Silk Road Operator Ross Ulbricht to Be Sentenced Today

[BADecker]

I don't know Ross personally. But if any one of you is his friend, and you want to get him out, here's what to do.

Visit Ross in prison and obtain a signed contract from him that he is your property.

It might cost a little bit of money to get a bond on a guy like Ross, but get him bonded to the tune of as much as it would take to allow him out into the public if ever he were freed.

Then find out the man/woman/people who are holding him, and who have the control of causing his release.

Start a letter-writing campaign between these people and yourself wherein you wish, require and demand your property (Ross) returned to you. You might even say that you wish for him to do your programming for you as a legitimate excuse, or that you and he need his freedom to write his memoirs, or you figure out a ligit reason.

Once you have a sufficient number of letter denials from these people who are holding him, then sue the people personally in court to get your property back, using the letters as evidence showing that you tried on the private side.

In your letters (somewhere along the line, like the second or third letter), start requiring/demanding money, because by not giving you your property back, they are causing you monetary injury and loss, which is wrongdoing on their part, by preventing you from having your property's services.

In court, stay man-to-man with the people you are suing. Be present, not representing yourself, nor being represented by an attorney. Study Karl Lentz to see the best ways of doing this. Google and Youtube search "Karl Lentz common law."

I estimate a 0% chance of this working...

not too surprised at the ruling considering the trial was a blow-out for the prosecutors. Small chance an appeal could get his sentence reduced though. 

This wouldn't be an appeal. It would be an entire now case. Even if the contract part was flimsy, Ross's mom could claim Ross as her property, easily. since she has entered the fight already, why not do this on the side, since an appeal probably won't work?

[amazon4u]

Wow, this is exactly what's usually wrong with the American justice system. Rich white kids usually get off whilst poor black people get thrown in jail for relatively minor crimes. Should white guys be given get out of jail free cards now?

OK. Got it. According to your logic, Ross Ullbricht should be punished, since he happened to have white skin and blue eyes. There are very few whites imprisoned right now (it doesn't matter that they make up 50% of the prison population). So we need to jail more Whites, in order to maintain the "racial equilibrium". 

No, amazon4u is making an argument that people like Ross should are more likely to be rehabilated or be more useful to society which is bullshit. If he was such a smart and educated guy he wouldn't have got caught or made a load of silly mistakes, not to mention trying to have people assassinated. Most drug dealers don't even go that far but he did.

P.S - Where does Jay Z fit in all this ? This is not about race ...it is about what an individual can give back to humanity....

Because he was a drug dealer from Brooklyn, you know, the ones you think aren't ever going to make anything of their life.

If he was such a smart and educated guy he wouldn't have got caught or made a load of silly mistakes


This is how you assess how "smart and educated" is a person ? By not getting caught...


Because he was a drug dealer from Brooklyn, you know, the ones you think aren't ever going to make anything of their life.


I don't say that, statistics and real life scenarios tend to say that. A drug dealer from Brooklyn/etc has little chances of a normal life in the long run partly because he is not educated and doesn't understand that he is being used Stats don't lie, there is little you can achieve in life without a proper education.

[lister storm]

Silk Road is gone, but it was replaced by other similar websites rather quickly.  What is the point in spending time and money on futile  efforts that don't even accomplish what they were intended for?

[BADecker]

Silk Road is gone, but it was replaced by other similar websites rather quickly.  What is the point in spending time and money on futile  efforts that don't even accomplish what they were intended for?

There are possibly lots of points. This is advertising, right? Ross Ulbricht and the Silk Road is a kind of advertising for Bitcoin and other things like TOR and the Dark Web. So, why would government want to advertise? Government might.

Nobody knows for sure the fickleness of the people. This kind of advertising draws the people's feelings into the open. The people might start to use Bitcoin more than ever. On the other hand, this might scare the people into compliance. Same said the Dark Net and TOR.

This is a warning for the banking system. The banking system is near collapse. If not immediate collapse, then a slippery slope downward. The advertising is warning for the banks to get their act together, and it is a test to see how ready people are to get away from the banking system.

History has shown that if the people feel threatened, they take an "out" when they see one. Do the people feel threatened? If they turn to Bitcoin after all this advertising, then the government and the banks know that they had better change their ways, or the people will leave them behind.

[larsson]

What concerns me the most in this story was how the feds managed to bust into a highly anonymized encrypted network

[saturn643]

What concerns me the most in this story was how the feds managed to bust into a highly anonymized encrypted network

just google + bitcointalk

[Finchy]

Silk Road is gone, but it was replaced by other similar websites rather quickly.  What is the point in spending time and money on futile  efforts that don't even accomplish what they were intended for?

