Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/nyregion/ross-ulbricht-creator-of-silk-road-website-is-sentenced-to-life-in-prison.html

by uptown • 11 years ago

623 597 11 years ago

nytimes.com

LulzSect• 11 years ago

Because real, actual murder isn't a serious enough crime for Life in Prison.

steego• 11 years ago

It's his fault for getting into the wrong business. If he only laundered drug cartel money like HSBC, he would have just paid a fine.

vvpan2• 11 years ago

HSBC? You mean Wachovia? Or HSBC is at it too?

amyjess3• 11 years ago

My condolences go to the mutual friends Ross and I share.

Honestly, I don't have much sympathy for him directly (due to his complete and utter stupidity and lack of opsec), but I know this is going to hurt some people I care about, people who were good friends with Ross back in college, and I feel bad for them.

hndude• 11 years ago

The amount of ego in this comment is astounding

crystaln• 11 years ago

If you don't have sympathy for people who have a "lack of opsec," you don't know much about sympathy...

jsonjson• 11 years ago

Me, me, me.. (inject sentence that appears not to be about others).. but more about me.

TwiztidK• 11 years ago

This isn't really surprising. I think most "drug kingpins" would be able to get much shorter sentences by agreeing to turn in a bunch of smaller dealers. It seems like Ross' work was pretty solitary, so that wasn't really an option for him.

PopsiclePete• 11 years ago

Murderers get less than that. We are truly an interesting society, aren't we - somehow kids doing LSD, a mostly harmless substance, is causing us more harm, as a society, than, say, violence?

api2• 11 years ago

If he really did attempt to order a hit on someone, that changes the game a little. Now we're no longer talking about just drugs.

But I agree that it's absolutely insane if the charges are just drug-related -- rapists get far less time than many drug dealers.

TillE• 11 years ago

As far as I can tell, he wasn't actually convicted of anything like that.

fixermark2• 11 years ago

He wasn't just a drug dealer. The crimes he was charged with are in the massive criminal conspiracy category.

collinvandyck76• 11 years ago

Ulbricht was also convicted of hiring a hitman.

edit: this is something that vice news [0] reported that is apparently wrong.

But despite these setbacks, Ulbricht was ultimately convicted in February on a raft of charges, including drug trafficking, computer hacking, money laundering, and hiring assassins to take out members of Silk Road.

[0] https://news.vice.com/article/ross-ulbricht-convicted-master...

iM8t• 11 years ago

Do we actually have any proof of that or is it just something that the media is feeding us?

amyjess3• 11 years ago

No, he wasn't. He was never even charged with that; the story of one attempt to hire a hitman was admitted into the trial as evidence that he was running the Silk Road and knew what he was doing, but that was never one of the actual charges against him.

acomjean• 11 years ago

Actually not yet convicted of hiring a hitman. There is another trial for that.

Apparently his first attempt he hired an fbi agent, posing as a hit man and his second attempt seems to have been a con-job...

He tried though. Apparently the fbi agent sent fake photos as proof.

Article from Ars Comments. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-09/us-says-si...

waterlesscloud• 11 years ago

He was not.

He was convicted of the following-

Distribution/Aiding and Abetting the Distribution of Narcotics

Distribution/Aiding and Abetting the Distribution of Narcotics by Means of the Internet

Conspiracy to Distribute Narcotics

Continuing Criminal Enterprise

Conspiracy to Commit or Aid and Abet Computer Hacking

Conspiracy to Traffic in Fraudulent Identity Documents

Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering

EDIT. Neat. -3 points for posting nothing but factual information. Cool. I'll leave you all to it, then.

dragonwriter19• 11 years ago

Ulbricht was also convicted of hiring a hitman.

This is not quite true. While he was not charged in this trial with the most obvious offense that would flow from that (e.g., attempted murder, etc.), this was specifically charged as one of the overt acts of one of the conspiracy charges he was convicted of. But it wasn't the only overt act charged, and the guilty verdict doesn't include a finding on the individual overt acts charged separately. So, its not accurate to say he was convicted of hiring a hitman.

dragonwriter19• 11 years ago

Murderers get less than that.

Or the same. Or more, in the form of the death penalty.

iaw2• 11 years ago

I suspect that law enforcement's embarrassment over how long it took them to find him also had something to do with it. The equivalent of running from the police in a foot chase, they're going to punish you for it.

omegaham7• 11 years ago

"If the police have to come get you, they're bringing an ass-kicking with 'em."

hebdo7• 11 years ago

How do you know LSD is mostly harmless?

shit_parade24• 11 years ago

At least physically it one the safest known chemicals when comparing the amount needed to notice an effect and the LD50 rating.

thucydides• 11 years ago

A few years ago, David Nutt and other drug experts rated the relative harms of drugs and found LSD was among the least harmful.

These were the evaluation criteria: drug-specific and drug-related mortality, drug-specific and drug-related damage, dependence, drug-specific and drug-related impairment of mental functioning, loss of tangibles, loss of relationships, injury, crime, environmental damage, family adversities, international damage, economic cost, and community harm.

Infographic: http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/or...

Original study: Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis http://www.sg.unimaas.nl/_old/oudelezingen/dddsd.pdf

psykovsky4• 11 years ago

I could tell you a story... that at least corroborates that statement... but you wouldn't believe me anyway.

logfromblammo3• 11 years ago

I read the _Illuminatus!_ trilogy, and wondered if AUM could possibly be made real from a combination of already-known drugs. Following my curiosity taught me a great deal about natural and synthetic psychoactive drugs, and some of what I learned was not completely bogus.

As a result of my "research", LSD remains one of the few recreational drugs that I might ever consider trying in the future, given the correct circumstances.

It is certainly less harmful than nicotine, ethanol, and acetaminophen. But now that marijuana is legal in some states, I expect that it will soon displace LSD-25 as the least harmful recreational drug that I know about.

If you are also curious, my conclusion was that LSD-25 is probably present in AUM at a psychoactive, but non-hallucinogenic, dose, mostly as an adjuvant for the other ingredients. It would help bridge the gap between a drug known to have powerful, positive, short-term effects and one known to cause long-term but very unpredictable changes in behavior.

wz10004• 11 years ago

Yes, the Pickard bust[0] was an interesting example of this. A highly productive, extremely smart and insightful researcher was given two(!) life sentences(something even most violent criminals, rapists and murderers don't get) at a high security prison. His crime was manufacturing LSD, which has no recorded overdoses, is not addictive, and reports of it harming users are extremely rare. Here[1] is a brief account of his heartbreaking story, and here[2] is more information about him, also containing links to recent papers that he published.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/William-Pickard-s-long-s...

[2] https://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/pickard_leonard/

brotoss• 11 years ago

Fuck the war on drugs

programmernews32• 11 years ago

Fuck the drug dealers.

joshuapants• 11 years ago

You know the dealer, the dealer is a man

With a lot of grass in his hand

Ah but the pusher is a monster

Good god he's not a natural man

The dealer, for a nickel lord

He'll sell you lots of sweet dreams

Ah but the pusher'll ruin your body

Lord he'll leave, he'll leave your mind to scream

brandon2722• 11 years ago

It saddens me that acknowledging the war on drugs as being corrosive and detrimental is seen as extreme by mainstream modern society. Few seem to question extreme punishments for crimes related to the manufacture or distribution of drugs.

programmernews32• 11 years ago

This is a sentence for an internet kingpin, who is also a (would-be) murderer.

Retra2• 11 years ago

It's not that extreme of an opinion. What is extreme is thinking the Ross Ulbricht is somehow a champion against the war on drugs, or that his conviction should be considered as representative of a pattern.

Either way, people don't question these punishments because they don't fear them. And the don't fear them because they don't aspire to be drug lords or murderers.

serve_yay2• 11 years ago

But prosecutors, in their memo, argued that praising Silk Road for “harm reduction measures” was “akin to applauding a heroin dealer for handing out a clean needle with every dime bag: The point is that he has no business dealing drugs in the first place.”

Lovely.

Nadya8• 11 years ago

Mistaking some delusional world of zero crime doesn't do any good for people living in reality. That 'moral dealer' who hands out clean needles would be doing good. I guess the moral high-ground is ignoring the number of users who die or contract diseases from dirty needles? That's a pretty fucked perspective.

I see an issue with treating drug users (esp. recreational drug users) as somehow "less than human" because of their choices. If a heroin user dies or contracts disease from using a dirty needle, that is a sad thing and I would applaud a dealer who hands out clean needles to his clients to prevent it. Regardless of my stance on drugs and drug users.

serve_yay2• 11 years ago

Yes exactly, the reasoning proceeds from this silly world of "shoulds" which does not actually exist. In the actually-existing world, people buy drugs, and so there is value in addressing that demand as safely as possible. Instead we have cynical people like these, talking about how the real right thing is to just not sell drugs at all.

(And that's not even getting into the issue of whether we should be allowed to have drugs as supposedly free people)

FlaceBook2• 11 years ago

I see an issue with treating drug users (esp. recreational drug users) as somehow "less than human" because of their choices.

The justice system only sees them as "less than human" until they can conveniently be used to create an emotional scene which can be used as ammo against someone the government doesn't like.

See: the poor defenseless kid who would still be alive today if it weren't for the silk road forcing him to buy drugs and take them

javert4• 11 years ago

Gross miscarriage of justice. People have a right to buy drugs.

Every single government actor involved in this case is far more guilty than Ross and, frankly, they are the ones that deserve prison.

Yes, Ross should have realized you can't massively break the law and get away with it. He made a big mistake.

But the mistake he made was assuming that other people were more benevolent than they really are.

This young man viewed the world with a child-like, rosy-eyed perspective, and for that, he gets crushed by the boot of government brutality.

Disclaimer: I have no involvement with any dark nets or online drug trade.

edit: I don't know if he hired hitmen and if he did, I suspect it was in his own defense.

dragonwriter19• 11 years ago

Gross miscarriage of justice. People have a right to buy drugs.

