Bitcoin Forum

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-26037129

The US has charged a California man alleged to be the owner of Silk Road, a black-market website that brokered $1bn (£613m) in transactions.

Ross William Ulbricht, 29, is accused of drug trafficking, computer hacking and money laundering.

Prosecutors allege he deliberately operated the site as a criminal enterprise and solicited six murders-for-hire.

Mr Ulbricht's lawyer says his client will plead not guilty to all charges.

"The indictment was expected and does not contain any new factual allegations," Joshua Dratel said in a statement. "We look forward to preparing Ross' defence."

Authorities say Mr Ulbricht operated the Silk Road site under the name Dread Pirate Roberts, an apparent reference to the movie The Princess Bride. Purchases were made using the virtual currency Bitcoin.

He was arrested last year as the site was shut down by the FBI. Officials seized 173,991 Bitcoins ($150m) as part of the investigation.

Mr Ulbricht has filed a claim contesting the seizure of the Bitcoins, asserting that they were found on his personal computer and belong to him rather than Silk Road.

He is also accused of conspiring to have a former Silk Road employee murdered during the course of a federal sting operation.

That murder-for-hire, along with the others, was never carried out.

Silk Road allowed visitors to browse nearly 13,000 listings, many of them for illegal drugs, but also offered forged documents, computer hacking services and pirated media content, prosecutors said.

Soo...they still have "courts" and "charges" and "judges" in the US?  I figured they would have just thrown him in Guantanamo for a few decades, isn't that the norm these days?

No word about the alleged killer-for-hire?

its funny how they throw some random charges at him while at it.....

"computer hacking"

This is why i hate the agencies and the socalled "department of justice". Bunch of  assholes, may they burn in hell.

....but oh so sad, with the big eyes.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/72758000/jpg/_72758082_72758081.jpg

I feel for the guy.

Like HSBC, he should just be given the option of paying a $250 million dollar fine for the building of schools and roads and then let free.

Meanwhile SR 2.0 is up and running.... FBI guys... you lose!!

SR 2.0=FBI honeypot
SR 3.0=FBI honeypot
SR 4.0=FBI honeypot

Doubtful.
And still, just use vendors recommended by others and PGP!

Recommended by other FBI agents, and PGP that FBI agents provide or substitute their own public keys for?

The server(s) were physically seized, so totalitarians could easily take over SR operations and change anything about it to tyranny's advantage.

You just need to trust the vendor. That's how PGP works.
And the FBI will hardly sell you drugs... they are not a dealer and not after small consumers.

Shortly after the arrest he actually used a public defender, I sure hope he has a better lawyer now.

PGP doesn't work if you blindly trust keys stored/sent on a website that a malicious third-party controls. PGP only works if you physically meet your counterparty and trust circle members and obtain their key fingerprints directly from them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signing_party

The FBI/DEA/WTF will sell whatever they need to to whomever they need to, to perpetuate the war on victimless civil liberties through persecution of same.

Seriously, how can you be this ignorant of lawless enforcement tactics and still be on the internet?

:o

The whole story is probably made up.

If LE changed the key, the vendor couldn't decrypt your message any more. And neither the FBI nor the DEA will set up a "honey pot" to catch individual end-consumers.

As long as users use PGP it doesn't matter if the DEA runs the site or just registers as a vendor...

exactly only some people don't use pgp , to difficult , those are stupid them self.
A honny pot is not very useful  here , you dont know anything as long users use tor , and a system as tails , if you use windows or worse your iphone your bound to get injected with a fbi certified exploit , so its all about stupidnes here...
 

+1

Obama should hand him a medal as appreciation for the big hit he did against the drug cartels and getting all the violence off the streets...

Or give him presidential gold cufflinks:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jamie-dimons-eye-catching-cufflinks/

Not if they changed the key the instant the vendor put it in, intercepted and replied to all their private messages, and showed only the vendor a profile page with their correct key.


They already did that with Silk Road 1.0. Find end-consumers, charge them with every victimless crime in the book.

More like gold handcuffs.

Indeed, haha.
People should encourage the vendors to send out a printed fingerprint of their key together with the product. "A hash with the hash"  ;D

PGP key signing is quite broken from a usability standpoint, ever since it's been introduced.

If someone has the time and inclination, here's how to fix it: http://bitcoinism.blogspot.com/2013/09/building-pgp-web-of-trust-that-people.html

The bankers will be against any such idea.