DEA Agents in Silk Road Case Face Fraud Charges - page 6.

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Quote from: The Bitcoin Co-op on April 04, 2015, 10:23:50 PM

It's a joke, is what it is. An insult to the very concept of justice. DPR is still a bad person, but a fair judicial system would give him a retrial. Look at all of this evidence that wasn't presented.

It has been argued for years how the war on drugs has been a direct attack on people, in particular those from lower socio economic backgrounds. And now, 100's of 1000's of people might be saying goodbye to prisons as Cannabis laws are changed, and other laws to follow.

I find it interesting that in your words "DPR is still a bad person" when his history is anything but and he was trying to do his part to end the war on drugs. Or are you judging him on the charges that have been dropped, except for one local? Regardless, those are charges. It seems like people care more about laws, than actual morals or compassion regarding issues. If that continues to be true, the future does not look bright. I see people arguing for laws and ignoring their hearts. That, in part, is how we have been manipulated to where we currently are.

Think with your minds all you want, but don't forget your hearts as well. It is what, in part, makes us human BEINGS.

OpenOcean

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Goes to show that the government is not clear of crooks itself.

AGD

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Is it somehow possible for Dratel to proof that the relevant files (journal, chat logs etc) from Ross Ulbrichts computer were planted/altered?

Is there a way for the defense to obtain Ross' harddisks and let professial forensics check logfiles on his computer for troians, viruses, connections, hacking attempts (exploits, RDP, VNC etc)? I don't think that the FBI was searching for these. Would be counterproductive with their case against Ross.

The Bitcoin Co-op

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It's a joke, is what it is. An insult to the very concept of justice. DPR is still a bad person, but a fair judicial system would give him a retrial. Look at all of this evidence that wasn't presented.

ElectricMucus

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Quote from: Blackbird0 on April 04, 2015, 06:48:56 PM

Incidentally, this artechnica article sums it all up pretty well from the legal perspective: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/op-ed-prosecution-of-corrupt-silk-road-feds-wont-help-ross-ulbricht/

Quote

No, I don't mean the blockchain, but rather a mental virus: it seems to corrupt almost everyone who touches it. It appears that a couple of federal investigators, in the process of attempting to take down the Silk Road, succumbed to this virus, allegedly stealing millions through various schemes.

True that's why I'm still here, it's fucking hilarious.
But I'm glad that even some out of the press now realize this.

TooDumbForBitcoin

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....with Justin Timberlake as Ross Ulbricht.

sAt0sHiFanClub

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Quote from: Blackbird0 on April 04, 2015, 06:48:56 PM

Incidentally, this artechnica article sums it all up pretty well from the legal perspective: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/op-ed-prosecution-of-corrupt-silk-road-feds-wont-help-ross-ulbricht/

Except that its written by a CS geek, not a beak. Grin

Blackbird0

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Incidentally, this artechnica article sums it all up pretty well from the legal perspective: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/op-ed-prosecution-of-corrupt-silk-road-feds-wont-help-ross-ulbricht/

Blackbird0

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Quote from: sAt0sHiFanClub on April 04, 2015, 06:34:43 PM

Quote from: Blackbird0 on April 04, 2015, 06:27:39 PM

I don't deny anything you say. Ultimately the issues comes down to: who is going to say what in court. What could Ulbricht do? Bring in a sysadmin as an expert to talk generally about server access? I can understand a judge being very leery of opening the door on all this stuff for such unsubstantiated speculation.

Gov filed its response brief to the motion for a new trial. It's 150 pages, but maybe I can take a look over the weekend. I'm sure it'll be an interesting read.

It certainly would!! Listen, thanks again for the time you put into explaining this from a ( evidently well trained) legal perspective. With so much uninformed opinion out there, itd important to keep things grounded in facts, and not emotions. Cool

Thank you kindly! Happy to provide what commentary I can. I'm no techie who can comment on all the ins and outs of bitcoin development, so I'm happy to contribute how I can to the community!

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Quote from: Blackbird0 on April 04, 2015, 06:27:39 PM

Quote from: sAt0sHiFanClub on April 04, 2015, 06:22:43 PM

Quote from: Blackbird0 on April 04, 2015, 04:41:38 PM

Quote

Seems to me that 2 crocked DEA agents were at the steering wheel for large periods of time while these crimes were being perpetrated. They should have offered Ross a plea, secured a conviction on lesser charges and then concentrated on nailing these agents. Seems they did it the other way round.

My understanding is that the DEA agent had the one admin account for only a few days.

Once you have an appropriate admin access to a system, it is very easy to ensure you can have continued access. I still have (unseen) access to servers that I worked on 8 years ago. Not due to any maliciousness on my part, but simple laziness and lack of skills of the admins at the time.

Also, I think I was conflating access to servers for running SR and its forums with access to Ross' personal computer.

