FBI raids alleged online drug market Silk Road, arrests owner

[BlueHues]

Marijuana is most definitely still mostly distributed by gangs...

Yeah, I though about that after I read it but what I really meant to say was "good weed", seedless, manicured, high-potency bud grown mostly indoor, but some of that probably is controlled by gangs as well, but not nearly as much...I could make a fortune selling nuggets in the hood where I'm from...now that we have medical it's probably too late though...

 

[sandytrail]

Interesting! I wasn't entirely sure what would have happen with the money. In the end Bitcoins are a virtual (crypto)virtual-currency (much of "real" currency is), decentralised (independent of any central authority) and could quite collapse (along with other technical vulnerabilities/issues I'm sure I haven't think about. Like I said, I'm not economist)

I mean, the point is that, as long as money stays in DPR's private and encrypted wallet, it still represents purchasing power. That the money isn't actually spend short-term merely reduces monetary velocity. Only if access to the wallet was lost, the money supply would fall.

A related example: the US dollor quite low velocity, that is, per capita cash holdings are HUGE. Textbooks typically provide two explanations for that fact. One has to do with the dollar's role being used as a currency abroad (which is unrelated to our discussion here). But two, it is believed that dollars are popular among criminals which want to avoid a paper trail. Now, those dollars may be stored somewhere and not be used day-to-day for purchases, but those dollars still represent purchasing power. Presumably, those dollars will be used to make a purchase eventually.


Bottom line: money being hidden somewhere is still money in circulation. It's fundamentally different from cash stored as reserves in a bank's vault (which is not considered cash in circulation).

 

[ro4eva]

You know what I find funny? When each and every time a US president speaks on a LIVE tv broadcast and always states that we are "free citizens". America; The Land of The Free. Democracy: Freedom. Every single time without fail...WHAT BULLSHIT. Absolute load of fucking crap. You are not free and your society sucks. Stop bragging that you are all free, when you clearly know...you are not allowed to get high, ahah daddy doesn't want you to. ROFL

I would rather live in Pakistan where they smoke hash freely, or even Iran, where heroin users are tolerated. The US IS NOT FREE. BULLFUCK. You are a society of blind citizens, who thinks New Zealand is in Europe and needs to have a 4 layered burger with extra extra large boom diet coke, lol ahahha. You obesity epidemic is what you should all be scared of, not someone smoking a joint you pieces of self-centered scum. Your society sucks and everyone knows it. Your cops bully drug users. Only your blind citizens "think" your society is free. It is not, stop kidding yourselves.

You FBI, CIA etc have a history peddling drugs. They are also cowards, picking on non-violent drugs dealers. Why don't you stop spraying harmful chemicals on other nations and try to stop ultra-extreme-violent cartels? You weak dogs. Also stop telling other nations to do what you want, just fuck off. The day will come when the world will be free to take what they want into their on bodies, and your "land of freedom and opportunity" will be the odd one out, you dumb, annoying accented pricks. Cowards.

Watch an episode of COPS. That is American society. If drugs were legal, that show would not have enough content to make into a show, you bastard pigs. All you care about is $$ MONEY $$ CAPITALISM $$, greedy profit hungry pricks. DEA useless pricks, one day you job will be obsolete.

You think you can stop this you bitches? You can't. There will be 3 more to the 1 head you chop off you fucks. I hate you American dogs. Stop saying that your land is free when it is CLEARLY NOT. YOU ARE NOT FREE, YOU ARE SLAVE TO MONEY..stop lying to yourselves. Your society is fat, dumb, ignorant, full of colorful marketing and only objective in life is $$$$. FUCK YOU

If there's one lesson you should learn about America, it is that they are NOT a nation united under the same ideology, the same opinions, the same mindset, and so forth.

You must also understand why drugs like marijuana, cocaine, heroin, etc. were made illegal in the first place (and also when).

The following is an excerpt from a very well made recent documentary:

Drugs used to be legal. Heroin, cocaine, everything.

Until about 100 years ago, when America appointed its first drug czar, a man named Harry Anslinger.

In his report to the U.S. Senate, Anslinger detailed the reasons drugs must be outlawed.

