was willing to rat out I am confident they would let him do the same.
WalterBright 12y ago
The justice system should be about justice, not making an example, or sending a message, or those other things.
- eastbayjake 12y ago
  Let me rephrase that: the goal of the justice system here is to punish someone who violated some serious federal laws, but the media attention around the case has the side-effect of deterring others from believing Tor can help you commit crimes with impunity. It seems just that DPR is being treated like any mobster or gangster who laundered money earned through illegal activity.
- aidenn0 12y ago
  I think people disagree with that. At least some of the point for punishing people for crimes is to serve as a deterrent.
TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
>Money laundering? Drug trafficking? Hiring hit men? Best left to the professionals: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-...

FireBeyond 12y ago

Youthful indiscretion? Come on, he's about to turn thirty. It's not an indiscretion to spend a few years running a drug dealing marketplace and planning to find fame through publicity deals, books, movies, beyond the mere quarter of a billion dollar fortune amassed.

jqm 12y ago
Haven't you heard? Peter Thiel is planning to live to 120. We are now authorized to play the "youthful indiscretion" card until age 35.

tptacek 12y ago

He seems like a smart guy and a good guy overall...(yes, I know he allegedly attempted to hire a hit-man and we can't tolerate crime etc. etc.) This is one of the all-time great HN quotes.

baby 12y ago
He does seem like a normal good guy sometimes and I guess that's what parent focused on. After all, he's kind of like us, spending a lot of time coding in front of his computer and he doesn't look that stupid. > 09/30/2013 > Had revelation about the need to eat well, get good sleep, and meditate so I can stay positive and productive. (excerpt from his journal: http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/GX-241.pdf http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/GX-241...)
- Retra 12y ago
  No, he's not stupid, he just subscribes to a "there's nothing really wrong with black market drug rings and murder" ideology. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how dumb that is.
- mike_hearn 12y ago
  > After all, he's kind of like us, spending a lot of time coding in front of his computer and he doesn't look that stupid. He doesn't look stupid? Ulbricht was not a smart guy. This was obvious from his various writings, examples: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/an-interview-with-a-digital-drug-lord-the-silk-roads-dread-pirate-roberts-qa/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/an-inte... http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/29/collected-quotations-of-the-dread-pirate-roberts-founder-of-the-drug-site-silk-road-and-radical-libertarian/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/29/collect... He talks at length about his philosophy in a way that seems superficially intelligent, until you actually scratch the surface and discover that what he was saying was internally contradictory and had no intellectual merit. For example: Firearms and ammunition are becoming more and more regulated and controlled in many parts of the world. We actually had a site up called “The Armory” ... if we can find a model that works where people can get the equipment they need to defend themselves and their families despite what the state wants and often in defense of the state itself, I would be more than happy to provide that. The Armory, lest we forget, sold bazookas and RPG launchers. The awful oppression he is rallying against here ("in many parts of the world") is usually a highly popular policy that's completely uncontroversial. From the perspective of people living in these places being able to buy sub-machine guns online and have them delivered to your door is not some kind of non-violent libertarian utopia. It's just horrible. Just a few paragraphs later he is saying We don’t allow the sale of anything that’s main purpose is to harm innocent people His deep lack of technical knowledge was revealed by this sentence: I’m not one hundred percent on this, but I don’t think it’s possible to do a DDoS over Tor Ulbricht routinely conflated libertarianism, agorism and anarchism as if they are all the same. His knowledge of economics was as flaky as his knowledge of political systems: There is also nothing morally wrong with [cartels]. If a cartel were to form, I would not attempt to break it up unless its members were breaking other rules. If you want an explanation for why cartels are nearly impossible to maintain in a free market environment, please read “Man, Economy and State” chapter 10, part 2, section D I was curious what kind of economics textbook would state that cartels could not form in a free market. It turned out to be a book written by "the founder and leading theoretician of anarch-capitalism" (quote from wikipedia). The chapter he refers to is available online. It is a tedious text that contains no references to real world examples at any point. In fact the entire thing is abstract philosophical argument, without any attempt to cross-check against data, yet it purports to explain real economies. Nobody smart would actually make such an absurd claim or cite such a text to support it. Finally, for all you people who think Ulbricht was some heroic martyr for the war on drugs, here is what he had to say about it: If prohibition is lifted, most people here will go away. You’ll go back to your lives and get your drugs from whatever state certified dispensaries are properly licensed to sell to you. Drug use will be as interesting as smoking and drinking .... If prohibition is lifted, and the drug industry is placed under the yoke of the state, then we won in a small way, but lost in a big way. Ulbricht didn't actually want the war on drugs to end because ultimately what he wanted was anarchy.

baby 12y ago

The problem is that it can be so easy and at the same time so damaging to be a "cyber criminal" that you have to impose severe sentences even if the criminals were just being young and stupid. Now did he really do any damages by operating SR? I really don't know...

ninguem2 12y ago

Your definition of smart must be very different from mine. And of good as well, but never mind that.

dietrichepp 12y ago

> youthful indiscretion He's 29, and the "indiscretion" was a carefully planned and run drug trafficking empire, with millions of dollars in profit. This isn't some college kid who got caught selling Aderall to his friends.