06-20-2015, 03:39 AM
There was a reporter for WIRED that wanted to do a story on Silk Road, so he pestered DPR for months trying to get an interview. Eventually, another "dark web" marijuana site started marketing itself, so the reporter told DPR that either he needed an interview, or he was going to write the story on the other site. So DPR decided to do the interview. When the reporter asked why he'd started Silk Road, DPR responded that he hadn't, and much like the moniker is used in the film, the name had been passed on to him from the previous administrator/owner of the site. This was well before any legal trouble started. A few of the top vendors were interviewed by the doc crew with blacked out faces / voices, and the one guy said he didn't think Ross would ever put out a hit on someone, he wasn't that kinda person, but he could have seen one of the other DPRs doing it. The interviewer said, "wait, there were other DPRs?" and the vendor replied, "yeah, there were 2, or maybe even 3 other guys."
They started watching Ross because he'd made a post on a forums talking about Silk Road early on in the site's incarnation. The name he used linked to his google account somehow, so he became a person of interest. Then they found a shipment of fake ID's that he'd ordered to his craigslist APT where he was using a fake name with his roommates. So they were watching him closer after that. None of that would allow them to find his servers in Iceland where they got the data they needed. According to the LE that "found out" - it was broadcast by the Captcha image they were using for verification, but according to security experts, that's a load of BS and the log files don't show that at all.
As you said, I think he does deserve to be punished. When a 16 year old buys alcohol at a bar and then crashes his car and dies, both the bartender and the owner of the bar are responsible. I think Ross never sold drugs personally, but he owned the establishment and was wrong. Unfortunately, I think the only way to find out what he was doing was for LE to break the law themselves, which means they have no moral high ground to throw stones. But I think the gov't as a whole doubled down on their wrongdoing when the judge was what appears to be very biased.
They started watching Ross because he'd made a post on a forums talking about Silk Road early on in the site's incarnation. The name he used linked to his google account somehow, so he became a person of interest. Then they found a shipment of fake ID's that he'd ordered to his craigslist APT where he was using a fake name with his roommates. So they were watching him closer after that. None of that would allow them to find his servers in Iceland where they got the data they needed. According to the LE that "found out" - it was broadcast by the Captcha image they were using for verification, but according to security experts, that's a load of BS and the log files don't show that at all.
As you said, I think he does deserve to be punished. When a 16 year old buys alcohol at a bar and then crashes his car and dies, both the bartender and the owner of the bar are responsible. I think Ross never sold drugs personally, but he owned the establishment and was wrong. Unfortunately, I think the only way to find out what he was doing was for LE to break the law themselves, which means they have no moral high ground to throw stones. But I think the gov't as a whole doubled down on their wrongdoing when the judge was what appears to be very biased.