Dear Ross Ulbricht | Hacker News Reader

Dear Ross Ulbricht

fee.org

11 pointspigtailgirl6 comments

If all Ross did was run some sort of anonymous exchange then I could see the point here. The problem is that's not all he did. He became complicit in actively facilitating the criminal activity and even engaged in it himself. This wasn't some future vision of a no knowledge brokerage system. Let's not equate what Ross was doing with Apple saying they can't break their own encryption.

There's plenty of people in jail for doing nothing but crossing the path of the wrong government bureaucrat. Take for example the ATFs regulations on NFA items and what they classify as under it as a fully automatic weapon. According to them having a piece of metal with the printed directions to make an auto sear is an automatic weapon and you've committed a felony. Yes, this is the exact equivalent of MIT printing the PGP code and it still being classified as a weapon. People are going to jail for only sharing knowledge.

That's not why Ross is in jail.

Yea this seems to be written to perform and provoke, not convince anyone: “Why does government continue to fight these battles that it is sure to lose eventually, and tolerate such carnage along the way? I suppose that is the great mystery of the ages. It has something to do with the unwillingness of some people to tolerate freedom. Powerful people want to exercise that power and they are gravely offended when principled people say no.”

please. I think in their narrow powerful vs principled lens, Ross is in jail because he’s principled (and only that), which is just childish.

That's FEE

From what I read, Ross Ulbricht (as Dread Pirate Roberts) offered ~500 BTC for the assassination of some person who he felt had wronged him or the Silk Road. A law enforcement officer posed as an assassin for hire, submitted "evidence" of the murder, and Ross paid. He really thought he'd hired a hitman and was glad. I'm too lazy to find a source for this, so some details may be wrong.

I only got a couple paragraphs into the letter, but this sounds like the author is diminishing the severity of what Ross did.

He paid for two hits that he believed were real but was actually scammed for hundreds of thousands. The story involves multiple layers of deception, including one man impersonating multiple people to Ross.

It's all chronicled in Ross's DMs:

"The hitman scam: Dread Pirate Roberts’ bizarre murder-for-hire attempts" https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/the-hitman-scam-...

According to Ross himself that's not the case[1], but of course he would say that. No idea who or what is correct here, kind of hard for me to figure out and to be honest I don't care all that much either.

It's worth pointing out the hitman allegations weren't part of his trail which ended up with a two life terms + 40 years sentence (the hitman charges were dropped, presumably because it was pointless as he was already in prison for life). Considering that, it does seem an excessively harsh punishment.

[1]: https://freeross.org/misinformation/

Relevant part cited:

The accusations relied on anonymous chats and text files never proven to have been authored by Ross. Hard evidence and testimony—including from the lead Silk Road investigator—show that, over time, multiple people were behind the site admin’s handle (who was called Dread Pirate Roberts or “DPR” for short). Two corrupt investigators (sent to prison) also had unfettered access to Silk Road and were admittedly involved in numerous plots.

Ross has always denied being involved with these allegations, and even Curtis Green, the only alleged victim ever identified, is a longtime, fervent supporter of Ross’s release.

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