The Untold Story of Silk Road
May 17, 2015 11:34 AM   Subscribe

The Untold Story of Silk Road: Part 1. Part 2.
posted by pravit (24 comments total) 34 users marked this as a favorite
 
But if true, Force’s fall mirrors the path of DPR. It was during the Green sting that Force took his first corrupt step, and DPR became a true criminal by ordering murder. Their simultaneous moral turns, so intertwined, reinforced the one theme that barely appeared during Ross’ trial: how easy it is to forget the solidity and consequences of the real world when you live online.
Or is the true corruption the fact that we prosecute a "war on drugs" that everyone knows is a farce, wasting resources and destroying lives in the process?
posted by wuwei at 1:30 PM on May 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


LESSONS I HAVE LEARNT TODAY:

Use throwaway email addresses for all correspondence related to illegal enterprises.

Once you've made enough to never work again, get out while the getting is good.
posted by egypturnash at 1:31 PM on May 17, 2015 [5 favorites]


Once you've made enough to never work again, get out while the getting is good.

You know, I think this about business ventures, as well, but I think that the folks who would be happy to stop whatever they're doing (legal, illegal, in-between) aren't the ones who are going to make that big score, because they're not hungry enough for it, and those who are hungry enough wouldn't ever think of stopping.
posted by xingcat at 1:36 PM on May 17, 2015 [8 favorites]


So funny that the idea of spending time online to catch a criminal who operated 100% online wasn't seen as a plausible strategy.
posted by bleep at 1:42 PM on May 17, 2015


... get out while the getting is good.

The biggest profits are said to come from exit scams -- build a good reputation until you have a large number of orders in the pipeline and then disappear.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:42 PM on May 17, 2015


The most horrible thing about the much-publicized fall of Silk Road is that vague bits of the story have become the basis for trash like CSI Cyber.
posted by fredludd at 1:50 PM on May 17, 2015


Not an untold story. I already read it.
posted by Samizdata at 2:27 PM on May 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


> I think that the folks who would be happy to stop whatever they're doing (legal, illegal, in-between) aren't the ones who are going to make that big score...

If you're gainfully employed, reasonably well-compensated and not overly burdened by debt, you're probably living at or near your notional baseline of a comfortable annual income.

And then if your wealth begins to pile up incrementally -- even if by professional terms you've been riding a rocket to the top, going from multi-thousandaire to multi-millionaire in just a few years -- a kind of reverse-gaslighting happens. Your lifestyle will change in sync with the year-over-year growth of your income, and along with it your notional baseline of comfort. And then an annuity which, in years past would have made your jaw drop, doesn't seem sufficient any more.

If, on the other hand, those millions landed on your all at once (lottery winning, long-lost rich uncle dying), your notion of what-you-can-retire-on is based on your initial, lower cost of living. It's a lot easier to live off the interest from that pile of cash without having to downgrade your lifestyle, because it hadn't been getting upgraded.
posted by at by at 2:27 PM on May 17, 2015 [8 favorites]


Once you've made enough to never work again, get out while the getting is good.

It's worth contemplating the numerous comparisons in the article to Breaking Bad, in that Walter White goes way, way past both his original quitting point and the amount of cash that Skyler could launder in her anticipated lifetime (which will be much longer than Walter's) before she convinces him to stop.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:46 PM on May 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


The most horrible thing about the much-publicized fall of Silk Road is that vague bits of the story have become the basis for trash like CSI Cyber.

Well they did use electricity so it stands to reason that CSI:Cyber would be involved.
posted by srboisvert at 3:09 PM on May 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


So funny that the idea of spending time online to catch a criminal who operated 100% online wasn't seen as a plausible strategy.

They spent over a year online in Silk Road building trust. The user DPR asked to do a hit job was an FBI agent.
posted by jpe at 3:21 PM on May 17, 2015


"They" means Force, and the FBI "Cyber Squad 2" who decided to focus on the online investigation. But they also talked about how there were a bunch of other agencies going after Silk Road and apparently only these 2 thought going after them online was a good idea. I just can't figure out if the story actually played out just like a Hollywood script or if the authors & editors scultped it that way. I wouldn't be surprised either way.

