Who is "Variety Jones"?

[AGD]

When Dratel said in court, that the real DPR would never save his chatlogs or write a detailed journal and "on the internet nothing is as it seems", he already implicated a "manipulated files theory", but Dratel wasn't allowed to use most of the evidence, because of the running San Francisco case against Force and Bridges. Also some of the evidence was only presented short before trial. That all made it hard to build a solid defense I guess.

[S4VV4S]

When Dratel said in court, that the real DPR would never save his chatlogs or write a detailed journal and "on the internet nothing is as it seems", he already implicated a "manipulated files theory", but Dratel wasn't allowed to use most of the evidence, because of the running San Francisco case against Force and Bridges. Also some of the evidence was only presented short before trial. That all made it hard to build a solid defense I guess.

Who is Force and Bridges?

Sorry I am new to this and still going through the SR timeline and evidence.

[bitcoin_bagholder]

When Dratel said in court, that the real DPR would never save his chatlogs or write a detailed journal and "on the internet nothing is as it seems", he already implicated a "manipulated files theory", but Dratel wasn't allowed to use most of the evidence, because of the running San Francisco case against Force and Bridges. Also some of the evidence was only presented short before trial. That all made it hard to build a solid defense I guess.

Who is Force and Bridges?

Sorry I am new to this and still going through the SR timeline and evidence.

Force = DEA agent

Bridges = US Secret Service agent

[S4VV4S]

When Dratel said in court, that the real DPR would never save his chatlogs or write a detailed journal and "on the internet nothing is as it seems", he already implicated a "manipulated files theory", but Dratel wasn't allowed to use most of the evidence, because of the running San Francisco case against Force and Bridges. Also some of the evidence was only presented short before trial. That all made it hard to build a solid defense I guess.

Who is Force and Bridges?

Sorry I am new to this and still going through the SR timeline and evidence.

Force = DEA agent

Bridges = US Secret Service agent

Thanks 

There was a case against them at the same time?

[AGD]

Check the timeline for <SF>

[S4VV4S]

Check the timeline for <SF>

This one?: xx/04/2012 - Undercover (UC) DEA agent from the Marco Polo Task Force (Baltimore), Carl Mark Force IV (FORCE) starts communicating with Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR). SF

[AGD]

yep

[S4VV4S]

yep

Gotcha, will look into him.

What about Bridges? Who is he?

EDIT: Why were they in a running San Francisco case against them?
Links?

[AGD]

Bridges is the computer nerd and Force is more into creating different personas and using them to manipulate.

[AGD]

EDIT: Why were they in a running San Francisco case against them?
Links?

After Ross' arrest they found the file LEcounterintel.doc on his pc, where he wrote about getting insider information from a cop.

Link:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Carl+Mark+Force&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/30/criminal_complaint_force.pdf
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/dea-agent-charged-acting-paid-mole-silk-road/

Edit: Along with the criminal complaint there were released some more chat files with VJ. Dunno the links atm.

[S4VV4S]

EDIT: Why were they in a running San Francisco case against them?
Links?

After Ross' arrest they found the file LEcounterintel.doc on his pc, where he wrote about getting insider information from a cop.

Link:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Carl+Mark+Force&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/30/criminal_complaint_force.pdf
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/dea-agent-charged-acting-paid-mole-silk-road/

Edit: Along with the criminal complaint there were released some more chat files with VJ. Dunno the links atm.

Holy crap!
That's a lot of reading....

Thanks for the links 

[AGD]

Here are the previously unreleased chats:

http://ia601506.us.archive.org/27/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.422824/gov.uscourts.nysd.422824.227.1.pdf

[AGD]

Most parts of the investigation against SR is public already. I don't find a place for him beeing a mole in any of the documents. Especially with the criminal complaint against Mark Force were released a lot of docs about the investigation and there is no secret mole or informant mentioned, that is not known already.