I don't deny anything you say. Ultimately the issues comes down to: who is going to say what in court. What could Ulbricht do? Bring in a sysadmin as an expert to talk generally about server access? I can understand a judge being very leery of opening the door on all this stuff for such unsubstantiated speculation.

Gov filed its response brief to the motion for a new trial. It's 150 pages, but maybe I can take a look over the weekend. I'm sure it'll be an interesting read.

It certainly would!! Listen, thanks again for the time you put into explaining this from a ( evidently well trained) legal perspective. With so much uninformed opinion out there, itd important to keep things grounded in facts, and not emotions. Cool

sAt0sHiFanClub

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Quote from: bigasic on April 04, 2015, 06:14:38 PM

Quote from: Blackbird0 on April 04, 2015, 06:08:27 PM

Quote from: bigasic on April 04, 2015, 04:43:15 PM

The one thing that I think that will come of it, is that this will help Greens case... I believe Carl was the arresting officer, etc.. so I think he may be in pretty good shape.. They cant say that the baltimore office had nothing to do with him, like they are with Ross' case.

Edit, just read blackbirds last comment.. from what I remember reading. Carl had the log in credentials for over a week, (cant remember the exact dates, but it seems like it was like a week or two.)

I just looked, it was Jan. 19-26 that he had the login credentials. As I said before though, they were just for an admin account on the website. It is not my understanding that an admin on the website had any server access. And obviously the server was a separate machine from Ulbricht's personal laptop.

YEa, im sure that DPR and maybe a programmer if one was working for him, were the only ones with server access. I dont see a need to give anyone server access unless that was their job...but who knows... My guess is that DPR was the only one that could access the server..

Depends. web admins would normally have access to the sites file system, from the SERVER_ROOT upwards. Without knowing the arch of the site i cant tell if this included forums, dbs, etc, but it usually would. Unless they were running a CMS, where they had CMS admin access only. I find that a bit unlikely from reading how they ran things.

What they would not have had access to would be the server administration ( root ) But their admin accounts would have given them quasi root access

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Quote from: sAt0sHiFanClub on April 04, 2015, 06:22:43 PM

Quote from: Blackbird0 on April 04, 2015, 04:41:38 PM

Quote

Seems to me that 2 crocked DEA agents were at the steering wheel for large periods of time while these crimes were being perpetrated. They should have offered Ross a plea, secured a conviction on lesser charges and then concentrated on nailing these agents. Seems they did it the other way round.

My understanding is that the DEA agent had the one admin account for only a few days.

Once you have an appropriate admin access to a system, it is very easy to ensure you can have continued access. I still have (unseen) access to servers that I worked on 8 years ago. Not due to any maliciousness on my part, but simple laziness and lack of skills of the admins at the time.

Also, I think I was conflating access to servers for running SR and its forums with access to Ross' personal computer.

I don't deny anything you say. Ultimately the issues comes down to: who is going to say what in court. What could Ulbricht do? Bring in a sysadmin as an expert to talk generally about server access? I can understand a judge being very leery of opening the door on all this stuff for such unsubstantiated speculation.

Gov filed its response brief to the motion for a new trial. It's 150 pages, but maybe I can take a look over the weekend. I'm sure it'll be an interesting read.

sAt0sHiFanClub

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Quote from: Blackbird0 on April 04, 2015, 04:41:38 PM

Quote

Seems to me that 2 crocked DEA agents were at the steering wheel for large periods of time while these crimes were being perpetrated. They should have offered Ross a plea, secured a conviction on lesser charges and then concentrated on nailing these agents. Seems they did it the other way round.

My understanding is that the DEA agent had the one admin account for only a few days.

Once you have an appropriate admin access to a system, it is very easy to ensure you can have continued access. I still have (unseen) access to servers that I worked on 8 years ago. Not due to any maliciousness on my part, but simple laziness and lack of skills of the admins at the time.

Also, I think I was conflating access to servers for running SR and its forums with access to Ross' personal computer.

Blackbird0

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Quote from: bigasic on April 04, 2015, 06:14:38 PM

Quote from: Blackbird0 on April 04, 2015, 06:08:27 PM

Quote from: bigasic on April 04, 2015, 04:43:15 PM

The one thing that I think that will come of it, is that this will help Greens case... I believe Carl was the arresting officer, etc.. so I think he may be in pretty good shape.. They cant say that the baltimore office had nothing to do with him, like they are with Ross' case.

Edit, just read blackbirds last comment.. from what I remember reading. Carl had the log in credentials for over a week, (cant remember the exact dates, but it seems like it was like a week or two.)

I just looked, it was Jan. 19-26 that he had the login credentials. As I said before though, they were just for an admin account on the website. It is not my understanding that an admin on the website had any server access. And obviously the server was a separate machine from Ulbricht's personal laptop.

