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My Roommate, the Darknet Drug Lord

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Re: My Roommate, the Darknet Drug Lord

#111

Post by ethanbond »

untog wrote: post #77
calbear81 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a world where roommates don't always pay their rent on time and in turn screw you because now you have to cover since they're not on the lease. Vetting a roommates's ability to pay rent is not unreasonable.

If you're in SF and the person says they are a techie, they can pay rent. You don't need to go into boastful details about it. (in any case, you should really be signing a sublease agreement)

Yeah I've totally never run into someone who "owns a startup" and was "actually broke."

Re: My Roommate, the Darknet Drug Lord

#112

Post by xorcist »

d23 wrote: post #108

> How could someone intelligent enough to graduate with a master’s from Penn State be dumb enough to use his own personal email to advertise an illegal bazaar on a message board as basic as Shroomery.org? Does anyone honestly believe this is how he was caught? Or is it just parallel construction[1]? I wouldn't be surprised if Tor is completely compromised by the United States Government, and this fact is just being h…

Does it matter? The fact of the matter he did make that post, and several others, with his personal email clearly visible on Archive.org. Even if they caught on to him some other way, not much work is required to follow those traces right to him.

Re: My Roommate, the Darknet Drug Lord

#113

Post by xorcist »

ocb wrote: post #47
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really victimless? I'll admit that for something like pot, that is responsibly grown and used, there is no victims (well maybe with second hand smoke, but you get that just as much from cigarettes). But many drugs being sold do not come responsible producers. Instead, they come from groups that cause a lot of harm in order to acquire the money from selling those drugs. Yes, legalizing responsible production wou…

I have no evidence for this, but I think that your chances of funding a violent group with your purchase would be significantly lower on a dark net market than if you made the purchase on the street.

Not likely. The prices on SR were higher than on the street because of more middlemen, not fewer. Whoever is selling to you on SR is buying from the street.

Re: My Roommate, the Darknet Drug Lord

#114

Post by nakedrobot2 »

robbyking wrote: post #15

This is a bit of an aside, but this line really stung: >> Ross was a techie, but he didn't act like one. He seemed eloquent, optimistic, down-to-earth. One of the main reasons I got into software development in the 90's was the fact that software engineers were (largely) eloquent, optimistic, and down-to-earth. It's sad that a vocal minority has sullied the image of an entire industry.

The tech industry has turned into a giant frat party. Sorry folks.

Re: My Roommate, the Darknet Drug Lord

#115

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

pakled_engineer wrote: post #60
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That may be partially true, but Ross polluted much of the goodwill the Internet community had for him when he decided to "order a hitman." Never tried for murder. Never charged. Why not? That's a slam dunk if it were true. But it carries with it greater scrutiny by appellate courts, greater scrutiny by the press. Perhaps those accusations were bullshit. Perhaps our prosecutors should be prohibited by law from makin…

The conspiracy to murder a federal witness indictment is still floating around Maryland. They used it to deny him bail but now that it's proven he is DPR they could if they wanted drive nails into his coffin and pursue that indictment. In that phony hit, the FBI was on the other end and can testify they received payment and instructions from Ulbricht to kill a witness so it isn't just a textfile diary as the only evi…

The feebs are doing parallel construction of evidence. Nothing they say, claim, or testify to is credible or trustworthy. And the only reason it's trusted at all is that the judges get their paycheck from the same place.

In 40 or 50 years (assuming the country doesn't become some Hollywood-movie-esque dystopia), we'll find out how they cheated to find him and lied about his crimes.

Re: My Roommate, the Darknet Drug Lord

#116

Post by s73v3r »

lectrick wrote: post #80
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really victimless? I'll admit that for something like pot, that is responsibly grown and used, there is no victims (well maybe with second hand smoke, but you get that just as much from cigarettes). But many drugs being sold do not come responsible producers. Instead, they come from groups that cause a lot of harm in order to acquire the money from selling those drugs. Yes, legalizing responsible production wou…

> Instead, they come from groups that cause a lot of harm in order to acquire the money from selling those drugs. Yes, legalizing responsible production would largely fix this problem, but a current purchase still funds a horrible group. So basically, to rephrase, the existence of the law is what makes the law necessary. It's almost tautological. IF it were treated as a public health problem (Portugal apparently did…

" Instead, the intelligent, optimistic, apparently caring mind"

Interesting way to describe someone who apparently tried to hire people to murder others in cold blood.