Legally, they do not. If you have a problem with that, take it up with (relevant to the federal laws at issue here) the Congress.

murbard24• 11 years ago

That's very unlikely to work, now what?

Cushman3• 11 years ago

This comment defines the middlebrow dismissal.

Unless you live in a jurisdiction where the purchase of narcotics is legal (Mars?) the meaning of "People have a right to buy drugs" is quite clear.

In a world where the laws you invoke are responsible for so much suffering and death, to come in with a "Well, legally" and pretend the moral dimension does not exist is... well, I've already said what that is.

mindslight2• 11 years ago

I'd say that people have the right to partake in whatever mind altering substances they'd like even if 95% of others disagree. Your appeal to democratic collectivism is fallacious.

The rule of law and courts were supposed to protect such minorities (ie drug legalization through generalized privacy of Roe v Wade, and trade via the right to free speech). It's pretty fucked up that the legal system has rotted so thoroughly that the courts are harshly persecuting them while the majority of interested people dissent.

Then again, much of that rot is due to the "war on drugs" and its underlying philosophy that people exist to serve their government.

yarou2• 11 years ago

Legally, certain people were considered less equal than others. That doesn't make the law just in and of itself.

As for having a right to drugs, every man has a right to do what they please with their body.

dllthomas• 11 years ago

Often times breaking a bad law, and helping others to break it, is an important step in moving public opinion, which is how you take it up with the Congress.

wvenable2• 11 years ago

People have a right to buy drugs.

Actually they don't, which is kind of the point.

javert4• 11 years ago

Yes, they do, you just don't understand rights.

Rights are the things that we would all agree should be legally protected if we were all rational about it.

So they're a human construct, but they're still objective.

civilian4• 11 years ago

We're discussing rights given to us by the Laws of Nature, as understood by our founding fathers, not the meager rights dolled out by the federal government.

JoeAltmaier6• 11 years ago

He hired a hitman. He's a sociopath, and a suitable candidate for life in prison.

civilian4• 11 years ago

What makes him a sociopath?

rudolf0• 11 years ago

He doesn't seem like a sociopath. More like a power-hungry narcissist. He expressed regret and hesitation multiple times over (what he thought were) the murders, but simply insisted "it had to be done".

Not to detract from your point. I think he deserves life without parole for the attempted hits by themselves, ignoring every other charge. (Despite the fact that's not what he was convicted of.)

smhenderson2• 11 years ago

That seems way too harsh to me. I have strong opinions on the US War on Drugs and it's failure to meaningful deal with drug use/abuse in the USA. And I feel even worse about how it's spilling out into the rest of the world as we go "global" with everything.

I can't say I know every detail of the case but I don't recall anyone getting killed or even hurt by Mr. Ulbricht so in my mind the punishment does not fit the crime. IMHO the death penalty should be off the table completely (go Nebraska!) and life in prison reserved for only violent offenders. You can argue that he enabled people to harm themselves but I think that's stretching it. If people want to take drugs, even take too much drugs their going to get it somewhere. If drugs were legal and treatment of abuse the focus instead of punishment Silk Road wouldn't have existed in the first place.

TylerE• 11 years ago

There was lots of sleazy stuff going down on SR totally unrelated to drugs...stolen credit cards, weapons, etc.

my-bullshit-job2• 11 years ago

Weapons were never on silk road, iirc.

drcode2• 11 years ago

You have to understand that the "murder for hire" evidence was introduced as part of the trial (at which point Ross' lawyer could have disputed it, but didn't) so it could be used as part of the sentencing decision... and that kind of takes the luster off of the "non-violent crime" argument.

Cantremeber• 11 years ago

Plus, it happened multiple times. Even if no one was actually killed the guy still tried to have multiple people killed.

BoardsOfCanada13• 11 years ago

There was no such thing introduced for the trial. It was in the original press release, then it was withdrawn. Maybe it was because of Mark Force's transgressions, or maybe it was just for effect. Regardless, he never got the chance to defend himself against those particular allegations.

smhenderson2• 11 years ago

Yeah, I've been seeing the other comments about that. As I said I'm not 100% up to speed on the details. I'd like to see more evidence that he actually was being convicted of that though and not just that it was a factor in determining sentencing. I don't doubt it's possible he was trying to contract a hit but the stories about the FBI stinging him, etc. make me a bit suspicious.

user_0001• 11 years ago

He should have called it collateral damage. Isn't that the term preferred for killing people that get in your way, but is a legally sanctioned killing and not prosecutable?

worklogin• 11 years ago

From the articles I've read, this was not part of the sentencing.

icelancer3• 11 years ago

He allegedly hired someone to kill multiple people, by the way.

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-boss...

I agree with you that drug trafficking is way overprosecuted, but...

izacus• 11 years ago

So alleged hearsay is now enough to raise the sentence to a life in prison in US? O.o

copsarebastards4• 11 years ago

Hey everybody, icelander hired someone to kill multiple people.

Hey icelander, now you, too have allegedly hired someone to kill multiple people.

nazgul1• 11 years ago

What is really interesting about this transcript is the people are named in full, with some addresses and other details (married, etc.) The hits, I'm assuming, were fake because the contact was undercover, but what happened with the targets? Did the one threatening him have to play along and no longer send the threatening e-mails once the undercover told him the job was done? Were they prosecuted in any way?

Nadya8• 11 years ago

See: Portugal

Instead of imprisoning for drug usage - provide treatment and rehab. It's cheaper and has better results. One could argue culture differences in drug usage, but that looks like an attempt to "knock it before you try it".

That's without going into how broken the US prison system is! See: privately owned prisons that require a quota to be filled [0].

[0] http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/article/criminal-how-lock...

fat0wl• 11 years ago

There is a huge legal difference between getting caught doing drugs vs facilitating the trafficking of mass quantities of controlled substances. I don't think casual marijuana smokers should get all up in arms like "hey man they are just going after everybody now!", do they offer the same support to heroin cartels?

Even if you're against the war on drugs I don't think you should really take it as a personal slight when someone operating on this scale gets arrested. Unless you really 100% believe that distribution of heavy narcotics doesn't damage society.

Spooky233• 11 years ago

So if someone opened a website in Portugal and sold illegal drugs, weapons and stolen financial data, that person would be looking at a few months of talk therapy?

Don't think so.

tzs5• 11 years ago

See: privately owned prisons that require a quota to be filled

That's not quite correct. The contracts do not require that a certain number of prisoners be kept in the prison. They require that a certain number be paid for. The contracts are essentially of the form that the state will pay $X to house up to Y prisoners, and $Z/prisoner for any prisoners beyond Y prisoners.

Since private prisons are only a small fraction of the prisons, the people that should be most annoyed by this are the employees of state run prisons. If crime goes down in a state and they want to close a prison to save money they most likely will make sure to fill the private prison first (since they are already paying for it) and cut staff at the state prisons.

(NOTE: this does NOT mean I'm saying private prisons are fine--just that contracts that guarantee a minimal payment regardless of occupancy are not necessarily bad. Private organizations tend to have less oversight than state run organizations, so it would not at all surprise me if the private prisons have staff that are not as well trained or as accountable as state prison staff. If I were setting up a prison system and it was going to allow private prisons, I'd probably require that the warden be appointed by and employed by and answer to the state, not the prison owner, and has the ability to fire private prison employees who are in jobs that involve direct interaction with the prisoners. I'd also require penalty clauses in the contracts that reduce payments if conditions are not at least as good as those required of state prisons.

It would be interesting to look at the strength of whatever public employee union represents state prison employees in each state, and see if there is a significant correlation between that and state use of private prisons. I'd expect weaker unions would increase the chances of private prisons.

maxlybbert2• 11 years ago

I don't believe the death penalty was ever a possibility, following Kennedy v. Louisiana ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_v._Louisiana , "the power of the state to impose the death penalty against an individual for committing a crime that did not result in the death of the victim is now limited to crimes against the state (e.g. espionage, treason).")

bradleyjg• 11 years ago

The full quote was: "Our concern here is limited to crimes against individual persons. We do not address, for example, crimes defining and punishing treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity, which are offenses against the State."

(emphasis added)

pera2• 11 years ago

Indeed. This is an exemplary jail sentence: in theory it should be possible to create a perfect dark market, and there is nothing that the FBI can do about it, so they have to implant fear to try to reduce the amount of people who are willing to create the next SR...

pakled_engineer4• 11 years ago

I would say that theory would only stand if you lived in Russia, were politically connected, never left Russian territories, and never allowed any sales to CIS/Russian territories. Note the part about being politically connected because the Russian militsia (or w/e they are called these days) will simply be tipped off by the FBI to your whereabouts and go shake you down for hefty taxes. Even if two countries officially don't have any extradition or other MLAT type treaties doesn't mean there isn't low level negotiation between law enforcement, or straight up bribes by the FBI to have local PD shut you down. Maybe you could move to Crimea or Donetsk Republic and get NAF to be your personal bodyguards.

I think it's pretty much impossible to run that kind of a global darkmarket otherwise. Even if you were the world's most experienced sysadmin and could lock down your server(s) (and NSA/FBI httpd/nginx/apache 0day doesn't apply) you still have to worry about Bitcoin laundering and many other issues, you'd have to run around like Jason Bourne everyday and nobody can sustain that discipline without making mistakes. You only have to make one mistake and you're joining Ross at ADX Florence (where he's likely going, nobody convicted of the "Kingpin" charge ends up anywhere else besides supermax prisons)

bdcravens2• 11 years ago

I agree. In all likelihood, he'll be found guilty on the murder for hire, which is yet to be tried: give him 20 on the drug marketplace, since he'll likely get life on the murder for hire.

downandout• 11 years ago

While I also think this is excessive, within the context of the federal sentencing guidelines, this is a proportionate sentence. Because of the amount of drugs involved, along with enhancements for actual or threatened violence during the commission of the crimes and using a computer based "mass-marketing" model to distribute the drugs, the guidelines recommended a sentence of 30 years to Life. Given that there were only aggravating and no mitigating factors, it's easy to see how the judge arrived at life.

tinkerrr• 11 years ago

In addition to the murders for hire that the other commentators mentioned, the prosecution presented 6 case studies of people dying because of drug overdoses/other related effects of drugs bought on silk road. The prosecution also had two parents in two of these cases come to court to give a statement, one from Boston and one from Australia.

jabscam20135• 11 years ago

How the fuck is that relevant? How many people died last year from taking too much aspirin they bought at Walmart?