This is what he said:

"There are 100,000 marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanic, Filipinos, and entertainers."

"Their satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana use."

"It causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and others."

Anslinger's popularity soared with Caucasian voters, and lawmakers began outlawing drugs.

Then the evangelical movement inspired Congress to ban alcohol as well.

Gangsterism was a natural sequel, and battles for exclusive territories erupted with a violence unparalleled in the history of law enforcement.

Guys like Al Capone were suddenly making big bucks.

The black market exploded with such violence that public opinion turned, and Roosevelt ended alcohol prohibition, crushing the burgeoning industry.

But Harry Anslinger didn't stop pushing drug prohibition.

In the 1960's, he took his case all the way to the UN, and lobbied the whole world to adopt the US policy of outlawing drugs.

The UN Single Convention On Narcotic Drugs was the result.

Richard Nixon would pick up where Anslinger left off.

"America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse."

While publicly claiming to address addiction and violence, Nixon used drug policy as a weapon to move against those he thought of as his political enemies.

"Homosexuality, dope, immorality in general - these are the enemies of strong societies."

"That's why the communists and the left wingers are pushing this stuff. They're trying to destroy us."

"Everyone of the bastards that're out there for legalizing marijuana is Jewish."

"What the Christ is the matter with the Jews? What is the matter with them?"

"To fight this new enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive."

President Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Administration with an annual budget of $65 million, and started the war on drugs.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyways, like I was saying, you shouldn't take approximately 300 million people of the same nationality (in this case, American) and profile them all into one group.

There are/were some absolutely brilliant American minds who helped shape the way we communicate with each other. One example is Steve Jobs, may he RIP, who used LSD and ended up stating that it was one of the most important experiences of his life.

Again, if you want someone to blame, blame the politicians and law enforcement for continuing (for nearly a century) to manipulate and perpetuate this "war" for their own selfish reasons. And using smokescreens such as African-Americans, Latinos, other minorities, and children (among many other things) to sway public opinion.

I'm way too out of it to continue the post, but I had say something.

P.S. - In case you're wondering, the documentary in question is titled "How to Make Money Selling Drugs" and I highly recommend you check it out, along with "The House I Live In" just to get an idea of how the government and law enforcement is using the drug war to make lots of money.

I'm just happy that finally it looks like more and more bureaucrats and cops are coming to their senses.

 

[Dr_Robotnik]

The more you read into it,,, it does sound completely bizzare.. "DPR" stated in a post a while back that the website did change hands and they (or he) were the new owners, it might have just been to throw FBI off the scent? Although the thing is the original and the new owners both used the same PGP, so either they continued to share or he was just blagging..? After all the security experts going on about how secure and sophisticated the site was he sure did leave a shit load of evidence and mistakes.

Dunno his whole profile just seems really strange. I still want to find out the Atlantis closing its doors due to "security" reasons then SR getting busted theory... im sure theres many.

All his posts of "back up plans" and "will live on" and hes living in an shittty apartment with a load of randomers, and hes the sole person with access?

I spent til 4am this morning reading SR forum thread after thread aswell as other new sites forums for the bigger picture.

Basically DPR now used to be a programmer for the original DPR and found some sort of loophole/problem in the site. Instead of demanding money etc he worked with the original DPR and went into partnership, which eventually the original DPR sold his share to this Ross guy.

I've only read 6 pages of this thread before I got fed up but I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the cocaine deal DPR is said to have brokered. Between a vendor called "Nob" and "Googleyed1", which went totally tits up in that the Nob guy was working with the Feds who did a controlled delivery to Googleyed1's US address... DPR actually recommended Nob after Nob did him some sort of favour with programming, then later mailed him asking him directly if he knew anyone who would buy large quantities of cocaine. Then even went as far as to back Nob and remove some of Googleyed1's posts..

IMO this guy they have down for being DPR is either not the real DPR and just some monkey they've thrown in the frame or he is very very naïve and arrogant as to think someone's exchanged a few mails with on SR and has maybe done him a favour with security is safe to trust with upto $150k for a hit. There was so many tell tale signs from long ago something was up too look at how many vendors left the scene months ago who were previously major players.

