Ross William Ulbricht, a 29-year-old graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Materials Science and Engineering charged
with one count each of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer
hacking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, according to the
filing.
'Silk Road' website,
which had operated since early 2011, also offered tutorials on hacking
ATM machines, contact lists for black market connections and
counterfeiters, and guns and hit men for sale, according to the charges.
Silk Road was only accessible on The Onion Router [Tor], which is an anonymous
web browser that allows certain sites to operate out of reach of the
authorities by routing connections through many different layers of the
Internet to make identification difficult.
Ulbricht allegedly asked a Silk Road
user on March 29 to murder another user who was threatening to release
the names of thousands of Silk Road users, court papers say.
The FBI also cites Ulbricht's LinkedIn profile, in particular its summary which points out his motivation in operating the drug marketplace:
"I love learning and using theoretical constructs to better
understand the world around me. Naturally therefore, I studied physics
in college and worked as a research scientist for five years. I
published my findings in peer reviewed journals five times over that
period, first on organic solar cells and then on EuO thin-film crystals.
My goal during this period of my life was simply to expand the frontier
of human knowledge.
Now, my goals have shifted. I want to use economic theory as a means
to abolish the use of coercion and oppression [sic] amongst mankind.
Just as slavery has been abolished most everywhere, I believe violence,
coercion and all forms of force by one person over another can come to
an end. The most widespread and systemic use of force is amongst
institutions and governments, so this is my current point of effort. The
best way to change a government is to change the minds of the governed,
however. To that end, I am creating an economic simulation to give
people a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a
world without the systemic use of force."
Website users conducted transactions using an anonymous form of digital currency called Bitcoins.
Bitcoin is the anonymous virtual currency schema also adopted by
criminals to anonymize the payment transactions, the method became
principal currency after the shutdown of the Liberty Reserve.
The Silk Road’s shutdown news appears to have hit the value of Bitcoin and the currency has fallen around 20 percent.
n
recent months, federal authorities charged seven people believed to be
linked to Liberty Reserve, another virtual currency, which prosecutors
described as a $6 billion money-laundering operation that facilitated a black market for everything from stolen identities to child pornography.
This is a blow for cybercrime,
law enforcement officials are working the best to deal with the rampant
crime, the Silk Road seizes arrived just a few weeks after the FBI
admitted the attack against the Freedom Hosting.
