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on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
RobinHirst11 wrote 8 hours 46 min ago:
deserved the pardon. privacy should be for all, not just the
billionaires.
WesternWind wrote 20 hours 11 min ago:
A full pardon should mean that he can get all his bitcoin back, as I
understand it.
0xbadcafebee wrote 20 hours 51 min ago:
Gentle reminder that we have 1,459 more days of this shit. We really
don't have to upvote every crazy fucking thing this guy does, or HN
will be nothing but that for the next four years.
throwaway314155 wrote 20 hours 56 min ago:
...her?
bastardoperator wrote 21 hours 2 min ago:
We're just letting sex traffickers of children off the hook now? Gross.
Putting my head in the sand for the next 3 years and 11 months.
jjallen wrote 23 hours 33 min ago:
So if you start a website and facilitate thousands of drug deals and
get lots of people to ask the president to pardon you, and youâre
white, you can get a pardon. But for everyone else you canât. Even if
youâre in prison for possession of drugs for more than ten years.
Also if you try to overthrow the government you get pardoned which I
would have guessed approaches treason.
These are pardonable offenses and conditions.
bmelton wrote 22 hours 50 min ago:
I felt the same when Biden pardoned the judge who put kids in jail
for pay, or the nursing home CEO who took money away from the elderly
to buy yachts, but I'd decided that pardons were effectively for sale
(tho likely by barter) -- seeing Biden close out his term and Trump
open his term with pardons has been kind to those who'd like to
compare and contrast, but they both mostly just appear to be paying
down debts.
aerostable_slug wrote 23 hours 8 min ago:
There's no reason to bring race into this. Trump has pardoned PoC
convicted of drug offenses, e.g. Weldon Angelos.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weldon_Angelos_case
jjallen wrote 22 hours 44 min ago:
Heâs white and that canât be left out of it. Letâs not
pretend race doesnât matter in any of these things. It is a fact
that heâs white and Iâm guessing ALL of the Jan 6th people are
too.
aerostable_slug wrote 22 hours 28 min ago:
When Trump pardoned Christopher 2X, was he simply confused about
his race? There are plenty of people Trump pardoned that weren't
white: [1] This kind of divisive nonsense is purposeless and
doesn't productively add to the conversation.
URI [1]: https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president...
snakeyjake wrote 23 hours 49 min ago:
Libertarians are the cheapest fucking buys of all time.
They will sell their souls to a man who would grind them into a paste
and sell that paste as a protein snack to his cultists-- in exchange
for a hollow, symbolic win that either impacts them in no way
whatsoever or maliciously hurts people they don't like.
At least with other political groups you have to, you know, BRIBE them.
Libertarians are so used to receiving absolutely nothing that they will
mistake the scent of a steak for a full meal.
mannerheim wrote 22 hours 9 min ago:
That hollow, symbolic win could have been given to them by anyone
other than Trump. If nobody else thinks a group's interests are worth
listening to, don't be surprised when they start chasing after the
tiniest morsels.
lulznews wrote 23 hours 49 min ago:
Trump haters in absolute shambles here.
AcerbicZero wrote 23 hours 56 min ago:
Based.
idunnoman1222 wrote 23 hours 57 min ago:
Hacker news absolutely loved this 1700 comments which makes me want to
list all hacker news threads ordered by most comments because these are
usually the best ones
cleandreams wrote 1 day ago:
I think this pardon just reflects Trump's transactional politics.
Ulbricht has sympathizers in high places now because crypto is all over
this administration.
In the long run letting political influence trump (no pun intended) the
criminal justice system is a very bad thing.
By world standards our criminal justice system is a strength of the
country. A pity if we lose that.
Gothmog69 wrote 1 day ago:
And yet the Ross Ulbricht case was a huge injustice. Biden should
have done it.
CuteMemeCoin wrote 1 day ago:
Ulbricht was unfairly sentenced.
All of the death threat allegations were never proven.
He did not deserve to rot in prison for life for creating a website.
anonu wrote 1 day ago:
So is SBF next? FTX customers were made whole and he didn't try to kill
anyone or facilitate the narcotics trade.
entropyneur wrote 1 day ago:
I don't think he should have done any time for the drug-related
charges. And 10 years is more than enough for a murder-for-hire in
which nobody got hurt. So this seems... just.
knodi wrote 1 day ago:
Curious what your thinking behind "he should have done any time for
the drug-related charges"?
entropyneur wrote 1 day ago:
I believe the responsibility for the harm caused by addictive drugs
lies on the user to such great extent, that whatever remains for
the people who facilitate the sale is not enough for it to be a
criminal offence. It's still immoral the same way it's immoral to
operate a gambling shop.
But in Ulbricht's case I'd say even this part is mitigated by the
fact that facilitating the trade of dangerous drugs was a side
effect of running a useful service for responsible drug users.
knodi wrote 4 hours 3 min ago:
So by that logic drug cartels are innocent in the drug trade and
DEA should not be arresting dealers only users...
someothherguyy wrote 23 hours 16 min ago:
> It's still immoral the same way it's immoral to operate a
gambling shop.
What if they sell things that aren't what they say they are and
the user dies or is hurt?
entropyneur wrote 21 hours 42 min ago:
That's totally the responsibility of the seller, not the
platform. Especially so, if the platform takes steps to prevent
such incidents.
someothherguyy wrote 20 hours 25 min ago:
Is it though? You might want to debate a moral philosopher
over me, but I don't think you should make broad statements
like that as if it was established truth.
impalallama wrote 1 day ago:
This is the same president that wants to give the death penalty to Drug
Dealers but I guess that's fine so long as you use crypto.
subpixel wrote 1 day ago:
I will take this opportunity to reflect on the fact that I spent some
time considering a purchase of certain controlled substances on Silk
Road, but failed to recognize that my own purchasing impulse was a
pretty good indicator that the currency involved might be worth a
casual investment.
josefritzishere wrote 1 day ago:
I know values and priorities change over time. that gets reflected in
the party platforms. But ee are in a weird place politically... where
Republicans are now soft on crime? It's weird.
UniverseHacker wrote 1 day ago:
I feel torn about this because it seems there was good evidence for
attempted murder- and I cannot understand why they never tried him for
that (seemingly larger) crime. However, for the crime he was actually
found guilty of, the sentence was unfair and unreasonable. It seems
they unethically sentenced him for crimes he was not even ever charged
with.
I'd also argue he almost certainly saved a huge number of lives with
Silk Road: the ability to view eBay style feedback and chemical test
results makes buying illegal drugs far safer than buying them on the
street. On Silk Road people could buy from a reputable seller with a
long history of providing unadulterated products, and could view
testimonials from other buyers who had sent the products for chemical
analysis.
kylebenzle wrote 14 hours 52 min ago:
What you are saying is nothing short of the manifestation of pure
evil.
Innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until a random hunch is
resolved.
The federal government has a long history of manufacturing evidence
and this is no different.
Again, pure evil what you are saying.
UniverseHacker wrote 5 hours 1 min ago:
What are you talking about? I specifically said it was unethical
that they seem to have sentenced him for crimes he was never even
tried for- but deserved a fair trial for. You appear to think I was
saying the opposite of that?
some_random wrote 19 hours 10 min ago:
The cybersecurity podcast Risky Business interviewed an FBI agent who
was deeply involved, I'd highly recommend listening to it if you want
that perspective. If I remember correctly, the agents who were
investigating the murder for hire stuff were later found to have been
stealing some of the bitcoin they were confiscating and the
prosecutors fro the Ulbricht case decided they didn't need to bring
up those charges to get a conviction (which they obviously didn't).
chandler5555 wrote 17 hours 32 min ago:
yup. [1] , starts at 36 minutes or so
the bitcoin stealing was only one of the 6 murder for hires, so
even if you think thats invalidated, there were still 5 others
URI [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7iPp5QaHmI
Beijinger wrote 19 hours 49 min ago:
"for the crime he was actually found guilty of, the sentence was
unfair and unreasonable."
Was it? Based on current law in the US?
While I do not know English Common law well, in many jurisdictions,
every part of the drug dealing is drug dealing. Even if you never
touch a drug and just provide payment processing services, transport
or whatever, as long as you are aware of it and profit from it, it is
drug dealing. So every transaction on Silk Road would also be his
crime. And there were many, many many. On the other hand, for
non-first degree murder, in several jurisdictions his sentence would
have maxed out at 15 years. First time offender, he could have walked
after 10.
blitzar wrote 8 hours 44 min ago:
In most of Asia the sentence would have been death (back to back
multiple sentences if that is possible).
486683864 wrote 20 hours 59 min ago:
There was literally no evidence of an attempted murder. Just an empty
and unsubstantiated accusation.
etc-hosts wrote 2 hours 32 min ago:
The lengths the FBI went to in one of the murder for hire cases is
interesting.
After Ulbricht ordered the hit on one of his forum moderators, the
FBI visited him, took all of his computers, told him they were
going to be "him" from now on online forever, had him "pose" in a
bathtub where they hosed him off and doused him in ketchup to take
fake trophy photos, had the "hitman" send the photos of Ulbricht,
who famously commented "It had to be done."
billiam wrote 22 hours 29 min ago:
I just can't fathom the lack of self-awareness of people who
championed Ross Ulbricht's cause, seemingly because he looks like
them, codes like them, and sat in the same public library they
frequent or became associated with a techno-libertarian identity.
Hundreds of drug and gun dealers are sentenced every week, some
certainly unjustly. Where is the outrage for them?
mcv wrote 17 hours 40 min ago:
My impression is that a big part of the outrage is directed not at
the conviction, but at the disproportionate sentence.
I'm not surprised or upset at all that he went to prison, but
unless I'm missing a ton of details (and I probably am), 12 years
is plenty for what he did.
etc-hosts wrote 2 hours 35 min ago:
It's the scale of the crime (he facilitated 10s of thousands of
transactions), the judge clearly stated she wanted to make an
example of him and give pause to anyone thinking about doing
something similar in the future, and she was angry at the many of
the letters of support Ulbricht's fans family and friends sent
the court.
My memory is she started the sentencing hearing by disdainfully
reading a few of them from a pile of them she brought to the
court that day.
stickfigure wrote 22 hours 5 min ago:
Those people that championed Ulbricht's cause are for the most part
also the people championing the cause of drug dealers and other
victims of New Prohibition. If you genuinely care about this cause,
you might ask yourself whether alienating other supporters is the
best approach.
If you're just looking for someone to feel superior about, find
another forum.
sonotathrowaway wrote 18 hours 34 min ago:
doctorpangloss wrote 22 hours 10 min ago:
Ha ha, it turns out that there is affirmative action, for
libertarians!
karlzt wrote 22 hours 49 min ago:
As for the murder part Christina Warren knows best:
The murder for hire bit was always the most bullshit of all the
charges. Not only were the fbi agents that were part of that later
jailed for their own actions related to the case (including theft and
hiding/deleting evidence), it was never real and no one was ever in
danger.
URI [1]: https://bsky.app/profile/filmgirl.bsky.social/post/3lgcck6i6...
chandler5555 wrote 17 hours 33 min ago:
that was only one of the 6 murder for hires
Chris Tarbell, the guy who arrested ross, talks about it on this
podcast [1] 37:08
URI [1]: https://risky.biz/RB770/
defrost wrote 17 hours 19 min ago:
Chris Tarbell states that there are logs about 6 imaginary
"murder of hire"'s .. none of which actually took place, two were
faked by the FBI(?) and four were scams run by third parties
outside the USA.
In the absence of any other context it's assumed these were acts
of "intent to murder" but that's about it .. logs that look like
a duck and probably were a duck.
But no actual murders that anyone could find, no bodies, etc.
etc-hosts wrote 2 hours 38 min ago:
If I go to a bar and end up hiring a hitman to kill my wife,
and the hitman happens to be a FBI asset, I'm still going to
jail.
karlzt wrote 1 hour 6 min ago:
Not for 11 years!!
URI [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39870416
j-krieger wrote 20 hours 14 min ago:
Wow! There have been multiple (astoundingly so) arrests of agents
who were present in the Silk Road case. As far as I can see:
1 DEA agent for extortion, money laundering and fraud.
1 Secret Service Agent for money laundering.
2 Key advisors in the case.
verteu wrote 22 hours 14 min ago:
> it was never real and no one was ever in danger.
Because one of the hitmen he hired was a scammer, and another was
an FBI agent. Still clearly a crime to hire them for murder.
Ulbricht's right-hand-man Roger Thomas Clark, who was involved in
one of the murder-for-hire conversations, admitted the conversation
was real during his trial:
"In his own remarks, Clark didn't comment on that murder-for-hire
conversationâwhich he at one point claimed had been fabricated by
Ulbricht but later conceded was real."
doctorpangloss wrote 1 day ago:
You are feeling the same thing that some people felt who wanted OJ
Simpson exonerated.
no-dr-onboard wrote 23 hours 57 min ago:
How so?
doctorpangloss wrote 23 hours 15 min ago:
Okay, another comparison would be, everyone who wants Luigi
Mangione exonerated also is feeling what some people felt when
they wanted OJ Simpson to be exonerated. Do you see now?
some_random wrote 19 hours 8 min ago:
I don't see how those are remotely comparable, the OJ people
believed he didn't do it and was set up by the racist LAPD
while the Luigi people think that what he did was good
actually. I guess the Ross Ulbricht people are more like the
latter but they still seem pretty dissimilar.
zarzavat wrote 21 hours 39 min ago:
Luigi is a symptom of an overly inactive justice system, if you
don't prosecute crimes then some people take the law into their
own hands (as a matter of fact). Preventing vigilantism is why
having a working justice system is important to a functioning
society.
