Silk Road shut down this morning - arrests made

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9910TR20131002


FBI raids alleged online drug market Silk Road, arrests owner

NEW YORK | Wed Oct 2, 2013 11:36am EDT
Oct 2 (Reuters) - U.S. law enforcement authorities raided an Internet site that served as a marketplace for illegal drugs, including heroin and cocaine, and arrested its owner, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Wednesday.

The FBI arrested Ross William Ulbricht, known as "Dread Pirate Roberts," in San Francisco on Tuesday, according to court filings. Federal prosecutors charged Ulbricht with one count each of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, according to a court filing.

http://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-conten...lComplaint.pdf

allegedly, this is the Federal Complaint, which is very slow to download



Even during a federal government shutdown, drug pirates aren’t safe. Popular online black market Silk Road has been shut down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and an individual alleged to be its infamous owner, ‘Dread Pirate Roberts,’ has been arrested, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation complaint.

Krebs on Security uploaded a photo of Silk Road apparently shut down by an FBI raid and has since published the full government complaint. It alleges that Ross William Ulbricht, a San Francisco resident, is the mastermind behind the Silk Road, and the ‘DPR’ behind its booming marketplace of activity for narcotics and other illicit goods, the most famous use of the open-source electronic money known as Bitcoin.




Ulbricht has been charged with one count of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. The full complaint linked to above is worth a read, but it appears that agents found Ulbricht after Canadian border authorities routinely checked a package intended for his San Francisco home and discovered nine fake identification cards within, which Ulbricht allegedly was seeking to obtain to rent more servers to power Silk Road as it massively expanded.

For the best account to date of the Dread Pirate Robert’s life, formerly behind the scenes, check FORBES’ cover story, “The Man Behind Booming Black Market Drug Website Silk Road.” In the story, DPR, or allegedly Ulbricht as we know now, told Andy Greenberg he couldn’t communicate outside of the underground anonymous Tor software system through which he operated Silk Road, noting: “The highest levels of government are hunting me, I can’t take any chances.”

It appears that looking to purchase identification may have been that unnecessary chance that has put an end to DPR’s run, but there were other holes in the system. FORBES also purchased marijuana over the Silk Road market and found its purchases could be traced.

Keep an eye for updates to this story.

The Federal Complaint took several minutes to load, but is so far a very good read.

http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/com...ussion/ccjl1ub

 

View on scribd here: https://www.scribd.com/doc/172777827/  

http://www.youtube.com/user/ohyearos...ctivity_view=4

so let's just estimate that in about 3-4 yrs bitcoin gambling sites will finally be shut down.

It's been a good run Micon, shut down the site before you're next.

Bitcoins going from 141 today to 125 currently with heavy volume.

Where is that SilkRoad user at now who thought the site could never go down and thought the Bitcoin currency was so almighty?

The SilkRoad market played a massive role in driving the price of the coin up so if I owned any of them things which I don't I would sell immediately.

LOL @ anyone who felt that bitcoin was invulnerable to the reach of the US government.

I remember hearing the same BS about Pokerstars and Full Tilt prior to Black Friday.

This Ulbricht guy was amazingly stupid to continue living in the US while running something like Silk Road. Did he really think they would never catch up to him? He was obviously aware that they were after his site and trying hard to unmask the owner. If he had any common sense at all, he would have run Silk Road out of a country with no extradition treaty with the US (and where they wouldn't want to arrest him either). Maybe not as pleasant to live in a place like that, but at least he would be safe from prosecution. He made it too easy, living right here on US soil!

Funny that a random Canadian border mail check was what did him in.

While this is a bit different, I will say that the border agents I encountered at the Canadian/US border between Alberta and Montana were very hard-line and anal. Some butch-looking female agent, who worked for the US, opened up my suitcases and rifled through my stuff, and we were just your typical American family on summer vacation. And then, of course, there was Terrence Chan's horror story at the border when they "caught" him with a lot of cash.

Doesn't surprise me that they are equally anal about inspecting cross-border mail.

You would think the guy could have purchased fake IDs from somewhere in the US, thus avoiding international mail scrutiny, but again this guy definitely had a few holes in his thinking.

I bet the next government target will be MtGox.