I think anyone using the new sites needs to also be made aware these places are nowhere near as secure as SR was. DPR made mistakes but more to do with those posts on other forums under the alias "altoid" as far as SR security was concerned it was pretty tight, considering it took agents fishing mailing him and supposedly duping him into tripping himself up, ie it was not the forums security that failed but human error that led to the opening.

PGP is now going to be essential if I'm buying online and I think I'd rather wait til a clear market leader emerges. Although I notice a few SR trusted vendors have relocated to one of the newer sites in particular.

 

[velmwend]

Interesting scenario. As an avid reader I'm looking forward to the book

 

[StoneHappyMonday]

I spent til 4am this morning reading SR forum thread after thread aswell as other new sites forums for the bigger picture.

Basically DPR now used to be a programmer for the original DPR and found some sort of loophole/problem in the site. Instead of demanding money etc he worked with the original DPR and went into partnership, which eventually the original DPR sold his share to this Ross guy.

This is just Ross's interview to Forbes laying down red herrings.

 

[Dr_Robotnik]

This is just Ross's interview to Forbes laying down red herrings.

Yeah I think that story about the cocaine deal he brokered shows in many ways how naïve Ross Ulbricht actually was though. The guy was no doubt academically clever, but he was lacking in the street wise department. A lot of the mistakes he made I'd imagine a lot of us on here would have seen as very obvious signs something was up... Like an online dealer wanting you to collect coke from a storage container and pay by bank transfer..

There is so much stuff on the SR forum on the subject I'm still struggling with trying to process all the information.

One thing I will agree on with people on here is them saying this guy is not the owner, or the man at the very top of SR. I can't see that when he lived in shared accommodation and only bought into it all, wasn't the main guy from the beginning, there has definitely we know been more than one DPR, perhaps a few, but are these people who are active on the forum really the guys running it?

I have so many questions but only time will tell I guess. The other options don't look too bad for the small time drug buyer really at the moment. Be interesting to see how Silk 2.0 will pan out, will all the same vendors be on it because it's just been backed up with same layout or what?

 

[Dr_Robotnik]

This post sums up where he went oh so wrong. The guys early posts on certain forums under the alias "altoid" clearly show he changed and became a lot more arrogant towards the end.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3905;sa=showPosts

on: June 02, 2011, 01:11:23 AM

ok, I was waaaaaay wrong with my last call, but I'm going for it again:

The top is immanent. An ending diagonal pattern has completed or is near completion. This is, in Elliott Wave parlance, the 5th wave of the 5 wave sequence that started back in October 2010. This entire move should be retraced with the most probable bottom coming in around 1 btc = $1.

I've liquidated all of my bitcoins and have $25k sitting in Mt. Gox with a 25k btc order at $1 per btc.

Once the rally renews from there, I can retire...wish me luck Smiley

 

[Madhatter4]

honestly who didnt see this coming? Fuck it over a dozen new Dark net illegal drug markets will pop up in its place

 

[Bob Loblaw]

Ignorant FBI Agents Realize They Can’t Open Bitcoin Digital Currency Wallet

Posted by Austin Petersen on 07 Oct 2013 ...
20

Agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation are looking like children with a new puzzle toy after seizing the Bitcoin wallet of Ross Ulbricht, the webmaster of the infamous Silk Road website.

After the arrest of Ulbricht for allegedly running a website devoted to the distribution of recreational drugs, the FBI is now sitting around with his Bitcoin ”wallet” trying to figure out how to de-encrypt and distribute the currency contained within. Bitcoin is a totally decentralized currency that requires no central banking authority in order to provide transactions between users.

In order to transfer Bitcoins out of a digital wallet, users need to know the wallet’s password. But these aren’t ordinary passwords. These are methods of cryptography that are virtually unhackable. The crypotography involved in securing bitcoins relies on multiple redundancies. One is public key cryptography, which requires users to authenticate a transaction directly, signing the transfer with your private key. The transaction logs are kept by everyone so you can always verify who the current owner of any group of coins is. It won’t be hard for people to know that the coins in the FBI’s seized wallet are tainted.

