Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison • Hacker News Board

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#271

Post by tedunangst » Fri, May 29, 2015, 10:02 PM UTC

defen wrote: post #244

rhino369 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. There is no evidence to support purposeful lying about WMDs. Bush admin rushed the intelligence agency and relied on Yes Men to build their story. I'm sure there was some law breaking going on but good luck identifying who what and when. 2. Glass Stegal wouldn't have prevented shit. In fact the combination banks Glass Stegal would have prevented--BoA and Chase--were the banks who were strong enough to absorb the s…

Maybe a better example is the tobacco companies. They were convicted of a 50 year conspiracy to mislead the public about the health dangers of smoking, an activity that has led to trillions of dollars in health care costs and the deaths of literally millions of people in that span (in the US alone). No one went to jail for this...the companies "just" had to pay a $200 billion dollar fine (global annual tobacco sales…

Lesson to be learned: ulbricht should have incorporated the Silk Road.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#272

Post by hebdo » Fri, May 29, 2015, 10:03 PM UTC

jsprogrammer wrote: post #266

hebdo wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of rationalizations may ruin your entire life one day. You cannot and do not know where will any experimentation with drugs bring you to. Remember that the first step of the twelve steps is "admitting that one cannot control one's alcoholism, addiction or compulsion". Finding reasons why you are more privileged than others makes this step even harder.

12 steps has a pretty poor record.

I'm not an expert here actually; do you know what could be considered a more reliable program? I find addictions very interesting, especially given the discovery of the FOSB protein.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#273

Post by peteyPete » Fri, May 29, 2015, 10:03 PM UTC

haroldp wrote: post #225

earlyresort wrote: post #214

Hard drugs are one of those things that have different consequences for different types of people. An intelligent, wealthy, employable person can dabble with them, have a good time, and usually get away with it. Should they get addicted and screw up their lives, they can usually get help and bounce back without permanent consequences. People who're a little less well-off intellectually and economically aren't so resi…

Can you link to a source, or is this just your conjecture?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-...

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#274

Post by lfuller » Fri, May 29, 2015, 10:04 PM UTC

mmanfrin wrote: post #22

> and that at least six deaths were attributable to drugs bought on the site. The government recommended a sentence “substantially above” the 20-year minimum. Man, that is a bit of a mental stretch to blame drug ODs on the runner of a forum. He did not make the drugs, sell the drugs, or transfer the drugs, but the prosecutors faulted him in the OD of people who used those drugs?

I agree. By that logic, the directors of the country's top liquor producers should get the death penalty.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#275

Post by pdkl95 » Fri, May 29, 2015, 10:04 PM UTC

gr8b8m8-88 wrote: post #86

So let's get this straight for the justice system: 1. misleading the American public into going to a series of costly wars through lies about WMDs -> not punishable 2. Weakening Glass-Stegal and encouraging questionable and irresponsible risk-taking at major banking institutions -> not punishable 3. Fraudulent evaluation of risk-ratings by trusted agencies for the sake of profit leading to worst financial disaster si…

0. Torturing civilians - including torturing some to DEATH, aka murder - in a futile attempt to emotionally lash out at people who may have been involved in 9/11

... even though it was well know torture does not produce useful intelligence

... and having ratified (in 1994) the Convention Against torture which includes a duty to prosecute or extradite

... and 18 U.S. Code § 2340A being amended by the "PATRIOT Act" - before the torture occured - to include clause (c) which allows charges and all punishments (except death) to include anyone who conspires to comit torture

-> not even an attempt to prosecute

/* is there a clearer, more obvious way to demonstrate how the US no longer cares about the "rule of law"? perhaps, but I can't think of anything that would top what the CIA has already done /

/* before anybody replies with idiotic claims that somehow it is ok to torture foreigners with claims relating to jurisdictional boundaries, I suggest actually read 18 U.S. Code § 2340A (b) */

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#276

Post by rayiner » Fri, May 29, 2015, 10:05 PM UTC

defen wrote: post #244

rhino369 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. There is no evidence to support purposeful lying about WMDs. Bush admin rushed the intelligence agency and relied on Yes Men to build their story. I'm sure there was some law breaking going on but good luck identifying who what and when. 2. Glass Stegal wouldn't have prevented shit. In fact the combination banks Glass Stegal would have prevented--BoA and Chase--were the banks who were strong enough to absorb the s…

Maybe a better example is the tobacco companies. They were convicted of a 50 year conspiracy to mislead the public about the health dangers of smoking, an activity that has led to trillions of dollars in health care costs and the deaths of literally millions of people in that span (in the US alone). No one went to jail for this...the companies "just" had to pay a $200 billion dollar fine (global annual tobacco sales…

The difference is, of course, that tobacco isn't illegal.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#277

Post by drfuchs » Fri, May 29, 2015, 10:05 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #186

deweller wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

allegedly tried to have multiple people killed. The prosecution brought this up at trial but he was not charged or convicted of this in the criminal trial.