DPR is according to his defenders a symptom of an overly active
justice system prosecuting crimes that shouldn't be prosecuted.
Though I'm not sure I personally agree with that.
OJ was just a crook.
doctorpangloss wrote 20 hours 4 min ago:
See, you are one of the people who feels about Luigi Mangione
what some people felt about OJ Simpson. Youâre getting it.
You can read about how some people talked about OJ
Simpsonâs supposed innocence, it is exactly the same
energy.
UniverseHacker wrote 2 hours 45 min ago:
Almost nobody thinks Luigi Mangione or Ross Ulbricht are
innocent, or were falsely accused. Neither of the 3 cases
are remotely comparable beyond being "people charged with
crimes that there is some public sympathy for."
Most people seem to think Ulbricht was guilty, and deserved
to be found guilty and go to prison, but that the full
sentence didn't fit the crime.
jdminhbg wrote 20 hours 37 min ago:
The Luigi some people have constructed in their minds is a
symptom of an overly inactive justice system. The Luigi of
real life is the symptom of a man suffering a psychotic
break.
smeeger wrote 1 day ago:
the benefit wasnt really unique to silk road or ross. it was just a
very convoluted, roundabout demonstration of how safe drug use can be
when its done in the right environment. legalization would be even
saferâ¦
trey-jones wrote 23 hours 49 min ago:
Safer for buyers and users I guess. Based on being able to smell
marijuana coming from so many car windows just walking around town,
I'm not sure it would be safer for the public. I'm not
anti-legalization by the way - I think it's similar to gambling: a
mixed bag.
Pxtl wrote 1 day ago:
> I'd also argue he almost certainly saved a huge number of lives
with Silk Road: the ability to view eBay style feedback and chemical
test results makes buying illegal drugs far safer than buying them on
the street.
So will the Trump admin be making any moves on legalization or safe
supply? Especially since between Musk and Kennedy's admitted drug
use, the white house pharmacy report, and the allegations about the
Trump family itself, it seems obvious that the White House
appreciates the usefulness of illegal stimulants?
Or is this another case of "in-groups whom the law protects but does
not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not
protect"?
garyfirestorm wrote 1 day ago:
They can try now! Because he is pardoned for the existing convictions
not for future convictions
hedora wrote 1 day ago:
Unless Trump screwed up the paper work, heâll have been pardoned
for past crimes, which includes the murder.
nozzlegear wrote 1 day ago:
And even if he did screw up the paper work, he could just write
another pardon anyway. He can write infinite pardons (for federal
charges, anyway).
sebzim4500 wrote 1 day ago:
Good luck, when the main investigators have since gone to prison
for crimes related to this investigation.
UniverseHacker wrote 1 day ago:
That is interesting. I'd suspect he could possibly be found guilty
of attempted murder, and have the sentence reduced or eliminated by
arguing that his previous sentence unjustly assumed guilt for this
as well, and factored it into the sentence he already served.
If I remember correctly, there were comments from both the
prosecution and judge that would basically prove that point- and
they allowed evidence related to those other crimes in the trial.
If they could prove this misconduct, they may even be able to argue
double jeopardy.
etc-hosts wrote 2 hours 40 min ago:
There was deliberately no mention of the alleged murders-for-hire
during the trial.
The judge said during sentencing that she was giving Ulbricht an
incredibly harsh sentence to make an example of him to others who
think that facilitating selling drugs is a victimless crime, and
she was also angry at the huge stack of nice letters that people
sent to the court in support of Ulbricht.
johnwheeler wrote 1 day ago:
The guy is a crook.
azinman2 wrote 1 day ago:
Not going to comment on the murder part as thatâs well discussed
here.
I would take issue with assuming that it was net positive with
ratings. Given the anonymous nature handling bots spamming fake
reviews would be even harder to catch here, and you ultimately
donât know who ended up addicted/hooked/DUIâs etc from the easy
availability this provided. Iâm not sure the total effects could
ever be qualified, but itâs not like unadulterated drugs are
automatically safe. Just look at how many lives pharma-grade opioids
ruined, even though they were âsafeâ.
Thatâs also not to mention guns and all kinds of other dangerous &
illegal parts of it.
I do not understand why he pardoned this guy when heâs supposedly
anti-drug and anti-cartel.
dutchbookmaker wrote 19 hours 44 min ago:
I can only go off what I read in American Kingpin but from that
book, to pardon Ulbricht is absolutely insane.
Not to mention lets compare what Ulbricht did to say Snowden?
Are you kidding me?
It is like we live in some idiot version of the Twilight Zone.
Beijinger wrote 19 hours 52 min ago:
It was a promise to his libertarian voters....
sweeter wrote 21 hours 49 min ago:
Its purely transactional. The Libertarians gave him their
endorsement and one of the things they wanted in return was this
pardon and deregulation.
azinman2 wrote 21 hours 47 min ago:
The libertarian party or a bunch of crypto bros? I donât get
why âlibertariansâ would care about this one guy?
etc-hosts wrote 2 hours 50 min ago:
Ulbricht's career represents many core values of a certain wing
of today's Libertarians.
* unfettered and unregulated and anonymous weapons sales.
* willful ignorance and rejection of any of the social costs of
buying and selling hard drugs.
* commerce that operates in a world that is difficult to be
taxes by government entities, and ideally anonymously (even
though bitcoin is the least anonymous thing in the world)
azinman2 wrote 2 hours 48 min ago:
So are libertarians fighting for complete legalization of
drugs? If so, why arenât they pressing on Trump for that?
Why wasnât that an executive order vs pardoning this guy?
etc-hosts wrote 46 min ago:
I don't think Trump actually has a lot of Core Beliefs
besides do stuff that appears strong on tv.
A large portion of people at the Libertarian convention
that Trump gave a speech at would prefer complete
legalization of all drugs.
I think it's a belief that a lot of us arrive at early in
our lives, many eventually grow out of it.
azinman2 wrote 5 min ago:
> I think it's a belief that a lot of us arrive at early
in our lives, many eventually grow out of it.
Very astute. Whatâs interesting to me is the ability
for youth to discount this potential change, mostly
because they just see the end result vs the journey. I
know I was like that.
hinkley wrote 23 hours 3 min ago:
Something anyone with an addict in their life needs to know:
While substances can efficiently help someone destroy their life,
keeping them away from drugs wonât stop them from destroying
their lives. Thereâs something already broken in these people
that they need to fix before itâs too late.
There are perfectly legal alternatives that can be just as
effective with a little more effort. Putting heroin in your arm is
just quicker than downing a fifth of vodka, or chasing dopamine at
the dog track.
snailmailstare wrote 18 hours 11 min ago:
Yeah, I don't know. There's certainly people that are just
broken, but reading other examples, I think there are plenty of
people who just happen on to a perfect addiction(, or maybe an
imperfect one that fills the spot). The manifest destiny stuff is
kind of a mix that soothes a lot of people with various motives
whether or not it is representative of the median case.
Willish42 wrote 18 hours 17 min ago:
I think you're advocating for better mental health care and
rehabilitation of addicts, which I agree with. However, the idea
that addicts will destroy their lives regardless of whether they
stop using, or are forced to stop using, their drug of choice is
an extremely dangerous statement. Many addicts get better by
changing their environment and quitting/going to rehab/etc.
Furthermore, heroin != vodka in terms of how addictive it is for
the average user, and that's partly why only one of them is legal
for recreational use.
Controversies about decriminalization aside, harm reduction
exists as a studied component in addiction, public health, and
psychology circles for a reason.
dgfitz wrote 18 hours 1 min ago:
Alcohol destroys many, many more lives than heroin. Isnât
even close.
lolinder wrote 13 hours 43 min ago:
The important question isn't raw numbers, it's which destroys
a greater percentage of lives out of those who consume it. If
heroin were as widespread as alcohol, would it still be true
that alcohol destroys more lives? We obviously can't know for
sure without trying it, but preliminary results aren't
promising.
armandososa wrote 1 day ago:
he is just anti-mexico.
napkin wrote 1 day ago:
(SWIMâs experience with Silk Road):
For LSD there existed a third-party forum, where a group of
(supposedly) vendor-neutral, unaffiliated individuals would
purchase samples from vendors, send them to private or
state-sponsored labs around the world and publish/discuss the
results (often with online links to lab results).
Yes, of course vendors could have also attempted to infiltrate
these forums. But as enough of these functions were provided by/for
the community, the profit incentive tilts. If you ran a vendor
account on the Silk Road, your effort was better spent
maintaining/improving good infosec and mail/postal security. Some
techniques they developed were quite innovative, the
professionalism was evident.
Rossâs story is fascinating and tragic- as everything thatâs
said for and against his character is generally true. Silk Road was
built on naive yet admirable ideals. It fostered a special
community, some of which really did reflect those ideals. He got in
over his head, and really did try to have someone killed.
Though, the details on that latter point are a bit more
complicated- authorities had infiltrated Rossâs inner circle- the
motive and the âhitmanâ himself were fictional. Ross still took
the bait though, which is pretty damning. Until that point, they
werenât sure they had a sufficient case on him.
azinman2 wrote 23 hours 17 min ago:
Built on naive yet admirable ideals? Special community? It was
the worldâs largest drug market, selling things like fentanyl
in large quantities. What admirable ideal is this?!
coldtea wrote 18 hours 20 min ago:
>What admirable ideal is this?!
That adults should be able to buy and sell whatever the fuck
they want?
And that the government should not get a say, or even a cut?
I don't necessarily fully agree with that, but for sure it's an
ideal, and has been expressed many times (e.g. by
libertarians).
freen wrote 14 hours 15 min ago:
I have some delightful âmedicineâ for you to buy.
Itâs cheaper than the alternative, though, if there is rat
poison in it, there is nothing you can do!
Caveat Emptor is a shit way to run a society. It incentivizes
the sociopaths.
Both Hippies and Libertarians fail to understand that if your
organizational principles donât account for sociopaths,
they will take over and ruin everything.
coldtea wrote 9 hours 58 min ago:
>Itâs cheaper than the alternative, though, if there is
rat poison in it, there is nothing you can do!
Sure there is, I can take you to court.
>Caveat Emptor is a shit way to run a society. It
incentivizes the sociopaths.
Bureaucracy and nanny states do that too.
>Both Hippies and Libertarians fail to understand that if
your organizational principles donât account for
sociopaths, they will take over and ruin everything.
I don't think the latter are against locking people up. Or
executing them even!
And the former, I dunno, perhaps they handle them Midsommar
style!
Not to mention the issue is quite solvable: sellers can
sell whatever, but need to specify the contents and whether
they match a specification (e.g. same contents as aspirin).
If you want to buy rat poison drug or heroin cut with
sawdust, it's on you.
potato3732842 wrote 20 hours 45 min ago:
Separating the drugs from the adjacent crime and problems that
come with an illicit industry by finding a way to make it run
kinda like normal business seems pretty admirable to me.
napkin wrote 22 hours 30 min ago:
You really cannot stop illicit drug use. A hard approach to
prohibition not only makes people less safe, itâs a massive
waste of spending. On just a pragmatic level- Fentanyl and
analogues are by weight hundreds of times more potent than
morphine. How do you even effectively stop that from getting
across borders? Silk Road provided a brief counterpoint, and
ideally wouldnât have had to exist. The ideals it represented
were more broad- for drug regulations/spending that focus on
safety, and respect individual rights / bodily autonomy (ofc
limited to not harming or endangering others).
singleshot_ wrote 22 hours 0 min ago:
> How do you even effectively stop that from getting across
borders?
One idea that springs to mind: if a person starts up an
anonymous, online marketplace for that activity, imprison him
forever.
andrepd wrote 17 hours 29 min ago:
Oh, I like that, tough on crime! It's a novel idea. I wish
the Nixon and Reagan administrations had thought of that a
few decades ago, maybe if they did we could be witnessing
the brilliant effects of that sort of policy today!
coldtea wrote 18 hours 22 min ago:
Amazing idea! After all, giving long term prison sentences
to drug dealers, and even drug users, has totally
eliminated drug use, it's not like it has exploded over
time...
6footgeek wrote 21 hours 33 min ago:
Just him though? Just the first guy and not all of the
numerous people that started clones after, were tried and
all received much less punishment?
napkin wrote 21 hours 35 min ago:
The Silk Road represented a tiny fraction of illicit drug
revenue per country. Some report-skimming would indicate
less than a single digit. A series of more profit-oriented
darknet markets replaced it. I donât know what the costs
were associated with its takedown but they must have been
enormous. I doubt it became large enough for cartels to
care much, but the effect of shutting it down is certainly
good for them.
I donât personally hold the opinion that Ross Ulbricht
shouldnât have been pursued according to the law- or
support his pardon- or even that darknet drug markets
should exist! Iâm also not really interested in crypto.
However I strongly believe that a completely different
approach to drug laws & regulations is necessary to make
people safer and reduce crime.
UniverseHacker wrote 23 hours 59 min ago:
Is that why they never prosecuted the attempted murder? It sounds
like entrapment.
That's the point people don't seem to be getting about anonymous
reviews- if the review is more costly than the value it provides
the seller, they won't do it, and it's fairly easy to make that
the case. A separate enthusiast forum where the reviews are from
people with a long history of high effort engagement is a good
example of that. That's basically the idea behind crypto as well-
making false transactions is more expensive than the value it
could return.
deaddodo wrote 19 hours 56 min ago:
My understanding is that they did not charge him with the
attempted murder because it was later found that both
parties/witnesses (other than Ross) later turned out to be
corrupt and financially benefitting from the situation (keeping
his murder payment for themselves) and the Silk Road in
general.
