The Untold Story of Silk Road (Wired article)

[MojoJojo]

Worse people are already doing the same and will continue to do so.  The Silk Road's sales mostly comprised of weed and psychedelics.  The sensible thing to do would be to say "Look, this is a fuckload better than street dealing, cuts down on a lot of associated criminal activity, let's at least tolerate it and deal with dealers/users as we find them".

But "No, this cunt's making money, let's throw all kinds of charges at him, two life sentences and then some, and then take $200 million of his for our time".  Yes, he made a lot of money - he didn't steal it, he earned it by having a fucking good idea and providing a service millions of people wanted.  I'm sure he would've paid taxes on it too if they'd have let him.  Far worse criminals have been punished far less.  It's pissy vengeance, not justice, how the fuck anyone can support it is beyond me.

If you start from the premise that selling drugs should be legal(I don't have a firm opinion either way), then it's not surprising you find the sentence excessive.

[Space ghost]

It certainly was not mainly weed and psychedelics, there was also a shitload of crack, heroin and cocaine

[fatguyranting]

Watched the the Alex Winter 'Dark Web' doc last night, it's knocking about online and features the guy who wrote the article at length. It's very interesting stuff and well worth a look.

[Thomas]

It certainly does. How long before Silk Road: The Movie? How much of this story is true?

Layer Cake with iPads, innit.

[Noodle Lizard]

It certainly was not mainly weed and psychedelics, there was also a shitload of crack, heroin and cocaine

The most commonly-sold drugs were weed and psychedelics.  Even so, the existence of "BAD DRUGS" there makes no difference to me.  It didn't invent them and it's a fucklot safer than buying them off some cunt.  For giving the guy a life sentence, they have yet to show that the website actually yielded any bad results whatsoever.

[newbridge]

Problem is, while Silk Road actively forbid the sale of child porn and weapons etc., other sites aren't quite as discerning.

Is that true? I remember going on Silk Road when I was tinkering around Tor a few years back. It all looked dodgy as fuck (as in, everything felt like a scam) but I distinctly remember there being weapons/ammunition and stuff for sale.

As for his life sentence, if it was the judge who did the sentencing I'm sure she had in the back of her mind the fact that he attempted to murder numerous people.

I thought the interesting thing about the article is that it suggested the US government actually didn't care that much about this website. A couple of small teams on the investigation, and that was it?

[Too Many Cochranes]

If memory serves correct, when I was on there back in the day buying benzo's I seem to remember there being weapons for sale. I'm pretty sure I remember looking at pictures of Glock's and parts of Glock's because you could buy the constituent parts and assemble them once they'd arrived in the post. I remember looking at such stuff vividly and it couldn't have been a different site because Silk Road was the only dark market I knew back then (and at that time probably the only one in existence, unlike nowadays).

As far as any controversy about having smack and crack on there I think it's OK, really. The type of person who's going to buy a bag of smack out of curiosity and wait up to three days to have it arrive in the mail isn't likely to get addicted unless they're buying a steady stream of it every day so that it's constantly turning up at their doorstep. I know there's always a danger of trying it from online and then heading out onto the streets to get some once you've had a taste but there's nowt stopping you from doing that in the first place.

I'd also like to think the type of person that would buy hard drugs online would be using sites like Erowid and Bluelight to get some safety tips/support regarding the dangers of the more serious stuff.

[Noodle Lizard]

Is that true? I remember going on Silk Road when I was tinkering around Tor a few years back. It all looked dodgy as fuck (as in, everything felt like a scam) but I distinctly remember there being weapons/ammunition and stuff for sale.

Nope.  They had a sister site which did, but closed it fairly quickly I understand.

As for his life sentence, if it was the judge who did the sentencing I'm sure she had in the back of her mind the fact that he attempted to murder numerous people.

All those charges were dropped (i.e. quite possibly were bogus).  But even if that weren't the case, a judge should know to give a sentence based on the crime committed, not what you reckon they could also have done in lieu of any evidence.  It's a bit like when everyone pats themselves on the back for putting Al Capone away for tax evasion, but "giving him a well hefty sentence for it because we KNOW he's a wrong-un!" 
That always pisses me off, judges and lawyers aren't above the law either.

