Archive of all Silk Road forum posts attributed to Dread Pirate Roberts

https://www.rossulbricht.org/silk-road-forum-dread-pirate-roberts-archive/

by tjaerv • 13 years ago

45 29 13 years ago

rd108• 13 years ago

From: What_is_the_goal_of_Silk_Road.txt

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

patrickmclaren• 13 years ago

https://www.rossulbricht.org/srforum/html/dpr_posts_page_01_...

  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.

mikegogulski4• 13 years ago

I spotted that during my analysis of the texts. It's a hell of a thing to say, really.

Direct link, with datestamp: https://www.rossulbricht.org/srforum/messages/20130920-1909-...

pallandt4• 13 years ago

This is very interesting.

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.

baddox• 13 years ago

What about the language he's using suggests that he suffered from psychosis?

ninjac0der2• 13 years ago

What... the... I thought the non-essential government services were shut down right now.

contingencies• 13 years ago

It continues:

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.

drakaal2• 13 years ago

So are we to "Free Ross" because he was a great guy who had people killed? Ran a site dedicating to breaking laws? What thing are we supposed to be sad he got busted for?

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.

MichaelGG3• 13 years ago

Firstly, I'm unaware of anyone actually being killed. He "ordered hits" but it appears that no murders happened.

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.

pallandt4• 13 years ago

I think we should be thankful that no one was actually killed and that apparently the hired hitmen were law enforcement.

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.

drakaal2• 13 years ago

How do you think they pulled off https://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/10/feds-arrest-alleged-top-...

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?

betterunix• 13 years ago

"So are we to "Free Ross" because he was a great guy who had people killed? Ran a site dedicating to breaking laws?"

Nice juxtaposition there. Most people will agree that ordering hits is bad. Running a marketplace for selling drugs, on the other hand...

Archive of all Silk Road forum posts attributed to Dread Pirate Roberts

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