Topic: Free Ross Ulbricht? (Read 571 times)

Damn.
That was a really rookie mistake, and they took quite long to figure out something you could easily google.
Thanks for the summary.

You cannot really mitigate calling him a twat that way. "Twat" literally means "vagina", and tends to be used as a perjorative to describe someone who is submissive, weak, lacking courage and/or lacking wisdom, and yet over-confident (which is, in addition, shall we say rather a short-sighted way of regarding the many facets of the wondrous organ we may refer to with a little more affection as the pussy)

It's somewhat ironic that you yourself often display behaviour and attitudes that are submissive and bereft of courage, and yet still over-confident (although seemingly founded on a selfish form of wisdom). Notice how I'm telling you what you are without feeling the need to use perjorative language to do so.

Ross may have been short-sighted, but he had the courage to try to change the world, and will always be remembered for doing so. Nobodies die. Somebodies live

In the end the fatal fact was the silly git leaving a post with [email protected] on this here very forum. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.568744  I think he deleted the original post but it was quoted by someone else. Now it's archival. It was found by a bog standard google search.

This is his account on here - https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/altoid-3905 and the same account made the first ever mention of Silk Road anywhere. He deleted that post too but it's quoted here - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.43039

For some reason no one had looked into it even though they'd been looking for DPR for a year or two by then.

There's a pretty rapid summary here but of course there was a fair bit more leading up to it - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/the-incredibly-simple-story-of-how-the-govt-googled-ross-ulbricht/

They already had other details about DPR and once they started to look at Ross's internet footprint they converged enough to go after him.

Damn! That was a quick bust!
How did they locate him?
I know I should watch the documentaries, but I never get enough time for that.

He was arrested logged in to Silk Road with his admin account. That was what his entire arrest was planned around. They had to grab it before he could close or encrypt his laptop.

Everything was on there and wide open to them once they secured it - his journal, chat logs, wallets, you name it.

How did they get those messages from the article if their messages were PGP encrypted?
The transcripts make him seem as he's watching out for cyber security.
It crossed my mind that these could be fake.

@OP you sound like you watched the documentary I mentioned in the 3rd reply to your post. If not, I encourage you to do so It will enlighten you a lot.

I'm in agreement with this.  I don't know about 11 year-olds in Siberia, I think it's more likely one of the various law enforcement agencies investigating Ulbricht were behind the Redandwhite account.  Which is probably why the government didn't think they could get a conviction for conspiracy to commit murder.  The way the discussion transcripts read, I think a good defense lawyer could get the all of that evidence thrown out since it looks a lot like entrapment.  There are arguments the the targets weren't real people, and also likely to be fabrications of the investigation teams.

However, in my opinion that doesn't absolve Ulbricht from actually trying (and paying) to have those people murdered.  That's probably why the judge allowed such a severe sentence for his other convictions.  It seems pretty clear that he was willing to kill people to preserve his ability to earn money, or prevent his identity from being leaked.  I don't know how anyone can justify that behavior.   

I wrote an article about it how it related to the bitcoin forum Silk road and Bitcointalk. How it played a role in its rise and fall.

Ross Ulbricht knew what he was doing was illegal and could result in serious criminal charges.

He deliberately kept a low key profile and was careful with his cyber security.

But he got caught. I believe the sentence is excessive but I also feel that he is downplaying the seriousness of his offending.

Drug addiction is a sickness and should be treated as such. But I feel the motivation for Silk road was the thrill of getting away with it and greed.

I'm not convinced that Ross Ulbricht has remorse for his actions and also suspect he still has some bitcoin stashed away.

I find all the murder stuff pathetic, not that I necessarily doubt his desire to do it.

1 - someone is willing to kill an anonymous stranger by walking into a situation they know nothing about on the word of another anonymous stranger.

2- make up a load of bollocks in return for a large amount of money with zero comebacks or risk.

I'd love to know if one single cold called 'dark market' assassination has taken place anywhere in the world.