[checkoutgirl]

For giving the guy a life sentence, they have yet to show that the website actually yielded any bad results whatsoever.

Part of the problem might be the two people they wheeled out whose relatives had overdosed or suicided from drugs bought through his site. You could argue that they could have got the same drugs on the street or from their parish priest but I'm not sure that's the point. He ran a website where the procurement of lethal drugs was facilitated. If you  ran a drugs shop on the street you'd be shut down. If a few people overdosed and the gear was traced back to your shop you might be in serious trouble I'd imagine. So while I agree that the life sentence was disproportionate and he's being used as an example, to say there is no interpretation of events where he caused harm is...

I'm ambiguous. I think if you want to kill yourself with drugs it's your business but Ross was clearly running an empire of sorts and was not shy about harming people to protect it. He should go to prison but not for what he went to prison for. I think he should have got 10 years for conspiracy to commit murder.

[Too Many Cochranes]

I might be possibly thinking of BMR (Black Market Reloaded) when remembering about the guns thing. BMR came about once Silk Road was really achieving popularity. Possibly the first Silk Road clone, with a lot of the same usernames (whether real or scam) on there.

[Noodle Lizard]

Part of the problem might be the two people they wheeled out whose relatives had overdosed or suicided from drugs bought through his site. You could argue that they could have got the same drugs on the street or from their parish priest but I'm not sure that's the point. He ran a website where the procurement of lethal drugs was facilitated. If you  ran a drugs shop on the street you'd be shut down. If a few people overdosed and the gear was traced back to your shop you might be in serious trouble I'd imagine. So while I agree that the life sentence was disproportionate and he's being used as an example, to say there is no interpretation of events where he caused harm is...

I understand the temptation to think that way, but it really needs to be put into perspective.  Two people out of ... how many zillion customers?  And would they bother to look at the possibility that allowing access to generally good-quality drugs without face-to-face contact may have saved a few lives?  And if someone's going to suicide, they're going to find a way.  In fact, going through the tedious Bitcoin process and waiting for some drugs to arrive doesn't seem like the most convenient way.  You could just as soon fuck off to your local chemists or finish that bottle of legal sleeping pills to do yourself in.  To an extent, I don't think a provider should be blamed for the way a few people use the product - personal responsibility does come into it.  But if that's the route they want to go down, why have the founders of Philip Morris,  or fucking General Motors never been pulled up for the millions of deaths they've inadvertently caused? 

Granted, it all comes down to "drugs are illegal", but imprisoning people is ought to be a means of protecting society rather than punishing people who are ahead of the law rather than above it.  Giving this fella a life sentence isn't bringing those two people back, nor is it stopping the sale of drugs.  There will be just as many drugs dealt in the world now that the Silk Road's gone, but through much less secure means.  The Silk Road was a perfect opportunity to study whether more progressive drug laws could actually work, and there's nothing so far to suggest they couldn't.

But this is the same judicial system that prefers to punish rather than be challenged or learn.  See also Larry Flynt and Jack Kevorkian.

I'm ambiguous. I think if you want to kill yourself with drugs it's your business but Ross was clearly running an empire of sorts and was not shy about harming people to protect it. He should go to prison but not for what he went to prison for. I think he should have got 10 years for conspiracy to commit murder.

These charges were completely dropped.  Why should he have gone to prison for something nobody could prove?  I think it was very much a case of throwing as many likely accusations as possible at him and seeing what would stick.  There's a proper name for this, but it's a pretty common legal tactic, especially for high profile cases.

I might be possibly thinking of BMR (Black Market Reloaded) when remembering about the guns thing. BMR came about once Silk Road was really achieving popularity. Possibly the first Silk Road clone, with a lot of the same usernames (whether real or scam) on there.

Yes, and it's still there (and far more gritty, as far as I know).