I get your reasoning but you could equally say the same about child porn and murder. Maybe these sorts of darknet markets may make authorities rethink their drug polices though so maybe something good will come out of it. Most intelligent people know that the war on drugs is a complete failure and an unwinable war. It's also going to be interesting to see how the police deal with decentralized markets where there's no centralized pint of attack/failure.

What concerns me the most in this story was how the feds managed to bust into a highly anonymized encrypted network

just google + bitcointalk

Exactly. They didn't. Ross was silly enough to use his own name when setting it up along with leaving many other clues. Same with the Silk Road 2.0 and Blake Benthall. If they hadn't of made these silly mistakes they might still be free and the sites they set up still up and running. The feds did claim that the captcha silk road used was leaking the forums true server IP but this has been disputed.

[larsson]

Silk Road is gone, but it was replaced by other similar websites rather quickly.  What is the point in spending time and money on futile  efforts that don't even accomplish what they were intended for?

I get your reasoning but you could equally say the same about child porn and murder. Maybe these sorts of darknet markets may make authorities rethink their drug polices though so maybe something good will come out of it. Most intelligent people know that the war on drugs is a complete failure and an unwinable war. It's also going to be interesting to see how the police deal with decentralized markets where there's no centralized pint of attack/failure.

What concerns me the most in this story was how the feds managed to bust into a highly anonymized encrypted network

just google + bitcointalk

Exactly. They didn't. Ross was silly enough to use his own name when setting it up along with leaving many other clues. Same with the Silk Road 2.0 and Blake Benthall. If they hadn't of made these silly mistakes they might still be free and the sites they set up still up and running. The feds did claim that the captcha silk road used was leaking the forums true server IP but this has been disputed.

wow, that was not well thought out by ross
Surprisingly amateurish to be honest

[saturn643]

Google search, which lead to a posting history where he had his real name
http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/2tt0dn/the_incredibly_simple_story_of_how_the_govt/

[TheIrishman]

Silk Road: Ross Ulbricht files appeal against convictions and sentencing

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/05/silk-road-ross-ulbricht-appeal-convictions-sentencing

<< Ross Ulbricht, the man convicted of running the online drug emporium Silk Road, has appealed against his conviction and sentence, according to court documents filed on Thursday. In February, a jury in a federal court in Manhattan found Ulbricht, who went by the alias "Dread Pirate Roberts", guilty on seven counts related to the drug marketplace, including running a narcotics-trafficking enterprise, money laundering and computer hacking.

Before sentencing, Ulbricht wrote a letter to Judge Katherine Forrest begging her to "leave a light at the end of the tunnel" in sentencing and "leave me my old age". But Forrest handed down the harshest sentences possible for Ulbricht – one for 20 years, one for five years, one for 15 years and two for life, to be served concurrently with no possibility of parole. >>

[bryant.coleman]

What concerns me the most in this story was how the feds managed to bust into a highly anonymized encrypted network

You should remember that the TOR is not anonymous anymore. It has been cracked by the FBI. Out of the 4,000 or so TOR relays, around 10% are controlled by the FBI and the CIA. When you log-in to Silk Road, if your entry node happens to be any of these fed-controlled relays, then the feds will be able to track your real IP address.

[Slunt]

What concerns me the most in this story was how the feds managed to bust into a highly anonymized encrypted network

You should remember that the TOR is not anonymous anymore. It has been cracked by the FBI. Out of the 4,000 or so TOR relays, around 10% are controlled by the FBI and the CIA. When you log-in to Silk Road, if your entry node happens to be any of these fed-controlled relays, then the feds will be able to track your real IP address.

Do you have sources for this? Though people shouldn't be using tor bareback either. Use a proxy or public wifi before you connect to tor and then you should be safe.

[bryant.coleman]

What concerns me the most in this story was how the feds managed to bust into a highly anonymized encrypted network

You should remember that the TOR is not anonymous anymore. It has been cracked by the FBI. Out of the 4,000 or so TOR relays, around 10% are controlled by the FBI and the CIA. When you log-in to Silk Road, if your entry node happens to be any of these fed-controlled relays, then the feds will be able to track your real IP address.

Do you have sources for this? Though people shouldn't be using tor bareback either. Use a proxy or public wifi before you connect to tor and then you should be safe.

Check this:

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/12/silk_road_2_0_arrests_operation_onymous_did_the_fbi_break_tor.html

Using a proxy or VPN is definitely not a solution to this. The FBI can uncover the VPN cover in a matter of seconds. And I don't think that the usage of public Wi-Fi is safe either.

[jaysabi]

No, amazon4u is making an argument that people like Ross should are more likely to be rehabilated or be more useful to society which is bullshit.