More likely a bunch of 11 yr old scammers in Siberia have done rather nicely.

I used to be sympathetic to this brilliant man because I knew very little about him and his case. What I knew then was only a little more than he created an online bazaar which is popularly called Silk Road. With that, I thought his crime, if it was indeed a crime, does not have much weight as the creator of the market should not be fully blamed for what's being sold in the market.

Well, the transcript that OP has posted meant a lot on my impression on the guy and I regretted voting in the poll with a wrong choice. That Dread Pirate Roberts is Ross has been established already. And with the transcript, which can hardly be considered a made-up one considering that it was taken from SR's server itself and could probably be verified, I guess Ross is really involved in more than just setting up an anonymous market and escrowing illegal funds. But I am excited to give more time to GazetaBitcoin's links to strike an objective balance on the issue.

Looking at the BTC address of Redandwhite, there's probably another one multiple assassination transaction that he and Ross had. After the 1,600BTC and the 3,000BTC payments, there was also another 2,555BTC deposited. Could be another murder transaction.

Obviously...because there was not enough evidence...?

But why isn't he if there's enough evidence for it?

He was escrowing the deals. That makes him a key component in the selling of drugs. Barely any sales would've taken place had he not been doing that.

It would be a totally different deal if he'd put some software together and sent it out into the world just as Satoshi did. He didn't.

I merited because it is a great piece of information.
I don't think that Ross should have been condemned to such a harsh sentence.

He isn't innocent of all the charges, but he is not guilty to the extent the accusation pointed.

Maybe a 5-10 years fixed sentence would have been enough.

At the end of the day, he set up a website, he laundered money (ie, not paying taxes) and did some other offenses.
He didn't sell the drugs himself, the users did it.

I sometimes think about his battle quite similar to the one with Kim dot com.
Kim built a service, users did bad stuff, kim didn't pay taxes, kim is wanted by the USA.

And you said, with your "phone company" example, a creator can't be responsible for its creation.
Otherwise, we should all sue the USA because most of the high-level drug deals, weapons deals are made using USD Cash, and uncle Sam is responsible for giving narco and weapon Traficant such a great platform of exchange.

I don't see how he could be any more guilty of running SR. Though I think the sentence is ridiculous if we look at the volume of drugs sold through there I can't imagine someone running a drug distribution/sales network via other means would get much or any less of a sentence in the US.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45075.pdf  



Look at the figure for what they term a drug kingpin. It's way less than SR's turnover.

'A drug kingpin is a person who controls a network of persons involved in the illegal drugs trade and transactions' I dunno about controlling but at the very least he was facilitating.  

It also enriched drug cartels who are responsible for countless horrors. The only bit of violence it removed was street level. That's still important but it's possible SR's existence created more violence elsewhere.

If I'd been running it I would do my best to only directly link up drug makers to drug consumers. The whole site started with him selling nothing but mushrooms he'd grown. Idealistic of course but I for one would not be happy knowing I was making money for scum.

The only questionable bit is the trial and I can well believe they went all out to warp it to make sure they won. This was too hot a subject not to. It'll take a huge attitude change for it to be looked at again and if I remember rightly they've now officially exhausted all options.

There should be a retrial by the sounds of it. It won't happen. They've buried him and they intend for him to stay there. No one should be handed a sentence of that magnitude without a totally bulletproof legal process which doesn't seem to be the case at all.

I think he's a twat who knew what he was getting into. He's also the victim of a system out for his blood.

That doesn't mean there wasn't evidence to suggest he tried to pay a hitman to kill an associate of his. Ross should absolutely be in jail for that alone.

The accusation of trying to have people killed was dropped. It was never an official charge during the trial.

And indeed, circumstantial evidences point to him...but that is because they were instrumented to look this way. That added to the fact that defense was denied to use several other evidences conducted to what the judge knew will happen at the end of the trial: having this man in prison until the end of his life.

This trial was almost similar to this scenario: put someone in water with his hands and feet tied, plus having a boulder tied to him also and let him swim. That's how his defense was treated during the trial.