Spooky233• 11 years ago

He ordered the killings of 6 people.

Even by the bloodiest of bleeding heart standards, contract killing isn't some victimless crime.

jMyles2• 11 years ago

Not everyone is convinced this happened.

Squarel3• 11 years ago

Well, it helps if you are sentenced for things you are convicted of then.

Because, even by the "Hang them by the neck until they are dead" gung-ho standards, you generally have to be convicted of something before being punished for it.

jamoes• 11 years ago

He was charged with murder-for-hire in a separate jurisdiction, and he hasn't faced trial for those charges yet. Today he was sentenced to life in prison for a number of victimless crimes.

tomjen3• 11 years ago

For which he was duly convicted.

Oh right he wasn't. He was convicted solely for selling drugs, and sentenced for being a geek.

Make no mistake about it - the world hate us, it just tolerates us right now because we are effective and need.

hristov• 11 years ago

In addition to the murder for hire plots, apparently five people died after using drugs purchased on silk road.

gwern9• 11 years ago

The prosecution didn't make a very good case for the 5 deaths; a lot of missing information and they were using other drugs and had other health issues.

vacri2• 11 years ago

The US War on Drugs is ridiculously harmful and shortsighted, absolutely. But the sentencing is consistent with US policy, however wrong it is. People are getting two-figure sentences for carrying small amounts of drugs themselves. Someone who facilitates the selling of an illegal product on a much wider scale should not get a lighter sentence.

The whole concept behind the War on Drugs sucks, but this sentence is consistent. If it were a shorter sentence, then it'd be similar to the legal inconsistency around cocaine: the form wealthy white people tend to use (powder cocaine) is much less penalised than the form poor and minority people tend to use (crack cocaine), because...?

smoyer• 11 years ago

I agree that's it's simply too harsh. I share a bit of his Libertarian views, although as I've grown older I've realized that there's no way the Libertarian philosophy could ever form the paradise many of its practitioners describe.

7952• 11 years ago

Surely drug traffickers in the USA are complicit with the US Government? They respond to one injustice (victimisation of users) by inflicting another injustice (drug cartel violence). They exploit the law to further their own interests at the expense of innocent bystanders. Yet you act like this guy is some activist who has never hurt anyone!

iblaine• 11 years ago

Life without parole seems excessive. I think they're trying to make an example out of him due to how hard it is to detect and prosecute this type of crime.

rl3• 11 years ago

The Bloomberg story[1] had some excellent excerpts from sentencing:

U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan rejected Ulbricht’s claim that he was naive and impulsive when he started Silk Road as an economic experiment.

“It was a carefully planned life’s work,” Forrest told him Friday. “It was your opus.”

and:

Ulbricht, who plans an appeal, asked for mercy in a May 26 letter to the judge. He called Silk Road a “naive and costly idea” that had ruined his life.

“I’ve had my youth, and I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age,” Ulbricht wrote. “Please, leave a small light at the end of the tunnel.”

So much for mercy.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-29/silk-road-...

RockyMcNuts2• 11 years ago

It's life, not life without parole. He'll get paroled, eventually.

People should read some of the background, including haggling over the cost of a murder for hire. - http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/

Truth is, it's hard to run this sort of thing without getting ripped off, and then violence is the only way to discourage people from ripping you off. Watch Godfather movies, esp. part 2... Mafias arise out of human nature and the nature of the game.

One of the many ironies of libertarian extremists is that actions which are considered illegitimate when taken by a democratic government become OK when taken by concentrated private power to protect private property.

tedunangst3• 11 years ago

Last I heard federal parole isn't a thing.

dreamdu5t• 11 years ago

One of the many ironies of libertarian extremists is that actions which are considered illegitimate when taken by a democratic government become OK when taken by concentrated private power to protect private property.

Huh? Libertarian extremists do not condone murder or murder-for-hire. Most libertarian extremists also support proportional self-defense and damages doctrine (Rothbard et al) so would not consider murdering someone who steals from you acceptable.

mmanfrin• 11 years ago

and that at least six deaths were attributable to drugs bought on the site. The government recommended a sentence “substantially above” the 20-year minimum.

Man, that is a bit of a mental stretch to blame drug ODs on the runner of a forum. He did not make the drugs, sell the drugs, or transfer the drugs, but the prosecutors faulted him in the OD of people who used those drugs?

lfuller• 11 years ago

I agree. By that logic, the directors of the country's top liquor producers should get the death penalty.

gburt• 11 years ago

Not to mention liquor stores, Walmart, Bayer AG, anyone who's ever manufactured a gun or a knife, ...

kiba• 11 years ago

The cost of imprisoning someone as of 2010: 31,000 USD per years.[1]

Ross is 31 years old, so he may live for 40 years. That mean imprisoning this man will cost the US taxpayer 1.4 million USD in lifetime cost.

This doesn't take into account opportunity cost, expenses for trial, the cost of the drug war, and so on.

[1] http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/inside-criminal-justice/2...

wmf• 11 years ago

The government seized Bitcoin worth many millions from him, so they're still ahead.

Tinyyy• 11 years ago

Which came from the people anyways…?

jjcm• 11 years ago

It's interesting. On one hand, if a leader of a traditional drug distribution network landed a life in prison sentence, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. With Silkroad though, I'm actually convinced by the defendants argument: that it provided safer, more trustworthy drugs to users.

I've had friends who've died from purchasing bad drugs at raves from people who were looking to make money and run. In one situation it ended up being rat poison. The guy had other drugs in his system, and combined with the poison his body went into shock. With darknet markets and independent lab testing networks, this type of thing doesn't happen.

People are still going to use drugs. I'd rather law enforcement go after the guys who are selling rat poison at raves than the guys who are setting up safe distribution networks.

drcode2• 11 years ago

Though I agree with you about the "safer drugs" argument, Ross' site was the worst possible thing that could happen to the supporters of safe, anonymous marketplaces- The evidence that he was willing to use brutal mob-style violence to support his business has yet to be disputed by anyone in a credible way.

mindslight2• 11 years ago

Given that he was creating jurisdiction from scratch, it makes sense to compare him to other such entities. USG, for example, will often murder people (overt wars and covert actions) for them simply not wanting to do business.

MichaelGG3• 11 years ago

His mistake was shitty opsec - he should not have allowed any third parties into a position where they could extort him. However, after the fact, if you're facing someone threatening to imprison and destroy the lives of many vendors and patients, then what is the lesser evil? The extortionist choose to attempt to endanger people. You can't use the state. What other ethical choice is there?

I'm not saying this is the case for Ross, but it's a possibility, at least for one of the contracts. Using violence to protect innocents is not something bad. It's just unfortunate he created the situation in the first place - instead of an extortionist, he may have confided in a LEO, thus hurting his users. (Which is apparently what happened.)

Anyways, the big lesson is that when your startup has major security requirements, go slow and don't break things. There's no real reason he shouldn't be retired now, enjoying his life while enhancing others. Just technical incompetence.

cjensen3• 11 years ago

Harm reduction is a reasonable argument for a Country to make for changing its drug policies, or for a person to make in an effort to advocate for a change to a Country's laws.

It is not a reasonable argument for an individual to make to try to justify their illegal get-rich scheme.

bdcravens2• 11 years ago

This.

Whether true or not, the intention behind drug laws is physical harm and addiction. Additional harms like risk of violence or overdoses due to impurities are secondary at best.

Unless there's judicial activism going on, making that admission is pretty much just handing the keys to freedom over. Why even bother with a trial? Should have done a plea bargain.

Cushman3• 11 years ago

It really is.

If the law is hurting people, and breaking the law helps people, it's completely reasonable to use that argument to morally justify your illegal behavior. I'd be interested to hear your argument why it is not.

Edit: Though to be clear that wouldn't work to justify all your illegal behavior, if that included like hypothetically trying to have someone killed.

Rhapshe• 11 years ago

Well, I'm glad you're convinced, because I'm certainly not nor does it appear that the judge was either.

"Forrest rejected arguments that Silk Road had reduced harm among drug users by taking illegal activities off the street. “No drug dealer from the Bronx has ever made this argument to the court. It’s a privileged argument and it’s an argument made by one of the privileged,” she said"

Nadya8• 11 years ago

No drug dealer from the Bronx was reviewed by buyers for all to see before making a deal with them. Arguably, a dealer from the Bronx would be on the streets so couldn't make that defense in the first place... so the comparison doesn't hold up.

It’s a privileged argument and it’s an argument made by one of the privileged

I'm unsure what this is even supposed to mean. I tried searching for a definition of "privileged argument" and found nothing. My search phrase was:

"privileged argument" -white -race -racial -feminist

If someone can explain what was meant by this statement, that would be nice and I'd appreciate it.

alexisnorman• 11 years ago

  With darknet markets and independent lab testing networks, this type of thing doesn't happen.

I agree that darknet markets are safer than traditional drug markets, but the poisoning risks can still apply. There was recently a huge flux of PMA being distributed as molly on Agora and other markets from sellers who have known to be reputable in the past. If you know anyone that is purchasing this stuff, encourage them to always test it themselves before using.

rhino3694• 11 years ago

How do Darknet networks solve contamination and false labeling issues? You are buying from an anonymous seller.

nikcub• 11 years ago

The sellers aren't anonymous, they have identities and buyers select sellers based on their reputations. There is a power law distribution in sales with reputable sellers capturing a large part of the market.

abvdasker• 11 years ago

Maybe I've watched Scarface one too many times, but I think the reason leaders of traditional drug distribution networks get life sentences is because they frequently resort to brutally violent means of running and defending their drug operations. Because they hold the supply of drugs rather than simply being a two-sided marketplace like the Silk Road, they have to physically defend that supply and the locations which house it (from rival organizations, the Police, etc). In a way, not only were the drugs being sold on the Silk Road safer, but the process of selling drugs was probably safer.