It made the situation...messy, to say the least.
reverendsteveii wrote 22 hours 5 min ago:
>It sounds like entrapment
The law is murky and seems to hinge on the court's opinion on
whether the person who committed the crime would have had they
not been influenced by an officer. The police being the ones to
start the conversation doesn't rise to the level of entrapment.
The police deceiving you into wanting to commit a crime may
rise to the level of entrapment if the courts find you wouldn't
have done it otherwise (the example I found that illustrated
this best was "Hey there's a warehouse full of valuables let's
go rob it" isn't entrapment but "Hey this guy said he's gonna
kill your kid you need to kill him first" probably does absent
any reason to believe you would have killed him without being
deceived first). My guess would be that the grey area, plus the
relative ease with which they were able to secure a life
sentence for the other charges, is why the murder-for-hire
charges never went to trial.
jorvi wrote 8 hours 34 min ago:
> the example I found that illustrated this best was "Hey
there's a warehouse full of valuables let's go rob it" isn't
entrapment
Literally entrapment.
Like you said, it hinges on if you would have committed the
crime without encouragement from the police.
A trap car is not entrapment. You walking past a trap car,
checking if the door is unlocked and then going for a joyride
/ stealing it means you convinced yourself to do this crime.
An undercover policeman telling you he's seen an unlocked
car, and "just take it for a spin, for the hell of it"?
That's entrapment.
reverendsteveii wrote 3 hours 3 min ago:
[1] >By a 5â3 margin, the Court upheld the conviction of
a Missouri man for selling heroin even though all the drug
sold was supplied to him, he claimed, by a Drug Enforcement
Administration informant who had, in turn, gotten it from
the DEA. The majority held that the record showed Hampton
was predisposed to sell drugs no matter his source...The
case came before the court when the defendant argued that
while he was predisposed, it was irrelevant since the
government's possible role as sole supplier in the case
constituted the sort of "outrageous government conduct"
that Justice William Rehnquist had speculated could lead to
the reversal of a conviction in the court's last entrapment
case, United States v. Russell.[2] Rehnquist was not
impressed and rejected the argument in his majority
opinion.
Here's one where the government said "Hey you should sell
this heroin that I gave you" and the conviction was upheld
because "the record showed Hampton was predisposed to sell
drugs no matter his source." So no, the simple act of an
undercover cop asking you if you'd like to commit a crime
isn't entrapment on its face.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_v._United_St...
johndhi wrote 23 hours 8 min ago:
The truth is no one knows why they didn't bring those charges,
or the real details behind the evidence or what happened in
those interactions. It's pretty much shrouded beneath things
like:
-DOJ released some details and screenshots, but
-the FBI agents who were involved in investigating this topic
were like arrested for stealing bitcoin from silk road or
something, so their work is hard to find credible
-general lack of clarity as to the identity of the person
running silk road at the time this happened
rtkwe wrote 23 hours 46 min ago:
Entrapment requires some coercive/persuasive force by the
government to push you to commit the crime, the government is
allowed to setup entirely fake scenarios and let you choose to
do a crime.
UniverseHacker wrote 23 hours 19 min ago:
The above person claimed "the motive was fictional" which
sounds coercive?
jachriga wrote 20 min ago:
Not that it's a perfect source, but reddit lawyers used to
describe the difficulty of proving entrapment by laying out
two requirements: (1) you wouldn't have committed the crime
if the instigator wasn't law enforcement, and (2) you only
committed the crime because the instigator was law
enforcement. One or the other is not enough. Like an 'if
and only if' deal.
If you aren't aware that it's an LEO urging you on, I don't
see why you should be able to argue impropriety. You made
the decision as if it were real and would have real
consequences.
fossuser wrote 17 hours 8 min ago:
Not really - entrapment is narrower.
If someone comes to you and offers you a fictional job to
illegally move a lot of drugs for cash and you agree -
that's not entrapment, you agreed of your own accord. That
the whole thing was a fake setup is not materially
relevant.
If you first refuse, and then the undercover officer says
"if you don't do this we'll come after you and kill your
family" and then you agree under duress - that's
entrapment.
It has to be something that's compelling you to do
something you would not have done otherwise. Presenting you
with the option to make a bad choice is not itself enough
because had the situation been real you would have done it.
On one hand I'm sympathetic to Ross in that I can empathize
with his youthful ideals and ego that drove the
marketplace, but I also think he genuinely would have
authorized that person be killed had it been real and
people are in prison for a lot less. His market was also a
lot more than drugs iirc.
I find his supporters downplaying the assassination bit
irritating - I suspect they do it because they know it's
the least defensible bit and they can argue it on
technicality. I think it'd be better if they just accepted
it.
I also think he's very unlikely to commit another crime now
that he's out, but still - a lot of people are in prison
for a lot less.
rtkwe wrote 21 hours 12 min ago:
Depends a lot on the exact setup. He still chose to try to
hire a hitman allegedly. The standard is fairly high, "that
man is informing on you" isn't entrapment, without knowing
a lot of details it's hard to know and it's rarely actually
entrapment.
Extropy_ wrote 23 hours 29 min ago:
The worst part is that it doesn't even appear to be the case
that the government set up the scenario in which Ross bought
murders
diggan wrote 1 day ago:
> Thatâs also not to mention guns and all kinds of other
dangerous & illegal parts of it.
I think it isn't mentioned because Silk Road didn't actually
facilitate any selling/buying of weapons or any items "whose
purpose was to "harm or defraud."" [1] > I do not understand why he
pardoned this guy when heâs supposedly anti-drug and anti-cartel.
He's the candidate that was preferred by Christians, yet probably
he was the least Christian-like candidate. Just today/yesterday he
criticized a Bishop for values that are clearly Christian, people
seem to swallow it. I'm pretty sure trying to add logic/reasoning
to the choices he makes is a lost cause.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)#Prod...
etc-hosts wrote 12 hours 38 min ago:
> Silk Road didn't actually facilitate any selling/buying of
weapons or any items "whose purpose was to "harm or defraud"
There was definitely a fake ID tab on it. Isn't fraud one of the
main purposes of having a fake ID?
Guns were definitely for sale on Silk Road. Ulbricht stopped
selling them because it wasn't lucrative enough.
I can't find the original post, but this post quotes his comments
at the time when he closed the gun forum:
URI [1]: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66587.msg1079466...
defrost wrote 12 hours 28 min ago:
> Ulbricht stopped selling them because it wasn't lucrative
enough.
While technically accurate, the tone of the Ulbricht quote
differs somewhat:
The volume hasn't even been enough to cover server costs and
is actually waning at this point. I had high hopes for it, but
if we are going to serve an anonymous weapons market, I think
it will require more careful thought an planning.
etc-hosts wrote 2 hours 57 min ago:
Sounds like his next step was anonymous assassination
markets.
MarkPNeyer wrote 22 hours 15 min ago:
There are many Christians who would happily to get in long
arguments over which values are âclearly Christian.â
If you really want to understand, itâs not hard. It just
requires making an honest effort to try, without judging. And
thatâs what stops people who donât understand it. Try
chatting with an LLM sometime about what it looks like from their
perspective. Knowing itâs not a human makes it easier to avoid
getting upset.
diggan wrote 19 hours 8 min ago:
> If you really want to understand, itâs not hard. It just
requires making an honest effort to try, without judging
I was brought up Christian, sealed my religiousness with a
confirmation when I was 15 (which required studies and field
trips), and been around religious people for a lot of my
younger life. Oh, and my mom worked at a church where I grew
up, spent a bunch of time in the church, for better or worse.
I'd like to think that the values of compassion and mercy are
two of the most fundamental Christian values, at least from the
protestants I spent a lot of time with. It seems to me, that
the American bastardization of Catholicism, might not actually
be very Christian if those two values aren't include in there.
I'm not religious anymore, but if I learned anything from
(truly) religious folks, then it would be that you should treat
your fellow humans as just that, fellow humans.
azinman2 wrote 23 hours 19 min ago:
I saw guns on it when I joined years ago.
diggan wrote 19 hours 12 min ago:
Well, I didn't. Stalemate?
stickfigure wrote 22 hours 21 min ago:
There's a reason Wikipedia doesn't accept "I saw it" as a
citation.
Wikipedia isn't perfect, but if I had to put odds on Wikipedia
vs "rando on internet forum who claims to remember something
from years ago", I'm going with Wikipedia 10 times out of 10.
azinman2 wrote 21 hours 46 min ago:
As you wish. I have a lived experienced with Silk Road. I am
not random for myself.
zombiwoof wrote 1 day ago:
Facebook doesnât make the comments that will kill people
toasterlovin wrote 23 hours 6 min ago:
"Facebook is a communication tool for friends and family that
is sometimes used for illegal activity" is categorically
different than "Silk Road is a tool created to facilitate
illegal activity."
banku_brougham wrote 1 day ago:
Probably the first social media genocide was organized on
Facebook, the Rohingya genocide.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide
diggan wrote 1 day ago:
Similarly, the first social media revolutions were also
organized on Facebook (and Twitter):
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring
rmah wrote 1 day ago:
Well, now you probably understand that Trump is not really
anti-drug/anti-cartel. Nor do I think he's pro-drug/pro-cartel. I
think he doesn't actually care except in how those issues affect
his political career and public profile. Many of Trump's more ...
let's call them "random" seeming statements and actions make much
more sense if you look at them through the lens of "he doesn't
actually care one way or the other".
kmeisthax wrote 20 hours 49 min ago:
Trump is pro-Trump. That's it.
markhahn wrote 20 hours 26 min ago:
Well, also pro-publicity and pro-distraction (firehose).
Of course those are ultimately self-benefiting too.
hedora wrote 1 day ago:
Historically, many anti-drug / anti-cartel leaders are actually
members of a rival cartel, and want to use law enforcement to fight
their wars for them.
The Mexican government has a long history of this. The LAPDâs
(well documented for over 50 years) do the same thing.
Trump is a convicted felon with lots of ties to organized crime.
Nothing about him pardoning members of some criminal organizations
but not others is surprising.
In related news, he signed an executive order forcing prosecutors
to seek the death penalty when police are killed, and in the same
day pardoned 132 of his supporters that were convicted of
assaulting police officers during an event where officers were
killed.
motorest wrote 1 day ago:
> Historically, many anti-drug / anti-cartel leaders are actually
members of a rival cartel, and want to use law enforcement to
fight their wars for them.
For reference, Rudy Giuliani was lauded as the anti-organized
mayor that brought down the Italian mob in New York, but
ultimately was flagged as actually being an upper echelon of
Russian organized crime who worked to establish it by eliminating
competiton.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani
jprete wrote 1 day ago:
The link doesn't say that. The phrase you use is a reference in
the Wikipedia article to the DOJ's characterization of Dmytry
Firtash, "a Ukrainian oligarch who is prominent in the natural
gas sector", not Giuliani.
Maxatar wrote 1 day ago:
The Wikipedia article does not flag Giuliani as being a member
of Russian organized crime, but someone who Giuliani's law firm
represents, an individual by the name of Dmytry Firtash.
Furthermore the timeline for this is over a decade after
Giuliani was mayor of New York.
coldtea wrote 18 hours 15 min ago:
What good is common sense and facts when you have a gut
dislike?
reverendsteveii wrote 1 day ago:
>he signed an executive order forcing prosecutors to seek the
death penalty when police are killed
He also pardoned a drug dealing cop killer at the end of his last
term. Said cop killer has since been arrested for attempting to
strangle his wife to death.
URI [1]: https://www.wesh.com/article/cop-killer-pardoned-by-trum...
azinman2 wrote 1 day ago:
You think Trump is involved with drug selling organized crime,
and this guy somehow was on âhis sideâ?
UniverseHacker wrote 1 day ago:
> I would take issue with assuming that it was net positive with
ratings.
I know this is probably as minority view, but I think if adults
consent to buying and using any drug, that should be both fully
legal, and their right and responsibility- any negative
consequences are 100% their own fault, not the person who sold
them. It's probably true that making drugs easier to buy made more
people buy them, but I was only considering the ill effects of
fraudulently adulterated products. Do the math differently if you
don't see it this way.
I don't know how Silk Road was designed, and have never actually
used it or anything like it- but I imagine it would be possible to
eliminate fraudulent reviews with proper design, and they may have
done so. eBay, for example, is almost free of fraudulent reviews
because posting a single review is very expensive- you'd need to
sell an item to yourself for full price, and then pay eBay their
full (rather large) cut to post a single fraudulent review.
As a buyer, you should be able to take a single high effort review
that contains something like mass spec chemical analysis results,
and further confirm that the reviewer themselves has a credible
history of making purchases and reviews broadly across a lot of
different sellers. An impossibly expensive to fake signal. This
could also be done automatically by the platform- by making the
more credible reviews display first.
> I do not understand why he pardoned this guy when heâs
supposedly anti-drug and anti-cartel.
I explained this in another comment: [1] Trump is not an idealist-
he will promise anything to anyone if it gets power and attention.
Previously, he had attempted a political career as a leftist, and
switched to the right because it was getting more traction.
URI [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42787217
ErrantX wrote 22 hours 36 min ago:
> Trump is not an idealist- he will promise anything to anyone if
it gets power and attention. Previously, he had attempted a
political career as a leftist, and switched to the right because
it was getting more traction.
This is a critical point. His explicitly goal is to be an
autocrat, there is no other ideology other than what works.
That's why I think the only real bit of him is the one that
admires Putin. That is who he wants to be.