YEa, im sure that DPR and maybe a programmer if one was working for him, were the only ones with server access. I dont see a need to give anyone server access unless that was their job...but who knows... My guess is that DPR was the only one that could access the server..

Indeed. And our discussion of this shows how specious it would be for the judge to permit the defense to bring up this "tampering" argument without any evidence. Yes, it appears that this DEA Agent had access to the forum account, but it doesn't appear that he even could have tampered with the evidence that the New York team had collected. And even if he could, as I said above, no one is going to testify that he did. It sounds to me like a pretty straight-forward application of Federal Rule of Evidence 403: the unfair prejudice substantially outweighs its probative value.

bigasic

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Quote from: Blackbird0 on April 04, 2015, 06:08:27 PM

Quote from: bigasic on April 04, 2015, 04:43:15 PM

The one thing that I think that will come of it, is that this will help Greens case... I believe Carl was the arresting officer, etc.. so I think he may be in pretty good shape.. They cant say that the baltimore office had nothing to do with him, like they are with Ross' case.

Edit, just read blackbirds last comment.. from what I remember reading. Carl had the log in credentials for over a week, (cant remember the exact dates, but it seems like it was like a week or two.)

I just looked, it was Jan. 19-26 that he had the login credentials. As I said before though, they were just for an admin account on the website. It is not my understanding that an admin on the website had any server access. And obviously the server was a separate machine from Ulbricht's personal laptop.

YEa, im sure that DPR and maybe a programmer if one was working for him, were the only ones with server access. I dont see a need to give anyone server access unless that was their job...but who knows... My guess is that DPR was the only one that could access the server..

Blackbird0

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Quote from: bigasic on April 04, 2015, 04:43:15 PM

The one thing that I think that will come of it, is that this will help Greens case... I believe Carl was the arresting officer, etc.. so I think he may be in pretty good shape.. They cant say that the baltimore office had nothing to do with him, like they are with Ross' case.

Edit, just read blackbirds last comment.. from what I remember reading. Carl had the log in credentials for over a week, (cant remember the exact dates, but it seems like it was like a week or two.)

I just looked, it was Jan. 19-26 that he had the login credentials. As I said before though, they were just for an admin account on the website. It is not my understanding that an admin on the website had any server access. And obviously the server was a separate machine from Ulbricht's personal laptop.

bigasic

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The one thing that I think that will come of it, is that this will help Greens case... I believe Carl was the arresting officer, etc.. so I think he may be in pretty good shape.. They cant say that the baltimore office had nothing to do with him, like they are with Ross' case.

Edit, just read blackbirds last comment.. from what I remember reading. Carl had the log in credentials for over a week, (cant remember the exact dates, but it seems like it was like a week or two.)

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Quote from: sAt0sHiFanClub on April 04, 2015, 12:34:52 PM

Since when it is the duty of the defence to prove they were tampered with? Surely it is up to the prosecution to prove they were NOT tampered with. A tall order considering:

1. SA Force had access to green's account ( and depending on policy probably had sudo access which can be used to alter any system file or property
2. SA Force was a Law officer, now currently under indictment for theft and passing information to criminals.

If the government is the proponent of the evidence, and they elicit testimony demonstrating that they found these files on Ulbricht's machines, and they were appropriately preserved, that would seem to me to be the end of the matter. The government has elicited no testimony and has no evidence that anyone but Ulbricht wrote those files, and indeed it appears to contain information about SR that only DPR (and not the government) would know.

So if the defense wants to bring up that somehow, they believe these agents tampered with the files, they need to have witnesses who will testify to the fact that these files were tampered with. They do not have these witnesses, because they don't exist. The notion that the DEA and USSS agents tampered with the files appears to me at least, to me entirely speculative. Yes, these agents did bad things, and yes they had access to a Silk Road forum admin account (though not the server-side account, and not Ulbricht's laptop, and I don't believe there was any evidence that the admin on the SR forums had any kind of server access), but there does not seem to me to be any evidence at all that anyone tampered with these files. Whom would the defense call who would testiyf to anything like that?

Quote

Seems to me that 2 crocked DEA agents were at the steering wheel for large periods of time while these crimes were being perpetrated. They should have offered Ross a plea, secured a conviction on lesser charges and then concentrated on nailing these agents. Seems they did it the other way round.

My understanding is that the DEA agent had the one admin account for only a few days.

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Quote from: Blackbird0 on April 04, 2015, 11:56:06 AM

Quote from: Its About Sharing on April 04, 2015, 11:54:33 AM

Quote from: bigasic on April 04, 2015, 08:59:44 AM

Like I said, I believe that Ross should get a retrial, but I dont think that it will change things much. The conversations in DPR's log show that Nob (Carl Force, the corrupt DEA agent) didn't ask to have the murder take place, i initially thought that he said things like " come on, you have to kill him, its the only thing to do" well, there is no proof that happened. In fact, it looks like NOB was going to do anything that DPR wanted. Trust me, im not defending Carl at all, he should burn in hell for what he did, but he did steal the coins to put the whole thing in motion, so thats where his best defense is.

