The Dread Pirate Roberts arrested; The Silk Road shut down

[in the]

I have a druggie friend who told me about this website (The Silk Road) with a crazy URL where people could buy any drug in the world using Bitcoins. I was skeptical about it, but browsed and saw TSR was legit. The website had been operated for years by someone who called himself Dread Pirate Roberts, and it was only a matter of time before the government came knocking.

He had a good run, though. I have to admit, his method of creating and running this website was genius, and it took a lot of profits away from street level thugs. Although a great deal of the website's products were very harmful, it was by far the safest way to link drug supplier with buyer without the threat of violence.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/02/silk-road-closed_n_4032116.html

Online, he went by the name "Dread Pirate Roberts" and ran what authorities called "the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet today."

But his real name, according to an FBI criminal complaint released Wednesday, was Ross William Ulbricht. And despite allegedly operating a sprawling black market bazaar that earned $1.2 billion in sales, the 29-year-old lived a humble lifestyle, paying $1,000 a month for a room in a San Francisco apartment he shared with two roommates.

On Wednesday, the FBI said they had arrested Ulbricht and shut down his website, Silk Road, which had become a booming marketplace for illegal drugs, computer hacking tools and other illicit goods and services.

Ulbricht had been operating the site since January 2011 under the online nickname "Dread Pirate Roberts," an apparent reference to a fictional character from "The Princess Bride" book and movie, according to the FBI.

Silk Road was an underground market for thousands of drug dealers around the world to anonymously sell large amounts of marijuana, heroin, LSD and cocaine, the FBI said in the complaint.

As of last month, there were nearly 13,000 listings on the site for illegal narcotics with categories such as "Psychedelics," "Stimulants" and "Cannabis," according to the complaint. Cybercriminals also used Silk Road to hawk documents to create fake identities, tools for computer hacking, and stolen logins to Netflix and Amazon accounts, authorities said. As part of their investigation, undercover FBI agents made more than 100 drug purchases from Silk Road vendors who were located in 10 different countries, the complaint said.

Authorities have known about Silk Road for some time. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y) called it "a certifiable one-stop shop for illegal drugs that represents the most brazen attempt to peddle drugs online that we have ever seen" in 2011. On Wednesday, Schumer issued a statement saying "the country is safer now that this open market for law-breaking has been shuttered.

 

[HUNTERMANIA]

The Silk Road was fucking awesome. My shit got rave reviews. I loved it.

RIP TSR. This guy is going to prison for some serious time. LMAO @ his "bro, last hit I did was only 80k, what's up with the 150k price tag??"

 

[WorldofWarcraft]

I wanna know how they caught him and knew he ran the silk road. Is TOR not as cryptic as we had all thought?

 

[in the]

I didn't believe it when I heard about the website. Mixed feelings about it... I'm against shit like heroin and meth (though I'm diametrically opposed to throwing people in jail for using), but at least it was a completely non-violent way of connecting dealer with user.

Which is probably a main reason why it was under such fierce pressure. Kinda hard to fund the war on drugs when you take the violence out of it.

 

[in the]

I wanna know how they caught him and knew he ran the silk road. Is TOR not as cryptic as we had all thought?

From the link:

Ulbricht also offered tips on how to conduct transactions without being caught by law enforcement, authorities said. His website told sellers to "vacuum seal" packages of narcotics to avoid drug-sniffing dogs and instructed buyers to have drugs sent to addresses other than their own, according to court documents.

But Ulbricht did not always take such precautions with his own anonymity. Authorities said they were led to his doorstep after Canadian border officials seized a package containing counterfeit identity documents addressed to his apartment in San Francisco. The FBI alleged in its complaint that Ulbricht planned to use fake IDs to rent more servers to run Silk Road. He also accessed a Silk Road server from an Internet cafe 500 feet from where he was staying, authorities said.

NSA couldn't even catch him.

 

[Deleted member 290675]

I wanna know how they caught him and knew he ran the silk road. Is TOR not as cryptic as we had all thought?

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1nl58n/silkroad_domain_states_this_hidden_site_has_been/

 

[Mossberg]

I wanna know how they caught him and knew he ran the silk road. Is TOR not as cryptic as we had all thought?

from the bbc:

he trail began with a post made on a web forum where users discussed the use of magic mushrooms.

In a post titled "Anonymous market online?", a user nicknamed Altoid started publicising the site.

"I came across this website called Silk Road," Altoid wrote. "Let me know what you think."

The post contained a link to a site hosted by the popular blogging platform Wordpress. This provided another link to the Silk Road's location on the so-called "dark web".

Records obtained by Agent-1 from Wordpress discovered, unsurprisingly, that the blog had been set up by an anonymous user who had hidden their location.

But then Altoid appeared in another place: a discussion site about virtual currency, bitcointalk.org.

Altoid - who the FBI claimed is Mr Ulbricht - was using "common online marketing" tactics. In other words, he was trying to make Silk Road go viral.

Months later, in October, Altoid appeared again - but made a slip-up, granting investigators a major lead.

In a post asking seeking to find an IT expert with knowledge of Bitcoin, he asked people to contact him via [email protected].

lulz at it starting at the shroomery

 

[in the]

DPR started this, and it worked rather well. The next one will be even more sophisticated and harder to shut down. If it keeps growing, expect to see more government action (aka funding) when it comes to mail snooping.

 

[v.kevin]

So on the one hand we are talking deep web uber secret techy stuff and on the other, the mastermind of this whole thing gets caught by being a total doofus- giving out his email addy and using the same screen names in multiple forums.

 

[Zuni]

I wonder if the cartels have any beef with this guy. In the comments, someone brought up the point that he's lucky the FBI found him before the cartels did.

 

[ventrue]

That sucks. I was hoping for a steady supply of quality opium.

I do agree w/ the above poster. The next site will be even better and hopefully, the person in charge isn't as dumb as The Dead Pirate.

 

[in the]

I wonder if the cartels have any beef with this guy. In the comments, someone brought up the point that he's lucky the FBI found him before the cartels did.

His site was cutting into their profits. I wouldn't doubt it. TSR made for some strange bedfellows in terms of enemies.

 

[Deleted member 290675]

 

[wlu29]

Canadian border officials > DEA

 

[monkey king**]

looked around there a couple times before. I thought he'd be from some Eastern European country.but San Francisco?

 

[SwaggaJacka]

Does anyone else think this will be made into a really cool movie one day? Like a criminal Social Network?

 

[Deleted member 290675]

Does anyone else think this will be made into a really cool movie one day? Like a criminal Social Network?

Well they did one for that wikileaks fellow starring Benedict Cumberbatch, so why not.

 

[snoop dogg***]

damn. should have taken advantage of TSR when I had the chance. I was too scared though

 

[heavyarms21]

Well that was an interesting read

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

I'm surprised the guy was living in America. I actually just heard about TSR last week on John Stossel's show when he was talking about, not surprisingly, bitcoins. His guest mentioned TSR during the piece, and my first thought was, "Wow, this guy hasn't been caught? He better hope he doesn't live in the US or any other country with strict drug laws, because if he does, when they eventually find him he's in deep shit."

Oops.