When Ulbricht was arrested, the FBI seized 26,000 Bitcoins belonging to customers of the Silk Road. The bureau also attempted to claim the nearly 600,000 Bitcoins that Ulbricht was holding and but have been stymied from the fact that they can’t crack the intense security required to open the digital wallet.

From Business Insider:

“The FBI has not been able to get to Ulbricht’s personal Bitcoin yet,” wrote Hill. An FBI spokesperson said to Hill that the “$80m worth” that Ulbricht had “was held separately and is encrypted”. At current exchange rates, that represents slightly more than 5% of all bitcoins in circulation.

Even if the FBI is not able to transfer the money, merely having possession of the wallet file itself is enough to prevent the coins being spent. The Bureau is in a position equivalent to having seized a safe belonging to a suspect with no idea of the combination – and no hope of forcing it open any other way.

Read more at TLR: Ignorant FBI Agents Realize They Can't Open Bitcoin Digital Currency Wallet | The Libertarian Republic http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/i...itcoin-digital-currency-wallet/#ixzz2h3muSEFO
Follow us: @LibRepublic on Twitter | LibertarianRepublic on Facebook

This is great.

 

[neversickanymore]

You know what I find funny? When each and every time a US president speaks on a LIVE tv broadcast and always states that we are "free citizens". America; The Land of The Free. Democracy: Freedom. Every single time without fail...WHAT BULLSHIT. Absolute load of fucking crap. You are not free and your society sucks. Stop bragging that you are all free, when you clearly know...you are not allowed to get high, ahah daddy doesn't want you to. ROFL

I would rather live in Pakistan where they smoke hash freely, or even Iran, where heroin users are tolerated. The US IS NOT FREE. BULLFUCK. You are a society of blind citizens, who thinks New Zealand is in Europe and needs to have a 4 layered burger with extra extra large boom diet coke, lol ahahha. You obesity epidemic is what you should all be scared of, not someone smoking a joint you pieces of self-centered scum. Your society sucks and everyone knows it. Your cops bully drug users. Only your blind citizens "think" your society is free. It is not, stop kidding yourselves.

You FBI, CIA etc have a history peddling drugs. They are also cowards, picking on non-violent drugs dealers. Why don't you stop spraying harmful chemicals on other nations and try to stop ultra-extreme-violent cartels? You weak dogs. Also stop telling other nations to do what you want, just fuck off. The day will come when the world will be free to take what they want into their on bodies, and your "land of freedom and opportunity" will be the odd one out, you dumb, annoying accented pricks. Cowards.

Watch an episode of COPS. That is American society. If drugs were legal, that show would not have enough content to make into a show, you bastard pigs. All you care about is $$ MONEY $$ CAPITALISM $$, greedy profit hungry pricks. DEA useless pricks, one day you job will be obsolete.

You think you can stop this you bitches? You can't. There will be 3 more to the 1 head you chop off you fucks. I hate you American dogs. Stop saying that your land is free when it is CLEARLY NOT. YOU ARE NOT FREE, YOU ARE SLAVE TO MONEY..stop lying to yourselves. Your society is fat, dumb, ignorant, full of colorful marketing and only objective in life is $$$$. FUCK YOU

Timeline of United States inventions (before 1890)

Timeline of United States inventions (1890–1945)

Timeline of United States inventions (1946–91)

Timeline of United States inventions (after 1991)


cowards.. please, I almost got mad and my fat gut could have spilled my big guld slurpy into my personal bucket of KFC or worse.. I could have spilt it on any of my all important material goods or my stock dividends reports... and since I derive all my worldly importance and joy from these all important things I would have been devastated and may not have been able to go on. Here in america we get drunk like god intended us to do. Maybe we could use a lesson on how to overcome cowardice, so when your country finds the courage to stand up for itself and exercise its sovereign right to do what it pleases and disregard what the us tells them to do we might learn something along those lines.


Hey and we are free, free to do exactly what our government says to do, and if that aint free I dont know what is.. alright back to my fried chicken and the home shopping network.. its cheap jewelry hour and this shit is going to be awesome.