It's why his moves seem so random.
trey-jones wrote 23 hours 52 min ago:
I proclaimed nearly this exact opinion in the jury box after
being summoned between 15 and 20 years ago. They didn't pick me
for trial, which was the intended effect. I really did believe
it at the time. Nowadays, I just think it's way more complicated
and there are no simple or blanket answers.
barbazoo wrote 1 day ago:
> I know this is probably as minority view, but I think if adults
consent to buying and using any drug, that should be both fully
legal, and their right and responsibility- any negative
consequences are 100% their own fault, not the person who sold
them. It's probably true that making drugs easier to buy made
more people buy them, but I was only considering the ill effects
of fraudulently adulterated products. Do the math differently if
you don't see it this way.
I'd agree with you if the people that used these drugs did so
rationally. That's not the case mostly though from what I've
heard. Trauma is often the root cause and that's out of many
people's control. From then on it's ub to society to help them.
If a high performing exec wants to buy drugs to function better,
sure maybe that's ok but I doubt that's the majority of people.
x0n wrote 1 day ago:
silk road was on the dark web, a place that is oriented 100%
around anonymity. This precludes any sort of "elimination of
fraudulent reviews" since there's no reasonable way to build any
sort of chain of trust.
markhahn wrote 20 hours 22 min ago:
anonymity doesn't preclude chain-of-trust (really
"reputation").
after all, anonymity only means "can't be linked to real-life
identity".
san1t1 wrote 21 hours 49 min ago:
The dark web is based around network anonymity.
You can find, and log into, your facebook account, should you
have one, here, where I'm sure you would be quite identifiable.
facebookwkhpilnemxj7asaniu7vnjjbiltxjqhye3mhbshg7kx5tfyd dot
onion
UniverseHacker wrote 1 day ago:
I explained several ideas to eliminate fraudulent reviews in my
comment, that you didn't address. The main thing is to make a
review coupled with a purchase that involves a large cut to the
platform, so each review is very expensive. Secondly, don't
take reviewers themselves seriously unless they've also made a
large overall number of purchases to a diversity of sellers-
making becoming a credible reviewer also expensive.
azinman2 wrote 1 day ago:
Re-consenting: this is a different argument than saying more
lives were saved because the reviews would remove adulterated
products. Again, just look at opioid addiction for very clear
evidence of the opposite effect.
It is very clear from what youâve said that you havenât used
it :) I have browsed it when it was active and I was very pro
tor. Youâre making a lot of assumptions that simply donât
hold for silk road.
UniverseHacker wrote 1 day ago:
> Again, just look at opioid addiction for very clear evidence
of the opposite effect.
I was playing devil's advocate, but agree there is more
culpability to a seller if the drug overwhelms your ability to
make the choice in the first place- however a lot of very
illegal drugs do not do this. More so if you're using
emotionally manipulative ads and selling methods as the alcohol
and pharma industry do.
azinman2 wrote 23 hours 30 min ago:
No doubt people were buying weed and hallucinogens on Silk
Road, but there was A LOT of opioids, Xanax, cocaine, meth,
and other highly addictive drugs that change peopleâs brain
chemistry for the worse.
grayhatter wrote 1 day ago:
> I do not understand why he pardoned this guy when heâs
supposedly anti-drug and anti-cartel.
why do you believe he's anti-drug or anti-cartel?
nozzlegear wrote 1 day ago:
I'm no Trump fan and won't go to bat for him, but being anti-drug
and anti-cartel is literally one of his schticks.
grayhatter wrote 23 hours 4 min ago:
I replied with more details in a sister thread but calling it a
schtick is more accurate that I think you meant. It's
exclusively a shtick; he doesn't actually believe it, or care
about it.
azinman2 wrote 1 day ago:
Well, he just did an executive order to label cartels as foreign
terrorists, and has spoken at length about drugs in many of his
speeches. Not sure why you think such a statement is
controversial.
grayhatter wrote 23 hours 6 min ago:
Because I don't think he has a honestly held belief about
anything. I think he's happy to do whatever is most expedient
for his interests.
He wants to be known as a guy who trades favors, so here, he
ignored all the previous fear mongering about [scary thing],
and is repaying the favor to the "libertarian party" who wanted
this, and voted for him.
Almost everything he says is just for show, fits his pattern of
behavior better than, "he believes [thing he said]" does.
I just read another article about how the person who says we
need to follow "law and order" and "respect police" just
pardoned everybody convicted of violence against police...
again, trading favors instead of consistently following
something he said.
hedora wrote 1 day ago:
He made sure the Sacklers could keep their fortunes and
continue to sell opioids.
mtoner23 wrote 1 day ago:
i think this points to a bunch of weird crypto people are actually
in charge of a lot of this administration
etc-hosts wrote 41 min ago:
Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have significant influence on
staffing.
Vivek Ramaswamy is a partner at a16z
jashper wrote 1 day ago:
This is the best news I've heard in a while
stego-tech wrote 1 day ago:
Iâm not necessarily going to comment on his behaviors directly, as
everyone else has already stated that in part or in whole. My
grievance, my perspective, is that itâs yet another white man getting
a slap on the wrist for wrongdoing while doing nothing to correct any
of the underlying problems or pardon others who engaged in similar or
lesser behaviors.
The war on drugs has always been farcical, deliberately engineered to
target minority groups who were opposing power dynamics at the time.
Itâs why - despite popular opinion to the contrary - cannabis remains
broadly illegal at the Federal level and enforced globally through a
web of treaties. Itâs always been about creating the means of
entrapment for those inconvenient to power.
Pardoning Ross smacks of a gift to cryptobros to earn their loyalty to
the current powers that be, rather than an acknowledgement of a past
mistake. It is nakedly political, pardoning a white man from an
otherwise good background while others languish in prison on far less
serious charges or convictions. Were any of the drug dealers on his
black market similarly pardoned? Were any of his consumers? Of course
not, because Ross was a Capitalist making profit in an untapped market,
and the others were individuals who were not.
The entire thing is nauseating, and is enough to wash my hands of all
involved were the need to dismantle this farce of a war not so grave.
charlieok wrote 1 day ago:
Ross, you can set up identities on decentralized social platforms now!
URI [1]: https://rossulbricht.medium.com/decentralize-social-media-cc47...
major505 wrote 1 day ago:
Didnt he paid a hitman to kill a dude, and ended up being an fbi agent
?
sys32768 wrote 1 day ago:
I wish this thread were discussing how in America you can get drunk in
a bar, step into a 4,000 motorized bullet, kill someone or an entire
family, and get a slap on the wrist.
ubermonkey wrote 1 day ago:
I'm just assuming any pardons issued since Monday are probably to bad
people.
m3kw9 wrote 1 day ago:
More people should get these âpardonsâ instead of the parole
process based on the similar criteria on how they are pardoned.
subjectsigma wrote 1 day ago:
The amount of doublethink, false-flagging, misinformation, and
âlooking the other wayâ in this thread is just absolutely
disgusting.
jerlygits wrote 1 day ago:
If I wanted to know this, Iâd visit Reddit.
kundi wrote 1 day ago:
Is Donald also refunding everyoneâs deposits on Silkroad?
namirez wrote 1 day ago:
I donât get it. Was every non-violent drug offender in federal
prisons pardoned or only this guy? If so, why?
constantcrying wrote 1 day ago:
Here is what the discussion looked like almost a decade ago: [1] Very
striking to see how the sentiment has drastically shifted, while the
facts of the case did not. There is a really cultural shift visible in
how this issue is seen on here.
URI [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9626985
modeless wrote 16 hours 51 min ago:
Most interesting post here. A good indicator of the real change in HN
readership over the years. For the worse IMO.
runarberg wrote 1 day ago:
This debate about IQ could have been had yesterday, and Iâm pretty
sure I saw a pretty similar debate a few months ago on this site. Not
much has changed there at least.
URI [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9629493
eric_cc wrote 1 day ago:
Reddit started off libertarian in its early days and has since gone
radically far left. And similarly, HN has slowly drifted further and
further left.
%-wise there are just fewer libertarian-minded people here these
days.
robswc wrote 1 day ago:
To suggest there hasn't been a cultural shift is insane, imo.
I wouldn't argue that both sides have gotten more extreme, rather the
political spectrum curve has flattened. There is much less rational
discourse in general.
Reddit is a great example. Even 10 years ago you could have mostly
rational discussions. Now its no better than Facebook. I saw a post
today about people being upset the government is giving OpenAI half a
trillion dollars. They didn't even realize it wasn't government
money. They didn't want to be corrected.
whimsicalism wrote 23 hours 59 min ago:
the internet has a lot more people on it, it is much less
self-selecting than in the past. even this website is a lot less
self-selecting than in the past
knodi wrote 1 day ago:
Yes, by cultural shift if you mean, moral bankruptcy.
whimsicalism wrote 1 day ago:
yes, HN is becoming increasingly hyperpartisan and not even in a very
interesting way
efficax wrote 1 day ago:
life in prison was too harsh, but a full pardon is too lenient.
WaitWaitWha wrote 1 day ago:
Just to be clear, a pardon does not expunge or erase one's criminal
record.
> life in prison was too harsh, but a full pardon is too lenient.
I think you should compare it as: life in prison was too harsh, but
10 years is too lenient.
larkost wrote 1 day ago:
The idea of a pardon is exactly that: it erases the record of the
crime/conviction.
I think you are thinking of a commutation. That ends the
punishment while not absolving the person of the crime.
So the January 6th criminals who got pardons no longer have a
criminal record (on this count at least). The 14 people who were
only granted commutations are still counted as felons.
WaitWaitWha wrote 22 hours 9 min ago:
I must have read it incorrectly: [1] > As these opinions
confirm, a presidential pardon removes, either conditionally or
unconditionally, the punitive legal consequences that would
otherwise flow from conviction for the pardoned offense.
A pardon, however, does not erase the conviction as a
historical fact or justify the fiction that the pardoned
individual did not engage in criminal conduct. A pardon,
therefore, does not by its own force expunge judicial or
administrative records of the conviction or underlying offense.
URI [1]: https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinio...
eschulz wrote 1 day ago:
Perhaps, but I'm of the opinion that if a sentence is unjust, or if
the means to convict violated the defendant's rights, then the
defendant should walk. While this may seem unreasonable, it's the
only way to check the state which has unlimited resources when it
decides to go after somebody.
I don't really have an opinion on this case because I'm not
completely familiar with all the details. It's certainly going to
be contentious.
meowface wrote 1 day ago:
Both threads seem to share a similar sentiment: he should not serve
much time for the drug marketplace but should for the
murders-for-hire. There's just a difference in how many people
believe those allegations and to what extent they should factor into
the sentence given the charges were dropped despite the allegations
almost certainly being true.
epr wrote 1 day ago:
As someone who's been following this since the beginning, the most
striking difference is the assumption that Ross was in fact the DPR
ordering hits, which he repeatedly denied. Obviously, he could be
lying, but that's the main question for me. Since people now assume
he was the one and only DPR (I wonder if people didn't get the
concept from The Princess Bride), they assume DPR chat logs where
murder-for-hire occurred must have been him as well.
canjobear wrote 1 day ago:
It seems like the same set of arguments to me.
rhatsgf wrote 1 day ago:
The facts are: Trump now does NTF and coinschemes himself and got
talked into this by his new entourage. That is what most people here
complain about.
And he does this to distract from the fact that he will not stop the
Ukraine war, not stop H1B etc.
Many of the same people also complain about the Biden laptop and
Biden's pardons.
jonnycoder wrote 1 day ago:
He just revoked Bidenâs Eo that strengthened h1b
Projectiboga wrote 1 day ago:
He just fired or transfered everyone government involved in
supporting Ukraine in their defensive war.
MisterTea wrote 1 day ago:
I see the same arguments: too harsh, not harsh enough, he tried to
have people murdered, etc.
krisoft wrote 1 day ago:
> Very striking to see how the sentiment has drastically shifted
I'm not sure. I have two questions on that. Is there the appearance
of a sentiment shift? I see plenty of people arguing both against and
for incarcerating him in both this thread and that old one.
And then if there is an appearance of a sentiment change (which I'm
not sure about) is that evidence of a sentiment change or just
selection bias? People who are okay with an outcome are much less
likely to write a comment than people who are upset. That alone would
change the bias of the comments.
rescripting wrote 1 day ago:
I'd be wary of drawing correlations like this. The people who
commented on that thread are not going to be the same people
commenting on this one. The topic isn't even the same; in the first
thread the topic is his sentencing, and in this its his pardon.
The attraction for people to post on Hacker News is mainly to
complain, and so in the first you get complaints the sentencing is
too harsh, and in this one you get complaints that he shouldn't have
been pardoned. Its not necessarily a cultural shift, just an artifact
of the types of discussions people have online.
modeless wrote 13 hours 32 min ago:
> The people who commented on that thread are not going to be the
same people commenting on this one
This is the point. HN readership has changed dramatically in the
intervening years. I don't buy at all that the difference is solely
due to comments tending to contradict the article.
gspencley wrote 1 day ago:
> and so in the first you get complaints the sentencing is too
harsh, and in this one you get complaints that he shouldn't have
been pardoned.
You can also hold both positions simultaneously without
contradiction. That is to say that you can think that his sentence
was too harsh while at the same time being of the opinion that what
he did was a crime (and should be a crime) and that he should
remain convicted and un-pardoned, just with a different sentence
than the one he was given.
rescripting wrote 1 day ago:
Agreed, which supports my point that these two threads aren't
discussing the same thing and so can't be used as a measure of a
culture shift.
the__alchemist wrote 1 day ago:
Making a distinction of whether individuals have changed
perspective on the topic, and whether a community has are different
levels of examination, and both may provide insights. In this case,
Hacker news is an emergent phenomenon of individuals; it's OK to
examine its evolution as whole.
