Slashdot Mirror
Silk Road Founder Indicted In New York
An anonymous reader sends this report from Wired:
"Federal authorities today announced a Grand Jury indictment against Ross Ulbricht, the alleged founder and owner of the underground drug emporium Silk Road. The indictment (PDF), in New York, includes one count for narcotics conspiracy, one count of running a criminal enterprise, one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking and one count of money laundering, according to the indictment. It's the second indictment for the the 29-year-old, who was arrested last October in San Francisco. Ulbricht was previously charged in New York at the time of his arrest, but authorities had until December to obtain an indictment against him based on new evidence seized. They sought an extension of that time and announced the indictment today. Ulbricht had been previously indicted in Maryland on charges of conspiring to have a former administrator of Silk Road murdered in exchange for $80,000."
This is up to the attorneys now.
I'm just a programmer with a bunch of advanced degrees in engineering and I know shit about the law.
Legal reasoning is beyond 1+1=2. I wish it were that easy but it requires subtleties that aren't taught in engineering school.
One count of doing something illegal, six more counts of doing things we made illegal just to catch people when we didn't find enough evidence.
Seriously /. - fuck you! If I go to slashdot.org you redirect me to beta.slashdot.org. If I go to classic.slashdot.org, you redirect me to beta.slashdot.org. If I log in, you redirect me to beta.slashdot.org.
I freaking HATE beta.slashdot.org and I resent your pushing me into it! If I log in, and my preferences are set to classic, LET ME HAVE CLASSIC!
Maybe Hans Reiser can give him the name of his attorney.
He's another of the generation, no matter how successful, trying to keep in touch with his inner gangster.
Murder for hire. Dumbest smart person this quarter.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
You're not alone. I see these anti-Slashdot-beta posts so often now. I really hope that the Slashdot brass are seeing them, too, and hopefully realizing how much just about everyone hates this beta site.
Everything about the beta site is contrary to what typical Slashdot users want and will put up with. It's like it has been specifically designed to alienate as many existing users here as it possibly could. Maybe that would make some business sense, were it not for the fact that it does absolutely nothing to attract any new users.
While it could be argued that Slashdot has been stagnating, if not declining, for several years now, the beta site going live (if it happens) will surely just accelerate that process, rather than stop or reverse it. There are many of us who will be driven away if the beta site goes live. It truly is that unusable.
I hope that those in charge at Slashdot are just giving it a two-month trial period. Maybe at the end of February they'll be able to admit that the beta project is an utter failure, and they'll put an end to it. That's really the only viable option. The beta site has no future, regardless of whether it's because it's sensibly killed off by Slashdot management, or whether it's because it goes live and drives away all of the existing users.
Except he was specifically running the site to facilitate illegal drug sales. He was also taking a cut of the sales. That goes far beyond your absurd bullshit.
He was already long on his way to going to jail when he arranged the hits on people. The feds had been watching him for almost a year already gathering evidence.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
If you start with "The fascist US government is afraid of the bitcoin revolution" and work backwards from there- anything is defensible.
If you run a Nickleback fan forum, and someone posts child porn, you are not responsible for that.
If you create a web site expressly for anonymous selling, and you're well aware of people selling drugs on it, and taking a cut of those profits, then you are a conspirator to that crime.
one count for narcotics conspiracy, one count of running a criminal enterprise, one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking and one count of money laundering,
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Seriously? Conspiracy to commit computer hacking? When did hacking become illegal?
If he really was guilty of that, to the point of being convictable, why didn't he get indicted with that?
He was indicted with that. RTFIndictment, it's on the page 5.
Also, your concept of entrapment is just a tad above "undercover cops can't lie if you ask them whether they are cops, or it's entrapment!".
PS: "they knew Silkroad's activities" != "they knew DPR's identity".
In order to show entrapment you have to make a judge or jury believe that if the government had not been involved, that the crime would not have occurred. There's no way this guy can make that case.
The timeline does not support your theory. By the time the feds got involved, Silk Road was already a very popular marketplace. They got access to the servers, and watched the site operate for about 4 months. That's very standard in drug ring cases. It would be stupid to arrest everyone involved the moment you know about it. The goal is to collect a mountain of evidence so that they can charge people with a bunch of crimes and make rock solid cases in court.
Yeah...that's not at all what I'm talking about.