 

[Bob Loblaw]

Hey and we are free, free to do exactly what our government says to do, and if that aint free I dont know what is.

lolol!

 

[poledriver]

Euthanasia advocate rues Silk Road shutdown


Prominent Australian right-to-die campaigner Philip Nitschke says the shutdown of black market website Silk Road will have a devastating impact on people who use it to obtain euthanasia drugs.

Last week US authorities busted the online bazaar for drugs, arresting the suspected mastermind Ross William Ulbricht, also known as "Dread Pirate Roberts", in San Francisco. His attorney has denied the charges.

Nitschke, the head of Exit International who has campaigned on euthanasia issues for more than a decade, said a lot of people used the marketplace to source reliable quantities of the premier end-of-life drug Nembutal.

Information about how to purchase the drug on Silk Road was contained within The Peaceful Pill Handbook, which is published by Exit International and banned in Australia, but which is available online as an e-book. The information on obtaining the drug through Silk Road would now be removed and replaced with a screen grab of the FBI take down notice which now appears on the website, Dr Nitschke said.

"The Silk Road information has been in there most of this year . . . It's become quite important to people," Dr Nitschke said, adding that he was aware of at least 20 people who bought Nembutal through the site.

"Our elderly members appreciated the comfort that came from knowing that their transactions were private," he said.

Continued -

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/te...ad-shutdown-20131007-2v3a6.html#ixzz2h47IY9tv

 

[Roger&Me]

You know what I find funny? When each and every time a US president speaks on a LIVE tv broadcast and always states that we are "free citizens". America; The Land of The Free. Democracy: Freedom. Every single time without fail...WHAT BULLSHIT. Absolute load of fucking crap. You are not free and your society sucks. Stop bragging that you are all free, when you clearly know...you are not allowed to get high, ahah daddy doesn't want you to. ROFL

I would rather live in Pakistan where they smoke hash freely, or even Iran, where heroin users are tolerated. The US IS NOT FREE. BULLFUCK. You are a society of blind citizens, who thinks New Zealand is in Europe and needs to have a 4 layered burger with extra extra large boom diet coke, lol ahahha. You obesity epidemic is what you should all be scared of, not someone smoking a joint you pieces of self-centered scum. Your society sucks and everyone knows it. Your cops bully drug users. Only your blind citizens "think" your society is free. It is not, stop kidding yourselves.

You FBI, CIA etc have a history peddling drugs. They are also cowards, picking on non-violent drugs dealers. Why don't you stop spraying harmful chemicals on other nations and try to stop ultra-extreme-violent cartels? You weak dogs. Also stop telling other nations to do what you want, just fuck off. The day will come when the world will be free to take what they want into their on bodies, and your "land of freedom and opportunity" will be the odd one out, you dumb, annoying accented pricks. Cowards.

Watch an episode of COPS. That is American society. If drugs were legal, that show would not have enough content to make into a show, you bastard pigs. All you care about is $$ MONEY $$ CAPITALISM $$, greedy profit hungry pricks. DEA useless pricks, one day you job will be obsolete.

You think you can stop this you bitches? You can't. There will be 3 more to the 1 head you chop off you fucks. I hate you American dogs. Stop saying that your land is free when it is CLEARLY NOT. YOU ARE NOT FREE, YOU ARE SLAVE TO MONEY..stop lying to yourselves. Your society is fat, dumb, ignorant, full of colorful marketing and only objective in life is $$$$. FUCK YOU

lol

COME AT US BRO

 

[Folley]

This is great.

Fucking hell.. they took my money and can't even do anything with it? That's bull shit! At least it's not going to the DEA 8(

 

[missmeyet?]

I spent til 4am this morning reading SR forum thread after thread aswell as other new sites forums for the bigger picture.

Basically DPR now used to be a programmer for the original DPR and found some sort of loophole/problem in the site. Instead of demanding money etc he worked with the original DPR and went into partnership, which eventually the original DPR sold his share to this Ross guy.