[checkoutgirl]

I understand the temptation to think that way, but it really needs to be put into perspective.

I don't know if there is much in the way or precedence for this particular case. A lot of it comes down to the judge's interpretation and this judge does not like the idea of consenting adults putting intoxicants into their body  and seems to resent middle class people getting drugs in the post.

Whereas I (and presumably you) think it's down to personal choice.

So we are starting from a very different place. The judge was determined to punish Ross severely for facilitating drug deals. Simple as that. No amount of opinion of the dangers averted will hold any weight with the judge.

For the murder part of it, I think there is a problem with evidence and the fact that the best evidence was fenaigled by what turned out to be a crooked cop, that's problematic. The other so called murders were just a scam. It's a complete mess but from what I've read Ross thought he was ordering murders and I think that's what he was apologetic about when he said he had lost his way. I don't know, if it's illegal to message a guy to kill someone and wire payment for it then the guy is guilty. The fact that one of the major players in that was a crooked cop creates all sorts of issues though. Fuck it, drop the murder bit and pulverise him on drug laws. That'll do. The drugs part is probably what annoyed the judge more anyway.

[Squink]

I think one of the murder cases is still ongoing, right? At least according to that Wired article it is.

Ross, who declined to be interviewed for this story, was not charged with any murders. The case involving Green, which came out of Baltimore, was a separate indictment. (It is still pending.)

And then it goes on to say, about the others:

The New York case dropped the five other murders after further investigation revealed that the whole thing was likely an elaborate catfish-as-blackmail scheme that snookered Ross out of a lot of money. But in all cases, the prosecution argued, Ross believed he was executing people, even receiving photographic evidence faked to prove it.

I get what Noodle Lizard is saying about this, but ultimately it seems like the murders were at least discussed in court? It does say "the prosecution argued, Ross believed he was executing people." The chance of him realistically escaping jail time for any of this was surely remote at best.

[Ignatius_S]

With regards to the sentence, these two articles are worth a read:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/meet-the-major-silk-road-dope-dealer-who-only-got-10-years-in-prison/
http://fortune.com/2015/06/01/why-a-judge-threw-the-book-at-silk-roads-founder/

I think one of the murder cases is still ongoing, right? At least according to that Wired article it is.

And then it goes on to say, about the others:

I get what Noodle Lizard is saying about this, but ultimately it seems like the murders were at least discussed in court? It does say "the prosecution argued, Ross believed he was executing people." The chance of him realistically escaping jail time for any of this was surely remote at best.

Yes, that's right - there one of the murder charges is going ahead as separate trial.

This article looks at why the 'murder for hire' evidence was allowed: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/judge-govt-can-show-murder-for-hire-evidence-in-silk-road-trial/

[Space ghost]

The most commonly-sold drugs were weed and psychedelics.  Even so, the existence of "BAD DRUGS" there makes no difference to me.  It didn't invent them and it's a fucklot safer than buying them off some cunt.  For giving the guy a life sentence, they have yet to show that the website actually yielded any bad results whatsoever.

That's bullshit, you're warping the FAX to fit a narrative more palletable to yourself. An absolute fuckload of No.4 heroin was sold through silk road, enough to flood some parts of the UK. I think what you're saying is you mainly bought weed and pysches of there.

[Noodle Lizard]

That's bullshit, you're warping the FAX to fit a narrative more palletable to yourself. An absolute fuckload of No.4 heroin was sold through silk road, enough to flood some parts of the UK. I think what you're saying is you mainly bought weed and pysches of there.

Er, no, those are the facts:  http://qz.com/162021/the-most-popular-drugs-bought-with-bitcoin-on-silk-road/ - no warping necessary.

But like I said, my opinion wouldn't be changed if it were exclusively selling heroin.  I don't have to think heroin is a good idea to want heroin users to be able to obtain it safely.

Just to clarify, I don't do any drugs on a regular basis at all.  Can't remember the last illegal one I had, at least a year ago and even that was just weed.  Astonishingly, that doesn't affect my position on whether or not I think drug prohibition is wrong.