Quotations Of The Dread Pirate Roberts, Founder Of Silk Road

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/29/collected-quotations-of-the-dread-pirate-roberts-founder-of-the-drug-site-silk-road-and-radical-libertarian/print/

by gbrindisi • 13 years ago

107 118 13 years ago

forbes.com

b62• 13 years ago

This guy is doing good work, and I fear for his safety.

DividesByZero8• 13 years ago

Please elaborate on this? Good work in what sense?

Ignoring the dubious ethics of running a black market, SilkRoad is ultimately a rent-seeking enterprise making money from transactional frictions. It creates no value - hardly the sort of shining beacon of enterprise the founder(s) make it out to be.

wnight2• 13 years ago

Unless a business in that position attempts to enforce its position, what's the problem? If he is making something easier for others he should be rewarded or he'll stop.

It's like saying a road has no value because stuff isn't created on the road, just moved.

As for ethics, you could sleep better after buying a kilo of coke on silk road than paying your taxes.

aero1422• 13 years ago

Morals of being a drug market aside, in what way is SilkRoad a "rent-seeking enterprise" any more than any other transaction facilitating entity? Every transaction has friction and facilitators provide the service of matching buyers and sellers. Maybe not the highest ideal of productivity but hardly deserves to be described as rent-seeking.

alexqgb• 13 years ago

Sorry, but you you've got the concept of "rent seeking" completely wrong.

"In public choice theory, rent-seeking is an attempt to obtain economic rent by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by creating new wealth. One example is spending money on political lobbying in order to be given a share of wealth that has already been created."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

A black market - almost by definition - is one in which the players are cut off from the channels of official lobbying or patronage that make rent-seeking a viable economic strategy.

That's not to say that a dark symbiosis can't develop between black marketeers and legitimate authorities. For instance, the police, by enforcing laws against drug trafficking, increase the risks of trafficking. This increases prices and profits alike. High profits attract a constant supply of traffickers, who also tend to be far more ruthless than the average businessman, which brings additional layers of criminality to the trade, thereby ensuring continued employment for the police - to say nothing of an unsettling expansion of their powers.

But at no point do the traffickers and the police feel a mutual need to formalize this relationship, since public opinion remains, on balance, opposed to the narcotics trade. That is to say, the police can rely on the ballot box to stay employed, stripping them of any incentive to do business (at least on an open, institutional level) with traffickers. Meanwhile, the traffickers can count on public opinion to keep police on the beat, and need not go to any further expense to keep their racket going.

Contrast all this with the retroactive extension of copyright terms which has got to be the canonical example of true rent seeking, illuminating the practice in its most naked and unproductive form.

EDIT: An more germane example is the lobbying done by pharmaceutical companies with an interest in keeping the law and public opinion in opposition to illegal substances that may have pharmacological properties. Because these substances are too well known to be patented, their legalization could lead to patent-free formulations that reduce demand for patentable substitutes that pharmaceutical companies have created, or ones they could develop in future. Blocking the legal use of one widely and cheaply available substance to create a market for a more expensive but conceivably inferior alternate is a text-book case of rent seeking.

b62• 13 years ago

Well, through SR, DPR helps all parties involved be safer. For buyers, all products have ratings and reviews, and sellers have overall satisfaction statistics, and there is a forum. For sellers, there are buyer statistics.

He's a pioneer. When SR has strange technical problems, he can't just jump on IRC or Stack Overflow and ask. He has to deal with attacks against Tor no one else has experienced. I don't know of anyone else betting more heavily on the security of Tor (at least the hidden service aspect).

He's also just plain inspiring. He had a bold idea, coded it up, kept it working, by himself or with a small group, despite opposition by the worst possible adversaries. He puts his life on the line for his principles. If the world had more brave and highly capable people like him, we might not still be in the drug war.

mdelias• 13 years ago

Submitted this the other day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5645665

lenazegher3• 13 years ago

Given the ultimate traceability of bitcoins, would anyone care to speculate how tDPR converts SR's transaction fees into fiat currency without being tracked down by law enforcement?

adventured4• 13 years ago

He is law enforcement. His interest is the vendors and mapping the network.

youngerdryas2• 13 years ago

"How can you plug yourself into the tax eating, life sucking, violent, sadistic, war mongering, oppressive machine ever again? How can you kneel when you’ve felt the power of your own legs? Felt them stretch and flex as you learn to walk and think as a free person? I would rather live my life in rags now than in golden chains. And now we can have both! Now it is profitable to throw off one’s chains, with amazing crypto technology reducing the risk of doing so dramatically. How many niches have yet to be filled in the world of anonymous online markets? The opportunity to prosper and take part in a revolution of epic proportions is at our fingertips!