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote 1 day ago:
I thought it was parallel construction from illegal NSA
surveillance then, I think it is that now. Once you have the
suspect in custody and his belongings examined it's "oh, see, we
found this Stackoverflow post, that's how we knew".
It's absurd. Even the non-Silk-Road charges look as if they were
tacked on so that people like us weren't sympathetic about what
were only non-violent drug trafficking charges ("look, he also
hired a killer to murder an enemy!").
lazystar wrote 1 day ago:
that's what has me worried about the kohberger trial. the
prosecution's delayed it for years; if he gets out, the
techniques that caught him so quickly will potentially have
done more harm than good.
diggan wrote 1 day ago:
> The attraction for people to post on Hacker News is mainly to
complain
I mean, I won't admit it openly but something like that yeah. It
doesn't help either that the way to show you disagree is by sharing
what you disagree with (which is great) but the way you show you
agree is by upvoting (which others don't see).
So one comment with three complaints in the replies but 100 upvotes
might look like "people wholeheartedly disagree with this person"
but in reality, most readers actually agreed. Comments that are
just "I agree" are kind of pointless, so I prefer how things are,
but useful to not read too much into "X people said Y" on HN.
infogulch wrote 23 hours 10 min ago:
It's interesting to consider how the tension in the design
choices for HN's discussion board have affected the perceived &
actual tenor of the platform:
1. Votes are not shown, but they affect the rank of posts.
2. Every post regardless of rank is shown beneath its parent,
as in a tree.
3. Only highly downvoted posts are grayed out or hidden.
4. The community considers simple agreement to be low value
noise.
It doesn't seem like a stretch to guess HN's flavor from a
handful of these facts...
ragnese wrote 1 day ago:
Interesting observation. I agree and upvoted. ;)
EDIT: I'm not being sarcastic, either, BTW. But, I do love the
irony of writing a positive reply to your comment.
smeeger wrote 1 day ago:
its crazy to look at this old thread and know that i almost
certainly left a comment in it. although ive created and left
behind hundreds of accounts in the meantime. i first got on HN feb
2015 when i read an article about âfamed godâ getting arrested
in las vegas⦠his shirt had âhack the worldâ written on it
and when i googled âhack the world famed god,â not knowing
about the movie reference, it gave me a HN thread about the
incident. and then HN became my home for almost ten years⦠i
didnt have facebook or instagram or vine. i literally just spent
all my time on HN. now that the displacement of programmers by AI
has begun, somehow my interest has waned.
at the time, the murder for hire accusations seemed legitimate and
they still do today. hopefully they charge him with attempted
murder if the statute of limitations isnt up.
dartos wrote 1 day ago:
Thereâs no statute of limitations on murder btw.
smeeger wrote 1 day ago:
or attempted murder?
echoangle wrote 1 day ago:
It was dismissed with prejudice, and canât be tried again:
URI [1]: https://freeross.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Doc_14_D...
FatalLogic wrote 13 hours 30 min ago:
>It was dismissed with prejudice, and canât be tried again
But there were in total six murder-for-hire allegations against
Ross Ulbricht. That Maryland case in your link [0] was only one
of them.
That Maryland one was also a case in which Carl Force, a
corrupt federal agent, was deeply involved. The New York trial
which incarcerated Ulbricht avoided considering that single
allegation, specifically because of the corrupt agent's
involvement. [1] (Confusingly, there were also six allegations
of drug-related deaths. These were completely unrelated with
the six murder allegations.)
It's notable that, in that Maryland document you linked, the US
Attorney could have moved to dismiss the charge without
prejudice, meaning that it could be retried, but he chose not
to do that.
But he then continues, to say, without explaining why, that
Ulbricht was already serving a life sentence which had been
affirmed on appeal in New York. The implication is that the US
Attorney is hinting that there's no point ever pursuing the
'attempted murder' angle, because Ulbricht is already locked up
for life (Narrator: he was wrong).
Here's a summary
* One murder-for-hire allegation (Maryland): Indicted, but
dismissed with prejudice by US Attorney
* Five murder-for-hire allegations (New York): Not
indicted/charged, not decided by jury, but included in
sentencing decision
* Six drug-related death allegations (New York): Not
indicted/charged, not decided by jury, but included in
sentencing decision
*
What I understand is that the New York jury was allowed to know
about the attempted murder-for-hire and the drug-related death
claims, but not about the corrupt federal agents.
The murder-for-hire allegations, meanwhile, were allowed to
influence his sentencing (and the rejection of his appeal) due
to "a preponderance of evidence" as decided by the judge, which
would not be sufficient grounds for criminal convictions such
as murder, which require evidence "beyond reasonable doubt".
This was not justice's finest hour.
*
[0] Maryland dismissal: [1] New York's appeal rejection
decision:
URI [1]: https://freeross.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Doc_14...
URI [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20221213001237/https://pdf...
smeeger wrote 1 day ago:
ok. so for some reason the federal government indicted him on
attempted murder in 2018(?) and for some reason the charge was
dismissed⦠on what grounds was it dismissed? and i believe he
could still be charged by the state of California or another
state so hopefully we will see that
edit: this section of reasonsâ article summarizes the
situation nicely.
âNow that Ulbricht has no chance of having his initial
conviction and sentencing overturned or adjusted, it's likely
the feds out of Maryland decided the indictment no longer was
needed to make sure the government had some further means in
their back pocket to punish Ulbricht for showing a safer, saner
way around their insanely damaging drug war.â
the reason the charges were dismissed is similar to the reason
he wasnt charged initially: because attempted murder charge was
unnecessary from the prosecutors point if view. not because he
is innocent of the charge. the article also notes that torture
was an element in those murders. this guy should not be walking
free
lupusreal wrote 1 day ago:
> the reason the charges were dismissed is similar to the
reason he wasnt charged initially: because attempted murder
charge was unnecessary from the prosecutors point if view
But why were the charges dismissed with prejudice? That's
not the normal way to dismiss charges.
smeeger wrote 23 hours 33 min ago:
from coingeek:
U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert Hur has
filed a motion to dismiss the pending charges filed against
Ross Ulbricht
Last week, Hur sought âto dismiss with prejudice the
indictment and superseding indictmentâ pending against
Ulbricht
in the motion that he filed, which is linked above, the
reason he provides is that ross had already been sentenced
and all his appeals had been denied. the motion never
mentions lack of evidence or the corrupt investigators.
this isnt mentioned in the freeross page [1] the idea that
chat logs were forged or that someone else was using his
account are plausible but just barely. its much more
plausible that a powerful drug lord ordered hits. its
practically unavoidable in the course of running a large,
high volume illegal drug operation. its routine. and the
feds didnt need a murder charge to screw him, not even a
little bit. i havent seen enough evidence to dismiss either
camp but i think it should go to trial so the public can
see all the evidence and the matter can be settled. there
certainly is grounds for further investigation.
URI [1]: https://freeross.org/false-allegations/
IIsi50MHz wrote 1 day ago:
Doesn't "dismissed with prejudice" usually mean something
like "the evidence presented for the charge is so lacking
that the charge should never have been brought in the first
place"?
ArnoVW wrote 1 day ago:
Not a lawyer but I believe that âwith prejudiceâ means
that the judge denies appeals (so yes generally it means
the case is considered frivolous)
smeeger wrote 1 day ago:
see my edit. i am a full supporter of letting adults have
freedom to buy and use whatever drugs they want but i also
think murdering and torturing people should not be allowed
echoangle wrote 1 day ago:
Can you explain the differences you see? People found the sentence
too harsh at the time, too, it looks like.
immibis wrote 1 day ago:
What I don't understand is why Donald Trump, of all people, is being
lenient on drug traffickers.
dekhn wrote 1 day ago:
Trump is predictable. This was his side of a transaction designed
to secure support from a voter contingent. His personal opinions
don't matter much when he is making a deal.
cpursley wrote 1 day ago:
Trump has never been a big drug warrior (against drug users). His
social views are basically late 80's 1990s Democrat and not out of
line with Clinton, etc.
Projectiboga wrote 1 day ago:
Clinton was a drug war supporter. He started the whole "Yea But
it is Still Federally Illegal under Federal Law" in response to
proposition 215 in California in late December of 1996.
tasty_freeze wrote 1 day ago:
It was a big cause that many libertarians cared about. I'm sure all
the crypto people who have Trump's ear have been pushing him on
this. There are also rumors that some state-level libertarian
leaders promised not to promote their candidate if Trump promised
to free Ulbrecht.
hoppp wrote 1 day ago:
Basically he did it to get the vote of the right-libertarians.
He made a promise to them.
They idolize Ross for creating a drug market because they view it
as freedom of speech.
idiotsecant wrote 1 day ago:
I don't think I buy this. He doesn't need to care about citizen
votes anymore, and how big is the libertarian with a capital 'L'
true believer block in Congress? Is there any? I'm not sure there
was ever any political support for Ross Ulbricht.
Has to be something else going on here, none of the explanations
in this thread are hitting it on the head for me.
lupusreal wrote 1 day ago:
If he wants to make the most of his next/last four years as
president, then he needs to keep his supporters happy enough to
vote in Republican congressmen in two years. Many of his
supporters are the type to not vote at all because they think
politicians are all two-faced liars, so it's important to keep
them sufficiently moralized to vote in 2026.
jpadkins wrote 1 day ago:
he promised to free Ross at the libertarian national
convention. promises made, promises kept.
URI [1]: https://x.com/CroissantEth/status/1856551964156342303
immibis wrote 20 hours 12 min ago:
He rarely keeps his promises, so he must still want something
from libertarians.
hoppp wrote 11 hours 36 min ago:
Well what do they have? Lots of guns and determination.
Maybe they make good allies, after the presidency somebody
needs to protect him if he commits too many crimes.
hoppp wrote 1 day ago:
He doesn't care anymore, but he kept his promise.
There was the free Ross movement, they promised to vote for him
if he pardons Ross and he did.
He apparently tweeted about how much Ross's mum supported him
during the campaign.
But my source for all this info is reddit
acdha wrote 1 day ago:
Heâs famously flexible based on whatever he thinks is
advantageous now. This could be as simple as his claims to have
been unfairly persecuted by law enforcement, it could be part of
his wealth gained from cryptocurrency, or it could simply be that
he thinks itâll make his opponents angry. Rich people often act
on whims just to show that they have the power not to need to
justify their actions.
lupusreal wrote 1 day ago:
It could be any of that, but it could also be as simple as
libertarians requested it, he told them he would, and he didn't
feel any reason to renege on that.
(I do think there's probably an element of deliberate disrespect
to federal law enforcement and the justice system, but that alone
doesn't answer the question why Ross specifically?)
diggan wrote 1 day ago:
AFAIK, it wasn't done because he wants to be lenient on drug
traffickers, but because the overall case of Ross Ulbricht is huge
in certain political circles that he was pandering to during the
presidential race, so seems he's "paying back" for those votes or
something.
azinman2 wrote 1 day ago:
Which political circles is Ross Ulbricht a big thing? Seemsâ¦
random.
diggan wrote 1 day ago:
[1] > âRoss Ulbricht has been a libertarian political
prisoner for more than a decade,â said a statement from
Libertarian National Committee Chair Angela McArdle. âIâm
proud to say that saving his life has been one of our top
priorities and that has finally paid off.â
Seems the US-version of libertarians is that group.
URI [1]: https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-silk-road-f7eb...
Nevermark wrote 1 day ago:
There is a high correlation between his condemnation of drugs and
characterizations of families, many poor and desperate, illegally
crossing the border.
Most illegal drugs by far go through regular border crossings, but
he hasnât obsessed about them in the same way.
cess11 wrote 1 day ago:
Crypto commodity grifter gets known crypto commodity laundering
expert out of jail.
tim333 wrote 1 day ago:
I guess people feel ten years in prison was adequate punishment.
reactordev wrote 1 day ago:
I donât disagree but I also donât agree with the life sentence.
If he was charged properly with the crimes stated during his trial,
maybe that would be warranted but he wasnât charged with it, only
the website charges and conspiracy. Which some of them could apply
to meta or craigslist if you got creative.
skylurk wrote 1 day ago:
Seems kinda the same to me?
aspect0545 wrote 1 day ago:
Now people complain about the pardon, back then people complained
about the sentence. People love to complain.
kllrnohj wrote 1 day ago:
you know there's a pretty massive gap between "double lifetime
sentence + 40 years w/ no chance of parole is too harsh" and "10
years w/ full pardon expunging the record is bad". A really,
really fucking massive giant gap between those, in fact.
But surely it's just that people love to complain, right? Can't
possibly be that they thought something like 25yr was more
reasonable?
agos wrote 1 day ago:
are they the same people?
hombre_fatal wrote 1 day ago:
Pardons are inherently political. If your guy does it, it's good.
If other guy does it, it's bad. And like most political topics,
it's hard to have a earnest convo divorced from that simple
dynamic.
echoangle wrote 1 day ago:
Arenât most comments in this thread supporting the pardon?
diggan wrote 1 day ago:
I know it seems almost impossible, but it might be that the group
of people who complained about the sentence, may be a different
group than the one who complain about the pardon.
jkestner wrote 1 day ago:
I internalized a long time ago when doing customer service that
people donât write you when theyâre happy.
looofooo0 wrote 1 day ago:
I am very happy with your informative comment. Thanks you, you
can go on with your life now.
grey-area wrote 1 day ago:
For my friends, anything. For my enemies, the law.
andyjohnson0 wrote 1 day ago:
Non-USian here. I'm interested in why.