I pretty much think, he was writing his own plot and he will continue to do so. A summary could look like this:

- attention
- trust
- control
- profit
- destroy
- disappear

[Collymore]

EDIT: Why were they in a running San Francisco case against them?
Links?

After Ross' arrest they found the file LEcounterintel.doc on his pc, where he wrote about getting insider information from a cop.

Link:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Carl+Mark+Force&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/30/criminal_complaint_force.pdf
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/dea-agent-charged-acting-paid-mole-silk-road/

Edit: Along with the criminal complaint there were released some more chat files with VJ. Dunno the links atm.

Why ross kept logs of this sort of stuff or anything at all regarding silk road is beyond belief. Then he makes it even worse by keeping it all on his laptop that he actually uses to run sr. Just doesn't make any sense.

[AGD]

There are three possibilities:

1. He saved everything knowingly and no files has been manipulated - Guilty in all counts + an extra smack in the face for beiing that dumb
2. He saved everything knowingly and files has been manipulated - He can lower the sentence or get out free eventually if he can raise doubt about the files that have been used as evidence. Still deserves the slap in the face for saving evidence on his everyday pc
3. All files has been manipulated - He created the site and sold it, before the investigation began. He should get out as a free man and take some lessions in computer security ;-)

[AGD]

I pretty much think, he was writing his own plot and he will continue to do so. A summary could look like this:

- attention
- trust
- control
- profit
- destroy
- disappear

I have trouble buying this theory for two reasons:
a) Bitcoin is often touted as being "anonymous", but the reality is that all transactions are recorded in a public ledger for everyone to see; permanently accessible. If you were Variety Jones, how would you go about laundering your bitcoin lucre? The FBI has access to Ross's wallets, his chatlogs with VJ and an image of the Silk Road website. It seems plausible that the US government would attempt to use this information to trace any payments made to VJ for his help in managing the Silk Road.

I suppose you could use a mixer, but this would require the launderer to trust a centralized mixing service. How many of these services are actual law enforcement honeypots? How many keep logs? Would a supposedly tech-savvy individual of Variety Jones' caliber really place his personal safety on the hands of the operator of an anonymous mixing service?

b) I saw a couple of posts by VJ on the Silk Road forums in which he advised Tails users to run apt-get update $$ apt-get upgrade every time on startup. This is notoriously bad advice, as packages in Tails are tested extensively for security and any changes could heavily compromise the user's anonymity. Moreover, he made it apparent in another thread that he used a standard build of the Tor Browser Bundle to navigate the internet. This particular kind of setup would be acceptable for a casual user, but completely unacceptable for someone possibly involved in a multi-million dollar criminal enterprise, as TBB is prone to leaks at the protocol level.  One would expect VJ to have known better, but apparently he didn't and neither did Ross, who used a similar setup himself.

I don't think that all this points to VJ beeing a mole. He wouldn't be taking that nick and he would definitely not give DPR the "Plural of Mongoose" hint to find out his name (Thomas Clark).

[Eastfist]

I am really amused by the Ulbricht apologists. To me, the "kid" seems like someone who watched a movie where bad guys do bad things and he idolized them, carried out the exact actions, he became a copy cat. Then he got busted. End of story. No one "needed" to frame poor old Ross. He did it to himself. Yeah, those crooked Feds are crooked, but it doesn't change anything.

[AGD]

I am really amused by the Ulbricht apologists. To me, the "kid" seems like someone who watched a movie where bad guys do bad things and he idolized them, carried out the exact actions, he became a copy cat. Then he got busted. End of story. No one "needed" to frame poor old Ross. He did it to himself. Yeah, those crooked Feds are crooked, but it doesn't change anything.

At the first sight, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence against Ross, but when you dig deeper things turn out to be a lot more complicated. This topic was created, because Variety Jones had a massive impact on Ross. He was manipulating Ross right from the beginning and it is now pretty much proven, that he took over the DPR moniker at a certain time.

