Ross Ulbricht

Ross Ulbricht

Birthname	Ross William Ulbricht
Date of Birth	March 27, 1984
Birth Place	Austin, Texas, US
Nationality	American
Occupation	Founder of the Silk Road
Biography	Ross is the founder of the Silk Road, a dark web market. He is currently serving life in prison.

Ross Ulbricht is the founder and operator of the dark web market place known as the Silk Road, which he operated from 2011 - 2013 . He is currently serving life in prison as a result of his arrest over his involvement with the market place. The Silk Road was a place where users could buy and sell drugs anonymously over the internet utilizing bitcoin and the tor web browser. He founded the Silk Road to offer a safer place to buy drugs than the street, which is aligned tightly with his libertarian views . By creating the Silk Road, Ross started the path of online drug marketplaces, sites that continue to exist today. He is currently fighting to try and get a pardon over claims that he was unfairly sentenced compared to other criminals of similar crimes.

Early Life

Ross grew up in Austin, Texas living with his parents, Kirk and Lyn, and his sister, Cally. He was active with the Eagle Scouts during his childhood . After graduating high school, Ross enrolled at the University of Texas, where he graduated with a major in physics . He furthered his education by pursuing and receiving a masters in material science from Penn State. While at Penn State, Ross was a part of the debate team, where he would debate from a libertarian view point . Ross began to closely follow the ideals of famous libertarian writers such as Ron Paul and Ludwig Von Mises.

Silk Road

The Silk Road was an open market place where users could buy and sell drugs and other products completely anonymously. Around its height, the Silk Road was generating around $7 million annually for Ulbricht, all in bitcoin . Within the Silk Road, Ross would spread his libertarian ideals on the forum under his alias "Dread Pirate Roberts" or DPR, which he got after changing from simply "Admin" . Some of the specifics that were mentioned in posts were moral lines drawn about what can be on the website. This ethical line was centered on the belief in the phrase "treat others as you wish to be treated" with an addition of "don't do anything to scam or hurt anyone else" These forum post eventually further expanded to book recommendations, usually books on libertarian economics, to movie watch-a-alongs.

Goods

The main good sold on the Silk Road were drugs with the around 70% of goods listed on the site being drugs . Listings would have a rating system allowing buyers to rate the quality of the drug they bought, therefore the sellers with better and safer products would have higher ratings. These higher rated sellers would be pushed to the top of pages when searching for the drug they sell, thus directing buyers to more reputable vendors. Vendors who were reported to have sold bad product or scammed customers would be removed from the site . In addition to drugs, customers could also buy services, forged documents, and human organs . Services included hacking into digital networks, such as Twitter, or hacked accounts to subscription based content such as Netflix . Forged documents included anything from fake Ids to fake utility bills. Human organs were also listed, with the idea that a family unable to get needed organs legally could turn to the Silk Road for the life saving organs. The Silk Road did have limitations on what could be sold on the site, as products that came at the expense of another were banned. The main example of this type of product was child pornography. Another product not on the site was weapons, as Ross had created a failed sister site to sell weapons. The site failed to lack of demand and logistically issues .

Technology

The Silk Road took advantage of The Onion Router, or TOR, to keep users anonymous on the site. TOR works by routing users through many servers on their way to the destination server, this then prevents tracking of the user as the servers are not known beforehand, after or during the connection . The only thing a potential adversary would be able to know about a connection over TOR would be the first server the user is connected to and the last server, or the first server the destination server is connected to if that adversary was constantly monitoring one end of the connection. Therefore if the set of servers is greater than three, it is almost impossible to figure out who the user is or where the destination server is. That means connections over TOR are completely anonymous as the user cannot be identified through the network. TOR has been used for anything from the selling of drugs to the freedom of speech in oppressive countries. In addition to TOR, the Silk Road took advantage of Bitcoin to make payments on the site. Bitcoin allowed for anonymous payments in a decentralized form. Bitcoin would track wallet ids on the blockchain, which is simply keeping record of all transactions from one wallet to another . Every time a transaction takes place the blockchain is updated. This means that unless the owner of a wallet id is known then all transactions that user makes would be known. However, if the owner of the wallet id isn't known identifying the owner wouldn't be possible through Bitcoin.

Early Promotion

When Ross first created the Silk Road, he needed a way to attract new users to the marketplace. He posted on web forums related to bitcoin and drugs about this new website on the dark web known as the Silk Road . Ross also listed the first product for sale on the site, which was a crop of magic mushrooms that he grew. Soon there were other users on the site, with some posting listings as well. Eventually, the Silk Road would grow into the multimillion dollar online drug store.

Downfall and Trail

Downfall

Gary Alford an IRS agent was the first one responsible for finding the identity to the mysterious leader of the Silk Road. Gary discovered a post on a forum directing people to the Silk Road by a user under the name altoid. He then checked other posts by the user, where he found a question about programming which included an email rossulbricht@gmail.com . Gary took his findings to the FBI, but was ignored due to the status of the IRS within other law enforcement circles. After this, Ross was questioned by police in July 2013, when a package full of fake ids with his picture on it was intercepted by the USPS . While being questioned outside the house he was living in, Ross voluntarily told officers that anyone could "hypothetically" purchase documents like the fake ids they intercepted from the Silk Road . After finding this report, Gary once again took his findings to the FBI, this time they were more receptive. This led to Ross becoming the prime suspect in the case.