I watched Ross's case closely in the past and I knew many aspects about his orchestrated trial...but this documentary enlightened me even more. Excepting the suspicion that Karpeles would be Satoshi and DPR (which I doubt, but still, the film reveals some good questions and coincidences), everything else shown about the case and the trial is incredible. But true. And in the end you realize that whole trial was a joke. The trial existed because this is the bureaucracy. But the result was know before the trial started.

Thanks for the article you wrote, that's very informative.  I haven't had time to watch the documentary, but I'll make a point of it sometime this weekend.  Obviously there's going to be some bias, since it was made by the "Free Ross" group, but there's nothing wrong with hearing both sides of the story.

Some months ago I watched an episode of "American Greed" (Season 10, Episode 20) that focused on Ross and the Silk Road.  The show attempted to remain unbiased in it's reporting, and I seem to recall many felt that the government came down too hard on Ross.  I agree that it seems like a harsh sentence for the charges on which he was convicted.  On the other hand it seems like a lot of circumstantial evidence points to him attempting to have people killed.

I have a theory about that, but I'm going to hold off expressing it until I've had time to do more research, or at least watch that documentary.

 I am no criminal expert but why he is still inside and if he should stay inside depends on what the charges were the longest. I know the charges of for example money laundering could be cut short, the time he spent is sufficient enough for such a crime, computer hacking doesn't seem like a real one, but even if we assume he hacked another persons computer, how long he should stay depends on what he did after hacking, like did he got personal info and blackmailed? did he stole money? what did he do if he hacked someones computer for real. Conspiracy to traffic narcotics is the worst, cartels do that all the time and they are living freely in mexico and nobody is doing anything, ross should be freed for that one right away. Honestly dude is not clean, he should have gone to prison to begin with, but it has been about 5 years or so even more, I feel like thats about enough for what he has done. A life sentence is waaaaaay more than neccessary.

But it's not the same SR. It's a new one since the original one was seized and probably run by other people.

Also, what I don't understand is how did they get those messages?
Did they crack their encryption o.o

The guy is definitely not innocent...
How guilty is he? That question is ultimately moot.
He went against the establishment, threatened their way of life, threatened their control, threatened their power.
For that they made an example of him to make sure no one else would have the hubris to attempt what he did.
He will never, ever, ever, ever, ever walk free.

Yes I just tried looking for it again and he was the SR. I found more documentary about him and that it wasn't actually proven that Ross was DPR. The issue raised was that the prosecution didn't show how they got into the server and such stuff.  This is becoming interesting because I think he has a chance of getting out after all someone after Ross were caught, DPR and SilkRoad continue operating.

I would look at it he is convicted because of his economic ideology and government doesn't want that freemarket and decentralization he started.

That guy wasn't an agent. It was an admin of SR working with the secret agents. Whatch the documentary, you'll understand better.

There was a documentary made for him and how he was caught but an agent who just used google to track frosty down. In the film it was said he put a hit to  a friend who later was found out to be an agent. The sentence however is just too much but I guess there are more crimes that was found out that weren't charged to him.


The agent were just staged as if killed actually. This base on the documentary I saw, I can't remember the title but its in the youtube.

What I don't understand is, if these transcripts are true, why wasn't he accused of  conspiring murder?
The transcripts are cleary stating he paid for murder multiple times.
The guys were blackmailing and scamming him, but it's against the law none the less.

This is going to be a huge reply, which might indicate I am a fan of Ross. Mostly, I am a fan of justice. And, in my opinion, Ross didn't have justice in his trial.

I touched accidentally his case in this topic, but, however, the topic is mostly related to Karpeles, Satoshi and DPR. Nevertheless, everyone should watch the documentary Silk Road Case: The Real, Untold Story, which explains in detail all the unfairness of the trial.

