Eagle Scout. Idealist. Drug Trafficker?

Ross Ulbricht’s last moments as a free man were noisy enough to draw a crowd. Employees at the Glen Park branch of the San Francisco library heard a crashing sound and rushed to the science fiction section, expecting to find a patron had hit the floor. Instead, they found a handful of federal agents surrounding a slender 29-year-old man with light brown hair and wearing a T-shirt and jeans.

The goal of the arrest, at 3:15 p.m. on Oct. 1, 2013, was not simply to apprehend Mr. Ulbricht, but also to prevent him from performing the most mundane of tasks: closing his laptop. That computer, according to the F.B.I., was the command center of Silk Road, the world’s largest and most notorious black market for drugs. In just two and a half years, the government says, Silk Road had become a hub for more than $1.2 billion worth of transactions, many of them in cocaine, heroin and LSD.

The site was like an eBay for the illicit, celebrated by drug enthusiasts, denounced by United States senators and stalked by four federal agencies. But because it was run on Tor, an encrypted Internet network, and because it merely connected buyers and sellers — rather than warehousing any products — it seemed to operate in a vaporous cloud. It was a business without infrastructure, other than a few servers and that laptop, which on 3:14 that October afternoon sat on a library desk, open.

Had Mr. Ulbricht seen the F.B.I. coming, and simply closed the laptop, password protections probably would have kicked in, turning the hard drive into what Nicholas Weaver, a researcher at the International Computer Science Institute, called “an encrypted lump” that would have been “tougher to break into than Fort Knox.”

Bitcoin From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Bitcoin A common logo from the Bitcoin reference client Date of introduction 3 January 2009 User(s) International Money Supply 25 bitcoins per block (approximately every ten minutes).[1] Source Number of bitcoins in circulation Subunit 10−8 Satoshi[2] Symbol BTC, XBT,[3] , ฿[4][note 1] This article contains special characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols. Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer payment system and digital currency introduced as open source software in 2009 by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto. It is a cryptocurrency, so-called because it uses cryptography to control the creation and transfer of money.[5] Users send payments by broadcasting digitally signed messages to the network. Participants known as miners verify and timestamp transactions into a shared public database called the block chain, for which they are rewarded with transaction fees and newly minted bitcoins.[6] Conventionally "Bitcoin" capitalized refers to the technology and network whereas "bitcoins" lowercase refers to the currency itself.[7] Bitcoins can be obtained by mining or in exchange for products, services, or other currencies.[8] Bitcoin has been a subject of scrutiny due to ties with illicit activity. In 2013 the FBI shut down the Silk Road online black market and seized 144,000 bitcoins worth US$28.5 million at the time.[9] The United States, however, is currently considered to be Bitcoin friendly compared to other governments.[10] In China, new rules restricted bitcoin exchange for local currency,[11] and the European Banking Authority has warned that Bitcoin lacks consumer protections.[12] Bitcoins can be stolen, and chargebacks are impossible.[13] Commercial use of Bitcoin, illicit or otherwise, is currently small compared to its use by speculators, which has fueled price volatility.[14] Bitcoin as a form of payment for products and services has seen growth, however, and merchants have an incentive to accept the currency because transaction fees are lower than the 2–3% typically imposed by credit card processors.[15]

You should read the article. It’s a bit fluffy, but still a fascinating read that attaches a face to an idea.

I suspect it is already happening, but one has to believe organized crime will take over the basement of the internet at some point. Too much profit potential. The mistake this kid made was trying to run it from the United States.

The detachment of the internet meets murder like it’s all a video game. This will be an interesting movie.

Reality became indistinguishable from a game of Farmville on facebook for this kid. No surprise that he is a Ron Paul supporter. These were real people committing real crimes, but for this kid it was an alternate reality. Considering what his net worth was in comparison to his lifestyle proves it.

This will be a very interesting case and will likely create a good bit of case law moving into a new future for cybercrime.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.