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Arrest of Senior Adviser to the Operator of the “Silk Road” Website

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Re: Arrest of Senior Adviser to the Operator of the “Silk Road” Website

#21

Post by johnchristopher »

probdist wrote: post #11
dmix wrote: post #3

It seems an independent researcher who goes by the name "La Moustache" on Twitter managed to correctly ID Variety Jones. > The research conducted by an independent researcher by the name of “La Moustache” determined that Variety Jones is likely Roger or Thomas Clark. > [...] The posts, some containing as much as 3,000 words, explain how “Plural of Mongoose” was arrested after being found running an underground cannab…

Wow the complaint has some bombshells: In particular I'd highlight this as pretty crazy: (screenshot from scribd because I don't have a plaintext copy) http://imgur.com/kaFSSzl One of the Customer Support Staff Members on the Silk Road was a homeland security investigator. Wow.

What's crazy about undercover agents ?

Re: Arrest of Senior Adviser to the Operator of the “Silk Road” Website

#22

Post by [deleted] »

uououuttt wrote: post #4
laarc wrote: post #2

Finally, CLARK also advised Ulbricht on tactics to thwart efforts by law enforcement to investigate Silk Road. In that vein, CLARK repeatedly advocated the use of intimidation and violence to keep members of the Silk Road support staff from cooperating with law enforcement. In one such conversation, in which CLARK and Ulbricht discussed “track[ing] down” a certain Silk Road employee to ensure that he had not gone “[o…

I know HN user gwern did some work partially documenting the forums. It was an interesting place to be, especially towards the beginning. I feel that most of us would've supported violence against those cooperating with law enforcement.

[deleted]

Re: Arrest of Senior Adviser to the Operator of the “Silk Road” Website

#23

Post by uououuttt »

laarc wrote: post #7
uououuttt wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know HN user gwern did some work partially documenting the forums. It was an interesting place to be, especially towards the beginning. I feel that most of us would've supported violence against those cooperating with law enforcement.

Setting aside personal bias: Kudos for admitting that. It takes a lot of courage to put your beliefs out in the open, or even to talk about the beliefs of a group you once identified with. I feel that most of us would've supported violence against those cooperating with law enforcement. Could you help me understand that mindset? It seems like violence is one reason we as a species took hundreds of thousands of years…

Absentinsomniac gave an answer that echoes my feelings. I was a dealer for many years (not on SR though), so I had to think about this. I'm not sure 100% what I personally would have done in the situation, but if someone snitches on you then that is more or less tantamount to violence. You'll get your home raided, and then you'll be thrown in a cage for many years. Much of it did come down to "it's either you or me" -- I know that sounds simplistic, but when you're faced with some draconian prison sentence for doing something you feel is entirely moral, it's easy to feel that way.

I also agree that the online drug scene tends toward higher quality, more accurately marketed products with far less risk of the violence that is typical on the street. SR users felt like they were part of a movement that was making things a lot safer for drug users/buyers, so if an outsider was threatening that by cooperating with LEOs then, in a utilitarian sense, any sort of action against them was justified.

Re: Arrest of Senior Adviser to the Operator of the “Silk Road” Website

#24

Post by [deleted] »

fweespeech wrote: post #16
Absentinsomniac wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can try to give a reply. You have to remember what SR was for. These were people who were not only using SR, but active in the community as well. They were mostly engaged in illegal activities, a good deal of whom were active offline as well taking part in illegal activities. Law enforcement is a constant point of anxiety for every single person involved in this process. If someone who you thought you could trust i…

> And they weren't wrong. The drug war was (and is) a very real thing. I think it goes without saying that most were for the freedom to consume, produce, distribute, and use any drugs they see fit. Law enforcement were encroaching on that freedom. They were the aggressors coming in and disrupting a pretty peaceful process. In many cases, unprovoked. I don't think that's much of a misrepresentation. The problem this i…

[deleted]

Re: Arrest of Senior Adviser to the Operator of the “Silk Road” Website

#26

Post by stickfigure »

fweespeech wrote: post #16
Absentinsomniac wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can try to give a reply. You have to remember what SR was for. These were people who were not only using SR, but active in the community as well. They were mostly engaged in illegal activities, a good deal of whom were active offline as well taking part in illegal activities. Law enforcement is a constant point of anxiety for every single person involved in this process. If someone who you thought you could trust i…

> And they weren't wrong. The drug war was (and is) a very real thing. I think it goes without saying that most were for the freedom to consume, produce, distribute, and use any drugs they see fit. Law enforcement were encroaching on that freedom. They were the aggressors coming in and disrupting a pretty peaceful process. In many cases, unprovoked. I don't think that's much of a misrepresentation. The problem this i…

This is somewhat too simplistic. The Black Panther Party is not universally regarded negatively today, and some of its statesmen have been lionized in media. You can find plenty of fictional movies in which the hero cathartically kills the bad guy in the end - and "corrupt exploitative cops" is a trope.

