
Silk Road founder loses appeal - petergatsby
https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/31/ross-ulbricht-silk-road-appeal-denied/
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pcthrowaway
I'm not going to argue Ulbricht shouldn't be serving a serious sentence,
assuming legitimacy of the evidence of his murder-by-hire attempt.

However, he wasn't convicted on those charges. He was convicted of 'conspiracy
to traffic narcotics', money laundering, and 'computer hacking'. The 'hacking'
and laundering were only necessities of the narcotics trafficking business, so
it really does boil down to him being convicted to a life sentence for the
drug distribution business.

I'd take no issue with a life sentence for procuring murder, but see it as an
absolute travesty that drugs are demonized to the point where a life sentence
for trafficking is even a possibility.

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devoply
I don't think it's just for a lifetime sentence for anything but murder
itself... or someone who is an actual danger to individuals or society itself.
I think what got Ulbricht in the end was the fact that he was acting like a
drug kingpin and so they threw the book at him hard. It wasn't one of those
things that did him in, it was all of those things combined that earned him a
life sentence.

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nickpsecurity
That's it. Diversity of crime plus arrogance in execution usually equals a
strong punishment.

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sandov
It's bizarre to think that, according to most countries' justice, a guy behind
a computer is as dangerous to society as a serial killer.

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cafman
It's not bizarre at all. A guy behind a computer or a guy leading a company
can do so much more damage than any murderer. The "guy behind the computer"
didn't hack up and at people but ruined the lives and many people, and their
families. You might argue that everyone on silk road is a little guilty and
that's probably true but he facilitated the ruining of lives of many spouses
and children who did nothing wrong.

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lprubin
If you're arguing that silk road's drug sales ruined lives, I'll posit a
counter-argument that silk road may have saved lives. People who are drug
addicts are going to find their drugs one way or another. I highly doubt there
were many people who got their drugs on silk road that wouldn't have gotten
them somewhere else.

And instead of purchasing them on the street from dubious sources where the
drugs may have been cut or mixed or mis-measured or not even actually what
they claimed to be, these people were able to purchase them from sellers who
had been peer reviewed thousands of times. Not an ideal situation, but often
far safer than purchasing from random people on the street.

In my opinion, the solution to drug addiction problems is not prohibition.
That's what we have now and it's not working.

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Belphemur
Drug was only one of the item on sale.

You had also assassination, children, organs, human trafficking, and more that
I can't remember.

I agree with you on the point of the drug, but the rest... Is disgusting.

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lprubin
I completely agree that the sale of assassination, children, organs, human
trafficking are deplorable and thats definitely regrettable if those things
showed up on the silk road with consistency and were allowed to remain.

But I was under the impression that ross ulbricht was being convicted mainly
for drug trafficking and wasn't charged for any of those other things.

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blackoil
Is funny how so many people are trying to lowball crime simply because it's
done using computer, as if computer is some pure tech with no evil possible.
Bernie Madoff got 150years for a non violent crime. Also scale always matter,
hacking in neighbour WiFi is not same as putting ransomware in million
systems.

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mirimir
That's sad :(

But it was an effective proof of concept, and nobody can take that from him.

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stevebmark
This makes me very sad, but it's hard to explain why. The nonviolent crime
charges leading to a life sentence is part of it. The obvious inability of our
modern legal system to understand technology above a basic level is part of
it. Maybe I'm not separating how awful "the drug trade" might be from some kid
running a darkweb network. This sentence stings in a weird way.

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ryan-allen
Especially when USA citizens are dying from prescription medication overdoses
at a rate higher than illegal drugs.

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eli
He sold those prescription drugs on the site too though.

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Mtinie
No, he didn't sell the drugs...he facilitated the exchange of drugs (illicit
and prescription) between other people.

To me the difference between the two statements isn't one of simple semantics.

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sergiotapia
That's a shame, so young and entire life ahead of him. Would he have had a
shorter sentence if he dealt only in narcotics? The article implies Silk Road
was narcotics-only, but didn't it deal in other more immoral areas?

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closeparen
It doesn't matter which laws. Silk Road was a large-scale public display of
flagrant lawbreaking, which appeared to be impervious to enforcement action
through clever use of technology.

Shutting it down and eviscerating the person behind it was a matter of
_preserving the belief that we live in a law-governed society_. The stakes
here aren't drug prohibition, they're the capability and reach of government
as an idea. If darknet markets continued at similar scale and visibility, we
wouldn't be the United States anymore, but something closer to Somalia.

You could make a comparison to Wall Street, I guess, but selling volatile
securities that turn out to be wildly overvalued isn't an obvious crime in the
way that selling heroin is. And even then, the fallout of the financial crisis
did enormous damage to public trust in society.

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bronson
> Silk Road was a large-scale public display of flagrant lawbreaking, which
> appeared to be impervious to enforcement action through clever use of
> technology.

So is Uber.

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GauntletWizard
Uber at least makes an argument that it is a public good. That the laws that
it is breaking are unjust, and for the most part, Uber does little to hide
that it's breaking them - Their behavior is more akin, at least in theory, to
Nonviolent Resistance. Silk Road, on the other hand, was blatantly violent,
and clearly not willing to stand up for it's beliefs

(As a former Uber FTE, I got out because Grayballing was a thing, and because
their argument of public good very clearly didn't hold water from inside the
bucket, and I maintain that pretty much the same will happen to Kalanick when
all is said and done. But the facade of peaceful tearing down of injustices -
The very real statistics that show that you can hail an Uber to the bronx
while black - are enough to put them in an entirely different class, at least
until investigation got really started)

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intrasight
Interesting coincidence with this news coming out the day I finished the Nick
Bilton book. I do highly recommend it for anyone interested in the Silk Road
or in drugs or in e-commerce. What I found most fascinating was to hear a true
"Breaking Bad" tale.

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ploggingdev
Is there any chance of further appeals or any way of a shorter sentence?

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Jach
There's always a chance, but you and he may be waiting in vain for a few
decades still.

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reader5000
Cruel and unusual punishment. The judges kept alluding to the volume of the
sales; thats just the nature of the technology, not the nature of the crime.
There was also language in the original sentencing that he was "privileged"
(i.e., white) and therefore deserved an absolutely absurd sentence. You can
rape and murder somebody and spend less time in jail.

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Hydraulix989
I really disagree with the judicial concept of "making an example out of
somebody."

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m-j-fox
You wouldn't like Saudi Arabia much.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Saudi_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Saudi_Arabia)