What I think is ironic, the guys in Baltimore are stating that The secret service agent stole the coins, i believe they are saying that so that it wont taint their case against Ross murder for hire charge, but you cant tell me that Ross and shaun werent in on it together, Since Shaun was the computer guy, it makes sense he was the one that did all the bitcoin transfers, so he did all the leg work, but i bet you a bitcoin that Carl got a big piece of those stolen coins. Hell, i read some communication between Ross and Shaun asking how to launder the bitcoins...

The prosecution in Baltimore is grasping at straws to keep the charges going, but while I think hes still mostly culpable for the murder for hire, i dont see him totally guilty, so if there is a trial, i bet hes found innocent. Also, who knows when Carl and the other guy went bad, they are stating that everything was fine until they stole the money..lol, i dont buy that they were angels up until that point, there just isnt tons of proof yet... I wonder how much "nob" sold on SR and didn't report it..

But is the journal in Ross' handwriting or just a file? If it is anything but in his handwriting, given the circumstances, I can't imagine things sticking.

The journal seems to be like an early block that the case is largely built on. If you invalidate an early block, everything that follows is invalidated, so to speak (blockchain tech).

I do not believe a judge would permit questioning along these lines. The defense does not have a shred of evidence that any files were tampered, and they have no witness will testify that things were.

Since when it is the duty of the defence to prove they were tampered with? Surely it is up to the prosecution to prove they were NOT tampered with. A tall order considering:

1. SA Force had access to green's account ( and depending on policy probably had sudo access which can be used to alter any system file or property
2. SA Force was a Law officer, now currently under indictment for theft and passing information to criminals.

Seems to me that 2 crocked DEA agents were at the steering wheel for large periods of time while these crimes were being perpetrated. They should have offered Ross a plea, secured a conviction on lesser charges and then concentrated on nailing these agents. Seems they did it the other way round.

Its About Sharing

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Quote from: Blackbird0 on April 04, 2015, 11:56:06 AM

Quote from: Its About Sharing on April 04, 2015, 11:54:33 AM

Quote from: bigasic on April 04, 2015, 08:59:44 AM

Like I said, I believe that Ross should get a retrial, but I dont think that it will change things much. The conversations in DPR's log show that Nob (Carl Force, the corrupt DEA agent) didn't ask to have the murder take place, i initially thought that he said things like " come on, you have to kill him, its the only thing to do" well, there is no proof that happened. In fact, it looks like NOB was going to do anything that DPR wanted. Trust me, im not defending Carl at all, he should burn in hell for what he did, but he did steal the coins to put the whole thing in motion, so thats where his best defense is.

What I think is ironic, the guys in Baltimore are stating that The secret service agent stole the coins, i believe they are saying that so that it wont taint their case against Ross murder for hire charge, but you cant tell me that Ross and shaun werent in on it together, Since Shaun was the computer guy, it makes sense he was the one that did all the bitcoin transfers, so he did all the leg work, but i bet you a bitcoin that Carl got a big piece of those stolen coins. Hell, i read some communication between Ross and Shaun asking how to launder the bitcoins...

The prosecution in Baltimore is grasping at straws to keep the charges going, but while I think hes still mostly culpable for the murder for hire, i dont see him totally guilty, so if there is a trial, i bet hes found innocent. Also, who knows when Carl and the other guy went bad, they are stating that everything was fine until they stole the money..lol, i dont buy that they were angels up until that point, there just isnt tons of proof yet... I wonder how much "nob" sold on SR and didn't report it..

But is the journal in Ross' handwriting or just a file? If it is anything but in his handwriting, given the circumstances, I can't imagine things sticking.

The journal seems to be like an early block that the case is largely built on. If you invalidate an early block, everything that follows is invalidated, so to speak (blockchain tech).

I do not believe a judge would permit questioning along these lines. The defense does not have a shred of evidence that any files were tampered, and they have no witness will testify that things were.

Is reasonable doubt not enough considering two corrupt cops role in all this? I can't imagine the burden of proof is soley on the defense here. I mean they aren't allowed to speak on so many topics as it is.

I am sure things will get interesting regardless, I mean we also have questions, very valid ones, asking if the government has Gox coins (paper wallets).

I get the feeling that one bad break for the government and this case is done for them. IMO that is why the judge has been unreasoble thus far, overly strict to put things lightly. It is like Ross vs. Prosecution AND Judge.

Topic: DEA Agents in Silk Road Case Face Fraud Charges - page 6. (Read 14459 times)