Some outrageous aspects are the following (remember, these are just a small part of them):
- life in prison without parole + 40 years for running a website;
- DPR2 (owner of SR2.0) spends a few days in prison; Ross goes there for life;
- the allegation that the site was used for illegal stuff is the same with accusing (and shutting down) a phone company, because its clients use the phone the settle illicit transactions;
- the defense lawyer was denied by the judge to use clear evidence to protect Ross
- the corrupt DEA agents were never exposed during the trial, in order to not influence the jury
- the jury was not told that based on its decision Ross would face a double life sentence + 40 years
- the data collected from Ross did not follow the legal path in order to obtain and unalter them
- his appeals to the later instances were not allowed; practically, he was not allowed to go to other instances, which could debate not his sentence, but if his trial was fair or not
- during the investigation and also during the trial the agencies sabotaged each other's work
- the 4th and 6th (and maybe others) amendaments of US Constitution were not respected in his trial (the government should not be able to collect Internet traffic information without a warrant / a judge can not sentence someone based on crimes he wasn't convicted of by a jury)
- although the defense had clear evidence (with testimonies) that there were multiple DPRs, the judge denied the evidences
- and so many others.

The decision itself is outrageous: double life sentence + 40 years, without parole. How could anyone in the world execute such a sentence? OK, the 40 years are (maybe) achievable. And also the life sentence. But how about the second life sentence? Is that man supposed to die and come back to life in order to spend a second life in prison?

However, besides the absurdity of the sentence, we can go on to other, non-legal aspects: his move (launching SR) was a profound act of libertarianism and it certainly helped reducing the violence from the streets. His entire life was one with no illegal activities, excepting the one from this trial. This man was sentenced to life in prison after his first wrong step in life.

I also recommend you to watch other SR-related documentaries, such as Deep Web or Silk Road - Drugs, Death And The Dark Web. However, the most important, the one bringing most light over the injustice, is Silk Road Case: The Real, Untold Story.

The (instrumented) judge's problem was not that Ross ran SR. It was a problem of the govern, which wanted to have Ross as an example for what happens when you do not obey to the system. When you seek out freedom and when you dare to have a libertarian, anarchic view. The sentence was for Ross's political views, not for his actions.

Just as i submitted in the poll, i think the sentence is quite correct imo, definitely I never had an interaction with Ross, and I know if anyone did, it'll be just few persons, but this article has quite made me to go through his biography and any perpetrator of those crimes needs to be remanded in prison for as long as possible.

And also the fact that bitcoin was to be used as their currency in this illicit business is another aspect that I was curious about, I know any currency can and has been used for this purpose in the past, but we don't want thieves feeling bitcoin is the most ideal simply because it's hard to trace(i don't like such recognition).

Thanks for that article. A very interesting read. I also wasn't around then and hadn't really followed Ross's story completely. Previously I had seen Ross as someone better than that, kind of an example type for the system with a ultra heavy handed sentence. If this collection of transcripts are accurate, he deserves what he got and more. So would the hells angels person he talked to. Living a simple life is truly so much better than being involved with dirty people and scams.

I ran across an auction in the collectibles board this morning and I found it curious.  The seller is directing all funds to an organisation working to free Ross Ulbricht.

Ulbricht, aka altoid was suspected of being the founder and owner of the darknet site The Silk Road. He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms, plus 40 years without parole.  There's very little chance that he'll ever be a free man again.  The charges for which he was convicted are money laundering, computer hacking, and narcotics trafficking.  Appeals have been filed, but were unsuccessful.

The prosecution attempted to also charge him with conspiracy to commit murder.  One charge of six was filed, but dismissed by the court.  The other charges were never filed.  During some reading I was doing this morning I came across this article from Wired Magazine that chronicles the (alleged) transcripts of DRP's conversation with username Redandwhite.  If the transcripts are accurate, that's pretty damning evidence.

My questions to all of you who are familiar with the story; do you think he deserved the sentence he received?  Do you believe he was set-up?  Do you think he actually tried to hire Hell's Angels to assassinate his adversaries?

I wasn't around in those days, but I find the story fascinating.  I would especially love to hear from those of you who were around, and had interaction with altoid.