Re: My Roommate, the Darknet Drug Lord

#117

Post by s73v3r »

Retra wrote: post #58
q7 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh c'mon, he ordered a hitman inside a play the FBI fully staged for him. There was never any harm done to anybody. Pure entrapment. Create a fake simulated decision dilemma he never had to decide in real life, put a lot of emotional pressure on him, and then when he made a bad decision inside this simulation that harmed nobody, try to condemn him for it. He hasn't lost my goodwill yet.

"Roberts was upset that one of his employees—records show these employees were paid between $1,000 and $2,000 a week—had stolen from Roberts and eventually managed to get himself arrested by dealing with an undercover agent. Roberts wanted the employee tortured so that he would return the missing Bitcoins. Not knowing much about hitmen, Roberts ended up talking to the very undercover agent who had helped bust his emp…

Some people, blinded by their desire to see drugs legalized, will see any action taken in the presence of an undercover officer as entrapment.

Re: My Roommate, the Darknet Drug Lord

#118

Post by atmosx »

chatmasta wrote: post #2

"Sure, we wanted Ross to go free. We wanted him to be innocent, to be a hero: the poster boy for privacy in the Information Age." That may be partially true, but Ross polluted much of the goodwill the Internet community had for him when he decided to "order a hitman." I doubt he was ever that serious about hiring one. If you read the chats he had, he sounds completely out of his league, and probably never would have…

My personal belief on the matter is that Ross would at some point in time need to hire someone. When you're in the drug business, internet or not, at some point in time you will have to deal with this kind of people. At that point you either become an ferocious animal - more ferocious than your opponents - or you do as the say OR you go home. Strangely no one chooses to go home (a bit a la Walter White).

Of course I can't be sure if he was serious about the 'hitman' or not. Probably he wasn't all that serious about it BUT at some point in time he would have to become either digitally or physically violent one way or another to protect what is his.

Now, considering a guy who made loads of money bulding an illegal marketplace online the "poster boy for privacy in the information age" while having characters like Assange and Snowden around is a shame IMHO.

Since ancient Greece (e.g. Antigone by Sophocles) there is a strugle between Human law and God's law (e.g. Ethics, True, etc.). Snowden falls in that category IMHO. What Ross did was both illegal and unethical.

Re: My Roommate, the Darknet Drug Lord

#119

Post by s73v3r »

msandford wrote: post #88
Retra wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a terrible argument. Imagine you just made that threat to me. I will say "No. And if you come after me, I will just turn you in to the feds." And now you're almost assuredly going to jail, which is what you were trying to avoid in the first place. This is a quick way to stick yourself in an impossible-to-win situation and violate everyone's trust. Anyway, the 'government guy' happened to keep records of what w…

> "No. And if you come after me, I will just turn you in to the feds." Ok so you're going to turn the other guy in to the feds for what exactly? How do you know this other guy? Why would him turning you in to the feds be a problem, unless you're doing something illegal? DPR: He this guy is doing something bad, arrest him! Feds: How do you know he's doing something bad? DPR: Well I run the Silk Road and he told me tha…

I'm sorry, but that idea that because it exists outside the law, people can't settle disputes with anything other than murder is complete horseshit. They choose to employ violence, and as such, they are completely and 100% responsible for their actions.

Re: My Roommate, the Darknet Drug Lord

#120

Post by s73v3r »

mindslight wrote: post #31
chatmasta wrote: post #2

"Sure, we wanted Ross to go free. We wanted him to be innocent, to be a hero: the poster boy for privacy in the Information Age." That may be partially true, but Ross polluted much of the goodwill the Internet community had for him when he decided to "order a hitman." I doubt he was ever that serious about hiring one. If you read the chats he had, he sounds completely out of his league, and probably never would have…

To be fair, contract killing is straight out of The Cyphernomicon . When the incumbent justice system shuns you, the remaining avenue of settling things is the old fashioned way. I primarily see him as yet another casualty of the drug war - if the law were congruent with morality, he would have respected the institution more to begin with instead of doubling down on a conspiracy.

"I primarily see him as yet another casualty of the drug war"

He chose, of his own free will, to start an illegal marketplace, knowing full well what he was doing. He chose, of his own free will, to hire someone else to kill someone.

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