Don't get me wrong here. I don't think that Ross is completely innocent. He knew about the laws. He knew that earning commission from drug sales is as illegal as selling them by himself. I mean, do you think that Pablo Escobar saw, or even touched the cocaine he was selling? No, he was earning a commision and was controlling the business, just like Ross.

He also knew that some of the goods he was earning commision from, in some cases could be used to fraud, harm or even kill innocent people. In his libertarian mind it seems justifiable, but I have my doubt, that this is morally correct with all of the goods that were sold on Silk Road. Especially when it comes to children, who were also able to buy anything on the SR.

I am open to discuss the laws on cannabis, which make no sense in light of the legal drugs, like alcohol, tabacco and pills. These laws look kinda outmoded. How many people die every year from alcohol? A very big nuber! How many people die from cannabis? I never heard of one in history! Possible, that there were some few, but this doesn't seem to be a big number compared to the hundreds of thousands death's caused directly by alcohol in every year!

I am also open to discuss about "free information" and some other aspects regarding the products that were sold on SR, but when it comes to hard drugs things are different. It's all about responsibility.

Now back to Ross and the question, wether he was framed or not and if it makes a differrence for his fate:

If most of the evidence presented in his case was manipulated by either the corrupt agents or Variety Jones or maybe both, there should be a retrial based on evidence that is left over after cleaning up.

Ross' laywer said, that he handed over the SR site at an early stage and was tricked back to login as DPR, at the time he was arrested. If this was true and his computer was backdoored and files were altered to fit into the accusations, they have pretty much nothing left as evidence, to prove Ross beeing the great "druglord, that even hires hitmen to get rid of unwanted opponents".

Don't you think he deserves a retrial?

[bigasic]

Ok, lets say for a minute that what Ross is saying is true. He handed the reigns over to someone and then someone hacked into his computer and installed a few terqbytes of information. Now, why would that person give ross over a hundred thousand bitcoins? Doesn't make sense. Plus, he was caught logged in his DPR account talking as DPR. This does not sound like he was set up. He got caught, plain and simple. why he kept a log of everything is mind boggling. Here he was worried that his admins were logging the tor chats and yet he was doing just that. He thought he was smarter than everyone else. Indestructible.

IF he hadn't kept a lof of everything Im pretty sure that he would have walked from some charges, if not all of them. What was the purpose of logging the chats? makes no sense to me at all. Plus, he should have had a system that a plug wrapped around his wrist that fit into his usb port and if it ever got disconnected, the computer would shut down. that would have been something pretty easy to make, especially with all of his money...

He should have taken his millions, sold his site to someone and moved to an island. Now hell be sleeping with bubba....

[AGD]

We can only speculate about the origin of the Bitcoins found on his computer. He was stating first, that these were winnings from investements, trading and such, but this turned out to be a lie, since they found the connection to Silk Road coins. Might be Silk Road winnings from the time beeing the admin of the site plus the ones he already mentioned.

We know that he created the concept and the early stage of the website and we know that he earned commisions from all the sales at least until the time, he possibly gave away the control. He should have known, that his actions are illegal in most of the countries in the world esp. in his own home country, so he will be better off taking the responsibility for that.

Ross is the one who knows, if he has really saved all the chat logs and if he wrote the journal. If this is true and he really did all this by himself, fully conscious and at the same time lying to all of his friends and his community and also ordering hitmen on people without even having proof of anything, he deserves a long sentence for beeing the "ruthless drug lord", that he never wanted to be.

I am sure he will get 10+ years, for the proven and already admitted counts. The 10 years that come in addition at minimum, could be avoided, when he can prove, that he was framed back in at the day of his arrest and has sold the site long time before. When he can prove, that he has nothing to do with all the murder for hire accusations and when he can prove, that the files on his pc were altered by someone else, meaning that all the evidence found on his computer could be excluded.