Given that Trump didn't pardon Ulbricht during his first presidential
term, why now?
What does Trump, who is notoriously transactional, get in return for
this? Alternatively, what signal is he sending and to who?
mardifoufs wrote 1 day ago:
To be honest if Trump would've pardoned him in his first term it
would've been way too short of a sentence for what he did. Though I
hate the usual libertarian defense that makes him out to be an
innocent martyr, I think that 10 years is somewhat enough for what he
did. It would have been a normal sentence in a lot of countries
outside the US.
andyjohnson0 wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks. I appreciate your view on the sentence, but I'm interested
in why Trump would issue a pardon.
I'm unconvinced that Trump in 2020 thought Ulbricht's total
sentence was okay, but four years later has apparently changed his
mind. So who's the client here? It doesn't seem to be Ulbricht - is
it libertarians in general? Why does Trump, as a second term
president, actually care?
mannerheim wrote 22 hours 22 min ago:
There are credibility issues if you make promises you don't
follow up on, especially very public promises that are completely
within your power to carry out; there are no limits on the
presidential pardon power, barring that it only applies to
federal crimes.
moogly wrote 1 day ago:
What's even going on? Why is everyone treating this guy as some kind of
political prisoner all of a sudden?
I would've expected responses like this for Aung San Suu Kyi or Dawit
Isaak or someone, but _this guy_? Really?
Oh, I guess he is an e n t r e p r e n e u r... I get it now.
I_am_tiberius wrote 1 day ago:
I know he wasn't convicted of hiring a hitman, and I know the attempt
didn't succeed, but he still tried to kill other people. Moreover,
during a Bitcoin conference, he gave a live talk from prison via phone
and still lied, claiming they planted the log on his laptop. A full
pardon is ridiculous. It's unfair to so many people, including his
partners like Variety Jones, also known as Thomas Clark. On the other
hand, I'm pretty sure he won't do anything like this again.
rco8786 wrote 1 day ago:
> I'm pretty sure he won't do anything like this again.
Famous last words, eh?
LincolnedList wrote 1 day ago:
Next time he will double check the hitman is legit
NovemberWhiskey wrote 1 day ago:
On the contrary, his not guilty plea, his ongoing insistence on his
innocence, and libertarian true-believer tendencies etc. suggest
the opposite.
wonderwonder wrote 1 day ago:
The issue is that so many of the officials that investigated him were
corrupt.
How can we be confident any of the evidence was real. He is obviously
not innocent but when at least 2 of the investigators went to jail
for crimes committed during this investigation it casts serious
questions on the validity of the case as a whole.
The police, DEA and Secret service have vast power they can use
against the populace. If those same agents are committing crimes then
it taints the entire investigation and prosecution. If a cop is found
to have planted drugs on past arrestees, quite often a good portion
of his other cases are thrown out as well as he has corrupted
everything he touched.
It likely doesn't rise to the legal doctrine of "fruit from a
poisoned tree" but its in the ballpark.
For the people downvoting me for some reason:
A DEA agent involved in the investigation "was sentenced to 78 months
in prison for extortion, money laundering and obstruction of justice"
A secret service agent involved in the investigation "was sentenced
to 24 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San
Francisco following his earlier guilty plea to one count of money
laundering."
verteu wrote 21 hours 34 min ago:
A few moments' research reveal many reasons to think the evidence
was real, eg:
Ulbricht's right-hand-man Roger Thomas Clark, who was involved in
one of the murder-for-hire conversations, admitted the conversation
was real during his trial:
"In his own remarks, Clark didn't comment on that murder-for-hire
conversationâwhich he at one point claimed had been fabricated by
Ulbricht but later conceded was real."
URI [1]: https://www.wired.com/story/silk-road-variety-jones-senten...
maxlin wrote 1 day ago:
Ridiculous? He was in prison for 10 years.
HWR_14 wrote 1 day ago:
A pardon is not used when you think the crime occurred but the
punishment is too harsh. That's a commutation (which the president
also has the power to do). It can replace the punishment with a
lighter one or none at all.
A pardon is used when you want to erase the criminal record on top
of that.
Thorrez wrote 1 day ago:
Then commute his sentence to time served. Don't pardon him, which
says he wasn't guilty to begin with.
maxlin wrote 1 day ago:
In his promise Trump said exactly "I will commute the sentence of
... "
I don't know the differences but also from my perspective they
don't seem to differ that much. Might as well be that Trump said
"yeah and pardon that guy Ulbricht ... " while doing tons of
other stuff wielding his new powers like he's doing now and his
word was taken exact, given there's little difference
Thorrez wrote 3 hours 9 min ago:
I guess he promised to commute his sentence, then later changed
his mind to pardon him:
>I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her
know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which
supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just
signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross. The
scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics
who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government
against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years.
Ridiculous!
URI [1]: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1138691...
I_am_tiberius wrote 1 day ago:
A full pardon means the individual gets their legal record cleared
(as if the crime never happened).
zacharyvoase wrote 1 day ago:
Thatâs not true actually. Like most things at law, itâs more
complicated than that.
namirez wrote 1 day ago:
Iâm also wondering why a full pardon rather than a commutation.
ddtaylor wrote 1 day ago:
I am curious if this matters for the purposes of the Bitcoin
"damages". By today's exchange rates it could be an insane
amount of money. If the "crime" is supposed to be wiped clean
as if he never did it, then in theory it would mean give him
back his property, etc. I don't know the specifics about that
or if it would change with respect to clemency or commuting of
a sentence.
NovemberWhiskey wrote 1 day ago:
That's transparently obvious if you read the press release:
Trump analogizes his own personal treatment by the Justice
Department with that of Ulbricht c.f. "weaponization of the
justice system".
red-iron-pine wrote 1 day ago:
Trump team wants his help running crypto shenanigans
rtkwe wrote 1 day ago:
Does he need help? They've already released two nonsense meme
coins to bilk their followers and crypto people hoping to
time the dump correctly.
mardifoufs wrote 1 day ago:
Seriously? What a weird suggestion, crypto now has nothing to
do with crypto back when he was running Silk road, and there
are tons of crypto bros to pick from if the Trump team wanted
someone to help run "their crypto shenanigans". I don't think
anyone involved in crypto back in 2013 could've seen how much
of a mess it would become anyways
HWR_14 wrote 1 day ago:
> I don't think anyone involved in crypto back in 2013
could've seen how much of a mess it would become anyways
It seems that crypto then and now are pretty similar, mess
wise.
immibis wrote 1 day ago:
This is the only explanation that makes sense to me.
snapcaster wrote 1 day ago:
they don't get the 10 years back dude jesus christ
eddieroger wrote 1 day ago:
he doesn't get back time but he does get back status as a
cleared individual, which comes with things like the ability to
vote and buy weapons.
ddtaylor wrote 1 day ago:
Nobody will undo whatever has been done to him. I don't know
all of the specifics but I have spoken on HN here about my
incarceration at much much much lower level facilities.
This man was at a USP and at other times other facilities.
Those are places where even with the best intentions you are
not expected to move in any capacity without serious safety
concerns. We're talking "shower with your boots, a spotter and
and a shank on you" environment without the slightest joke.
It took a while likely because Ross is non-violent and smart,
but eventually he was unable to stay in general population to
some capacity. My understanding is he has spent significant
time in solitary confinement or PC - effectively the same thing
at these facilities, very small single cell rooms with a slot
in them and the minimum required 1 hour of "yard time" per day,
most of which has been suspended to some degree due to COVID
and the slow response.
The end result is this guy for sure has spent months to years
in a very small cell, possibly without even seeing the sun. I
didn't see the sun "for reals" for 6 months. A keyboard warrior
can swoop in here and talk about how they cannot do this or how
X time restrictions exist, but the reality is they just need to
move you back to your cell on paper for a day and then back in
or trick you into signing some kind of paperwork consenting.
My heart goes out to both of them and I am reminded that I was
the person that help mined the first 1FREEROSS Bitcoin vanity
address to help crowd fund his defense. Lyn never gave up the
slightest even during times that were fucking impossible to
imagine.
nso wrote 1 day ago:
He tried to have someone's life violently taken away. He
should have rotted in there.
smeej wrote 1 day ago:
The typical sentence for attempted murder-for-hire in the
U.S. isn't a double life sentence plus 40 years without the
possibility of parole.
perihelions wrote 1 day ago:
He did kill people. That factored into his sentencing[0]: the
multiple overdose deaths from heroin and other things Ulbricht
sold/facilitated/took a cut of the proceeds of.
He killed children.
- "During the sentencing hearing, Forrest heard from the father of a
25-year-old Boston man who died of a heroin overdose and the mother
of a 16-year-old Australian who took a drug designed to mimic LSD at
a post-prom party and then jumped off a balcony to his death.
Prosecutors said the two victims were among at least six who died
after taking drugs that were bought through Silk Road."
[0] [1] ("Silk Road Mastermind Handed Life in Prison for Drug Bazaar"
(2015))
It's squarely within the Overton window to impose extremely harsh
sentences for people who sell heroin*. Most (?) Asian countries
*execute* people who sell heroin. Trump himself has proposed,
multiple times over the years, executing US heroin
dealers[1,2]âwhich underscores the incredible degree of hypocrisy
behind this pardon.
*(It's also within some people's Overton windows to contemplate the
opposite of this, in a framework of harm minimization. I can't
steelman this argument in the specific case of Ulbricht. Is it harm
reduction to sell heroin? Is it harm reduction to sell fatal drugs to
high-school age kids?) [1] [2] ("Trump urges death penalty for drug
dealers" (2018)) [2] [3] ("Trump wants the death penalty for drug
dealers. Here's why that probably won't happen" (2023))
URI [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-29/silk-road...
URI [2]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43465229
URI [3]: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/10/1152847242/trump-campaign-exe...
butlike wrote 19 hours 39 min ago:
Isn't the australian other story _LITERALLY_ the age-old "a friend
of a friend's cousin jumped out of a window on LSD because they
thought they could fly?"
I'm surprised they didn't call in the witness who thought they were
a glass of orange juice.
busymom0 wrote 1 day ago:
Other than the fact that he was not a drug dealer and other
criticism others have already pointed out, Carnegie Mellon
University's researchers did an analysis of Silk Road gathering
data on a daily basis for eight months before it was shut down.
Some of their findings include:
> ââWeedâ (i.e., marijuana) is the most popular item on Silk
Roadâ (p.8)
> âThe quantities being sold are generally rather small (e.g., a
few grams of marijuana)â (p.12) [1] 2+ life sentences for a
website which sold weed is just outrageous. Also note that since
2012, people have become a LOT softer on weed and even other drugs
have been legalized since then. Trump himself has said that he has
friends who have benefitted from weed.
URI [1]: https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/nicolasc/publications/TR-C...
stickfigure wrote 1 day ago:
This is so stupid. By this standard, automobile manufacturers kill
44,000 people in the US every year, including countless children.
3,500-4,500 people in the US are murdered by swimming pool
contractors every year.
ty6853 wrote 1 day ago:
Wait until you hear how many people home swimming pool salesmen
kill, and their victims are even younger children.
Hell at least illegal drugs can be lifesaving. No one needs a home
swimming pool.
greentxt wrote 1 day ago:
Most pool owners aren't dead? Am i being trolled?
wbobeirne wrote 1 day ago:
Most drug users are not dead either.
15155 wrote 1 day ago:
We should license them by the gallon: assault pools with scary
slides will be non-transferable to new owners.
cheeseomlit wrote 1 day ago:
"He killed children" is a pretty massive leap- he didn't sell
heroin, he sold shrooms. Other vendors on the site sold heroin. And
there is the matter of personal responsibility to consider- nobody
forced those people to take heroin, and if they hadn't gotten it
from the silk road they'd have gotten it elsewhere. The Sacklers
are responsible for far more human misery in that regard, to an
almost inconceivable degree, and they never have and never will see
the inside of a cell
akudha wrote 1 day ago:
if they hadn't gotten it from the silk road they'd have gotten it
elsewhere
"If I don't do it, someone else will" - I suppose this is a
convenient excuse that can be applied to anything unsavory, from
the little guy selling shrooms at the street corner to nation
states making nasty biological and chemical weapons?
Not saying there isn't truth to it, just wondering how as a
society we seem to accept that doing unsavory things is a
necessity because others are doing it (or they will be doing it
soon, so we better be the first)
cheeseomlit wrote 1 day ago:
I say that less to justify Ulbricht's conduct and moreso to
hold people responsible for their own actions. "If I don't do
it someone else will" is a pretty flimsy moral justification
for anything. But accusing someone of murder because they
facilitated a transaction between two other parties they never
met is a bridge too far, and IMO ignores the responsibility and
agency of those parties who willingly participated in the
transaction
perihelions wrote 1 day ago:
- "and if they hadn't gotten it from the silk road they'd have
gotten it elsewhere"
That's very unlikely to be true in the case of the high-school
kid who died buying a synthetic drug off the internet. They
almost certainly did not have a dealer connection sophisticated
enough to sell that. They almost certainly would have lived, if
Silk Road were not available to them at that point in their life.
You're advancing an argument about drug markets and personal
autonomy in the general case, but it's a very poor fit to the
concrete facts in the specific situation we're looking at.
cheeseomlit wrote 1 day ago:
IMO these are circumstances too far removed from Ulbricht to
hold him directly responsible. How many people bought drugs
from the Silk Road, used them safely and responsibly, and in
doing so avoided contact with violent criminals who they'd
otherwise have to buy from, potentially saving them from the
violence/misery/blackmail/overdoses that so commonly
accompanies association with drug dealers IRL?
