From Ross Ulbrichts journal (late 2011):
"Around this time, Variety Jones showed up. This was the biggest and strongest willed character I had met through the site thus far. He quickly proved to me that he had value by pointing out a major security hole in the site I was unaware of. It was an attack on bitcoind.
We quickly began discussing every aspect of the site as well as future ideas. He convinced me of a server configuration paradigm that gave me the confidence to be the sole server administrator and not work with someone else at all. He has advised me on many technical aspect of what we are doing, helped me speed up the site and squeeze more out of my current servers. He also has helped me better interact with the community around Silk Road, delivering proclamations, handling troublesome characters, running a sale, changing my name, devising rules, and on and on. He also helped me get my head straight regarding legal protection, cover stories, devising a will, finding a successor, and so on. He’s been a real mentor."
End of Variety Jones (from Ross Ulbrichts chat logs):
(2012-06-01 17:53) vj:
Also, Variety Jones is dead, poor fella. No more seed biz for him.
(2012-06-01 17:53) myself:
(2012-06-01 17:53) myself:
you goin by cimon now?
(2012-06-01 17:53) cimon:
I was keeping that going as a way to get btc legally in the UK, but I'm leaving the UK, and the legality elsewhere means it's best I shut it down.
(2012-06-01 17:54) cimon:
I have no idea what i'm going by now, dammit!
(2012-06-01 17:54) myself:
well I just changed you from vj to cimon on torchat
(2012-06-01 17:54) myself:
so yer cimon
(2012-06-01 17:54) cimon:
there ya go.
(2012-06-01 17:54) cimon:
and that's how changes are made.
(2012-06-01 17:54) cimon:
cimon it is.
Who is "Variety Jones"?- The Jester
- Dread Pirate Roberts (or the "Real DPR" - SR2+reloaded admin)
- an agent of the FBI/DEA
- Satoshi Nakamoto (thx neurotypical)
- Russ Ulbricht (He could have invented the "Variety Jones" character to use this as a proof of his innocence on a possible future trial) He didn't do that on his trial, so this option is most likely dead.
- Rene Pinnell
- Marc Karpeles
- Plural of Mongoose / Thomas Clark
- Shaun W. Bridges (DEA Agent arrested together with another agent for various crimes around Silk Road:
http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/30/criminal_complaint_force.pdf )
- The Devil
Facts:- He was the inventor of the "Dread Pirate Roberts" nick ("Start the legend")
- Russ U. called him "mentor" in his private journal
- He knows alot about coding and computer security
- He was a high-volume marijuana seed dealer on SilkRoad
- He enjoyed Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, and expressed his deep admiration for the applied cryptographer Phil Zimmermann
Links:
Silk Road Boss' First Murder-For-Hire Was His Mentor's Idea:
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-road-boss-first-murder-attempt-mentors-idea/http://motherboard.vice.com/read/there-are-two-illustrious-characters-still-missing-in-the-silk-road-dramahttp://ia601506.us.archive.org/27/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.422824/gov.uscourts.nysd.422824.227.1.pdf(contains alot of previously unreleased chats incl. with Cimon (VJ)
http://motherboard.vice.com/tag/Silk+Road+trialhttp://www.dailydot.com/crime/dpr-silk-road-variety-jones/http://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2015/01/21/silk-road-2-0-administrator-doctorclu-arrested-on-drug-charges/(there was an "unamed source" who gave the ips of both "Defcon" Bleake Benthall and DoctorClu - Variety Jones again?)
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/ross-ulbricht-didnt-create-silk-roads-dread-pirate-roberts-guy/https://de.scribd.com/collections/13080591/Silk-Road-trial-exhibitshttp://www.deepdotweb.com/2015/03/03/latest-from-antilop-cc-on-ross-ulbrichts-mentor-variety-jones/http://antilop.cc/sr/index.html#jones