EDIT: This argument would probably hold up a lot better if Ulbricht hadn't tried to have people killed. sigh

armadafoot• 11 years ago

An important thing to remember is that SR did NOT just sell drugs. They also sold hacking tools, identity theft kits, credit card fraud kits, and weapons.

It was not a harm-free marketplace. It was basically 'whichever criminal shit made him money' marketplace and drugs happened to top the list.

LOL @ getting down voted by Libertarians for a COMPLETELY TRUE statement that they wish wasn't true because it fucks up their bullshit narrative.

path4112• 11 years ago

Did SR actively promote these specific categories of goods you are talking about or just freely allow sellers to sell whatever they wanted?

RivieraKid• 11 years ago

Wow, that's almost unbelievable and very sad. I mean, it's questionable whether he caused any actual harm.

JoeAltmaier6• 11 years ago

Hiring a hitman?

tghw3• 11 years ago

That's just a rumor until he's convicted of it.

redwood• 11 years ago

His trailblazing has parallels to Sean Parker.

Of course, liberating music was hardly as valuable to society as removing the need for bloodbaths to distribute drugs. But what are you going to do.

Touche3• 11 years ago

He didn't quite remove that need according to prosecution evidence.

OceanPowers2• 11 years ago

"liberating music" - what planet do you inhabit?

iaw2• 11 years ago

I'm not sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, the kid rolled the dice in a high stakes game and was fully penalized. On the other hand, the logical basis behind the prohibition of illicit substances seems flawed.

I wonder how things would have turned out without the murder for hire angle.

JanSolo2• 11 years ago

On the surface the sentence seems a bit steep doesn't it? I expect it's because he attempted to have at least two people killed. I don't think either case succeeded but there was clearly intent to murder.

facepalm• 11 years ago

For what charges exactly - did they sentence him for murder or planned murder now? Or just for distributing narcotics? It seems rather weird.

amyjess3• 11 years ago

Here's a list I found:

Narcotics trafficking, distribution of narcotics by means of the Internet, and conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identification documents, participation in narcotics trafficking conspiracy, continuing criminal enterprise, computer hacking conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2014/08/25/alleged-si...

creativityhurts• 11 years ago

You can find the list in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9627092

tshaddox2• 11 years ago

Judge Forrest told Mr. Urlbricht that “what you did in connection with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric.”

That's one of the most ridiculous claims I have seen in a while.

api2• 11 years ago

That's the basis of the war on drugs. If it were about health soft drinks, cigarettes, junk food, and hard liquor would be treated like narcotics. If it were about preventing addiction, casinos would not be allowed to use cognitive neuroscience to optimize slot machines.

America, for all its prattle about freedom and individualism, is like most other societies an authoritarian collectivist state. Freedom is just a symbol, not a real thing.

You are allowed freedom within certain domains as long as you don't do anything too challenging to the "social fabric." If you do, a whole host both legal and quasi-legal options are deployed against you. Search for "cointelpro" for a good historical example. If you can't be legally prosecuted, you'll be quasi-legally or even illegally harassed and persecuted.

Alcohol is far worse than many illegal drugs, but it's legal because "normal" people use it. You can't make being a hippie illegal, but you can intensely prosecute certain things that hippies do. You can't make being black illegal, but you can do the same there -- crack and cocaine are exactly the same chemical, but crack carries a harsher sentence because minorities use it while rich white people largely use cocaine.

The reason a lot of this coalesced around drugs is that the constitution has nothing to say in that department. You can't ban religions, or speech, or styles of dress, but there's nothing in there about a right to sovereignty over your body, and the regulation of trade is explicitly permitted. So drugs, being something that correlates with certain cultures, serves as a wide open legal vehicle for attacking minority populations.

fixermark2• 11 years ago

More telling: alcohol was for a time illegal in the United States, and that law was repealed after observing the effect it had on the social order.

omgitstom2• 11 years ago

If it did, they should be able to prove it with some data. SR shut down in 2013, did they see a cliff of less ODs / deaths in hospitals?

But yea, I believe it is ridiculous as well, but the court needed to voice their opinion with the sentence.

baddox6• 11 years ago

If you want data about damage to society, just look at basically any statistic related to the war on drugs.

gwern9• 11 years ago

did they see a cliff of less ODs / deaths in hospitals?

If they didn't, wouldn't necessarily show anything. BMR and Sheep began picking up the drug sales slack immediately, and were around because SR1 had proven the business model worked fantastically well.

tghw3• 11 years ago

Exactly. If anything, Silk Road seems to have made both acquiring and taking drugs safer. Prohibition doesn't work, so why not take steps to make the things people are going to do anyway safer, especially when they can only injure themselves?

rayiner3• 11 years ago

I think the sentence is obscene. I doubt my teachers growing up, who would shriek "just say no!" at school assemblies, feel the same way. I imagine they find the idea of little Johnny being able to buy meth over the Internet terrifying. Guess who votes. It's like stoning people for adultery in the Middle East. You have to really figure out why people consider drug use such an existential threat to the community to figure out why they suoport such harsh enforcement of these laws.

kevinskii• 11 years ago

tptacek's comment [1] makes a convincing argument that Ross's attempts to hire a hitman were a legitimate factor in his sentencing. If so, then a life sentence seems quite fair based on what I've read.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9627094

haberman4• 11 years ago

I don't know enough about this story to have an overall opinion, but this particular exchange made me angry:

His lawyer, Joshua L. Dratel, in submissions to the judge, argued that the website’s “harm reduction” ethos made it safer than traditional drug dealing on the street.
But prosecutors, in their memo, argued that praising Silk Road for “harm reduction measures” was “akin to applauding a heroin dealer for handing out a clean needle with every dime bag: The point is that he has no business dealing drugs in the first place.”

When one side of the argument is based in real-world impacts, and the other side has nothing but an appeal to existing rules, it's a pretty good indication that the rules need changing.

It's an infuriating power play to say "you had no business doing that" if you can't come up with a good reason why not.

nemo44x2• 11 years ago

Well, I believe the reason is because it is against the law.

On a side note, I do think if a heroin dealer gave away a clean needle, that would be commendable.

rayiner3• 11 years ago

People support keeping drugs (with the exception of marijuana) by 70-80%. Presumably they have their reasons. They vote. It's not the prosecutor's place to justify or explain the law.

haberman4• 11 years ago

See my reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9627467

anigbrowl2• 11 years ago

Bear in mind that prosecutors have a professional duty to zealously argue the government's case just as the defense lawyers have a duty to zealously argue for innocence or lenity of their clients. Unfortunately judges no longer have that much discretion to weigh the competing arguments because of the mandatory sentencing guidelines Congress came up with. It has since been established by the Supreme Court that the guidelines are just guidelines rather than being binding, but sadly any judge that says 'these guidelines are crap, I've considered them and now I'm going to ignore them' is committing career suicide unless the high sentence would be so bizarre as to truly shock the conscience.

And the American legal conscience unfortunately has a very high shock threshold these days, as does the population in general. I mean, look at how many people cheerfully support torture despite the massive intellectual and ethical pitfalls involved. Many of those people are also indifferent to the Constitutional basis of the judicial branch and start foaming at the mouth any time a court says a piece of legislation is unconstitutional.

haberman4• 11 years ago

My understanding is that this entire discussion is in the context of sentencing, and that the defense's argument here is in that context.

If the defense had made the harm reduction argument in the context of the guilty/not-guilty question, that would be one thing. But in the sentencing phase, it seems appropriate to take into account the actual harm of the crimes involved.

When the prosecution's answer to this discussion of harm is "it doesn't matter, it was illegal," that's when I get cranky.

schoen• 11 years ago

The Federal judges who apply the Sentencing Guidelines all "hold their Offices during good Behavior", so I kind of wonder what you mean by "career suicide" -- a reduced likelihood of elevation to a higher court?

dragonwriter19• 11 years ago

Unfortunately judges no longer have that much discretion to weigh the competing arguments because of the mandatory sentencing guidelines Congress came up with.

You mean the ones whose provision making them mandatory was struck down as a violation of the right to trial by jury in 2005, and which have since been advisory only? [0]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentencin...

srdev9• 11 years ago

When one side of the argument is based in real-world impacts, and the other side has nothing but an appeal to existing rules, it's a pretty good indication that the rules need changing.

One side is based on a "claimed" real-world impact. Its somewhat plausible but ultimately isn't backed by real evidence.

haberman4• 11 years ago

Sure but if the argument is in the realm of real-world impact, at least then it can be debated and the evidence weighed.

Maybe this "harm reduction" argument here is full of it, I don't know. All I'm saying is: if one side uses as their only argument "because I said so," then there is no real debate.

JanSolo2• 11 years ago

Perhaps if he had made even a token effort to not permit illegal sales on SilkRoad he'd be hailed as the new Jeff Bezos. Instead, he'll be denounced as a drug peddling fraudster. A shame; I thought his ideas had merit.

murbard24• 11 years ago

No, he'd have been a shitty competitor to eBay no one would have ever heard of. Illegality is/was the whole point.

kevinwang• 11 years ago

This sentence seems pretty disproportionate to the crime. Pretty fucked up at a human level too.

contingencies• 11 years ago

No surprises there. The libertarian defense is hard to hold once fat stashes of cash and murder come in to play: the US certainly did a good and legally questionable job on public character assassination prior to the sentencing!

That said, one can't help but wonder if perhaps the movement in which characters as diverse as Assange, Dotcom, Snowden, ThePirateBay and Ulbricht can be placed is too powerful to snub out with mere regulatory reactionism... particularly given the economic state of much of the educated world and the imminent environmental challenges we face as a planet.