I've only read 6 pages of this thread before I got fed up but I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the cocaine deal DPR is said to have brokered. Between a vendor called "Nob" and "Googleyed1", which went totally tits up in that the Nob guy was working with the Feds who did a controlled delivery to Googleyed1's US address... DPR actually recommended Nob after Nob did him some sort of favour with programming, then later mailed him asking him directly if he knew anyone who would buy large quantities of cocaine. Then even went as far as to back Nob and remove some of Googleyed1's posts..

IMO this guy they have down for being DPR is either not the real DPR and just some monkey they've thrown in the frame or he is very very naïve and arrogant as to think someone's exchanged a few mails with on SR and has maybe done him a favour with security is safe to trust with upto $150k for a hit. There was so many tell tale signs from long ago something was up too look at how many vendors left the scene months ago who were previously major players.

I think anyone using the new sites needs to also be made aware these places are nowhere near as secure as SR was. DPR made mistakes but more to do with those posts on other forums under the alias "altoid" as far as SR security was concerned it was pretty tight, considering it took agents fishing mailing him and supposedly duping him into tripping himself up, ie it was not the forums security that failed but human error that led to the opening.

PGP is now going to be essential if I'm buying online and I think I'd rather wait til a clear market leader emerges. Although I notice a few SR trusted vendors have relocated to one of the newer sites in particular.

Be very careful about these "trusted vendors" that have moved over to the other sites. It was stated/quoted a few pages back on this thread thatat least one of these vendors' names is. Just being impersonated by scammers. They set up an account to look like it is the trusted vendors from SR on the other sites but it is not really them. So unless you can personally prove to yourself it is them (and just because they are selling same things or have some of same statements on the account doesn't prove it is them...just someone familar enough with the legit vendor to copy their account info) then I wouldn't trust it.

 

[LuGoJ]

Be very careful about these "trusted vendors" that have moved over to the other sites. It was stated/quoted a few pages back on this thread thatat least one of these vendors' names is. Just being impersonated by scammers. They set up an account to look like it is the trusted vendors from SR on the other sites but it is not really them. So unless you can personally prove to yourself it is them (and just because they are selling same things or have some of same statements on the account doesn't prove it is them...just someone familar enough with the legit vendor to copy their account info) then I wouldn't trust it.

I would assume everyone will be using PGP, especially now. An impersonator wont' be able to decrypt a message meant for someone else.

Anyone not using PGP for this sort of thing by this point obviously suffers from some sort of brain damage and probably should stop using computers.

 

[Mendo_K]

Agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation are looking like children with a new puzzle toy after seizing the Bitcoin wallet of Ross Ulbricht, the webmaster of the infamous Silk Road website.

After the arrest of Ulbricht for allegedly running a website devoted to the distribution of recreational drugs, the FBI is now sitting around with his Bitcoin ”wallet” trying to figure out how to de-encrypt and distribute the currency contained within. Bitcoin is a totally decentralized currency that requires no central banking authority in order to provide transactions between users.

Yeah, I hardly thought they would simply let the FBI open all the money he has ever made from the website, I am sure he is going to hold onto that "$80m commision, I think its more likely he hold about 10% of that, but its still quite a bit of money".

Anyway the seized coins wallet that people are sending 0.000001btc to with a message, someone from Brazil just sent 250 Bitcoins ($34,000 around) to the FBI's wallet... or are they now seizing more coins..? Confused, they added a message about the drug war in Portuguese.. hope that wasnt a horrible mistake

http://blockchain.info/tx/c99eab8a071d91ce60de038c0d6bff8a51d9f566ef977edc91f6bcf091b7c06f

 

[missmeyet?]

I would assume everyone will be using PGP, especially now. An impersonator wont' be able to decrypt a message meant for someone else.

Anyone not using PGP for this sort of thing by this point obviously suffers from some sort of brain damage and probably should stop using computers.

Are the vendors going to use the same PGP on the new site that they used onSR?

These scammers are just opening a new account on the other sites with a name the same as or similar to known sellers on SR...some people may recognize the name and go, oh yeah I know he was big seller on SR but not remember or know enough info about them from SR to realize that they are not the real McCoy...

 

[Josh]

Are the vendors going to use the same PGP on lthe new site that they used onSR?

I'd be suspicious of any which aren't.