I have no one to share my thoughts with in physical space. Security does not permit it, so thanks for listening. I hope my words can be an inspiration just as I am given so much by everyone here."

Definitely a cop.

jsn• 13 years ago

Yeah, riiiight. Nice try at FUD, DEA :)

mistercow3• 13 years ago

I don't think running Silk Road would be very useful for that purpose, any more than running Kickstarter would be useful for mapping the traditional investing world, or running reddit would be useful for mapping print distribution networks.

It would be useful for busting buyers, but no more so than traditional cop-on-the-street sting operations.

artas_bartas• 13 years ago

I was so excited to discover that something like this exist - a community that gets on with its business without any stupid organization or agency putting sticks in its wheels. I just wish this spirit of freedom would come over to countries of the former USSR where it is badly needed.

jacoblyles8• 13 years ago

I wish it would come to the USA.

mike-cardwell• 13 years ago

"Do you want to see this thing go all the way and take the absolute piss out of the power mongers of this world"

Would anybody other than a Brit say that sentence?

[edit] Although I notice a lot of American English spelling in there too.

skore• 13 years ago

> Would anybody other than a Brit say that sentence?

You mean like somebody who tried to deliberately obscure his identity by using fake clues?

patrickk2• 13 years ago

Brits, Irish and Aussies too I believe. When I read that comment, I thought that Dread Pirate Roberts could be using Libertarian musings (which I've never heard outside of US political discussions) and references to US law enforcement agencies as a smokescreen for his identity.

Interestingly, and coincidentally, there's been speculation that the Bitcoin creator (Satoshi Nakamoto) could be an Irish computer science student called Michael Clear, due to British spelling in his (if it is his) written work: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto

claudius2• 13 years ago

‘British’ English is the standard English taught in Europe and the Middle East, likely in India as well, so I doubt that this is a remotely helpful clue.

Tuxedage• 13 years ago

Relevant: http://www.gwern.net/docs/2011-davis

alan_cx• 13 years ago

Yeah, reading through it all I got the sense he is British. But, I wouldn't bet on it.

0x006A• 13 years ago

A quick Google search suggests its also used in the US, i.e. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmlwZyfhrgk

mistercow3• 13 years ago

>Would anybody other than a Brit say that sentence?

If I were running Silk Road, I'd be paying attention to research and memes surrounding anonymity, and writing style has been a popular point of interest lately. Adopting another culture's colloquialisms and idioms is one potential way of masking your own identifying idiosyncrasies in writing.

SkyMarshal• 13 years ago

I'm American and like to use Brit slang from time to time, so not impossible. Especially for a cypherpunk intending to mislead.

specialist• 13 years ago

My writing style would easily give me away.

If I wanted to anonymize my writing, I'd use translation services. Perhaps French -> English -> Pirate.

xSwag• 13 years ago

Why does frobes insist on adding page numbers? For page views? It's terrible reading experience having to click every few paragraphs.

eksith• 13 years ago

Here you go : http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/29/collect...

It's beyond obnoxious sometimes when some sites (not Forbes specifically) put just 1-3 paragraphs per page with one image so that each one is effectively a slide surrounded by ads. When I reach my limit of the "paged experience", I search for the printer friendly page.

Edit: Er... Looks like Forbes is redirecting to the full "paged experience" upon clicking. Oh well. Just scroll to the bottom and click "print".

deno• 13 years ago

They redirect based on Referer header.

http://pastebin.com/WNmLmKqL

gbrindisi• 13 years ago

I've submitted the print version but Forbes is redirecting it to the default view.

JVIDEL2• 13 years ago

I use iReader, it automatically converts anything to a one-page article of pure text.

nwh• 13 years ago

I'm curious how long it will be until this person is turned into an FBI informant (think Lulzsec and Sabu). The website has done some obscenely stupid things in the past, like leaving their real (non-Tor) IP address on error pages. Presumably the website is a large target, even just for it's common mention in media.

Strom• 13 years ago

The beauty of Silk Road design is that the site being a FBI honeypot has been built into the threat model from the start. All identifying info sent between buyers/sellers is encrypted using PGP, Silk Road doesn't see anything.

new299• 13 years ago

I thought the PGP encryption was optional?

nullymcnull3• 13 years ago

That's not accurate. People are encouraged to use PGP for addresses and other sensitive communication there, but it is not enforced or directly supported by the system. There are still vendors who can't be bothered to figure PGP out (often relying upon dubious alternatives like privnote), and there will always be customers who don't care one way or the other.

