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Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

forbes.com

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Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#41

Post by nobodysfool »

dobbsbob wrote: post #32
sirsar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interviewer didn't even get the operator's first name. I think he (she? they?)'ll be fine.

We know he found a wallet bug so that immediately gives away what level of competency/expertise to look for on the bitcoin forums which he undoubtedly posts there too. How he discovered the site is relevant and will give away how long he has been on bitcointalk since the orig dpr advertised there. We know his book recommendations from the forum which he prob recommended on clearnet in the past, or attached to his FB…

Not to mention, the dude had to have money (even before taking this over) if he said the previous owner was "well compensated".

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#42

Post by w-ll »

simantel wrote: post #31
chrissnell wrote: post #26

The Dread Pirate's curse is that he'll never be able really spend much of this pile of currency that he's accumulated, at least not without drawing attention to himself and getting busted. History has shown that these guys eventually get busted but rarely for drug dealing; it's usually the IRS that busts them for tax evasion. If you're buying fancy cars, big houses, yachts, or businesses, eventually someone is going…

As someone who doesn't know much about Bitcoins: Could he just say he mined a bunch of Bitcoins a few years ago and is now cashing out?

Well if there asking him questions chances are already following transactions, and its very easy to tell if coins have been mined and maybe shuffled around a few times vs coins with long blockchain history.

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#43

Post by ImprovedSilence »

jere wrote: post #13

>If Roberts is paranoid, it’s because very powerful people really are out to get him. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you!

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#44

Post by MattyRad »

dobbsbob wrote: post #32
sirsar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interviewer didn't even get the operator's first name. I think he (she? they?)'ll be fine.

We know he found a wallet bug so that immediately gives away what level of competency/expertise to look for on the bitcoin forums which he undoubtedly posts there too. How he discovered the site is relevant and will give away how long he has been on bitcointalk since the orig dpr advertised there. We know his book recommendations from the forum which he prob recommended on clearnet in the past, or attached to his FB…

I hadn't thought of a few of those tactics. Good thinking. Just goes to show how little data you need acquire identifying information. Still though, I think the interview is fascinating, if possibly revealing.

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#45

Post by tankbot »

logn wrote: post #38

I'm pretty sure the government is delighted by Silk Road so that they can finally justify searching all physical mail in some very advanced way. HN, you're always asking for startup ideas, why not just get totally evil and invent technology to scan physical mail at scale and hook it into PRISM? You'd stand to make at least millions if you did it right. Oh, and part of doing it right is making sure there's some altern…

I don't have the links handy, but it's well know that mail has been photographed for years and it seems likely that PRISM or some gov database is already ingesting this information. Seems like an easy step to upgrade the camera to something that attempts to scan contents.

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#46

Post by tankbot »

jere wrote: post #13

>If Roberts is paranoid, it’s because very powerful people really are out to get him. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Certainly he has justification. Also, clever use of a Princess Bride quote.

Inconceivable!

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#47

Post by nadaviv »

victorhn wrote: post #27
bitteralmond wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like a bogus address with only a real email in Tor-land. Domain is paid with Bitcoin through bitdomain.biz, so that's a dead end too.

If i bought a domain trough bitdomain.biz and somehow i have problems with it (like getting stolen the password, somebody else claiming it), how can they verify that i am the person that bought originally the domain.

You could send them an email signed with the private key that you originally paid with (Bitcoin has a message signature feature in the GUI).

Edit: see here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=223713.0

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#49

Post by GuiA »

chrischen wrote: post #14

Whether it's a victimless crime or not depends on where they source the drugs. You could argue that aggressive law-enforcement is what causes reprisal violence, but that still wouldn't justify supporting it in another way.

Well, producing child pornography is a crime that is inherently victim-ful. (I do not include cartoon CP here)

Producing drugs today happens to have victims because of social policies etc, but those aren't inherent to the act of producing the drug.

There are victims in the production of certain modern day goods (like electronics, clothes, etc.) but that doesn't mean that manufacturing iPhones necessarily leads to exploited Chinese workers. (although one could make the argument that selling iPhones at the price that they are sold for today cannot be realistically achieved without having Foxconn-style factories)

Re: Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, the man behind Silk Road

#50

Post by geetee »

chrissnell wrote: post #26

The Dread Pirate's curse is that he'll never be able really spend much of this pile of currency that he's accumulated, at least not without drawing attention to himself and getting busted. History has shown that these guys eventually get busted but rarely for drug dealing; it's usually the IRS that busts them for tax evasion. If you're buying fancy cars, big houses, yachts, or businesses, eventually someone is going…

I heard he's buying a car wash operation or two.
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