Oh.. yeah... a highly educated guy like Ross Ullbricht should remain imprisoned for the rest of his life for merely putting up a website, while people like OJ Simpson should be released in to the wild, as he is more useful to the society when compared to Ross. Which news channels do you watch? I think that you got brainwashed by watching too much CNBC and MSNBC.

You're comparing a guy who was acquitted of his charges to a guy who was convicted. Not a valid analogy because in the eyes of the law, OJ was not guilty; he wasn't released in spite of his convicted crimes as would need to be true for your analogy to be relevant. Also, Ulbricht did a lot more than "merely putting up a website." That's an understatement if there ever was one!

[bryant.coleman]

You're comparing a guy who was acquitted of his charges to a guy who was convicted.

This is a pathetic argument. Everyone knew that OJ was guilty. He murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in cold blood and never got the deserved punishment. He walked free, as he was rich and influential. In the United States, rich people who commit murder very rarely go to prison. The same happened with OJ as well.

[jaysabi]

You're comparing a guy who was acquitted of his charges to a guy who was convicted.

This is a pathetic argument. Everyone knew that OJ was guilty. He murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in cold blood and never got the deserved punishment. He walked free, as he was rich and influential. In the United States, rich people who commit murder very rarely go to prison. The same happened with OJ as well.

I guess 'everyone knew he was guilty' except the jury. So again, you're comparing a guy who was acquitted of his charges to a guy who was convicted. The analogy is as worthless now as the first time you said it because you're trying to draw a conclusion about how one guy got punished by society for his crimes vs. a guy who society decided committed no crime. I'm also certain OJ committed murder, but it doesn't make the analogy any more relevant, because you're not comparing two like things.

[mayflor2]

You're comparing a guy who was acquitted of his charges to a guy who was convicted.

This is a pathetic argument. Everyone knew that OJ was guilty. He murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in cold blood and never got the deserved punishment. He walked free, as he was rich and influential. In the United States, rich people who commit murder very rarely go to prison. The same happened with OJ as well.

The best part was: he wrote a book about how he did it.   

[bryant.coleman]

I guess 'everyone knew he was guilty' except the jury. So again, you're comparing a guy who was acquitted of his charges to a guy who was convicted. The analogy is as worthless now as the first time you said it because you're trying to draw a conclusion about how one guy got punished by society for his crimes vs. a guy who society decided committed no crime. I'm also certain OJ committed murder, but it doesn't make the analogy any more relevant, because you're not comparing two like things.

The "society" still believes that he committed those crimes. Only the corrupt judge thought otherwise. And why shouldn't I make the comparison? The fact that OJ bribed his way out of punishment is no excuse to declare him as innocent. I just compared two people who perpetrated criminal acts. Whether they were punished for their crimes or not is insignificant here.

[BADecker]

I guess 'everyone knew he was guilty' except the jury. So again, you're comparing a guy who was acquitted of his charges to a guy who was convicted. The analogy is as worthless now as the first time you said it because you're trying to draw a conclusion about how one guy got punished by society for his crimes vs. a guy who society decided committed no crime. I'm also certain OJ committed murder, but it doesn't make the analogy any more relevant, because you're not comparing two like things.

The "society" still believes that he committed those crimes. Only the corrupt judge thought otherwise. And why shouldn't I make the comparison? The fact that OJ bribed his way out of punishment is no excuse to declare him as innocent. I just compared two people who perpetrated criminal acts. Whether they were punished for their crimes or not is insignificant here.

Here is the way the reasoning about this goes.

In America, it is better to allow 10 guilty people go free, than it is to punish one innocent man as though he were guilty. Because of this, the laws and courts are set up at their base to keep the innocent people free from punishment.

You and I may know in our hearts that OJ was guilty. However, do we know for an absolute fact that he really was guilty? I mean, is there not some slight chance that he was framed somehow? He was not held guilty because the jury thought there might be some slight chance he was innocent, even though they felt in their hearts that he was guilty.

If Ross and his attorneys had gone the route that OJ did, he may have been found innocent. If they went the route that Karl Lentz suggests, he would have been found innocent even if he admitted to guilt. Why? Because in Ross's case, there was no harmed party, no corpus delicti, nobody who was accusing Ross of harming him bodily with verifiable harm, nobody who was accusing Ross of damaging or stealing their property with verifiable property damage.

In America, if you require it, you must be judged on harm or damage (injury). By not requiring it, Ross essentially said, "I am guilty and I want to be held and punished according to statute code laws."

[bryant.coleman]

You and I may know in our hearts that OJ was guilty. However, do we know for an absolute fact that he really was guilty?

If I am not wrong, OJ actually wrote a biography later, in which he detailed on how he murdered his ex-wife (Nicole Brown Simpson) and Ronald Lyle Goldman. How can you argue that he is innocent, after all this evidence. And in the United States, many people are sentenced to death or life without parole, with even less evidence.