Operator of Silk Road 2.0 Website Charged in Manhattan Federal Court

Apparently running a social media website where you don't sell drugs but other people do is also illegal.

He committed the equivalent of putting up a bulletin board where drug dealers would pin instructions on how to buy from them.

Sure, most people don't operate black market sites. But the problem is that if the government is able to use technology to have near-perfect knowledge of what everyone is up to then bad things happen when you get a bad person in charge of the government. Possible case in point just happened:

http://goo.gl/yndbdS

The bottom line is that there should be a way for people to be anonymous behind their keyboard. That's what prevents people from dying for expressing opinions that are counter to the government. Just picture a radical Prolife president who feels justified in murdering people who advocate for Prochoice policies. Don't focus on the one example - there are all kinds of bad things that a bad person in power could do. Enforcing laws is not a justification for absolute power.

"40. Based on a review of records provided by the service provider for the Silk Road 2.0 Server (the “Provider”), I have discovered that the server was controlled and maintained during the relevant time by an individual using the email account “blake@benthall.net” (“Benthall Email Account-1")."

"b. I have also reviewed a publicly available profile of “Blake Benthall” on Twitter, another social networking website, which includes a photograph of BENTHALL as the user of the account, depicting the same individual associated with the GitHub account, discussed above. I have reviewed a post on that Twitter profile, dated on or about November 6, 2013, the date when Silk Road 2.0 was publicly launched, stating: “All this talk about the #SilkRoad being back up makes me want to watch ThePrincessBride.”"

"a. I have reviewed records provided by a U S.-based Bitcoin exchanger (“Exchanger-1"), for an account registered under the name “Blake Benthall” and linked to Benthall Email Account-1 (“Bitcoin Account-1”). According to transaction records for Bitcoin Account-1, BENTHALL engaged in his first Bitcoin transaction with Exchanger-1 on or about November 7, 2013, the day after Silk Road 2.0 was publicly launched. The transactional records reflect that, since that date, BENTHALL has received a total of approximately 575.58 Bitcoins into the account through on or about October 28, 2014, and that BENTHALL has exchanged approximately 543.63 of those Bitcoins for United States currency, totaling $273,626.60"

"c. I have reviewed emails from Benthall Email Account-1 reflecting that BENTHALL purchased a luxury vehicle with Bitcoins in late January 2014 - approximately one month after Defcon assumed control of Silk Road 2.0. Specifically, email correspondence indicates that, in or about late January 2014, BENTHALL made a down payment of approximately $70,000 in Bitcoins towards the purchase of a Tesla Model S, worth approximately $127,000 in United States currency."

"b. Records provided by Exchanger-1 regarding Bitcoin Account-1 indicate that on the same date, BENTHALL logged into Bitcoin Account-1, using the identical combination of software: Google Chrome web browser version 35.0-1910.3 and the Apple OS X operating system, version 10.9.0.

"c. According to publicly available information, on or about April 6, 2014, Google Chrome version 35 O.1910.3 was a beta version of the browser,L2 and Apple OS X version 10.9.0 was outdated.B Thus, based on my training and experience, this particular combination of software versions would not have been common among Internet users at the time. The information available to the HSI-UC indicates that Defcon was not using Tor to access the customer support interface at the time, which would have caused Defcon’s browser and operating system to appear differently."