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I thought I was designing for SpaceX, it may have been for the Silk Road

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Re: I thought I was designing for SpaceX, it may have been for the Silk Road

#91

Post by dopamean »

vkou wrote: post #66
dopamean wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

Did they leave, or did they leave and come back?

They came back the next day and we finished the conversation with my attorney present.

Re: I thought I was designing for SpaceX, it may have been for the Silk Road

#92

Post by the_hangman »

minus7 wrote: post #77

If you take a look at the code on Github you quickly realize it's complete bullshit, a bit of hardcoded data [1] and one file of backend code that looks like it was copied from somewhere [2]. [1] https://github.com/tdrach/Sciview/blob/master/public/javascr... [2] https://github.com/tdrach/Sciview/blob/master/routes/api/v1/...

Wow, this is utter shit. There is literally nothing here.

No wonder he was going 70+ days without being paid.

Re: I thought I was designing for SpaceX, it may have been for the Silk Road

#94

Post by [deleted] »

qz_ wrote: post #26
griffinmb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's crazy. Is he in prison now?

[deleted]

Re: I thought I was designing for SpaceX, it may have been for the Silk Road

#95

Post by EdHominem »

emodendroket wrote: post #73
dmix wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defcon was always much more hateable than DPR. There's probably a reason no-one came to his defense the way they did with Ross. And buying a Tesla with Bitcoin? He was begging to get caught. And he complains about greed. He should have watched Breaking Bad and learned the basic lesson of not buying a flashy car when you're trying to keep a low profile.

I admit I haven't kept up with the whole Silk Road 2.0 story, but I don't see DPR as sympathetic considering the only reason he didn't have a hitman kill people was that he was too bumbling to hire a real one.

I don't see the potential victim as very sympathetic because they were trying to blackmail someone who they knew had no legal recourse.

You can make anyone want to kill you (and attempt it) by threatening them appropriately.

Re: I thought I was designing for SpaceX, it may have been for the Silk Road

#97

Post by wongarsu »

slezakattack wrote: post #61
emodendroket wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7277371 Prophetic.

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.. [1] https://www.wired.com/2014/11/feds-seize-silk-road-2/

> it's bizarre to see yourself "progressing humanity" while working on something completely opposite..

I'm very ambivalent about sites like the Silk Road, but I'm sure some people view them as progressing humanity.

If you see it as a platform that enables "evil" activities, like illegal gun purchases, then it might be regressing humanity.

Alternatively you can view Silk-Road-like websites as disrupting existing illegal markets by moving them from the street to the internet. This enables these services to be offered with less violence, more competition, better "regulation" (banning frauds, community checking quality etc.), etc. With the primary market apparently being drugs, it seems likely that these online platforms save more lives than they cost.

Then again, more readily available drugs likely decrease humanities overall productivity. Depending on what "progressing humanity" means to you, that's bad.

It's a complicated subject, but as far as startups go it has some very compelling arguments why it is progressing humanity (even though the counter arguments are surely not without merrit).

Re: I thought I was designing for SpaceX, it may have been for the Silk Road

#98

Post by emodendroket »

EdHominem wrote: post #95
emodendroket wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admit I haven't kept up with the whole Silk Road 2.0 story, but I don't see DPR as sympathetic considering the only reason he didn't have a hitman kill people was that he was too bumbling to hire a real one.

I don't see the potential victim as very sympathetic because they were trying to blackmail someone who they knew had no legal recourse. You can make anyone want to kill you (and attempt it) by threatening them appropriately.

Well, personally, I don't consider that a justification for homicide, but to each his own.

Re: I thought I was designing for SpaceX, it may have been for the Silk Road

#99

Post by wongarsu »

TrevorJ wrote: post #85
minus7 wrote: post #77

If you take a look at the code on Github you quickly realize it's complete bullshit, a bit of hardcoded data [1] and one file of backend code that looks like it was copied from somewhere [2]. [1] https://github.com/tdrach/Sciview/blob/master/public/javascr... [2] https://github.com/tdrach/Sciview/blob/master/routes/api/v1/...

He doesn't claim it was a finished product

But he talks about an ongoing business relationship. He probably spend a lot of time that isn't obvious in the code (requirements, interface design, software design etc.), but we can only see code that anyone could have coded within one hour. That's substantially less than what I would have expected from the article.

Re: I thought I was designing for SpaceX, it may have been for the Silk Road

#100

Post by wongarsu »

hrayr wrote: post #12

This is a nice ShowHN with a cover story. I'm not questioning the validity, just finding this amusing.

The story is good, the app really isn't worth mentioning. It's little more than a slighlty nicer version of a paper prototype of the basic UI.
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