If there's one thing that the study of complex systems teach us, it's that there is strength in heterogeneity. Perhaps it's time for America to change its tune and stop pressuring countries worldwide to overpolice their populations in myriad ways (drugs, internet piracy, IP laws). May we live to see more enlightened times, progressive approaches to state-sponsored social remediation, and less of this nationalism "my way or the highway" / "with us or against us" claptrap that Einstein so eloquently summarized: Nationalism is an infantile disease: the measles of mankind.

codecamper4• 11 years ago

Amazing. Write software, make billions. Write some other software, get life in prison.

knodi123• 11 years ago

Incredible. Fire a gun at a deer, get meat. Fire a gun at a baby, get life in prison.

Intransigent. Set a log on fire, keep warm. Set a house on fire, get convicted of insurance fraud and arson.

codecamper4• 11 years ago

I was just thinking what it may have been like from his perspective. To him, it was the same set of actions as was required to start something like AirBnb or some such. You write software. You get your initial users, etc. You get feedback & you loop.

With the same set of actions & work, pointing in a different direction, he could have done quite well for himself working on another idea.

I'm guessing his biggest downfall really was in having an aversion to working with others. He could work with others at a startup and make some great stuff & quite possibly do well. Instead, he chose a more sure fire approach to making money on his own -- with the morality and legality of what he was doing as the cost.

OceanPowers2• 11 years ago

specious argumentation. nobody cares about 'software' one way or the other. SR was a 'service' that broke many, many laws.

mdonahoe• 11 years ago

I don't read this as an argument at all. I read it as a reflection on the power of software.

srdev9• 11 years ago

This is not the slightest bit amazing. You're being purposely obtuse by removing any and all context here.

vvpan2• 11 years ago

"What you did in connection with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric".

That sounds like something from the 19th century.

r0naa• 11 years ago

I think that this is completely disproportionate. He is being treated as if he was a serial killer or a mob-boss. Hell, even Al Capone was only sentenced to 11 years in Prison.

eropple2• 11 years ago

Capone was sentenced to eleven years for tax evasion, not more serious criminal offenses.

bediger40002• 11 years ago

Right, but everyone knew that he'd had people whacked, and maybe even done some whacking himself.

Just like the not-very-explicit "murder for hire" used to justify the astonishing sentence given Ulbricht.

codecamper4• 11 years ago

I'd say it's an unfair sentence, given that with bitcoin & a decentralized approach, it is unlikely that future versions of this sort of thing will be stoppable by any centralized government. They stopped & sued Napster. Did it stop file sharing? I think the government misplayed their cards -- again. Better to have partnered with Ulbricht -- and had a part in creating whatever future version of the market would be. Better to get some market share in whatever comes next -- then make some big busts that way.

zf000022• 11 years ago

it is unlikely that future versions of this sort of thing will be stoppable by any centralized government

Silk road 2 has already been busted.

AndrewUnmuted• 11 years ago

What about Abraxas, BlackBank, Agora, KISS, Outlaw, East India Company, Babylon, Oxygen, The Real Deal, Bloomsfield, and The Crypto Market?

michaelby2• 11 years ago

Everyone seems to be looking at this as some sort of travesty of justice. However, there is significant evidence that he tried to order hits on people. While there's no (public) evidence that he successfully murdered anyone, he clearly had lost his regard for human life.

We're in a day and age where people can cause tremendous harm to others using their mind alone, without throwing a punch or pulling a trigger. Just because he didn't personally cause physical harm to people doesn't mean he can't cause it to happen!

I think it's important for society to be protected from people with his mindset.

imh• 11 years ago

From other comments, it seems he wasn't tried for that stuff though. I don't think it's a good thing to include considerations in sentencing that he wasn't tried for. If there's evidence he did that, and you want to put him away for a long time because of it, then try him for it!

Punishing him for that without trying him for it seems like punishment without trial, which is bad. The alternative is that this punishment is just for nonviolent stuff, for which it seems excessive.

wyager• 11 years ago

This sentencing had nothing to do with the alleged hiring of a hitman. That accusation should have absolutely no bearing on this sentence.

zanny3• 11 years ago

His convictions were for hacking (and I'd love to know the details on that... who exactly did Ross hack?) criminal enterprise conspiracy, and narcotics trafficking. The closing is in a pdf somewhere up the thread.

No attempted murder charges though.

This man is literally going to jail forever on the charge of proividing people a place to buy opium. Maybe he tried to hire hits, but that didn't make the final conviction list, though some in this thread are trying to say that "narcotics conspiracy" is a broader charge that somehow? includes murder for hire charges.

gr8b8m8-88• 11 years ago

So let's get this straight for the justice system:

1. misleading the American public into going to a series of costly wars through lies about WMDs -> not punishable

2. Weakening Glass-Stegal and encouraging questionable and irresponsible risk-taking at major banking institutions -> not punishable

3. Fraudulent evaluation of risk-ratings by trusted agencies for the sake of profit leading to worst financial disaster since great depression -> not punishable, actually, rewarded with billions in bail-out by tax payers

4. setting up and running a website to host underground drug trade with bitcoins -> punishable by life-sentence

Not that what Ulbricht did was right or that he shouldn't be punished... but his biggest problem was that his business didn't generate enough profit at the expense of the public. Justice might be blind, but even she can still smell money.

tizzdogg• 11 years ago

I would change "not punishable" to "not punished". Sure you could be punished for all those things, but there just isnt enough political will to do so. Ulbricht's error was being a criminal whose punishment affects nobody in power.

pvaldes• 11 years ago

I can't upvote this enough times... Yup, you really nailed it.

rhino3694• 11 years ago

1. There is no evidence to support purposeful lying about WMDs. Bush admin rushed the intelligence agency and relied on Yes Men to build their story. I'm sure there was some law breaking going on but good luck identifying who what and when.

2. Glass Stegal wouldn't have prevented shit. In fact the combination banks Glass Stegal would have prevented--BoA and Chase--were the banks who were strong enough to absorb the shitty failed banks--merill and lehman--that were often just investment banks.

Taking irresponsible risks isn't a crime either.

3) No evidence of fraud. These agencies trusted the financial models and those models didn't work.

Fuckups aren't punished in our society the way intentional law breaking is.

Should be guillotine every founder whose company fails?

baddox6• 11 years ago

Should be guillotine every founder whose company fails?

Guillotine, probably not, but I'm okay with punishing every "founder" of a "company" that errantly spends billions of tax dollars on weaponry and uses it to kill tens of thousands of innocent people.

defen• 11 years ago

Maybe a better example is the tobacco companies. They were convicted of a 50 year conspiracy to mislead the public about the health dangers of smoking, an activity that has led to trillions of dollars in health care costs and the deaths of literally millions of people in that span (in the US alone). No one went to jail for this...the companies "just" had to pay a $200 billion dollar fine (global annual tobacco sales revenue is estimated at $500 billion).

asveikau• 11 years ago

I'm sure there was some law breaking going on but good luck identifying who what and when.

Not meaning to go off on a political tangent, but it seems to me like there was a conscious effort not to ask such questions in an official capacity.

Imagine an alternate universe where we had Watergate-style hearings when Pelosi/Reid took over in 2007, or when the Obama administration started in 2009. In some circles, some people wanted that, and I think rightly or wrongly politicians decided it was not worth it. Easy to forget now, but it was certainly in political discourse 6 to 9 years ago.

dragonwriter19• 11 years ago

1. misleading the American public into going to a series of costly wars through lies about WMDs -> not punishable

Debatable. The justice system hasn't found that, no charges have been filed within the justice system over them.

Weakening Glass-Stegal and encouraging questionable and irresponsible risk-taking at major banking institutions -> not punishable

While again this is untested directly, the legislative privilege in the Constitution makes this pretty clearly not punishable through the justice system. The punishment that can be dealt out for this is at the ballot box, not through the justice system.

benihana• 11 years ago

Also let's not forget:

5. Apples are red

6. Oranges are orange

You're comparing facts: "Ulbricht ran The Silk Road," with your own conjecture: "Banks encouraged 'questionable' risk taking." You're making a lot of extraordinary claims that are very very difficult to prove with no evidence to back them up.

And you're using this conjecture as evidence of... something? You don't really make a point. You just repeat popular internet tropes.

tomelders• 11 years ago

I think the deeper point is that people feel there's a disconnect from the perceived damage an action incurs and the punishment assigned to it. Rightly or wrongly that's how people feel, and what is the law for in the end?

brandon2722• 11 years ago

There's plenty of evidence that banks intentionally mislead consumers through predatory lending schemes, signing them for (and misrepresenting the terms of) loans that they knew that the borrower would not be able to pay back. They did so under the explicit premise that the bad mortgages would be lumped in with other investment products and then sold off.

A lot of people were defrauded. The economy is still trying to recover. I don't think people who lost homes or are struggling to find work and make ends meet would consider any of this to be an internet trope.

pdkl952• 11 years ago

0. Torturing civilians - including torturing some to DEATH, aka murder - in a futile attempt to emotionally lash out at people who may have been involved in 9/11

... even though it was well know torture does not produce useful intelligence

... and having ratified (in 1994) the Convention Against torture which includes a duty to prosecute or extradite

... and 18 U.S. Code § 2340A being amended by the "PATRIOT Act" - before the torture occured - to include clause (c) which allows charges and all punishments (except death) to include anyone who conspires to comit torture

-> not even an attempt to prosecute

/* is there a clearer, more obvious way to demonstrate how the US no longer cares about the "rule of law"? perhaps, but I can't think of anything that would top what the CIA has already done /

/* before anybody replies with idiotic claims that somehow it is ok to torture foreigners with claims relating to jurisdictional boundaries, I suggest actually read 18 U.S. Code § 2340A (b) */

sudioStudio64• 11 years ago

The thing that you need to take from this is the state re-asserting its primacy in the face of an incredibly disruptive* technology. I think that even if Ulbricht hadn't attempted to have people murdered the penalty would have been extreme. When challenged bureaucracy over compensates...through that lens the governments actions in several areas is explainable if not just.

