Archive of all Silk Road forum posts attributed to Dread Pirate Roberts
rossulbricht.org
rossulbricht.org
There has been more than one occasion where I have wanted
to quit as well. Without going into details, the stress
of being DPR is sometimes verwhelming. What keeps me
going is the understanding that what we are doing here
is more important than my insignificant little life.
I believe what we are doing will have rippling effects
for generations to come and could be part of a monumental
shift in how human beings organize and relate to one
another.
I have gone through the mental exercise of spending a
lifetime in prison and of dying for this cause. I have
let the fear pass through me and with clarity commit
myself fully to the mission and values outlined in the
Silk Road charter. If you haven't read it yet, please do.Direct link, with datestamp: https://www.rossulbricht.org/srforum/messages/20130920-1909-...
The language he's using suggests he suffered at least at some point from psychosis in a certain degree, most certainly caused by the level of stress he was experiencing on a daily basis and perhaps even by the potential 'substances' he may have been sampling (pure speculation though).
Unfortunately we'll most likely never know if once he starts levelling to a normal state, he starts regretting those planned hits, regardless of whether they actually happened or not. There was some speculation that the person(s) he contracted were actually FBI.
His message is very self-centered and does not mention other people (joining him or helping him reach his goal). It is not unreasonable to think/realize that his belief is/was failing to fit with his socio-cultural background, especially considering he was mostly running the op alone.
There were mentions of admins that were paid lowly sums compared to what he was making, I assume they had very limited attributions and he was the only one in true controlling capacity.
Throw in the necessity for secretiveness due to the nature of the op, the ensuing distrust and suspicion and it is a safe recipe for psychosis as a result of stress.
I haven't heard anything about that. Are you referring to the fake cocaine that the undercover agent sold to a SR employee right before arresting them?
And no, there has been no report of any drug seizure to accompany the arrest of Ulbricht.
Ninjac0der can correct me if I interpreted his comment wrong...
The bottom line is... Silk Road is here to stay so long as there is breath in my lungs, a spark in my mind, and fire in my heart. I know many of you in this community feel the same way and is an honor to stand beside you here.
My expectation is if he hadn't tried to have someone killed that it would have been deemed that SilkRoad was a better way to track dealers down than it was at promoting sales.
Normally the feds would have taken over the site, tracked its users then made 100 busts at once. I think Murder sped that up a lot.
I don't feel sorry for Ulbircht at all.
As far as taking over the site to make 100 busts... First, SR doesn't know the identities of the buyers or sellers. Unless you deliberately give your identity in plaintext to SR, they don't have that info. Now some lazy users may have decided to avoid PGP, but those probably aren't people the "feds" are interested in going after. Grab 100 kids for possession charges? Not too interesting. (Edit: Except maybe as a deterrent, and even then, it's really just and advertisement for PGP.)
Dealers have no reason ever to publish their info. The way to compromise them is to sign up for lots of buyer accounts, order from the most prolific sellers, then try to correlate packages back to a shipper. That'll depend entirely on the opsec of the sellers, and isn't as likely to generate the same PR that taking down SR did.
Finally, the laws he helped people break (drug laws) are ridiculous and plenty of hacker-minded people view fighting such laws to be ethical.
Edit: Also, LE can't become a big seller and try to make busts on big users (say, people buying 20 pounds of a substance at once), because they'd actually have to sell illegal drugs in significant volume to get reputation. I think they are prohibited from doing that. They may be able to get a large-scale seller to turn over their account (if they found them somehow), then accept some large orders and bust those buyers without shipping. But, it'd be hard to prove the identity of the buyer. Anyone could sign up and order a delivery for someone else.
The supposed kills were real for him though having even received (fake) confirmation from a contractor and the intent to take another person's life is not excusable or justifiable.
I also believe many people have suffered due to unjust drug laws, but this guy took his 'mission' to a whole different level. Also, I sincerely doubt he would've continued the project out of sheer humanitarian kindness if it hadn't turned out to be highly profitable for him as well. This person needs to stop being glorified.
There's also the chance he knew he wasn't actually hiring hitmen, and just figured it was a good way to pretend to be really serious. Not a bright move as far as having charges on him after being caught, but I get the feeling he was operating as if he'd never get caught, or if he did, he'd be so screwed that additional charges wouldn't matter.
Yes, LE can sell drugs to catch dealers. Awesome I know.
We don't know if he just bragged that he had someone killed or if he really did have someone killed.
LE was clearly aware of things for a while if they could get enough reputation to be a Hitman, I figure they can get enough reputation to sell drugs... I mean scale of 1 to 10 which is harder?
In this seller bust, they located some packages, supposedly by a narcotics dog, noticed they all shared the same handwriting, fake return address, and stamps. Over months, they tried to trace back who sent the packages, including asking post office workers to be on the lookout. Some post office workers remember seeing a distinct person "blonde female". From there, it was basic footwork as they watched them mail more and more packages.
The only thing the government agents did was coerce a buyer to make some purchases, so they'd have a known purchase to link "NOD" and the suspect they had. They didn't sell drugs or anything of the sort.
This just underscores what I said: It depends on the operating parameters of the sellers. If they are mailing a high volume of packages a week, it'll take some strict procedures to avoid creating the sort of profile that is noticeable.
As far as "rep to be a hitman", I've no idea what you're talking about. The supposed hits weren't placed over SR.
Nice juxtaposition there. Most people will agree that ordering hits is bad. Running a marketplace for selling drugs, on the other hand...
It is interesting to hear your perspective Kandra. Stick around a while and hopefully you can get to know everyone better and even become a part of the community that has formed here. As far as non-drug items go, it's not that surprising. This is a niche market for things you can't get more easily from places like amazon, ebay, and retail shops. There is an added cost to doing things the way we do, and at least for the time being, you're going to be able to get legal goods more cheaply and easily from these other places. Eventually, we may win out because of our advantages over these other markets (e.g. vendors don't have to pay taxes on their profits from sales here). From what I've seen, despite some problems like attracting scammers, the market has only gotten better as more people have joined in. More buyers means more competition among sellers in the form of excellent customer service, low prices, and quality goods. More sellers means an expanding array of offerings, which attracts even more buyers. So far, this is the virtuous circle that has driven growth here IMHO. More people and a diversity of opinions is a good thing, and I would be hesitant to lump our diverse community into two opposing categories. By and large, there is much more cooperation and camaraderie than conflict and I'm generally impressed with the level of discourse. Maybe you have a point, though. There very well could be a place for multiple similar markets that cater to different folks. In fact I hope that is the case. I'd rather Silk Road be the leading market in a growing industry, than trying to take on the establishment alone