Silk Road itself doesn't even have a discrete place for users to enter their public key; it is only by convention that most vendors put it at the end of their profile text.

gambiting4• 13 years ago

I agree with some things he says,and some things he says are absolutely stupid. Private police force that you need to pay directly for protection? Reminds me of ancient Rome times, when if your house was on fire, the fire brigade would come and haggle with you first,trying to negotiate how much you are willing to pay to save your house. Having to pay somebody directly(rather than in your taxes) for protection is unfathomably stupid. Right now you can call the police literally anywhere you are in the world, and they will come and help, because that's what they do. With his solution, you could drive to a nearby city and nobody would help you,because you haven't paid the security agency there.

nazgulnarsil• 13 years ago

>and they will come and help

the police are not obligated to help you in the US, this has been the subject of at least 2 supreme court cases.

gambiting4• 13 years ago

If I didn't have a good opinion about the US system before, it's getting worse as we speak.

jacoblyles8• 13 years ago

If a company won't provide a guaranteed service level, why should you trust them with your life?

georgemcbay2• 13 years ago

There are bigger problems with the private police force idea than them not helping you if you don't pay them. The far bigger problem is that it would be way more profitable for them to just take everything you own than it would be to protect you and your things for a few coins or bills worth a tiny fraction of your net worth.

kybernetyk3• 13 years ago

You forget that there wouldn't be just one private police force but many service providers. So if one offers bad service (by robbing you) you just hire one of their competitors.

nijk2• 13 years ago

Why doesn't your concern apply to public police forces? Oh, it does.

subsystem6• 13 years ago

I'm I missing what stands in the way of anyone currently setting up their own security agency? Especially in states with open carry. Unless it's not about freedom and more about channeling their feelings on the government.

gambiting4• 13 years ago

In the very same paragraph he talks about the government stealing money from you in form of taxes, so I guess he would rather not pay any taxes at all and just choose who protects him himself, getting rid of the state-run police force. I can't even begin to describe how many things are wrong with that approach.

philwelch• 13 years ago

By "security agency", most ancaps mean something that fills the role of government. Capturing accused criminals and holding them in jail is perfectly legal if you're the government, otherwise it's considered kidnapping.

wyager3• 13 years ago

Regarding your Roman Fire Brigade example, we can now produce a much more effective system with modern bookkeeping technology. Instead of paying for fire protection as your house burns, you pay for the fire protection in advance. In fact, that's already the way it works in some parts of the world. You pay the fire department in advance (so they can pay for the upkeep of their machines), and if you don't, they have no obligation to put out your flaming house.

derleth4• 13 years ago

> You pay the fire department in advance (so they can pay for the upkeep of their machines), and if you don't, they have no obligation to put out your flaming house.

Two problems:

1. If not enough people pay for a fire brigade, the fire brigade is complete shit even if I do pay for it, because I can't fund a brigade all on my own. (If you tell me to move, you've lost the argument.)

2. If my neighbor's house is on fire, I really, really want the fire to be put out even if my neighbor hasn't paid for the brigade. I do not want the brigade to wait until my house is burning. (If you tell me to move, you've lost the argument.)

3. If you tell me to move, you've lost the argument.

jacoblyles8• 13 years ago

> "With his solution, you could drive to a nearby city and nobody would help you,because you haven't paid the security agency there."

Why should commerce be limited by national borders? This conversation lacks imagination.

Yossarian_Lives• 13 years ago

For all the invisible handers, let's not forget the London olympics where certain security roles were contracted out. The company involved failed to recruit sufficient numbers of personnel by a significant margin, failed to train adequately those that they did and failed to communicate the scale of the failure that was developing. In the end, the government had to bring in the army to perform the role.

While there are undoubtedly areas where the public sector can learn from private sector efficiency, I'd venture that there are some societal functions where the point of profit maximisation results in an inferior and inadequate service. Or - to look at it a different way - the public sector is the only provider incentivised to realise the positive externalities of that service. This might be the public benefit of putting out fires regardless of a person's payment status (stopping them spreading), the cumulative benefit of going about business safe from crime, the benefits of a healthy workforce, etc etc.

jiggy20116• 13 years ago

An invisible hander would probably say that the government should not have organised the olympics to begin with (effectively a monopoly).

Using tax money to put on an event of that scale where there was effectively only one organisation with the resources to provide security services is bound to make that one organisation optimize for cost saving.

If you had only private sporting events then security companies and event organizers would eventually optimize to a state of security that best served the expectations of their customers.

katbyte• 13 years ago

sounds very much like security at the vancouver 2010 olympics and the G8/G10 summit. i worked as security doing airport screening of people (x-ray & mag) and oh boy i have plenty of stories. There was so much waste, gaming the contract/system so the government would pay for far more man hours of under qualified under trained workers. Like keeping 40 people on the clock when 5 would have been sufficient. Granted the police were not much better.