Though I think this argument is tangential to the point on
proportionality- Ross's sentence is an affront to justice when
considered in the context of the Sackler's treatment
greentxt wrote 1 day ago:
"association with drug dealers IRL?"
I'd rather get my milk from the corner store than some
anonymous reseller on amazon. Real life drug dealers operate
in markets too.
cheeseomlit wrote 21 hours 10 min ago:
So would I, but the milk guy at the corner store probably
isn't going to stab you over a matter of 20 dollars
valval wrote 1 day ago:
He was not the dealer.
xyzzy9563 wrote 1 day ago:
True. If he is culpable for other people dealing drugs on his
platform, then so is Meta and Mark Zuckerberg for allowing
WhatsApp to facilitate drug trades.
riehwvfbk wrote 1 day ago:
Nah, that treatment is reserved for Telegram. Zuck does MMA
and isn't Russian so he's cool.
Fnoord wrote 1 day ago:
He does block certain tags 'by accident'.
itsoktocry wrote 1 day ago:
>It's squarely within the Overton window to impose extremely harsh
sentences for people who sell heroin.
Some of us see a major difference between selling heroin to
someone, and building the marketplace from which these victim's
freely bought drugs.
I think he is owed some responsibility, but he didn't kill them.
JohnBooty wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah, thatâs the part the legal system has a hard time with. We
donât have definitions or suitable penalties for these things
I mean, Iâm not sure Pablo Escobar ever sold drugs or murdered
anybody with his own hands. Metaphorically though there was a ton
of blood on his hands. Charles Manson allegedly never killed
anybody himself either. But we generally agree these guys were
bad for society.
Iâm generally lasseiz-faire about drugs, and I generally put
the onus of responsibility on the person choosing to ingest them.
But there are some drugs, like opioids, that kind of transcend
that. They cannot reasonably be safely used in a recreational
manner, and are objectively a cancer to society.
immibis wrote 1 day ago:
I don't see the difference between building a marketplace in
which people freely buy drugs from you and building a marketplace
in which people freely buy drugs from people who aren't you.
sbarre wrote 1 day ago:
> Some of us see a major difference between selling heroin to
someone, and building the marketplace from which these victim's
freely bought drugs.
Let's say I "build a network" of mules, planes, trucks,
trafficking routes, and people who handle the distribution of
drugs. I provide all the logistics to make the drugs go from
supplier to end user.
So, a marketplace of sorts... in the real world, not on the
Internet.
But, I don't actually sell the drugs to the end user on the
street corner. That's someone else.
But a cut of each of those sales rolls up to me, and without me,
those sales aren't happening (sure they could happen via someone
else, but this particular network exists because I built it and I
run it)..
I am what is referred to as a "drug lord".
How am I not responsible for heroin getting into the hands of
vulnerable addicts?
carlob wrote 1 day ago:
> Some of us see a major difference between selling heroin to
someone, and building the marketplace from which these victim's
freely bought drugs.
I kinda do see your point, but I think I reach the opposite
conclusion. If you are one person on a street corner it's one
thing, if you enable a whole electronic marketplace you have a
much larger effect.
Then again we should decide whether it's a bad thing to sell
drugs, but if it is I would see him as more culpable than a
random street dealer.
NovemberWhiskey wrote 1 day ago:
Pray tell, what is the difference between operating an electronic
market where people can buy drugs and operating a physical one
(say, a street corner) where people can do the same?
plorg wrote 1 day ago:
One is the capital class, the other is not.
vasilipupkin wrote 1 day ago:
huge difference. People can sell drugs on facebook marketplace
but that doesn't mean that Zuckerberg is a drug dealer. The
difference is you bear responsibility for what you do.
lucb1e wrote 23 hours 48 min ago:
> People can sell drugs on facebook marketplace but that
doesn't mean that Zuckerberg is a drug dealer
In our legal system, they are in fact partially responsible
if they don't disallow it and don't act upon reports. I'm not
sure there is a difference whether it's physical or digital
vasilipupkin wrote 19 hours 29 min ago:
fine, partially responsible is still a huge difference
lucb1e wrote 18 hours 14 min ago:
How so? Why would an owner of a market with physical
dimensions, held every Saturday or whatever, be any more
or less responsible for what changes hands there?
vasilipupkin wrote 3 hours 49 min ago:
if the owner of a market isn't actually dealing drugs,
whether the market is physical or electronic, that is
different than if the "owner" of a street corner is
either dealing himself or actively supervising those
who are dealing for him
akudha wrote 1 day ago:
Isn't scale a difference? How much damage can one guy do from a
street corner VS the other guy operating a large marketplace
where anyone can buy anything from anywhere?
itsoktocry wrote 1 day ago:
Is this a serious question?
What does it mean to be "operating an electronic market"? Are
you under the impression he was physically intermediating these
transactions in some way? That the drugs passed through his
hands?
That's one difference.
lucb1e wrote 23 hours 38 min ago:
> What does it mean to be "operating an electronic market"?
Ask Ross Ulbricht
> Are you under the impression [...] That the drugs passed
through his hands?
They never said that, and it doesn't have to for being
partially responsible. The Pirate Bay didn't host any
copyrighted material, but the founders "were found guilty in
the Pirate Bay trial in Sweden for assisting in copyright
infringement and were sentenced to serve one year in prison
and pay a fine." Hosting the website where the issue is
rampant is sufficient; no infringing material (drugs or
movies) have to pass through your hands
But I think we might be in agreement here since you said
above that Ross had some responsibility. I also don't think
it's the same as handing out the drugs yourself
lvass wrote 1 day ago:
Are you saying people who lay paving blocks or asphalt on a
street should be guilty of drug dealing?
starspangled wrote 1 day ago:
Operating a street corner? You mean like in the capacity of a
city municipality, providing sidewalk, road, drainage
infrastructure, perhaps some street lighting.
that_guy_iain wrote 1 day ago:
> He did kill people. That factored into his sentencing[0]: the
multiple overdose deaths from heroin and other things Ulbricht
sold/facilitated/took a cut of the proceeds of.
> He killed children.
Nit: People died, who may not have died, because of his actions but
he didn't kill them. Very few people are forced to take drugs.
kerkeslager wrote 1 day ago:
It's worth noting that darknet sites have at every point in their
history provided higher-purity drugs on average than what was
available elsewhere[1]. It's hard to say whether or not more
people used drugs because of the Silk Road. But without question,
many people who purchased drugs on the Silk Road and survived,
would have purchased those drugs elsewhere and died from
impurities in the Silk Road's absence. I think there's an
argument to be made that Ullbricht saved lives by purveying safer
drugs. [1]
EDIT: Added citation for commenter who couldn't be bothered to
use a search engine. Link contains links to multiple studies.
URI [1]: https://www.euda.europa.eu/publications/insights/interne...
perihelions wrote 1 day ago:
- "But without question, many people who purchased drugs on the
Silk Road and survived, would have purchased those drugs
elsewhere and died from impurities in the Silk Road's absence.
I think there's an argument to be made that Ullbricht saved
lives by purveying safer drugs."
But how's that different from arguing that every crack dealer
who doesn't cut their crack product is a utilitarian,
net-positive life-saver?
Alice sells pure crack. Bob one street down adds fentanyl for
the extra kick. It's a reasonable inference that Alice's
clients, deprived of Alice, would switch to Bob and promptly
off themselves. Does it therefore follow, that
Alice-who-sells-crack is an upstanding, lifesaving even, member
of society, who should be left free to sell more crack? If not,
then what's the differentiation between Alice-who-sells-crack
and Ross Ulbrichtâwhat innovation has that cryptocurrency
startup innovated, that makes it it a substantively different
moral scenario?
Certainly, no crack dealer has ever, in the history of the US,
tried to advance this specific utilitarian argument, which
Ulbricht attached himself to (as Judge Forrest pointed
outâit's a privileged argument of a privileged person).
kerkeslager wrote 23 hours 49 min ago:
> Certainly, no crack dealer has ever, in the history of the
US, tried to advance this specific utilitarian argument,
which Ulbricht attached himself to (as Judge Forrest pointed
outâit's a privileged argument of a privileged person).
Tell me more about how a judge is calling people privileged.
I mean, do you have any discussion of the idea at hand, or
are you just going to appeal to how we feel about
hypothetical people who might have said the idea? Either the
idea is correct or it's not, it doesn't matter if it's a
crack dealer, a darknet market administrator, or a judge who
makes it.
perihelions wrote 20 hours 16 min ago:
- "Tell me more about how a judge is calling people
privileged"
ok
- "The family received food stamps for four years beginning
when Katherine was 12. They were homeless for six months.
"I came from nothing," Forrest said. "I came from a father
who made no money. He was a playwright and then a writer,
and even though he published a lot of books, I was a
complete scholarship student all the way through."
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_B._Forrest
that_guy_iain wrote 1 day ago:
The purity can also cause overdoses and deaths because they're
not used to it being that pure so they took the same amount
they would take with a less pure so took a substantially larger
dose. Especially with opium based drugs that would be a big
problem.
sulam wrote 1 day ago:
Citation needed.
cedws wrote 1 day ago:
Ulbricht didn't kill those people. Those people took drugs under
their own autonomy and died as a result.
xyzzy9563 wrote 1 day ago:
Plus he didn't even sell the drugs. He created a technology
platform that facilitates it. I can think of many other
communications platforms that also do this, for example Google,
email, Verizon, etc.
JohnBooty wrote 1 day ago:
Iâm generally lasseiz-faire when it comes to most drugs,
although I do think some drugs like opioids are rather
objectively a cancer to society and anybody in that pipeline
needs to be punished.
So. Comparisons to Google, Verizon, etc?
While his actions arenât equivalent to a âdirectâ
old-fashioned drug dealer selling fentanyl, theyâre clearly
also not equivalent to providers like Google or Verizon.
They provide truly general purpose communications networks.
Common carriers. Thatâs different from a marketplace
explicitly designed to facilitate a particular thing like
selling drugs.
I mean, you can upload non-porn videos to PornHub, or attempt
to met platonic knitting circle buddies on there. But letâs
not sit around and pretend the entire operation isnât
designed around the explicit purpose of selling porn.
xyzzy9563 wrote 1 day ago:
It wasnât designed for just drugs. There were many
different categories.
JohnBooty wrote 20 hours 16 min ago:
There was a category for drugs. And specific subcategories
for different specific kinds of drugs.
Unlike, say, the phone network or your neighborhood street
corner it was pretty unambiguously designed to sell drugs
(and more)
Apart from any sort of judgement we might want to make,
facts are facts and Silk Road was factually designed to
sell drugs.
You don't get to participate in the discussion until you
acknowledge basic reality.
danem wrote 1 day ago:
Different categories, yes. But mostly drugs.
URI [1]: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gh5_2YgWoAABY-O?format...
sbarre wrote 1 day ago:
So by your logic, a drug kingpin who doesn't actually handle
the drug-selling transaction should not be liable for anything,
even though the money rolls up to them?
Ross directly profited from the sale of those drugs. So, yes,
he was "selling the drugs".
xyzzy9563 wrote 1 day ago:
Google and Meta also profit from selling ads to the people
who use it to trade drugs. All I'm saying is there's a rough
equivalence. Perhaps the Silk Road platform should be banned
but he was not a drug dealer himself. Creating a
communications platform is not the same thing as being a drug
dealer.
sbarre wrote 1 day ago:
He created/operated a platform with the primary purpose of
facilitating the sale of drugs. He profited from those
transactions. That makes him a drug dealer.
Comparing Meta and Google to Silk Road is a bad faith
argument. You might as well compare Silk Road to the phone
network at that point.
xyzzy9563 wrote 1 day ago:
There were many other items and services sold on Silk
Road, it wasnât just drugs.
amarcheschi wrote 1 day ago:
According to wikipedia [1], 70% of the products sold on
silk road were drugs [1] . wikipedia uses as reference
[2] and [3] plus, at least ebay, amazon, big tech
comply or at least sometimes comply with the law
banning some products which can't be sold or advertised
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marke...
URI [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160407165324/htt...
URI [3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20131012012106/htt...
maxlin wrote 1 day ago:
This. With taking in to account how much criminal exposure Silk
Road removed from the whole equation, saying "he killed them" is
like saying Elon Musk kills everyone who dies in an FSD accident
even if the system is safer than human drivers by average.
JohnnyLarue wrote 1 day ago:
Yes, but Ulbricht is a very different case. He's white, you see.
perihelions wrote 1 day ago:
Judge Forrest absolute nailed this, in her withering response to
one of Ulbricht's appeal attempts:
- "âNo drug dealer from the Bronx selling meth or heroin or
crack has ever made these kinds of arguments to the Court,â she
said. âIt is a privileged argument, it is an argument from one
of privilege. You are no better a person than any other drug
dealer and your education does not give you a special place of
privilege in our criminal justice system. It makes it less
explicable why you did what you did.â" [1] ("Unsealed
Transcript Shows How a Judge Justified Ross Ulbrichtâs Life
Sentence" (2015))
In an increasingly nihilistic world, I'm glad people like Forrest
still exist.
URI [1]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/unsealed-transcript-show...
busymom0 wrote 1 day ago:
That judge is just wrong. Ulbricht was not selling drugs.
