He was working for "Defcon" or Blake Benthall (his roommate in the story). Defcon was running Silk Road 2.0 after the second "Dread Pirate Roberts" left. Blake had been working for SpaceX, and left to work on Silk Road. This is his HN account: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=blakeeb
I'm not sure why, but that comment gave me a few chills.. I think that comment was made about 9 months before he got caught[1]. I imagined he was already running the site if not developing Silk Road 2.0 at that time.
I'm unsure if ironic is the right word but it's bizarre to see yourself "progressing humanity" while working on something completely opposite..
This really is an interesting story, but I wish he'd taken it to a journalist instead of writing it himself. The narrative is choppy and has a lot of holes in it. I would have loved to see this done as a feature from someone with a lot of experience writing about technology. That might also have given some extra credibility and context to things.
Ha. I was going to write a very similar comment. It's a really interesting situation, but the story as told is incomplete and lacking in really obvious parts, such throwing out "30 FBI agents kicking down the door" but not giving anything concrete. Was he there at the time? Was he even still living there? If so, it seems to go directly against his lawyer's "[you will] never hear from the FBI".
I honestly have no clue how this is voted so high on HN right now, I assume it's just the title people are voting on. It makes no sense, jumps around and no flow. I had to re-read parts multiple times and I still have no clue what is going on.
This really is an interesting story, but I wish he'd taken it to a journalist instead of writing it himself. The narrative is choppy and has a lot of holes in it. I would have loved to see this done as a feature from someone with a lot of experience writing about technology. That might also have given some extra credibility and context to things.
Really? I actually like it this way. Journalist tries to make it intriguing and longer . But that doesn't change the events or make them more interesting. I guess I just like simple and straightforward.
Except for the fact that he was working on data sets of oil pressure and speed sensors, but somehow that was for silk road.... maybe I didn't follow it, but I don't understand what he was doing.
Edit: Turns out the headline is completely made up. This was in the comment section: > So was “Sciview” actually some sort of analytics app for Silk Road, with the “sensors” representing some other Silk Road metrics? Or was BB truly freelancing for SpaceX while administering Silk Road? > AUTHOR: Excellent question, I don’t know. So he has no idea if he was just a subcontractor or if he was doing work for Silk Road. I…
Don't recall if I ever met the author of this blog post personally, but his boss/roommate mentioned this particular application to me several times over several months. I was thousands of miles away from SF but it came up repeatedly in casual conversations and after leaving SpaceX he seemed to genuinely believe he had a shot of selling this product to SpaceX as an internal tool. He always juggled lots of projects and besides this SpaceX idea, I remember him telling me 2 weeks before the arrest about another unrelated project he was trying to get a team together for so he could apply to Y Combinator. Never once did I hear anything hinting at involvement with the Silk Road, but he always talked about a million ideas at once. Anyone who knew him for long knew that he traveled a lot for years and years (back in 2010 he was the first person I knew who jumped on Jet Blue's special offer of a month of unlimited travel for only $600), so the author would've realized that was routine if he knew him for long. I do find the author's story very plausible.
Exact procedures are of of course classified, but talk to enough people under investigation, read enough warrant affidavits, and you learn the patterns. They haven't changed much over the decades. They still dress in 1950ish black suits with sunglasses, at least when they want people to recognze them. This is a culture no different than any other corporation. They all dress to look like the boss/oldest man in the roo…
> FBI agents follow the trial lawyers credo "never ask a question you don't already know the answer to" When I was 18 I got a visit from the FBI that was related to some trouble I had gotten into when I was 15. They asked me a question about something I definitely never did and then later in the conversation circled back to my denial and told me they had proof that I did it. It was a really scary and bizarre moment.…
I would love to hear more about this. Both you and the lawyer in the story recognize it as true, but is this something you're taught ... or learn officially ... or learn unofficially?
Exact procedures are of of course classified, but talk to enough people under investigation, read enough warrant affidavits, and you learn the patterns. They haven't changed much over the decades. They still dress in 1950ish black suits with sunglasses, at least when they want people to recognze them. This is a culture no different than any other corporation. They all dress to look like the boss/oldest man in the roo…
Exact procedures are of of course classified, but talk to enough people under investigation, read enough warrant affidavits, and you learn the patterns. They haven't changed much over the decades. They still dress in 1950ish black suits with sunglasses, at least when they want people to recognze them. This is a culture no different than any other corporation. They all dress to look like the boss/oldest man in the roo…
What's riseup?
A group that tries to provide secure means of communication for protests and activists. Take the fact that the FBI have seized and replaced their co-located servers as you will.
What would be the point of photographing the driver?
Annoying them.
Yep. Seems like a classic dumb move(tm) designed to convey that you're on to their FBI games.
I'd say that unless you're a TV spy complete with a complicated plan, sidekicks and knowledge of how the script ends, the right answer here is "skip the high school psych-outs and talk to a lawyer yesterday".
This really is an interesting story, but I wish he'd taken it to a journalist instead of writing it himself. The narrative is choppy and has a lot of holes in it. I would have loved to see this done as a feature from someone with a lot of experience writing about technology. That might also have given some extra credibility and context to things.
Really? I actually like it this way. Journalist tries to make it intriguing and longer . But that doesn't change the events or make them more interesting. I guess I just like simple and straightforward.
But this story wasn't simple or straight forward. If someone challenged me to draw up a simple timeline of events, I wouldn't be able to. I'm not even sure who he was directly reporting to while doing the work for Silk Road, or to whom he sent the final "I quit" email, or what he was doing for them at all.