I had never worked security before, nor have I science.

DividesByZero8• 13 years ago

For someone who paints themselves as some sort of Randian superman, he sure uses the words of collective action and altruism a lot.

"It’s paradoxical, but the less you focus on your own happiness and focus on others’, the happier you’ll be."

John Galt indeed.

jacoblyles8• 13 years ago

Outside of Ayn Rand novels, collective action is necessary for the livelihood of free peoples. Old-fashioned civic virtue used to fill the roles that the state usurped (see Albert Jay Nock's "Our Enemy, The State").

I have a soft spot in my heart for Ayn Rand, but her moral system would be a poor foundation for a free people (which I am here using as a euphemism for market anarchy).

icebraining• 13 years ago

He's an anarcho-capitalist, not an objectivist. The two groups often disagree on many things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_and_Objectivism

subsystem6• 13 years ago

I get so tired of libertarian self-serving mumbo jumbo. He's a drug trafficker, makes large amount of money of it and I have a hard time seeing that any decrease in government oppression isn't offset by the realities of the drug trade. Regardless if I agree with it or not, someone like Cody Wilson has a far better case in my book.

wyager3• 13 years ago

> any decrease in government oppression isn't offset by the realities of the drug trade.

What "realities of the drug trade"? Any drug sales happening on TSR are by small-time manufacturers and dealers. There are no shootings or stabbings on TSR. The cartels don't have any reason to use TSR. I think the nature of TSR prevents most of the "realities" you're citing.

subsystem6• 13 years ago

Last time I checked SR, if I remember correctly, there were substantial amounts of high-grade cocaine being sold from the south of the US.

nullymcnull3• 13 years ago

Indeed. Pretty much all of the ugly 'realities' of the drug trade are those which exist and thrive precisely because drugs are outlawed. SR happens to protect its users from having to deal with most of those realities - and that's a great benefit. DPR rightly deserves praise for helping people to get the drugs of their choice without having to hit the often dangerous streets for them.

Perhaps one day western societies will be able to have an adult conversation about drugs, but for the time being shrill reactionaries still set the tone. Meanwhile for every one dramatic walking-cliche of a drug casualty out there killing themselves and making the world shittier, there are at least a handful of responsible drug users conducting perfectly normal and successful lives. For any drug you can name.

cheeseprocedure• 13 years ago

Is there historical evidence to back the notion that, through market forces, employment standards would rise to meet workers' demands?

cmhamill• 13 years ago

Put plainly, no.

mr_spothawk• 13 years ago

Hong Kong is a good example. You can watch the first episode of Milton Friedman's PBS series "Free to Choose" for more details.

*edit for clarity

JVIDEL2• 13 years ago

HK grew off opium trafficking and money laundering, any other examples?

jacoblyles8• 13 years ago

Growth in wages and better working conditions broadly followed the growth in labor productivity. I see labor protection laws as a lagging indicator of worker well-being that are only passed when a society is rich enough to afford them.

kybernetyk3• 13 years ago

This man/woman is a hero of the free market and I wish him/her all the best.

wfn• 13 years ago

    > Personally, I don’t think they [Bitcoin, Tor] can be effectively banned at this point. Iran and China, for example, are actively trying and failing.

That is, unfortunately, not quite true in regards to Tor. Iran has on multiple occasions done/tried out doing (turned it on, then off) traffic censorship that directly or indirectly very much affected Tor. [1] [2] True, Tor managed to roll out obfsfroxy et al., which they'd been already actively developing prior to that, but if e.g. Iran (again) attempted country-wise generic SSL censorship, that would hurt things. Tor's pluggable transports would perhaps be a response to that still, but Iran's gov't could move on to other things.

With China it's even worse, as it seems there is custom software being used from within China to actively discover and censor out new Tor bridges (as in, a new one is used by someone, some minutes later another connection from China comes in to it, speaks Tor protocol, disconnects, and then the bridge is blocked.) [3]

This is just to make sure the information about these matters is out there. If anybody is interested in helping out Tor, the mailing lists [4] and research papers and code is out there. :) [5]

[1] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/update-internet-censorship-...

[2] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/iran-partially-blocks-encry... (more results via a simple search if interested.)

[3] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/knock-knock-knockin-bridges...

[4] https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo

[5] https://www.torproject.org/getinvolved/volunteer

Quotations Of The Dread Pirate Roberts, Founder Of Silk Road

Related Stories