The people supposedly "murdered" never existed... the names did not belong to real people, nor did the photo id's match anyone of record, etc. It's a rumor that they were Fed baiting him... and likely why the Fed never tried to charge him on the murder-for-hire counts.

Curtis Green is a real person, who really worked for Ross, who really was afraid Ross would have him killed, and who in fact Ross did try to have killed. See the very beginning of Joshuah Bearman's "The Rise and Fall of Silk Road" in Wired.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#278

Post by tedunangst » Fri, May 29, 2015, 10:07 PM UTC

RockyMcNuts wrote: post #226

iblaine wrote: post #16

Life without parole seems excessive. I think they're trying to make an example out of him due to how hard it is to detect and prosecute this type of crime.

It's life, not life without parole. He'll get paroled, eventually. People should read some of the background, including haggling over the cost of a murder for hire. - http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/ Truth is, it's hard to run this sort of thing without getting ripped off, and then violence is the only way to discourage people from ripping you off. Watch Godfather movies, esp. part 2... Mafias arise out of h…

Last I heard federal parole isn't a thing.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#279

Post by pakled_engineer » Fri, May 29, 2015, 10:08 PM UTC

pera wrote: post #109

smhenderson wrote: post #13

That seems way too harsh to me. I have strong opinions on the US War on Drugs and it's failure to meaningful deal with drug use/abuse in the USA. And I feel even worse about how it's spilling out into the rest of the world as we go "global" with everything. I can't say I know every detail of the case but I don't recall anyone getting killed or even hurt by Mr. Ulbricht so in my mind the punishment does not fit the cr…

Indeed. This is an exemplary jail sentence: in theory it should be possible to create a perfect dark market, and there is nothing that the FBI can do about it, so they have to implant fear to try to reduce the amount of people who are willing to create the next SR...

I would say that theory would only stand if you lived in Russia, were politically connected, never left Russian territories, and never allowed any sales to CIS/Russian territories. Note the part about being politically connected because the Russian militsia (or w/e they are called these days) will simply be tipped off by the FBI to your whereabouts and go shake you down for hefty taxes. Even if two countries officially don't have any extradition or other MLAT type treaties doesn't mean there isn't low level negotiation between law enforcement, or straight up bribes by the FBI to have local PD shut you down. Maybe you could move to Crimea or Donetsk Republic and get NAF to be your personal bodyguards.

I think it's pretty much impossible to run that kind of a global darkmarket otherwise. Even if you were the world's most experienced sysadmin and could lock down your server(s) (and NSA/FBI httpd/nginx/apache 0day doesn't apply) you still have to worry about Bitcoin laundering and many other issues, you'd have to run around like Jason Bourne everyday and nobody can sustain that discipline without making mistakes. You only have to make one mistake and you're joining Ross at ADX Florence (where he's likely going, nobody convicted of the "Kingpin" charge ends up anywhere else besides supermax prisons)

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#280

Post by asveikau » Fri, May 29, 2015, 10:09 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #164

gr8b8m8-88 wrote: post #86

So let's get this straight for the justice system: 1. misleading the American public into going to a series of costly wars through lies about WMDs -> not punishable 2. Weakening Glass-Stegal and encouraging questionable and irresponsible risk-taking at major banking institutions -> not punishable 3. Fraudulent evaluation of risk-ratings by trusted agencies for the sake of profit leading to worst financial disaster si…

1. There is no evidence to support purposeful lying about WMDs. Bush admin rushed the intelligence agency and relied on Yes Men to build their story. I'm sure there was some law breaking going on but good luck identifying who what and when. 2. Glass Stegal wouldn't have prevented shit. In fact the combination banks Glass Stegal would have prevented--BoA and Chase--were the banks who were strong enough to absorb the s…

> I'm sure there was some law breaking going on but good luck identifying who what and when.

Not meaning to go off on a political tangent, but it seems to me like there was a conscious effort not to ask such questions in an official capacity.

Imagine an alternate universe where we had Watergate-style hearings when Pelosi/Reid took over in 2007, or when the Obama administration started in 2009. In some circles, some people wanted that, and I think rightly or wrongly politicians decided it was not worth it. Easy to forget now, but it was certainly in political discourse 6 to 9 years ago.