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Silk Road Shut Down, Founder Arrested, $3.6 Million Worth of Bitcoin Seized
New submitter u38cg writes Ross William Ulbricht, known as 'Dread Pirate Roberts,' was arrested in San Francisco yesterday and has been charged with one count each of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy, according to a court filing. Silk Road has been shut down and some $3.6m in Bitcoin (26,000 Btc) seized. The question is — how?"
onyxruby submitted a link to the criminal complaint (PDF; coral cache might work better). The court filing indicates that they seized the actual servers and recovered their contents, making numerous references to the private messaging system. Also according to the court filing, the Silk Road was used to sell ~$1.2 billion in illicit goods since being founded in 2011.
I just finished reading Gwern's guide to the Silk Road the other evening. If you weren't familiar with the goods for sale, or how it worked, this is a great article: http://www.gwern.net/Silk%20Road
If I was guessing, I'd guess it was bitcoin, not Tor that did him in. He was moving way too much volume to hide all that. After all, the block chain is public. The FBI only has to lean on the various organizations that turn bitcoin into cash. If it gets the addresses of all their wallets, all their customer account information, and the identity of some coins that were spent on the silk road, it only has to work backwards to see who turned those coins into cash. People think bitcoin is anonymous, but it keeps a record of every transaction. This is probably the beginning of the end for bitcoin. I'm not sure it's mature enough to sustain itself without the black market support.
...a canadian routine postal search? sounds a bit of fabrication(you know, finding evidence illegally and then fabricating something for a bust). I seriously doubt they have fakeid smelling dogs.
but was he really hosting the operation from san fransisco? why, why on earth? why have anything tying him to it at home??
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I find myself ambivalent to Silk Road actions when I think of the losses to over 30 million American home owners of their homes to outside factors that they had no control over. That those involved in attacking the U.S.Economy got less regulation, and squandered, then profited from it. I believe the "Robo Singers" should be in prison, with restituion for damages caused. And yet, they walk more free than everyone else.
> Legalization of heroin or other highly addictive drugs would be disastrous.
I hear this a lot; but what is it even based on? I used to be just a "legalize pot" guy, but the more I looked at it, the more I found that drug prohibition didn't solve, or even help, a single problem.
Do you know what percentage of people in burn units in the US (ever been to a burn unit btw? not a fun place) are there for cooking meth? Its about half. Yes....HALF the people in burn units. How the hell did we get here?
Meth has been around since the fucking 1930s. Never before in history could you say half of the people being treated for severe burns came from meth cooking, why now? The answer is fairly simple.... the DEA pushed other drugs off the market, and in the vacuume, people looking to make a quick buck or get their fix, asked "What is the easiest stimulent drug I can make at home" turns out...meth was the winner.
So they took a problem...and made it worst. They did that with fucking everyting. Would we have IV drug use without prohibition? Sure, a few. However, I doubt it would be nearly as popular. I mostly doubt it because, people were using other drugs before meth became so available.
Krokodil or however they spell it.... is desomorphine. Everything I read about it indicates it would be a fine drug for opiate addicts. Its fairly short acting, it produces less respiratory distress (ie its safer). However.... its also cheap to produce in your kitchen from codiene. Why are people doing it? Because they can't buy anything cheaper! Who the hell would whip up something in their kitchen and inject it, if, for a similar price, they could buy it?
Look at the swiss heroin study, allowed users cheap, fairly priced heroin and gave them a safe place to shoot up. Quickly the subjects of the study ceased illegal activities and got jobs.
Frankly the claims of problems with legalization sound no different and are based on no more sound evidence than claims that accepting homosexuality is going to turn children gay.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"