From Part 2:

Tarbell and his team—known as Cyber Squad 2 (or CY2 for short and “the Deuce” for fun)—were relative newcomers to the case. The other agencies had dismissed the FBI, partly because of interagency bluster and partly because the traditional agents who thought casework was all guns and grime and grit had no respect for the eggheads from cybercrime. But in the midst of this enormous law enforcement effort—mostly fruitless so far—Tarbell and CY2 had found the first promising lead in the case.

posted by bleep at 3:38 PM on May 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


Very well written and laid out--this is the best I've seen from WIRED in ages. My only complaint is that I do not care for pull quotes in online content--it's hard to not read them, they often contain spoilers for upcoming sections, and they don't seem to serve any purpose (whereas in print media they are useful as hooks for page-flipping skimmers). But I recognize that my opinion may be in the minority.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 4:02 PM on May 17, 2015 [13 favorites]


I also think those pull quotes are stupid - worse than pointless, actively annoying. Almost as stupid as prompting for newsletter signup the first time a user visits.
posted by bleep at 4:12 PM on May 17, 2015 [4 favorites]


That was really good. I love the bit where the SWAT cowboys were pissed that their "arrest design" had been circumvented, and called the geeks that managed to grab DPR's computer without letting him slam it shut "cowboys."
posted by localroger at 5:43 PM on May 17, 2015 [5 favorites]


The biggest profits are said to come from exit scams -- build a good reputation until you have a large number of orders in the pipeline and then disappear.

True, StickyCarpet. And that is just what happened with Silk Road's primary successor in the Tor network drug biz, Evoution. Apparently, the dastardly duo running the show absconded with $12 million in buyers' and especially sellers' Bitcoin.
posted by kozad at 7:29 PM on May 17, 2015


I always want these articles about the historic Silk Road. Disappointingly, they never are.
posted by thivaia at 8:37 PM on May 17, 2015 [5 favorites]


On July 21, 2013, around the time Tarbell landed in Iceland, DPR’s account received 3,237 transfers totaling $19,459, which would give DPR an annualized income of more than $7 million.

That's a lot of money, but it's way smaller than I would have expected. Before his arrest, Joaquín Guzmán had well over $1 billion. He probably still does; it would be naive to imagine that he wasn't prepared for an arrest.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:05 PM on May 17, 2015



Once you've made enough to never work again, get out while the getting is good.


The Clavin Rule.
posted by BiggerJ at 9:07 PM on May 17, 2015


Great article.
posted by persona au gratin at 1:19 AM on May 18, 2015


Why is Ross Ulbricht being referred to as "Ross" in this story, where the police are referred to by their last name, which is how most news agencies refer to people?
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 12:02 PM on May 20, 2015


(also, I wish I knew how they caught Curtis Green)
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 12:03 PM on May 20, 2015


Galaxor, the Curtis Green / Chronicpain thing is in there. A random dog check found the package of cocaine at the mail distribution hub and they set up a controlled delivery. At the time they had no idea he had anything to do with Silk Road.
posted by localroger at 12:40 PM on May 20, 2015


Attorneys for Ross Ulbricht, convicted in February of running the illegal-drug-selling website Silk Road, are taking an unusual line of argument in advance of his sentencing at the end of this month.

In court documents filed on Friday, Ulbricth’s defense team argues that by selling marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other substances online through the innovative site, Silk Road helped users evade some of the most harmful dangers of the illegal drug market.

“In contrast to the government’s portrayal of the Silk Road web site as a more dangerous version of a traditional drug marketplace, in fact the Silk Road web site was in many respects the most responsible such marketplace in history,” attorney Joshua L. Dratel wrote in a letter to Judge Katherine B. Forrest.

He pointed to features he says “made purchasers substantially safer than they were when purchasing drugs in a conventional manner.”
posted by gingerbeer at 9:06 PM on May 20, 2015


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