* I'm sorry for using the word "disruptive".

icelancer3• 11 years ago

I'm sorry for using the word "disruptive".

I have the same amount of guilt you do when I use that word. But in this case I think it was probably the best word. Annoying when normal words get reclassed into buzzwords.

wclax042• 11 years ago

Wouldn't the USPS/FedEx/UPS also be liable as a drug courrier?

argonaut2• 11 years ago

Not at all. I used to read the SR forums, and a common concern was dealing with packages getting inspected (without opening them - presumably drug sniffing dogs or some other drug detection mechanism) and then getting a letter/visit from the police. It was rare enough (and you had plausible deniability since anyone could have sent that package) that it wasn't a huge concern, though.

TazeTSchnitzel4• 11 years ago

No, because they took reasonable precautions and tried to stop drug parcels etc.

They're not liable because a few snook through their defences. They'd be liable if they had no defences.

srdev9• 11 years ago

No. Intent and context matters. USPS/FedEx/UPS are businesses that primarily perform legal services, and follow US laws when its discovered that they were used for illicit purposes. On the other hand, Silk Road was built from the bottom up as a black market to service illegal goods. The idea that they just provided an anonymous marketplace and that unfortunately had illegal stuff happen on it is transparent lie that ignores the work Ross and his team put into promoting it as a drug marketplace.

Context and intent are important and laws aren't computer programs.

cryoshon• 11 years ago

FTA: "Judge Forrest told Mr. Urlbricht that “what you did in connection with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric.”"

Can't help but counter this claim by stating that buying drugs via Silk Road is probably not very destructive in any sane analysis, especially compared to street level drug dealing.

There's no corners to hold, no rivals to fight with territory over, no deals to go bad, no real access by minors, and no real impedance to the function of any tangible physical location or bystander.

soup10• 11 years ago

Edit: I didn't know he ordered ordered 5 hits before writing this post, but i'm going to leave it up. I guess he got desperate and crazy towards the end

Seriously. The way he invokes the words "our social fabric" makes it out like Forrest was personally affected. It's easy to imagine Urlbricht rehabilitating and becoming a productive member of society but instead his life has just been destroyed. It's not justice and it's not the right thing to do.

If one person decides to put another person in a cage for the rest of their life, it's clearly a horrendous stomach turning crime. It's no less horrendous when the justice system does it. But we've decided that it's a necessary evil that society requires. We should be working as a society to minimize the necessary evil and rehabilitate people but we're not and it's a tragedy.

ubernostrum2• 11 years ago

I didn't know he ordered ordered 5 hits before writing this post, but i'm going to leave it up. I guess he got desperate and crazy towards the end

Just to throw out an observation: the idea that being in this business kicked off a spiral of actions which led to him being "crazy and desperate" to the point of trying to have people killed is precisely the argument that's been made by people who support the drug war, about the slippery slope of consequences that follow from getting involved with drugs.

I am not sure why someone who so perfectly embodies the other side's narrative is being held up as a shining heroic example by supporters of legalization.

startupfounder• 11 years ago

Black markets exist because demand exists, whether we like it or not, whether we think it's good or bad. Black markets are self regulated and that is why you see so much violence in the illegal drug market. Restricting supply drives up prices and profit and increases incentives to increase supply. This is a vicious never ending cycle.

Ross was tempted by helping to increase supply. Maybe if we had a legal and regulated location where you could do any drugs but under the supervision of counselors we could help reduce demand and end the cycle.

I believe a church in the Netherlands did this in their basement. They provided discounted heroin that could only be used there and addicts reduced their consumption and had access to counselors.

I am not supporting what Ross did to give access to illegal drugs, I just believe because there is such demand trying to reduce supply is a losing battle where only law enforcement equipment supply companies win.

zanny3• 11 years ago

You don't really have to just believe. It isn't even the fifty years of historical evidence on the contrary in the US, it is how almost every nation south of the US boarder in our hemisphere has been systemically destroyed trying to supply all of the black market US drug needs.

placeybordeaux• 11 years ago

It looks like the lessons here are

1) Be careful how your promote your criminal enterprise (early bitcoin talk pages about silk road are from Ross)

2) Don't commit a crime to cover up a lesser crime (Covering up running silk road by trying to commit murder by hire)

3) regularaly check the IP of your service that is running a TOR site. Requests sent to that IP should have been blocked.

rhino3694• 11 years ago

The real lesson should be don't serious commit crimes. I don't know any organization that has never had a security fuck up.

bediger40002• 11 years ago

The real lesson should be don't serious commit crimes.

The whole of morality is not contained by the law. How about those folks who broke apartheid law by going to the University of Alabama? I stipulate that operational security is not exactly part of breaking apartheid laws, but still...

Copyright laws are going way way overboard. How about breaking those laws in order to expose corruption? That could happen, easily. "Don't commit serious crimes" is advice for the conformist.

vectorpush2• 11 years ago

The fact that he explicitly paid for the murder and torture of former employees and their roommates is enough for me to feel like life in prison is fair. Yes, an actual murder is a worse outcome than a murder-for-hire that never materialized, but if you're a rich and sophisticated drug-kingpin attempting to commission torture and murder to secure your criminal enterprise, the punishment should be the most severe. Murder is always a heinous crime, but in my view, it is more heinous to direct an organization that systematically orchestrates torture and murder for profit.

TazeTSchnitzel4• 11 years ago

It's also a case where I don't think the fact the hitmen were part of a sting would vindicate him. I can understand the argument you were pressured into buying drugs. But actually paying money to have someone murdered? That would pass a moral barrier most people have. You can't use the fact it's a sting as an opt-out there.

MichaelGG3• 11 years ago

Murder is terrible, sure. But if it was to save thousands of innocent vendors and customers, then perhaps it's justified. The government does exactly that every day. It's Ross's fault he allowed anyone into that position in the first place. But an extortionist was directly trying to ruin the lives of many people. It's not entirely different than shooting an intruder in your house.

geetee3• 11 years ago

You could make an argument that the alleged murder for hire attempts were simply self defense. The consequence of being exposed is life in prison, and I don't think any of us can say with certainty how far we'd go to avoid life in prison. It's not like he was trying to have innocent bystanders murdered. If selling drugs was not a crime, there would be no opportunity for blackmail, and nobody to silence.

geetee3• 11 years ago

I knew it wouldn't be a popular angle, but maybe some counterpoints along with those down votes please?

Natsu17• 11 years ago

You don't get to claim self-defense when your own illegal actions led to the situation. Nor when there isn't an immediate threat to injure you and threatening to expose your illegal actions just isn't going to cut it.

You can find further details here: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=864

It's written by an actual lawyer, in spite of being in comic format.

pnut• 11 years ago

Other figures running drug distribution operations at this scale stay physically outside the US and build up paramilitary defense/enforcement. They either face an identical fate to Ross or meet a violent end.

This is not a surprising outcome in any way, and his use of the Internet rather than traditional methods absolves him of nothing.

ratboy666• 11 years ago

Jyoti Saran had 15,000 customers a week, made 200 million dollars, and was filling 3,000 orders per day.

Sentence? 12 years.

Rick Ross was sentences to life. For 100kg of cocaine. Sentence was reduced to 20 years.

So, we will see what happens to Ulbricht.

My guess is that the life will stick, though. After all, this involved computers.

wozniacki• 11 years ago

A cursory Google search does not reveal much about this Jyoti Saran other than the details of his indictment [1] and the auction of his Arlington mansion[2].

Is little else known about this figure, even as he is nearing completion of his prison term?

[1] http://www.justice.gov/usao/txn/PressRel09/saran_sen_pr.html

[2] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487038592045755264...

elwell• 11 years ago

Creating a platform that can be used to buy/sell illegal goods shouldn't be against the law IMO. Are car manufacturers thrown in jail when someone drives their product when drunk?

omegaham7• 11 years ago

No, because the vast majority of people driving are obeying the law (or at least are committing very minor crimes). In contrast, the vast majority of people on Silk Road were buying and selling illegal goods.

It boils down to intent. If you intend to make a legitimate platform for commerce that also happens to be used for illegal stuff, (Craigslist, for example) you're in the clear as long as you aren't actively aiding them.

In contrast, if you set up your platform with the explicit intention of selling illegal goods, then you're in trouble.

hardwaresofton• 11 years ago

What are the other sentences people have received for attempted murder/ hiring a hitman?

People seem to be hinging their "this is a relatively fair judgement" opinions on the fact that he attempted to/hired one or more hitmen for one or more hits...

If that's what they're prosecuting on, then there's precedent, right? Is that precedent life in prison?

While I don't agree/defend what Ulrich was doing, I think the sentence is heavy-handed. I think arguments can be made for life in prison being worse (or more cruel) than death. And if we compare his crimes to some of the things governments do (or allegedly do) behind closed doors, I wonder if this is really "justice".

I don't know if there's much merit to him "more safely distributing drugs", but I wonder if a sentence this heavy would have been issued elsewhere outside the US.

[EDIT] - Reading other posts, it seems like he wasn't actually charged/convicted for the attempted murder/hitman stuff. If that wasn't the case, then I disagree with the verdict that much more

[EDIT2] - People who are under the impressions that Snowden should have stayed in the US to face proper sentencing should also note the sentencing in this case. Circumstances are different, but, I'm pretty sure Snowden could have faced worse, since Treason is pretty high up there (and makes you eligible for the death penalty). Ironic given that we (american culture) iconize Nathan Hale ("I regret that I have but one life to give...")

rdl• 11 years ago

So what confuses me now is what happens if prohibition ends in ~20 years. Does he have any hope of re-evaluation then, assuming the Government decides not to separately prosecute the other crimes?

mzzk• 11 years ago

Perhaps, but the murder-for-hire would remain. He isn't leaving prison anytime soon.

dragonwriter19• 11 years ago

So what confuses me now is what happens if prohibition ends in ~20 years. Does he have any hope of re-evaluation then, assuming the Government decides not to separately prosecute the other crimes?