Ross Ulbricht is arrogant, inexperienced and dumb, and he doesn't have a sufficiently strong moral foundation to operate a large anti-establishment enterprise. When arrested, he was using the Glen Park public library (in his home city of San Francisco, CA USA) WiFi viewing a Silk Road admin page he had titled "mastermind". This event shows his attitude toward himself and his level of caution. He was caught because he slipped-up on identity security, realized it, yet took no precautions, like leaving the country.
I'll provide personal story that gives some insight into my own attitude toward being cautious while at the screen: Of the last three times I was busted, once (for traffic warrant) occurred as I was biking away from the courthouse, but the other two times prior (one traffic and the other, I kid you not, for littering) I was sitting in front of the computer at home.
(||) Nehmo (||)
No, he was a criminal. He tried to arrange a murder. It has nothing to do with politics.
Kennedy was murdered, but that had nothing to do with politics?
( ok i guess technically hes just accused, but if hes convicted then yes, hes a criminal )
In a civil court,he's innocent until proven guilty. In a federal/ Admiralty court, he's guilty until proven innocent. This is a crime of corporations.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
...includes one count for narcotics conspiracy, one count of running a criminal enterprise, one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking and one count of money laundering,...
So, from that little snippet, it seems our man is qualified to work at the following government agencies:
CIA
FBI
NSA
Or, he could just run for congress. Scratch that, it seems he'd be under-qualified.
I'm pretty sure running a Nickleback fan forum is the more serious of the two charges here so your example is moot.
I don't know what country you're talking about, but in the US one is innocent until proven guilty in Federal court just the same as in State or local courts.
If you create a web site expressly for anonymous selling, and you're well aware of people selling drugs on it, and taking a cut of those profits, then you are a conspirator to that crime.
Awesome! Current legal precedent in the US legal system is to charge that person 5 hours of profits and let them keep doing it. Seems legit to me
Them saying they were only investigating for that little amount of time is just plausible deniability for knowing about it and letting it escalate to what it became. Silk Road was around for YEARS. I remember people who even weren't computer savvy talking about it and using it. The only reason anything was done, was from all the complaints being made so now they need to uphold the good guy image. There's far worst nodes on the tor network.. child rape, animal torture / fighting rings, hit men for hire, snuff videos.. a lot of which is ran by cartels and other criminal organizations(Eastern Europe). This guy was an easy target to glorify themselves with. Don't get me wrong though, he deserved what he got.. but don't buy into their bullshit, it's just a show and a way for them to make a reasoning for all the data hoarding and bad NSA publicity.
No, it's not hard to add. But it often doesn't work! I'll add it, and yet usually still remain stuck on the beta site.
Besides, it's naive to think that it'll remain available if the beta site does go live at some point. Not that it does much good now, mind you, given how fucking broken it apparently is!
Wow judging a criminal matter by what appears in a slashdot summary? I just lost the hope I didn't realize I still had for humanity.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
What makes me extra suspicious is why I didn't see that charge in this article summary.
It's... It's in the article summary.
I mean, it's right there. In the summary.
Literally.
He used the money he made to arrange a murder. How is that at all defensible?
Easily. Someone extorted him and users of his site even if he caused no harm to anyone. Government refused to help him. If he ignored the threat, he and his users would end up in jail. Under those circumestances, killing the extorter is perfectly sensible defense. The main problem is of course the fact that selling drugs is illegal.
?no_beta=1
But its at the end....do you really expect people to read the WHOLE summary
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
My irony sense is tingling.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Are you talking about HSBC? It was 5 weeks of profits, not 5 hours. At least get your basic facts right.
And HSBC was *not* a conspirator to money laundering. They did not follow the oversight regulations and allowed other people to launder money.
Actually, to show entrapment you have to make a judge or jury believe that the government induced the individual to commit the crime. Creating the opportunity to commit the crime isn't enough. Providing aid (as in, providing bomb-making materials) isn't enough.
Not entrapment:
Perp: I want to kill that guy.
Cop: Want to borrow my knife?
Perp: Hey, thanks, man.
Entrapment:
Perp: I hate that guy.
Cop: Me, too. I'll give you $1000 to kill him.
Perp: I dunno. Seems kind of extreme.
Cop: Come on. I'll give you $2000 to kill him.
Perp: Oh, all right. I could use the money.