Conflating running a market place vs drug dealers on the street
is just wrong. Craigslist has tons of illegal stuff. Even FB
and Twitter do.
rossfan wrote 1 day ago:
Because the federal government would never plant a log on his
computer in order to obtain a conviction. Next people will be saying
the CIA killed JFK. How can we lose faith in the judicial system,
fuck, the very government considering how consistently benign and
trust worthy its been time and time again.
lvass wrote 1 day ago:
Poe's law.
snapcaster wrote 1 day ago:
I honestly have no idea what the truth of the case was, but it is
crazy to me how people never seem to update their priors on what
the US gov is capable of. Everytime they get caught doing something
like this people go "wow thats crazy" and then immediately go back
to telling everyone saying non-mainstream ideas to take their meds
johnwheeler wrote 1 day ago:
I donât think he should have been sent to ADX Florence, but gen pop
in San Quentin seems reasonable. Give him 10 more years in Jail me
says!
OscarTheGrinch wrote 1 day ago:
Actual murderers get out in the time that Ross served.
The concept of justice must include an element of proportionality, I
would argue that Ross's sentence, for a first time non-violent
criminal, was over the top. Without proportionality justice becomes
arbitrary, based more on luck and your connections to power.
We punish those we can punish: the little guy. Whilst those running
governments, corporations and networks that facilitate repression,
hatred and genocide go scot free.
graemep wrote 1 day ago:
I once noticed (in the UK) that two people who I read news stories
about in the same week got similar sentences. One for breach of
copyright, one for sexually assaulting a teenager.
That said, I think Ross did knowingly enable violence?
tasty_freeze wrote 1 day ago:
If a Mafia boss never strong armed a merchant, never busted any
kneecaps, and never pulled a trigger but simply paid other people
to carry out various crimes, should the law give him a short
sentence because he was non-violent?
I don't know what the appropriate sentence for Ulbrecht, but I
think your claims about proportionality are missing the fact he
didn't just direct commit a few crimes, such as trying
(unsuccessfully) to hire a hitman, but he facilitated hundreds of
thousands of crimes. Maybe you think selling drugs and guns to
randos should not be illegal, but that is a separate question of
whether or not he broke the laws as written.
As for your last point, I don't disagree that the
wealthy/powerful/connected live under a different justice system
than everyone else.
pc86 wrote 1 day ago:
"Actual murderers get out in less than a decade" is a reason to put
actual murderers in prison forever, not to let everyone else out
even sooner.
immibis wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah, but in that case, we should pardon all people convicted of
drug possession or distribution, not specifically Ross.
OscarTheGrinch wrote 1 day ago:
Sure, sounds good. The war on drugs was a dumb idea.
Let's spend 1/4 of that all the drug enforcement money on harm
reduction.
NovemberWhiskey wrote 1 day ago:
We punish people all the time for non-violent, white-collar crime;
often very severely. Bernie Madoff got sent to prison for 150 years
and died there and, as far as I know, he never solicited a murder
for hire.
kerkeslager wrote 1 day ago:
Madoff is the exception rather than the rule--and even Madoff
operated his Ponzi scheme for over 40 years before being
prosecuted.
Madoff's arrest and prosecution was actually pretty ineffectual
in my opinion. If an amoral person can live as one of the richest
men in the world for 40 years in exchange for spending the last
10 years of their life in minimum-security prison, I think a lot
of amoral people would take that trade.
NovemberWhiskey wrote 1 day ago:
Bernie Ebbers and Jeff Skilling both got more than 20 years for
Enron. The CEO and co-owner of NCFE got 30 years and 25 years
respectively for their role in a securities and wire fraud
relating to that business.
kerkeslager wrote 1 day ago:
> In December 2019, Ebbers was released from Federal Medical
Center, Fort Worth, due to declining health, having served 13
years of his 25-year sentence, and he died just over a month
later.[1]
...living until the age of 61 as one of the richest men in
the world, then spending 13 years in minimum-security prison.
> In 2013, following a further appeal, and earlier
accusations that prosecutors had concealed evidence from
Skilling's lawyers prior to his trial, the United States
Department of Justice reached a deal with Skilling, which
resulted in ten years being cut from his sentence, reducing
it to 14 years. He was moved to a halfway house in 2018 and
released from custody in 2019, after serving 12 years. [2]
...living until the age of 53 as one of the richest men in
the world, then spending 12 years in minimum-security prison.
Re: NCFE: Lance K. Poulsen went to jail at 65, and while I
wasn't able to find out his current situation, he's about due
to get out of jail if the other cases are any indication[3].
Rebecca S. Parrett, 60, fled after her conviction and was
arrested at age 62 in Mexico, largely due to fleeing to a
country with robust US extradition (why?)[4]. [1] [2] [3] [4]
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Ebbers
URI [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Skilling
URI [3]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-national-centu...
URI [4]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/fugitive-ohio-executi...
archerx wrote 1 day ago:
Bernie committed a crime worse than murder; stealing from the
rich.
Algent wrote 1 day ago:
Wasn't silk road selling way more than just drugs ? Like,
pornography and gun, worldwide. When you facilitate both sex
trafficking, organized crime and potentially terrorism you can't
exactly be surprised you get hit with everything.
busymom0 wrote 1 day ago:
> Carnegie Mellon University's researchers did an analysis of
Silk Road gathering data on a daily basis for eight months before
it was shut down. Some of their findings include:
> ââWeedâ (i.e., marijuana) is the most popular item on
Silk Roadâ (p.8)
> âThe quantities being sold are generally rather small (e.g.,
a few grams of marijuana)â (p.12)
> In Table 1, we take a closer look at the top 20 categories per
number of item offered. âWeedâ (i.e., mari- juana) is the
most popular item on Silk Road, followed by âDrugs,â which
encompass any sort of narcotics or prescription medicine the
seller did not want further classified. Prescription drugs, and
âBenzos,â colloquial term for benzodiazepines, which include
prescription medicines like Valium and other drugs used for
insom- nia and anxiety treatment, are also highly popular. The
four most popular categories are all linked to drugs; nine of the
top ten, and sixteen out of the top twenty are drug-related. In
other words, Silk Road is mostly a drug store, even though it
also caters some other products. Finally, among narcotics, even
though such a classification is somewhat arbitrary, Silk Road
appears to have more inventory in âsoft drugsâ (e.g., weed,
cannabis, hash, seeds) than âhard drugsâ (e.g., opiates);
this presumably simply reflects market demand.
> Silk Road places relatively few restrictions on the types of
goods sellers can offer. From the Silk Road sellersâ guide [5],
âDo not list anything whoâs (sic) purpose is to harm or
defraud, such as stolen items or info, stolen credit cards,
counterfeit currency, personal info, assassinations, and weapons
of any kind. Do not list anything related to pedophilia.â
> Conspicuously absent from the list of prohibited items are
prescription drugs and narcotics, as well as adult pornography
and fake identification documents (e.g., counterfeit driverâs
licenses). Weapons and am- munition used to be allowed until
March 4, 2012, when they were transferred to a sister site called
The Armory [1], which operated with an infrastructure similar to
that of Silk Road. Interestingly, the Armory closed in August
2012 reportedly due to a lack of business [6].
URI [1]: https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/nicolasc/publications/TR...
diggan wrote 1 day ago:
Huge leap from "selling pornography" to "facilitate sex
trafficking"... Where you get the sex trafficking part from?
eckmLJE wrote 1 day ago:
No, silk road did not sell weapons. There was legal content like
pornography and other media on there, but Ulbricht was an
idealist and excluded material with "intent to harm".
NovemberWhiskey wrote 1 day ago:
So all the people who got convicted for selling firearms on
Silk Road, how'd that happen then?
red-iron-pine wrote 1 day ago:
don't conflate Silk Road == all Darknet Markets
plus in North America you don't really need a darknet market
to get a gun illegally. US FedGov ain't gonna get to
involved in illegal gun sales in Europe.
kerkeslager wrote 1 day ago:
It didn't happen.
Ctrl-F for "Products" on this page[1] and stop making shit
up.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace...
Algent wrote 1 day ago:
Interesting and surprising they really had rules, thanks
for the clarification. I'm ashamed to say I opened this
page and read it wrong the first time by skipping the first
sentence.
busymom0 wrote 1 day ago:
You might be interested in my comment about Carnegie
Mellon University's researchers findings on what Silk
Road sold/didn't sell/what was popular.
kerkeslager wrote 1 day ago:
Notably, as Ullbricht predicted, the Silk Road was immediately
replaced by sites which did not have such ideals, and openly
sold weapons and illegal pornography.
consp wrote 1 day ago:
They were there already and shutting down the silk road
changed nothing in that perspective.
giantg2 wrote 1 day ago:
I'm curious, what are the arguments for or against him being pardoned?
chocolateteeth wrote 1 day ago:
How is the thread basically off topic?
honeybadger1 wrote 1 day ago:
can we all just agree that he was given a ridiculous sentence and trump
did a good thing, is that so hard.
liendolucas wrote 1 day ago:
I think that we have to agree that anyone doing this today will
definitely go to jail, and is my personal opinion that there must be a
punishment. Now, the discussion could be if a life sentence is a fair
sentence or not. I personally feel that a life sentence is a
disproportionate punishment, moreover if the subject shows a different
attitude after being in jail for more than a decade. Ten years time to
medidate about what you did is plenty of time to change someone's mind,
obviously if you are a person willing to do things differently.
aksss wrote 1 day ago:
Wasnât it _two_ life sentences plus forty years?
rnernento wrote 1 day ago:
In 2021, Ulbricht's prosecutors and defense agreed that Ulbricht would
relinquish any ownership of a newly discovered fund of 50,676 Bitcoin
(worth nearly $5.35 billion in 2025) seized from a hacker in November
2021.[78] The Bitcoin had been stolen from Silk Road in 2013 and
Ulbricht had been unsuccessful in getting them back. The U.S.
government traced and seized the stolen Bitcoin. Ulbricht and the
government agreed the fund would be used to pay off Ulbricht's $183
million debt in his criminal case, while the Department of Justice
would take custody of the Bitcoin.[79][80]
scotty79 wrote 1 day ago:
Wow. Suddenly the pardon makes perfect sense.
haswell wrote 1 day ago:
Why does this make the pardon make sense?
scotty79 wrote 23 hours 4 min ago:
Because in absence of this there was zero benefit to anyone with
any power to make it happen. Getting clear $5bln without any
legal objections is a clear benefit to many parties involved. I'm
sure many people close to it have many ideas how to skim some off
the top for themselves.
lvl155 wrote 1 day ago:
Bingo. US always has been about commerce and money. It wouldnât
shock me if Ross has at least a few million hidden in some âlost
walletâ printed out in a vault some where. He was smart enough to
know he would get caught one day.
Workaccount2 wrote 1 day ago:
It's unlikely he has a hidden stash that is truly hidden. Back then
the government wasn't all over the blockchain (compared to today)
and obfuscation was not like what is available today.
So even if he does have a stash, it is likely marked, and he will
get a knock on the door real fast if it starts moving.
andirk wrote 19 hours 31 min ago:
I'm no blockchain forensics...icist, but coins were moved from
let's say one main Silk Road wallet to many other people's
wallets legitimately, or as legit as a illicit drug transaction
can be. Silk Road wallet A transfers coins to rando person's
wallet B. Also, wallet A occasionally transfers to wallet F which
he owns. Who's to say which wallets he controls?
One of the possible ways Ulbricht got caught was a single Google
Captcha that showed his IP address (San Francisco, go figure). So
he covered his tracks pretty well.
Workaccount2 wrote 18 hours 47 min ago:
Coins that have a short connection to silk road transactions
and have sat still for the last 12 years.
This would likely be hundreds or thousands of bitcoin, as they
were worth ~$50 when he was jailed.
Pxtl wrote 1 day ago:
I'm pretty sure there were tumblers back then. Alternately,
there's the old "bury some gold under a family member's garden"
trick.
yieldcrv wrote 23 hours 17 min ago:
there weren't good tumblers back then. and monero didn't exist
yet, although a cryptonote implementation did
dbspin wrote 1 day ago:
[flagged]
jdhzzz wrote 1 day ago:
Well an upper bound anyway. Maybe, "The Art of the Deal" could
have gotten it a lot closer to $1.2 B.
haswell wrote 1 day ago:
What are you suggesting here? That the earlier bitcoin seizure
somehow led to this pardon? Iâm not following.
dbspin wrote 22 hours 6 min ago:
No you're right. I'm sure Trump released him as a deeply
principled and selfless act.
haswell wrote 22 hours 2 min ago:
Iâm not suggesting that. Iâm trying to understand what
benefit you believe Trump received out of this whole scenario,
and specifically how the handling of the bitcoin played a role.
dools wrote 1 day ago:
This pardon is corrupt. Ross' parents donated to Trump and he pardoned
their son as a favour.
Whether or not you think he deserved the prison time, the problem here
is how utterly brazen Trump is in accepting bribes.
jgilias wrote 1 day ago:
Trump doesnât care about Rossâ parents or their donations much.
What he did care about were libertarian votes. There was a deal that
libertarians will support Trump if he promises to free Ross. This is
on record, you can find it.
SV_BubbleTime wrote 20 hours 46 min ago:
So, Iâm seeing politician followed through on promise to voters.
Iâm sure this can swing to some orange man bad, Iâm just not
seeing it.
TriangleEdge wrote 1 day ago:
I'm genuinely surprised of the reactions on this thread. Trump just
announced that cartels down south are terrorist organizations. This
means that some of the members will likely die by the hand of the us
govt. How is running an open market for drugs, weapons, etc different?
Seems contradictory to me, what am I missing?
nsajko wrote 1 day ago:
Is Trump not supposed to be tough-on-crime? How does pardoning a drug
dealer factor into that? Is Trump against the war on drugs?
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