Within a few years, I bet bitcoin will return to its former status as a cute little internet science project, and won't be usable for any real purchases of goods.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

This Ulbricht guy was amazingly stupid to continue living in the US while running something like Silk Road. Did he really think they would never catch up to him?

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Seriously. First thing I thought. He was located in the US? What a moron

BTC at 120



Check the top of the Stratosphere for Micon, please.

Im going to speculate that the border mail check is actually bs and that they dont want to reveal how they really caught him.

The guy felt he was untraceable but he never should have given any interviews like the one he gave Forbes even if he felt he covered all his tracks to being traced. LOL @ how he got caught. Now the question becomes whether someone else will try to be the next "Dread Pirate Roberts"?

This is a picture of the guy:

http://b-i.forbesimg.com/andygreenbe....33.10-PM1.png

^^^ Source is Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygree...-black-market/

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Originally Posted by simpdog

so let's just estimate that in about 3-4 yrs bitcoin gambling sites will finally be shut down.

It's been a good run Micon, shut down the site before you're next.

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But you forget that Micon outsmarted the US government by using the .eu extension silly.

BTC at 115

BTC at 110


getting ugly

Nice to see Donkdown reporting essentially EVERYTHING from this thread.

So many articles floating around everywhere but this is an interesting read:

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-f...t-down-2013-10

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In June 2013, Ulbricht allegedly logged into Silk Road from an Internet Cafe in San Francisco. From there the feds traced his Gmail logs and located his home, 500 feet away, on Hickory Street in San Francisco. They intercepted his mail and found he had allegedly been receiving fake IDs.

Agents visited him on July 26, 2013, and discovered his roommates knew him as "Josh." He declined to answer their questions.

In July 2013, the FBI located the Silk Road server and copied an image of it — all its contents, in other words. They discovered 957,000 registered accounts on the server, of which at least 30% were from the U.S.

Things came to a head in early August, when the FBI arrested a man who was allegedly trading child pornography via a Tor-hosted site called Freedom Hosting.

At that point, "dark web" sites began going offline as users figured out that as much as 50% of the Tor network had been compromised by the feds.

The fact that Ulbricht was still online, and operating Silk Road, through September, is therefore surprising. he had ample warning the feds were after him as far back as June.

In fact, as the indictment against him makes clear, the feds were on to Silk Road back in January 2011. Their investigation discovered him allegedly trying to hire a hitman to take care of an extortionist in March 2013.

The bottom line is that if you were doing anything illegal on Tor or Silk Road for the last three years, you may be screwed.

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Another picture of Ross Ulbricht:

http://static2.businessinsider.com/i...-/dsc_3560.jpg

All the warning signs where there for months but kid probably felt he was on top of the world and got very lazy protecting his ass.

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Originally Posted by DRK Star

BTC at 120



Check the top of the Stratosphere for Micon, please.

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I don't think he cares. He has prob made and is still making big money @ SWC and could prob sell it for a decent chunk now if he wanted to

On another note my virus scanner picked up a high threat exploit trying to visit Micon's write up of this over on DD that I seen him post on twitter so LOL at that.

http://www.dailydot.com/crime/fbi-in...rts-silk-road/

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...tml?mid=google

http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/in...pg/a_560x0.jpg

http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/in...pg/a_560x0.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olib3jnvSmw

BTC's having a nice run-up to the mid 120s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXO-jKksQkM

https://twitter.com/DoubleJake/statu...75310587625472

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dread_Pirate_Roberts


A pirate of near-mythical reputation, The Dread Pirate Roberts is feared across the seven seas for his ruthlessness and swordfighting prowess, and is well known for taking no prisoners.

It is revealed during the course of the story that Roberts is not one man, but a series of individuals who periodically pass the name and reputation to a chosen successor. Everyone except the successor and the former Roberts is then released at a convenient port, and a new crew is hired. The former Roberts stays aboard as first mate, referring to his successor as "Captain Roberts", and thereby establishing the new Roberts' persona. After the crew is convinced, the former Roberts leaves the ship and retires on his earnings.

great story, movie time.

http://gawker.com/meet-silk-roads-al...lif-1440275594

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Originally Posted by DRK Star

https://twitter.com/DoubleJake/statu...75310587625472

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Dammit, Janet

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DRK Star

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dread_Pirate_Roberts


A pirate of near-mythical reputation, The Dread Pirate Roberts is feared across the seven seas for his ruthlessness and swordfighting prowess, and is well known for taking no prisoners.

