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The Untold Story of Silk Road, Part 2: The Fall

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Re: The Untold Story of Silk Road, Part 2: The Fall

#3

Post by amyjess »

tl;dr: Ross was a colossal idiot who ignored warnings about the shoddy state of his opsec.

I hate to say it, because Ross and I have a few mutual friends, but the guy was an idiot, and it's looking more and more like he deserved what he got for being so utterly stupid.

Re: The Untold Story of Silk Road, Part 2: The Fall

#5

Post by Estragon »

amyjess wrote: post #3

tl;dr: Ross was a colossal idiot who ignored warnings about the shoddy state of his opsec. I hate to say it, because Ross and I have a few mutual friends, but the guy was an idiot, and it's looking more and more like he deserved what he got for being so utterly stupid .

It's pretty amazing how the use of Tor drives this kind of wishful ignorance. You see it all the time on /r/darknetmarkets

Re: The Untold Story of Silk Road, Part 2: The Fall

#6

Post by granfalloon »

amyjess wrote: post #3

tl;dr: Ross was a colossal idiot who ignored warnings about the shoddy state of his opsec. I hate to say it, because Ross and I have a few mutual friends, but the guy was an idiot, and it's looking more and more like he deserved what he got for being so utterly stupid .

Deserves it because he was stupid??? Or do you mean because of what he did?

Re: The Untold Story of Silk Road, Part 2: The Fall

#7

Post by ufmace »

amyjess wrote: post #3

tl;dr: Ross was a colossal idiot who ignored warnings about the shoddy state of his opsec. I hate to say it, because Ross and I have a few mutual friends, but the guy was an idiot, and it's looking more and more like he deserved what he got for being so utterly stupid .

Calling him stupid seems to kinda miss the point to me. I think it's more that when you're up against the Feds, especially on something so deeply entrenched as being illegal worldwide as distributing drugs on a massive scale, you're going to get caught eventually, because it only takes one mistake. Sure, he was kinda dumb and made a lot more than one mistake, but how much better could anybody here do? Enough to keep the Feds away for how long, exactly? Another year or two maybe?

I kinda sympathize with his position in a way. He was clearly in over his head both on the technological front and on the administration front, despite making piles of money. When that happens in a normal business, you hire some help. But how do you find help to hire for such a massively illegal operation? Finding anyone who could be trusted is a tough problem, much less someone who can be trusted and also has strong technical skills.

Re: The Untold Story of Silk Road, Part 2: The Fall

#8

Post by fweespeech »

ufmace wrote: post #7
amyjess wrote: post #3

tl;dr: Ross was a colossal idiot who ignored warnings about the shoddy state of his opsec. I hate to say it, because Ross and I have a few mutual friends, but the guy was an idiot, and it's looking more and more like he deserved what he got for being so utterly stupid .

Calling him stupid seems to kinda miss the point to me. I think it's more that when you're up against the Feds, especially on something so deeply entrenched as being illegal worldwide as distributing drugs on a massive scale, you're going to get caught eventually, because it only takes one mistake. Sure, he was kinda dumb and made a lot more than one mistake, but how much better could anybody here do? Enough to keep…

I think the main thing is I would have sold it wholesale for Bitcoin as soon as it was stable and profitable enough that I could make $10 million USD.

He hit that point pretty early on.

The again, I wouldn't start an illegal business intentionally...so there is that.

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