The odd thing is that it does raise some suspicions with Mt. Gox, the bitcoin theft, Silk Road, etc. As moyix points out below[1], Karpeles apparently registered silkroadmarket.org.
It's a strange little world.
http://web.archive.org/web/20110304201806/http://silkroadmar...
It's signed by "-Silk Road staff" at the bottom. If this site was really owned by Karpeles, then he definitely had something to do with Silk Road, whether or not he was DPR.
It's also worth noting that DPR linked to silkroadmarket.org in his signature as the official way to get to site [7].
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20120128114453/http://silkroadmar...
[2] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=26644.5;wap2
[3] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=17556.10;wap2
[4] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=26644.0
[5] http://www.reddit.com/r/onions/comments/i2mq7/the_silk_road_...
[6] http://dailyanarchist.com/2011/06/21/how-and-why-to-get-to-s...
[7] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3984.msg57080#msg570...
remember that SR was probably 90% of the transactions, so they had lots of interest in "working" with it. maybe a more apt analogy would be PayPal posting notices about ebay having troubles (before one acquired the other) since it was the source of all transactions
Defense attorneys specialize in shedding just enough doubt over the defendant's involvement that the jury won't reach a conviction. It doesn't always work (hence why trials sometimes seem so unpredictable to those of us watching from the outside), but when the burden of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt," any substantial doubt may be enough to convince the jury to acquit.
This trial could go either way. So it's fascinating to watch.
It looks like sites hosted there used xta.net nameservers, which were used by tibanne.com back in 2009:
[1] http://who.is/domain-history/silkroadmarket.org
[2] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3984.msg57086#msg570...
There could indeed be real doubt, they'll convict anyway (I didn't like the way his eyes looked... all criminal-y).
There could be no doubt, but they'll acquit.
There's so much truth in this. If you're a US citizen reading this and have never served on a jury, I'd highly recommend not getting out of it. It'll shed a lot of light on the process, and you might be surprised.
> There could indeed be real doubt, they'll convict anyway (I didn't like the way his eyes looked... all criminal-y).
> There could be no doubt, but they'll acquit.
This reminds me of a trial I sat on. During deliberations, a couple of the women discussed how they didn't like the way the defendant would occasionally turn and look at them. They described him as "creepy." Given the circumstances, we were all convinced he was guilty, but we go caught up in a discussion about appearances for a while.
Yet we voted to acquit.
There were a number of reasons why we came to this conclusion, but the executive summary was essentially: Law enforcement mishandled evidence (without gloves!), key witnesses couldn't remember specific details of the defendant's involvement (3 years after the fact...), and 3 of the 4 expert witnesses were called by the defense--that should tell you something. Key pieces of evidence hadn't been admitted in the trial, either, and all we were left with was a couple of boxes of paraphernalia and a stack of photographs. The entire trial was messy.
I remember from the opening arguments thinking "Oh, this will be easy. Open-and-shut case, he'll probably be found guilty, and that's final." My mind completely changed in the first 30 minutes.