It is revealed during the course of the story that Roberts is not one man, but a series of individuals who periodically pass the name and reputation to a chosen successor. Everyone except the successor and the former Roberts is then released at a convenient port, and a new crew is hired. The former Roberts stays aboard as first mate, referring to his successor as "Captain Roberts", and thereby establishing the new Roberts' persona. After the crew is convinced, the former Roberts leaves the ship and retires on his earnings.

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Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya.
You have committed crimes against
The United States of America and her peoples,
and i'm here to arrest you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 4Dragons

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DRK Star

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dread_Pirate_Roberts


A pirate of near-mythical reputation, The Dread Pirate Roberts is feared across the seven seas for his ruthlessness and swordfighting prowess, and is well known for taking no prisoners.

It is revealed during the course of the story that Roberts is not one man, but a series of individuals who periodically pass the name and reputation to a chosen successor. Everyone except the successor and the former Roberts is then released at a convenient port, and a new crew is hired. The former Roberts stays aboard as first mate, referring to his successor as "Captain Roberts", and thereby establishing the new Roberts' persona. After the crew is convinced, the former Roberts leaves the ship and retires on his earnings.

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It will be interesting to see if another one of the TOR sites Admins takes on the name. It would be fitting.

Silk Road had been getting challenged for awhile. There are people out there with better technical knowledge who have already taken over the cause.

Say goodbye to another one of the U.S.'s largest Job Creators.




#thanksobama

Amazing how dumb this guy was.

Everyone pictured the owner of Silk Road being some slick dude, living hidden away in another country, exercising the utmost care with his own security measures.

Nope.

First off, he created an account on shroomery.org (a drug forum) only to promote SilkRoad when it first went up. The account had just 2 posts in January 2011, both about SilkRoad. It was clear that the person posting it -- a user named Altoid -- had something to do with SilkRoad, rather than just an average user.

Quote:

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On Jan. 27, 2011, a user named Altoid made a post on The Shroomery, a website devoted to illegal mushrooms, about advertising Silk Road. Altoid never made any other posts on Shroomery, leading FBI investigators to believe he’d registered only to advertise his newly launched drug marketplace.

“I came across this website called Silk Road,” Altoid wrote. “It's a Tor hidden service that claims to allow you to buy and sell anything online anonymously. I'm thinking of buying off it, but wanted to see if anyone here had heard of it and could recommend it. I found it through silkroad420.wordpress.com, which, if you have a tor browser, directs you to the real site at http://tydgccykixpbu6uz.onion. Let me know what you think…”

Altoid used Tor to make the post, rendering it relatively untraceable by the FBI.

Two days later, on Jan. 29, 2011, another user named Altoid made a similar post on BitcoinTalk.org. “Altoid” was on a campaign to generate interest in the site. He ended both messages with “Let me know what you think.” The repetition tipped investigators off.

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:facepalm5

This was about as obvious as posting, "Hi, I started up an anonymous trading site using bitcoins called SilkRoad. Here's the address..."

So then Altoid stayed silent for another 9 months, finally showing up again in October 2011:

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On Oct. 11, 2011, Altoid posted a wanted ad on BitcoinTalk looking for “an IT pro in the Bitcoin community.” He asked interested parties to email “rossulbricht at gmail dot com,” forever linking Ulbricht’s name with Silk Road in the eyes of the FBI.

The FBI obtained records from Google indicating that Ross William Ulbricht was the owner of the Altoid account.

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Can you believe this?!

The moron was soliciting programmers for SilkRoad -- under an account previously used to initially advertise SilkRoad -- using his real name gmail account.

And then this...

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Homeland Security first visited Ulbricht on July 26, to investigate the counterfeit documents. When the agents showed Ulbricht the counterfeits, "Ulbricht volunteered that 'hypothetically' anyone could go onto a website named 'Silk Road' on 'Tor' and purchase any drugs or fake identity documents the person wanted."

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So he got a visit this year in July, and still hung around for 2 more months so they could eventually arrest him.

:doublefacepalm

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According Department of Justice documents, Ulbricht was apprehended in San Francisco, along with $3.6 million in bitcoins, a cryptocurrency at the heart of Silk Road’s billion dollar economy.

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:lol

The above quotes were all from the Daily Dot article posted by BeerandPoker.