Arrest and Trail

Ross was arrested on October 1st, 2013, by the FBI in a public library in San Francisco. Agents got into a fake argument in front of Ulbricht while he worked on his laptop. When he looked up to see what the commotion was, agents from behind held his arms down, while the agents in front of him pulled his laptop away Agents decided to take these actions, as years before during the arrest of a member of a hacker group, the hacker was able to lock authorities out of his laptop by hitting a USBKill switch, encrypting his laptop. Ross had also taken these precautions and additionally partitioned his laptop into 2 separate hard drives; one for the non Silk Road related business and the other for personal use. Ross was tried for a total of 7 different crimes, which he plead not guilty to and was took to trial. The charges were conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in false identity documents, conspiring to commit money laundering, conspiring to distribute narcotics, distributing narcotics by means of the internet, distributing narcotics by means of the internet, distributing narcotics, and engaging in a criminal enterprise . The final charge, engaging in a criminal enterprise being the worst, as it is also known as the kingpin charge, which carries a minimum sentence of 20 years. However, since Ross generated more than $10 million in a year the minimum was bumped up to a mandatory life sentence, due to the super kingpin provision of the statute. . At trial Ross's defense was based on how he wasn't running the website, since there were multiple people running the website under the same name "Dead Pirate Roberts". Ross wrote a letter to the judge pleading for a lenient sentence, writing how he had committed a non-violent crime and was a victim to his ideals. However, Ross was found guilty of all charges raised against him and sentenced to two life in prison plus 40 years. .

Hired Murder Allegations

During the trial, it came out that Ross had allegedly agreed to have at least five people killed to protect the Silk Road. One such individual, who was an administrator on the website, Curtis Green. Green, who was known online as chronicpain, was arrested by the cops after accepting a package of cocaine on behalf of the Dead Pirate Roberts. The package was sold by the DEA to DPR . After his arrest, Green began cooperating with law enforcement, however, an agent working the case stole funds from the site. This led to Ulbricht putting out a hit on Green. The man Ross hired for the hit turned out to be an undercover agent, who agreed to $40,000 before the hit and another $40,000 after. Authorities then faked the torture and murder of Green. Ross was never convicted for any of the murders for hire.

Appeal

Ross appealed his conviction, stating that the government unlawfully monitored his internet access, that his trail should not withstand due to two DEA agents working the case profiting off the website, and that his sentence is unjust compared to similar convictions . The first part of the appeal was that the FBI monitored his IP address traffic without a warranty, which Ross argued that he was entitled to his privacy under the fourth amendment. The second part of the appeal was around DEA agents Carl Force and Shaun Bridges, who both made profit from the Silk Road, while investigating it. This information was not known by the jury at the time of Ross' trial. Both agents have since been sentenced to prison time. The third and final part of the appeal was that Ross was unfairly sentenced compared to others prosecuted for running a similar marketplace. The primary example, is the founder and leader of Silk Road 2.0, which was founded after the Silk Road was shut down by the FBI, only 5 years by courts in England. . Since the rejects of the appeal at courts all the way up to the Supreme Court, Ross has changed course into petitioning for a pardon from the president .

Copycat Sites

Shortly after the original Silk Road was shut down, a new dark web marketplace appeared called the Silk Road 2.0 . The creation of the Silk Road was a template for other websites. Many of these copycat websites started after the Silk Road fell have been less successful due to being unable to operate for a long period of time. Other such websites have been shutdown for reasons ranging from accidently leaking the founders email on the sign in page of the website to simply security hazards within the code of the website. These site were the target of a law enforcement task force known as Operation Ononymous, which was responsible for shutting down 27 different sites.

Ethical Dilemmas

The Silk Road introduced a new way to sell drugs to the world; one where buyers and sellers could do so from the comfort of their home. The Silk Road was influential in changing how drugs are bought and sold within the world today. There have been many websites to follow the model of the Silk Road, created by Ross, since the FBI shut down the original Silk Road. Each time a website is shut down another one surfaces, which shows the influence of the Silk Road in the drug trade. This influence has brought up ethical dilemmas surrounding the online drug trade.

Safer Drug Economy

Ross created the Silk Road as a safer way to buy drugs than on the street The aforementioned review system also helped direct buyers to vendors with the purest and safest products. The Silk Road also reduced the need for dealers to rent muscle or try to intimidate other dealers through violence, as all the business was carried out online anonymously . The site also allowed for a "new breed" of drug dealers, ones that are focused on speedy responses and professionalism . This new breed of dealers were more likely to be non-violent types, rather than more violent street dealers. Ross also employed a doctor, who went by Doctor X on the site, to answer drug related questions on the forum. Eventually, Doctor X also began testing the drugs on the site, and giving results to the community over the purity and safety of that particular drug Ross had also hoped that the Silk Road would be a place to buy cheaper prescription drugs for a much cheaper price than the usual way of paying for them.

Illegal Market Place

The website enabled many new individuals to get into drugs that might not have done before, due to the new found ease and relative safety of anonymity. It was also thought that most transactions on the site towards the end were for a business to business model, meaning the drugs bought on the marketplace would still be sold on the street . Furthermore six people died as a result of taking drugs bought from the Silk Road , showing the harm that drugs cause. The Silk Road also emboldened hackers, who were able to attack the site with freedom, resulting in hacks worth thousands of dollars, namely from Ross' pocket. However, the online marketplace also sold guides on hacking and different types of software and malware, making hacking easier than ever before.