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 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, Calla where he was active with the Eagle Scouts . 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 .

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 to 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 (Guardian Source). 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 (medium.com). In addition to drugs, customers could also buy services, forged documents, and human organs (Book). Services included hacking into digital networks, including Twitter, or hacked accounts to subscription based content such as Netflix (Guardian). 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 (book).

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 (book). 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 a multimillion dollar website.

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 (New York Times). 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 (Book). 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 (NYT). 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 the argument, agents from behind held his arms down, while the agents in front of him pulled his laptop away Agents had to take these actions since the laptop Ross was using was partioned 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 (Indictment). 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. (Cornell Tab). 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". 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 a 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, which was sold by the DEA to DPR (Forbes). After his arrest Green began cooperating with law enforcement, however an agent 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 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 (lexography website). 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. (AP News article).

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.

Free Market Place

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 (Research Paper). The site also allowed for a "new breed" of drug dealers, ones that are focused on speedy responses and professionalism (Vice Article 1) . 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 (Daily Dot). 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 (Research Paper). Furthermore six people died as a result of taking drugs bought from the Silk Road (BBC), 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 someone easier than before.