An act becoming legal after one has been sentenced for it generally has no effect on past sentences. Executive actions like pardon are possible, but are not in any way necessarily impacted by changes in the legality of the act for which one was convicted. (Though, the same changes in the political landscape which produce changes to the law may influence the politics of discretionary executive actions like pardons.)

currentoor2• 11 years ago

I strongly believe that my son would be here today if Ross Ulbricht had not created Silk Road

Wrong, you're son would be here if you were a better parent.

ars• 11 years ago

You don't know that.

For some kids better parents mean better behavior. But some kids will act badly no matter what their parents do.

It sucks to say this, but some people just have bad genes, and there is nothing someone outside can do to help.

currentoor2• 11 years ago

Well then it's just natural selection. Unless his son managed to reproduce already... Then it's just a horrible cycle of pain and blame.

zxyzzxxx3• 11 years ago

The quote( not your comment ) is a logical fallacy. Even if was not accepted as hard evidence in the court, it was spoken, and has influenced the jury.

jabscam20135• 11 years ago

Right? Your fucking son made is own decision to try Heroin. Sorry he died, but don't go blaming the dealer for your sons actions.

logfromblammo3• 11 years ago

So he gets life for starting and operating a shady business that was "terribly destructive to our social fabric" and "lowered the barriers to obtaining illegal [goods and services]".

Great. Now that we have a solid benchmark for the minimum level of criminality possible to get a lifetime imprisonment sentence, we can finally start prosecuting those responsible for the financial fraud that caused the last recession. It was pretty destructive to our social fabric. There was a lot of bar-lowering going on, too.

Right?

Hello?

Anyone?

[mic goes dead, and house lights shut off]

I guess I'll just go home, then.

In light of the differential between the outcomes of prosecutions of highly publicized crimes, I think perhaps he was convicted for "failing to pay the minimum campaign contributions tax and lobbying tax on filthy lucre" and also got the mandatory minimum sentence for "we need to make a really big example of this guy because we are totally unprepared to handle anyone smarter and more cautious than him", with just a little shot of "X on the Internet is a thousand times worse than X in person".

farresito2• 11 years ago

“I strongly believe that my son would be here today if Ross Ulbricht had not created Silk Road,” said the man, who was identified in court only as Richard.

Such an ignorant comment it doesn't even deserve to be commented.

zxyzzxxx3• 11 years ago

Jurors probably aren't experts in rhetoric so such statements have a huge influence on them.

gwern9• 11 years ago

The jury wasn't involved; juries convict, judges sentence.

mikeyouse• 11 years ago

The court docs were taken down since Ulbricht's attorney messed up and uploaded unredacted versions, but if that's the guy I think it is;

His son had started abusing benzos but wanted to try heroin -- he bought some H on the Silk Road and then ODed after trying it once. When they found his body, the computer was literally open to the Silk Road page..

(There were 6 deaths detailed in the sentencing guidelines, so my recounting may be slightly off, but feel free to exchange this one for the 16-year old kid who bought LSD on the SR, had a terrible trip, then jumped to his death off of a balcony)

Making dangerous drugs vastly easier to purchase by those who had no previous source for them isn't harmless.

farresito2• 11 years ago

You can buy heroin everywhere. It's his job, as a father, to educate his son about drugs and other addictive substances. Blaming Silk Road is lying to yourself, but some people lack autocriticism and like blaming other people. In fact, I bet what they sold on Silk Road was of higher quality than what they sell on the streets.

The more I read about the war on drugs, the sadder I become. I used to be one of those that wanted to leave everything as it is today, and I've changed my mind.

nemmonszz• 11 years ago

I knew Ross for a few years in college. I find it almost inconceivable to believe that he tried to have people killed. I also find the sentence completely disproportionate to the 7 charges he was tried and convicted of. This is a sad day.

edit: I also understand the point that his hiring the hitman was an overt act under one of the other charges, but, speaking as someone who is not a lawyer, it seems to me that such a weighty punishment should have to be based on a much more explicit charge than this. I sincerely doubt that they would have been able to make the case for life in prison if not for the murder-for-hire angle, and as such i think it should have been charged. This seems like a dishonest and sneaky way to prosecute someone. Of course, i have my biases.

earlyresort2• 11 years ago

Hard drugs are one of those things that have different consequences for different types of people.

An intelligent, wealthy, employable person can dabble with them, have a good time, and usually get away with it. Should they get addicted and screw up their lives, they can usually get help and bounce back without permanent consequences.

People who're a little less well-off intellectually and economically aren't so resilient. Should they get addicted to hard drugs and screw up their lives, they usually don't bounce back from it - their lives are ruined forever.

Since HN is full of intelligent, wealthy, employable people, the comments on this thread don't surprise me a bit. And yes, I agree that drug policy in the United States could stand to be reformed a little. But when evaluating the harm a person's actions can cause to society, I wish people would think a little more about not just themselves, but that vast chunk of society that's not lucky enough to not be as privileged as we are.

haroldp2• 11 years ago

Can you link to a source, or is this just your conjecture?

peteyPete• 11 years ago

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-...

hebdo7• 11 years ago

This kind of rationalizations may ruin your entire life one day. You cannot and do not know where will any experimentation with drugs bring you to.

Remember that the first step of the twelve steps is "admitting that one cannot control one's alcoholism, addiction or compulsion". Finding reasons why you are more privileged than others makes this step even harder.

jsprogrammer3• 11 years ago

12 steps has a pretty poor record.

pcpolice• 11 years ago

One thing that should be kept in mind is that not all drugs are the same thing. The "drugs are bad" or "drugs are good" discourse breaks down fast, simply because they are gross generalisations.

For example: nicotine is much more addictive (has to do with the speed with which tolerance for a substance is increased) than, say, THC. Which is yet again different from LSD. There are a whole host of factors, and a spectrum of "how dangerous $DRUG is".

(disclosure: it's my pet peeve when people make lump statements about "all drugs")

ebspelman• 11 years ago

I really appreciate this comment, even though I personally don't agree with it.

You can't take drugs 100% safely, but their safety level does vary, and it definitely varies with wealth.

Amphetamines, for example. Rich Americans get prescriptions for Adderall. Poor Americans make meth. Or take opiates. Vicodin vs. heroin.

tshaddox2• 11 years ago

This isn't just about the effects of addictive drugs. I think most people agree they can be devastating to people and families. The trouble is that you seem to be suggesting that US drug policy in any way helps people and families affected by addictive drugs. I can't look at the war on drugs and see any remotely feasible interpretation where it's helping people affected by addictive drugs.

earlyresort2• 11 years ago

For me, it doesn't seem like a massive logical leap to suggest that shutting down a particularly convenient and unique part of the supply chain will have an effect on consumption and therefore the negative effects of consumption. Shutting down The Silk Road isn't quite the same thing as arresting the corner dealer.

Aside from that - let's posit that Ross Ulbricht's arrest and punishment and the shutdown of The Silk Road doesn't impact consumption and the consequent negative effects at all. I've still got no real moral qualms about punishing someone who enriches themselves off so much harm to others. Yes, there are many people in this world who do equivalent harm that we don't punish, and that's unfortunate, but that doesn't change the rightness of Ross's punishment one bit.

erichmond• 11 years ago

Agreed 100%.

I am curious what people think a fair sentence would be, given the sheer amount of drugs sold on SR. Selling over a pound of weed here in NYC will cost you 15 years, which for most people would be about 1/6th of their life.

Also, I am interested with the number of people saying he didn't actually do anything that wrong. I wonder if they are saying the same thing petty drug offenders. Maybe people do but they don't vocalize it, but I think if we saw this kind of empathy for all non-violent drug dealers, things would look very different here in the US.

TazeTSchnitzel4• 11 years ago

In a tragic miscarriage of justice, a man who made bucketloads of money from exploiting drug addiction and who hired hitmen, is sentenced. This innocent liar, drug dealer and moblord has been incorrectly sentenced for life. Free Ross Ulbricht, he never did anything wrong, except for all that stuff he did do.

Ross Ulbricht, who is tragically falsely accused of running Silk Road, is a hero for challenging the War on Drugs by definitely not selling drugs, and a nice guy.

shit_parade24• 11 years ago

Total circus.

Torture people for the government and you dont even get a warning.

How do people continue believe they live in a society governed by law? It governed by naked, corrupt power.

whoopdedo• 11 years ago

Have any of the carding forum operators been sentenced to life in prison? Or any prison time? Or even been arrested?

I say this as someone who just found out he's had $500 stolen from him. Of course I half blame the banks and credit card processors who allow card numbers to be passed around so easily.

yarou2• 11 years ago

As I stated much earlier (I believe it was during pre-trial), Ulbricht was convicted in the court of public opinion, even before he went to trial.

Some may hail this sentence as a victory for justice or some similar nonsense, but there is a deeper problem here. Civil liberties continue to be eroded at an extremely alarming rate in this country that the concept of "justice" applies in a very political context. It's pretty much a joke.

The message here is that if you attempt to live outside of this current system, you will be punished.

paulpauper• 11 years ago

If there is any justice, maybe he'll get a pardon in 20-30 years for good behavior.

The government said they identified six individuals who overdosed and died of drugs they purchased on Silk Road. The parents of two of those individuals—25-year-old Bryan B. from Boston and 16-year-old Preston B. from Perth, Australia—spoke at Friday’s sentencing, pleading emotionally to the judge to give Mr. Ulbricht a harsh sentence.

More people die of prescription and OTC drugs.

caseysoftware• 11 years ago

I think it's great that his LinkedIn page is still online.

jmkni• 11 years ago

So it is! You would think the first thing he would have done given access to the internet would be to take it down.