And from the gawker article, posted by Charham:

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The feds also managed to gain access to servers belonging to Silk Road. They spied on the traffic in real time, determining that from Feb 2011 to July 2013 there were 2013 1,229,465 transactions on the site, and 957,079 total registered users. This raises the question of exactly how much information they have on Silk Road's users, and whether more busts are to come. (Agents made over 100 undercover transactions throughout the investigation, according to the indictment.)

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So, yeah, the feds probably had access to Silk Road's traffic since 2011, and just sat back and watched as all the sheep thought they were secure.

Once again, computer nerds with hubris think they're smarter than the federal government, and then reality slaps them in the face.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chinamaniac

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DRK Star

BTC at 120



Check the top of the Stratosphere for Micon, please.

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I don't think he cares. He has prob made and is still making big money @ SWC and could prob sell it for a decent chunk now if he wanted to

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dont think this is true at all.

micon was playing for like 20 pct of himself at the wsop this year. no way he does that if he has $ becuz he thinks hes a great player and would kick himself if he won an event and had to give 80 pct away. you only play for 20 pct if u are busto, unless u are a huge bankroll nit which we know micon isnt!

SilkRoad Killed by USA Government
October 2, 2013 by DonkDown Admin

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” -Adam Kokesh quoting Albert Camus

“What we’re doing isn’t about scoring drugs or ‘sticking it to the man.’ It’s about standing up for our rights as human beings and refusing to submit when we’ve done no wrong.” -Ross William Ulbricht while still masked as Dread Pirate Roberts

Today I woke to the SwC chat buzzing with shouts of “SilkRoad Shutdown!” and claims that this image is now the entire site:

http://i.imgur.com/7jfZLgw.png

Andy Greenberg’s article about the SilkRoad closure on Forbes quickly determined the information was unfortunately true. For those paying attention, Andy Greenberg did an interview with the man only known as “Dread Pirate Roberts” only months earlier.

We learned today that Dread Pirate Roberts has a government name of Ross William Ulbricht. The exact reason why his true identity became known and his site became compromised is still unclear at this early stage, but one Redditor is not afraid to stab a guess based on this posting of a sealed complaint by Brian Krebs, a security specialist and the frequent target of Russian Credit Card scammer-pranks.

It is clear SilkRoad is gone, so today I’ll pour one out for Dred Pirate Roberts, aka Ross William Ulbricht. Also I’ll fire up a joint of the finest OGK to have with my morning green tea, coconut water, and granola with almond milk. I’ll play SealsWithClubs while wearing my Silk Road logo’d shirt just as I did all summer long at the WSOP.

http://pnimg.net/lrep/1834/96/bb15ddea0da.jpg

Today I will try hard to embody the Camus quote that by no mistake appears at the beginning and end of this article:

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”




:lol2


bryan micon, freedom fighter!

i usually feel sorry for micon and at some times like him, but shit like the above really makes him easy to hate. what a pompous windbag.

Quote:

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SilkRoad did $1.2billion in sales, guy accused of running it also allegedly had multiple people murdered, but he lives in a $1000/month apt?

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How is this possible when he was living in San Francisco?

So sick. If he's legit and not a Fed himself I would assume he tried to pay a cut to govt along the way??????

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PLOL

Quote:

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SilkRoad did $1.2billion in sales, guy accused of running it also allegedly had multiple people murdered, but he lives in a $1000/month apt?

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How is this possible when he was living in San Francisco?

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Which part? He didn't physically sell the drugs himself he provided the platform for others to do it taking a commission and giving advice on how to get around being caught. This went on for a few years with the feds knowing about it so it was quite a while before they brought him down.

The whole thing about him allegedly having people murdered isn't proven yet either just that he looked into hiring a hit man who he may or may not have paid and who may or may not have ripped him off.

As for the sellers on Silk Road I'm sure many can easily get rid of their merchandise in other ways but the wise thing now would probably be to gtfo of the country if Tor's security is in fact breached.

If this guy had > $3.6m in bitcoin July 26th. He should have sold half of it that afternoon. On July 27, it as soon as possible he should have got his hands on as much gold as he could carry and as much cash as possible. The day that happes he should unplug and destroy every server and computer he owned and get the first boat/plane/submarine/whatthefuckever to Antigua or some other place.