DOJ Hasn't Actually Found Silk Road Founder's Bitcoin Yet 294
Techdirt has an interesting followup on the arrest and indictment of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, in connection to which the FBI seized 26,000 or so Bitcoins. From the Techdirt piece: "However, in the criminal complaint against Ulbricht, it suggested that his commissions were in the range of $80 million -- or about 600,000 Bitcoins. You might notice the disconnect between the 26,000 Bitcoins seized and the supposed 600,000 Ulbright made. It now comes out that those 26,000 Bitcoins aren't even Ulbricht's. Instead, they're actually from Silk Road's users. In other words, these were Bitcoins stored with user accounts on Silk Road. Ulbricht's actual wallet is separate from that, and was apparently encrypted, so it would appear that the FBI does not have them, nor does it have any way of getting at them just yet. And given that some courts have argued you can't be forced to give up your encryption, as it's a 5th Amendment violation, those Bitcoins could remain hidden -- though, I could see the court ordering him to pay the dollar equivalent in restitution (though still not sure that would force him to decrypt the Bitcoins)." The article also notes that the FBI's own Bitcoin wallet has been identified, leading to some snarky micropayment messages headed their direction.
If he has to sell 600K bitcoins all at once (Score:1, Insightful)
He might be selling each bitcoin at $5 apiece, since there isn't that much liquidity.
Re:Money for his defense (Score:5, Insightful)
The FBI doesn't need his money though (Score:2, Insightful)
They'll get along fine with him in prison, and by the time he gets out, the Bitcoins will be a dead fantasy.
Re:Money for his defense (Score:5, Insightful)
But that is part of the game. You gut someones means and prosecute them so they can't defend themselves. That is the game the government plays.
Only with people dumb enough to not prepare ahead of time for this. This guy was 'new money'. He didn't know how to manage his assets, how to invest, how to setup multiple accounts, and didn't have the good sense to bond a lawyer ahead of time and give them limited power of attorney so they could coordinate his estate while he was in jail. See, this is what 'old money' does, and it means they get to hire entire bus loads of attorneys to show up at court, and the government can't do dick about it because they were bought and paid for ahead of time and are being funded out of accounts they can't seize or have access to because the money's been cleaned and separated from his personal accounts through shell corporations, etc.
Don't talk about how to play the game... this guy wasn't a player, he was a loser. He was setup from day one, by his own stupidity, to lose. If I was running a website like that, the very first thing I'd have done after getting ahead financially is separate out as much money as I could for future legal troubles, and hire accountants and lawyers so when the day came to save my sorry ass, all I'd have to do is just sit in jail and wait while Plan Bravo executed all on its own to spring me.
But, since the man was basically a walking cliche instead of a proper criminal or businessman or even passably decent nerd, I feel compelled to quote off his namesake:
"Do you hear that, Fezzik? That is the sound of ultimate suffering. My heart made that sound when the six-fingered man killed my father. The Man in Black makes it now."
Re:Money for his defense (Score:5, Insightful)
According to Wired he's using a public defender. [wired.com]
Remember, Ulbricht was living in a shared apartment and working out of a library. If his defense is that he's not the guy running Silk Road, it would be suspicious for a man in his situation to suddenly have an expensive defense team.
Re:Disappearing Bitcoins (Score:4, Insightful)
People do not have to know it is irrevocably lost, people do not even have to know that any of this happened. This is the most basic concept in economics.
Re:interesting end for my travel on the silk road (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:interesting end for my travel on the silk road (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get it... you go through all that trouble to purchase in a manner you feel is anon on silk road, but then you post about it on slashdot using your registered account?
Given the nature of the internet, it can easily be argued that he's lying his ass off. Even if he isn't, 'small hash order' indicates he's a user, not a dealer, thus *on average* incredibly unlikely to be a worthy target for the 3+ agencies you'd need to coordinate with in order to track him down.
Off the top of my head - you'd need to get a warrant to get slashdot to disclose Cito's account and IP address information. Then you'd need to figure out WHERE in the world he is(presumably the USA). You have to hope that he was using home or at least work for his slashdot postings rather than using the same anonymous internet cafe. Once you've figured out where he is, you have to contact the appropriate state police agency to coordinate with, along with the postmaster general(assuming USPS was used as opposed to UPS/Fedex).
On Average it's just not worth it. They want dealers, not users.
Re:Money for his defense (Score:2, Insightful)
So, what you're saying is that Walter White did it right in Breaking Bad when he hired Saul with a rather large retainer.
I'd have to actually turn on a TV to be able to answer that. I'm dimly aware there's some bald guy with a beard on some TV show called 'Breaking Bad' that everyone goes on about on Facebook, and that it has something to do with drugs. But beyond that, I couldn't tell you anything about the show.
You do realize that intentionally ignoring good entertainment doesn't make you some kind of hero, right? Refusing to watch live TV is just fine, lots of people don't like having commercials shoved down their throats. I'm one of those people myself, the only thing I watch live is football and Breaking Bad.
You're missing the second half of that equation though. There are many ways to watch the show without commercials and also whenever you wish, both legal and not legal. You just come off as an idiot putting up a resistance just to make sure they can tell people they are putting up a resistance. You are making your own show, the same way Fox News does it... purposely doing something that will elicit an emotional reaction from others. Shit it even worked on me because I'm responding to you.
It would be one thing if you didn't want to watch it based on violence or glorifying the person enabling the drug users, but you made it specifically about TV. That means you're arguing about commercials or being forced to watch at a certain time I guess.
Re:Money for his defense (Score:4, Insightful)
The big mistake hipsters make is assuming anyone cares about how hipster they are. We were talking about encryption, virtual currencies, legal tactics, and as usual where people gather, the occasional pop culture reference.
Back on topic, now, please.
Re:Money for his defense (Score:4, Insightful)
And you know this how? You're either making shit up to appear smart, or a genuine idiot bragging about her actual extensive experience working for a drug cartel on a public web forum where your IP can be easily traced - on a story discussing a drug bust that ultimately resulted from the accused posting on a forum, no less.
Either way, epic fail.
Re:Wait Wait Wait! (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a drug-dealing-sack-of-shit middleman...
Who enabled consenting adults to buy their drug of choice in a relatively safe manner with buyer ratings to make sure they didn't get ripped off and pretty much got what they paid for.
I'm guessing you're a (social) authoritarian rather than libertarian.