For better or worse, we glamorize violence when done for a just cause. There's a wide interpretation of "just" - consider for a moment that some of the latin american drug lords managed to become popular figures in their communities. And there are plenty of people that romanticize the mafia.

I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it is a thing.

Re: Arrest of Senior Adviser to the Operator of the “Silk Road” Website

#27

Post by xorcist »

FatalLogic wrote: post #20
laarc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Trying to figure out how to reply without sounding like I'm challenging an idea or putting someone on the defensive... All I can think of is: Thank you for the reply. Know that I respect everyone's viewpoint, and that we're only trying to chase a mystery.) If someone who you thought you could trust is now actively threatening your freedom (or access to a substance, which is also a form of freedom), you take action t…

>But the idea of taking a bat to someone's head for betraying my trust in them is... Well, that's really the question to explore, right? How could someone actually do that, let alone approve of someone else doing that? But, implicitly, you already do approve of that. Your government commits various forms of violence in your name, as all governments do - most notably in the form of military and police actions, some of…

> Your government commits various forms of violence in your name, as all governments do

That's why we have separate systems to keep the violence in check. Granted, it may not always work that well in practice, but it is important to the system that there are checks and balances in place. The question here regarded the moral system where someone can unilaterally decide someone else deserves to be murdered, and what makes people voluntarily choose this system.

Re: Arrest of Senior Adviser to the Operator of the “Silk Road” Website

#28

Post by xorcist »

I'm surprised to see that Ulbricht thought government issued id was the viable solution to the spam/troll/infiltrator problem on the dark web. I would have expected more experiments with reputation based systems and blockchain based identity (such as namecoin). But identity is hard, I get that. Probably the hardest problem these sites face. (Just for curiosity's sake, does anyone with a bit more insight know if collecting passports is a common occurrence in other dark markets?)

Re: Arrest of Senior Adviser to the Operator of the “Silk Road” Website

#29

Post by icebraining »

fweespeech wrote: post #17
laarc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Trying to figure out how to reply without sounding like I'm challenging an idea or putting someone on the defensive... All I can think of is: Thank you for the reply. Know that I respect everyone's viewpoint, and that we're only trying to chase a mystery.) If someone who you thought you could trust is now actively threatening your freedom (or access to a substance, which is also a form of freedom), you take action t…

> Am I just a coward? It's important in the abstract sense to fight for freedoms, and perhaps in the literal sense when one system (i.e. country) is at war with another. You aren't a coward. Violence is an action of last resort and as long as you have the ability to fight politically [i.e. lobbying, protests] it is a tool to be avoided. I think your reaction is more an unconscious understanding that violence is an ex…

Putting someone in prison for a decade is violence. If you believe there's nothing wrong about what you did, isn't using violence just self-defence? Is no law unfair enough to warrant more than passive submission?

Re: Arrest of Senior Adviser to the Operator of the “Silk Road” Website

#30

Post by icebraining »

xorcist wrote: post #27
FatalLogic wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But the idea of taking a bat to someone's head for betraying my trust in them is... Well, that's really the question to explore, right? How could someone actually do that, let alone approve of someone else doing that? But, implicitly, you already do approve of that. Your government commits various forms of violence in your name, as all governments do - most notably in the form of military and police actions, some of…

> Your government commits various forms of violence in your name, as all governments do That's why we have separate systems to keep the violence in check. Granted, it may not always work that well in practice, but it is important to the system that there are checks and balances in place. The question here regarded the moral system where someone can unilaterally decide someone else deserves to be murdered, and what ma…

If you are being targeted by the "checked and balanced" system for doing what you believe to be an harmless activity, isn't that enough to lose your faith in it?
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