Kind of suggests he hasn't even been online since the day he was arrested, crazy!

markbnj2• 11 years ago

The dual solicitations of murder put him well off the list of people I will ever have any sympathy for. Having said that, he's 31 and reading "two life sentences" and "no chance of parole," was a little bit of a shock. He didn't actually kill anyone and I would guess some actual murderers have served less time. I can't help but feel this is mostly meant as a warning to any other smart guy who might think about setting up a black market.

markbnj2• 11 years ago

Shoot this is a repost thread. Didn't notice the older one before replying.

themartorana• 11 years ago

I'm very against making examples of people. Justice should be dealt entirely equally. Punishing one person more harshly as a warning to hypothetical criminals with a like mind is an unequal application of justice.

I didn't know he had solicited murder (it's not mentioned in the short article linked) so I was wondering what made a glorified drug dealer middleman deserve life in prison.

I agree that "without parole" is ridiculous.

icebraining2• 11 years ago

I didn't know he had solicited murder (it's not mentioned in the short article linked) so I was wondering what made a glorified drug dealer middleman deserve life in prison.

But the thing is: he wasn't even convicted for that!

tptacek20• 11 years ago

My understanding is that there is no parole in the federal penal system; parole wasn't an option available to the judge.

stretchwithme• 11 years ago

It sounds like it wasn't his second choice anyway.

Andrenid• 11 years ago

The 31-year-old physics graduate and former boy scout was handed five sentences: one for 20 years, one for 15 years, one for five and two for life. All are to be served concurrently with no chance of parole.

Meanwhile:

Hu Wanlin was in prison for human trafficking. That didn't stop him from opening a medical practice while jailed. Once he was released after a retrial in 1997, Hu treated hundreds of patients with an herbal remedy that actually contained sodium sulphate. 146 people died of his treatments. He was arrested in 1999 and sentenced to 15 years in prison for practicing medicine without a license.

146 people dead.. 15 years in prison.

Run a website that helps people connect with drug dealers.. multiple life sentences.

giarc• 11 years ago

You are comparing two completely different legal systems (US vs China) and you are surprised there is a difference?

pakled_engineer4• 11 years ago

The guy who ran "The Farmer's Market" AKA Adam's Flowers who was pre Silk Road and busted during Operation Adam Bomb was only given 10yrs for hustling MDMA/Acid/weed, and ran an impressive smuggling operation where he had US resellers pick up ocean freight shipments, and his plea has him serving time in a Netherlands prison.

The difference is he didn't make his black market political, which unfortunately Ross did. He also didn't try to kill anybody which although thrown out was still referenced by the sentencing judge. Still no word on what happened to the guy who was running SR 2.0 who worked for SpaceX and was busted.

I remember people peddling drugs on MindVox forums when Lord Digital ran it back in the day none of this is new except for Ulbricht trying to market his biz as a revolution. Online drug sales will continue regardless of this sentence.

tptacek20• 11 years ago

No part of the allegation that Ulbricht commissioned a murder appears to have been "thrown out"; that accusation was a formal predicate (the second listed "overt act") of the conspiracy charge for which he was convicted.

Can someone help me understand why people keep suggesting that this murder-for-hire allegation was dropped? That does not at all seem to be the case.

etchalon• 11 years ago

It's an inconvenient talking point for people who want to hold Ulbricht up as some type of hero.

Painting over it is their only option.

pakled_engineer4• 11 years ago

I didn't read the new indictment, I assumed from articles they dropped all those charges http://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges-ross-...

http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/29/technology/silk-road-ross-ul... "Prosecutors had charged Ulbricht with commissioning six murders-for-hire but those charges were dropped"

The overt act is there in the new indictment they changed after dropping the 6 murder for hire charges, guess it's my fault for trusting journalists who said nothing about it http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-sdny/legacy/...

shit_parade24• 11 years ago

Why are you riding this belief so hard? It's like a one man fan group trying desperately to make an untruth truth.

Was he convicted of this charge you speak of? No. And who really cares what the legal system decides, it is an utter farce.

lesigh• 11 years ago

Let's just ruin a mans life so maybe we'll deter %.0000001 of a billion dollar drug industry. Why does the United States continue with this nonsense "War on Drugs"? Could it have anything to do with the for profit prison system? Giant militarized police force? Booming civil asset forfeiture?

For a country that prides itself on freedom and fairness, why create a system that punishes for doing what they want with their body? What if we spent the billions we do now on a failed drug war for education, addiction treatment, mental health, job training? Why ban certain drugs and allow alcohol and cigarettes that have just as addictive properties and kills just as many people?

toomuchtodo• 11 years ago

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

It's not right, its not fair, and until the judicial industrial complex (private prisons, police forces & civil forfeiture used for revenue instead of proper tax increases) is dismantled, we'll continue to see these sorts of travesties.

We have a lot of cruft to cut from the US legal system.

meaogj• 11 years ago

SR sold drugs, yes. It also sold identity theft kits, credit card fraud kits, hacking tools, and other gear that is meant to harm others through coercion.

Fuck Russ, and fuck you for repeating the lie that SR was nothing but drugs.

mikeash5• 11 years ago

And more importantly, the guy tried to have people killed.

This is not a good prompt for a "war on drugs is evil" rant. I sympathize with the position, but using somebody as an example of supposed injustice, when a big part of his punishment is because he hired hitmen (plural!), is not going to make your point look at all good.

emodendroket3• 11 years ago

Let's just kill a man to protect my darknet Web site.

fysac• 11 years ago

This has nothing to do with what he did. They're making an example of him.

ygmelnikova2• 11 years ago

The silent majority agrees with this sentence.

mikeash5• 11 years ago

Why would anyone disagree with this sentence, unless someone thinks having people killed is a normal part of business?

valar_m2• 11 years ago

Because that's not what he was charged with?

ygmelnikova2• 11 years ago

Its astounding that anybody here would defend this guy. Are Hacker News readers left leaning in general, or just is it just a handful of loud anarchists?

Hydraulix989• 11 years ago

Let's not forget that this guy got the same sentence as the Boston Marathon bomber.

tdicola• 11 years ago

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to the death penatly. Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison.

emodendroket3• 11 years ago

Let's all not forget this totally bogus information.

kidgorgeous• 11 years ago

I wonder why people assume Ulbricht tried to have someone killed? History has proven time and time again that police and prosecutors will fabricate information to get a conviction or even get bail removed. I wouldn't put it past the prosecution and DEA to stoop to such low-handed tactics.

emodendroket3• 11 years ago

The best information available suggests that he actively solicited hitmen. Yes, I suppose if you take the position that "absolutely anything incriminating is fabricated" then you could claim he didn't.

AC__• 11 years ago

This is insanity! Life imprisonment for starting a website?!? Where are the "kingpin" charges for these guys http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=...

sarciszewski• 11 years ago

Sad to see him get life, but I'm going to withhold my opinions beyond that statement because I know the feds will read this one day. Fuckers.

FlaceBook2• 11 years ago

After reading comments here and on arstechnica, I'm terrified by the number of people who still seem to blindly trust our government and support the drug war.

Another scary thing is how many people have "convicted" this guy of things that he was never convicted of, and used those things as a point from which to justify his sentence here.

knieveltech• 11 years ago

"We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint..." - Robert Falcon Scott

uptownJimmy• 11 years ago

Perfect.

beatpanda• 11 years ago

Ross Ulbricht did more to civilize the drug trade, to prevent the violence and mayhem associated with dealing drugs, than any law.enforcement agency anywhere in the world ever has, and I can't wait for the day we finally abolish prisons and acknowledge this tragedy.

ddxv• 11 years ago

This has made me feel so incredibly sad. Came to HN just to read the comments, I feel so much for him, I wish I could help him.

I hope we can change the way our society punishes it's members.

6d0debc071• 11 years ago

Judge Forrest told Mr. Urlbricht that “what you did in connection with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric.”

Certainly his actions were destructive to a social fabric, or elements thereof. However, I don't think that anyone of good sense takes too seriously the nightmarish visions of a total collapse of order that Forrest's words summon to mind if the site had been left to run. The alternatives do not reduce to the current structure of a fabric and no fabric at all.

Nor does the charge itself make any particular sense, at least in terms of ideals to hold to. Progress is always built on the destruction, partial or total, of a previous way of life. Thus, when destruction becomes impossible, the liabilities that history places upon us, both in terms of mistakes and in terms of functions which no longer match the demands of life, come to dominate all attempts to adapt society to a more fitting form.

The sentence is, at least on those grounds, a farce. Some social fabrics should be destroyed - that something better may take their place. I'm not going to advocate either way on whether that's the case here, but to imprison someone simply because they perform an act with such a function is to reduce yourself to a tyrant.

j1vms• 11 years ago

Sentencing, based solely on creating/running the site, has more to do with the difficulty of finding, investigating and prosecuting these cases and therefore the value of harsh sentencing as a deterent to other current or would be offenders.

Effect might perhaps be to drive others who are or want to do this stuff to operate from Russia or other harder to reach places. It might have been wiser to keep him operating and under long term surveillance, and as such indirectly control the beast he created.

nthcolumn• 11 years ago

Nice show trial. The US justice system is a joke. Cops regularly murder unarmed citizens - nothing. The 'evidence' used to convict Mr Ulbricht should have been inadmissable as it was obtained illegally.

neuro_imager• 11 years ago

Like many commentators here, I am tremendously opposed to the prohibitionist approach to law-enforcement of any sort.

One of the greatest tragedies of prohibition (and there are a multitude), is that it transfers so much money and other resources into the hands of existing criminal organisations. It also creates criminals as these profits incentivise illicit trade and legislates users as criminals.

That being said, what Ulbricht was doing was clearly nefarious and the punishment should come as no surprise.

eternalban• 11 years ago

He is a political prisoner.

arbuge• 11 years ago

As an aside, since this is HN, I thought some portion of the audience here might be interested to know that the code for the Silk Road marketplace appears to have been in PHP, using CodeIgniter as the framework:

http://www.wired.com/2015/01/heres-secret-silk-road-journal-...

"In any case, I decided to rewrite the site in an mvc framework as suggested by my benevolent hacker adviser. So, while still manually processing transactions and responding to a bigger and bigger message load, I learned to use codeigniter and began rewriting the site."

Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

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