lysmonger Posted August 15, 2020 Share Posted August 15, 2020 4 hours ago, Chataya de Fleury said: It was just huge news on the front page of the New York Times and Washington Post when the guy got busted. Also, all over CNN. Had he never gotten busted, I’d have never known about it either, but if it’s newsworthy enough for a top slot on the New York Times, I read about it. The New York Times is also how I know about “TikTok” which is apparently a site to which people upload short dance / lipsynch videos. If you were in law enforcement, college, transportation industry, mail, or ups it was a very serious story. Him and his cohorts who were selling, developed techniques and 'how to wikipedia' where drugs were smuggled into the United States in through mail. Drug trafficking through mail increased by 50 times from 2007. During this time he ran the website, he lived life as a frugal NEET living in San Francisco. In the end, the Justice Department ended up framing him with 3 attempted murders. One of the FBI agents involved in the case stole upwards of 100,000 dollars of Bitcoin from him. (Now worth over 50 million dollars give or take.) At one point he himself ended up controlling about 50 percent of Bitcoin. The Justice System gave him 2 life sentences. Major, major injustice. Presently he is waiting for pardon from Trump which may take from a year to 5 years from now. Very interesting, given the legality of how the Justice Department took his life savings which was all in bitcoin at the time. So the possible counter lawsuit involved with the Federal Government may be in the rage of tens of billions of dollars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lysmonger Posted August 15, 2020 Share Posted August 15, 2020 7 hours ago, Ormond said: Of course. I had never heard of Silkroad before this thread. What on earth makes you think that most human beings -- even most human beings who have internet access -- would have heard of a platform for selling illegal drugs on the "dark web"? I have never been in the market for illegal drugs and pay little attention to any method of obtaining them, and I have no connections with either law enforcement or Internet experts that would have meant this platform would have come up in casual conversation. Now that I've googled it, I do remember seeing an "American Greed" episode on CNBC about Dread Pirate Roberts. But it wasn't an important enough issue to me that I remembered the name of his platform. His website was widely well known through out the world. Essentially transferred potential bulk of drug trafficking to much nicer white collar people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lysmonger Posted August 15, 2020 Share Posted August 15, 2020 JollyRogers website was known quite well within the west coast, southwest, and the Northeast where it was known the most common. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ormond Posted August 15, 2020 Share Posted August 15, 2020 1 hour ago, lysmonger said: His website was widely well known through out the world. Essentially transferred potential bulk of drug trafficking to much nicer white collar people. Widely known in your circles, maybe. I certainly doubt if many of my friends and relatives have heard of it. I am 69 and about to retire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 12 hours ago, Ormond said: Of course. I had never heard of Silkroad before this thread. What on earth makes you think that most human beings -- even most human beings who have internet access -- would have heard of a platform for selling illegal drugs on the "dark web"? I have never been in the market for illegal drugs and pay little attention to any method of obtaining them, and I have no connections with either law enforcement or Internet experts that would have meant this platform would have come up in casual conversation. Argumentum ad populum rhetoric aside, here in Sydney, several big name stores have featured books on the topic near the entrances to the store (mostly in the 'New Release' section, but also in the 'Popular' sections). Further to this, I've also had to explain it to several curious former co-workers who saw these books or heard about them through friends/professional networks. (Explaining the dark web to a chief economist is not an experience I ever thought I'd have.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lysmonger Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 2 hours ago, IlyaP said: Argumentum ad populum rhetoric aside, here in Sydney, several big name stores have featured books on the topic near the entrances to the store (mostly in the 'New Release' section, but also in the 'Popular' sections). Further to this, I've also had to explain it to several curious former co-workers who saw these books or heard about them through friends/professional networks. (Explaining the dark web to a chief economist is not an experience I ever thought I'd have.) The winklevoss twins after getting their settlement with zuckerberg and being blacklisted from most company institutes, invested and introduced bitcoin trading and mining to NYC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaston de Foix Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 21 hours ago, lysmonger said: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace) I asked because Silk Road is a software suite used for HR purposes as well as a private equity company. That's quite a lot of different businesses going on under a single label... Returning to the evergreen topic of Pat's books, how is the road to Tinue this morning? Will we ever see the city once ruled by Kvothe's family? What was the bloodless rebellion exactly? Also has anyone here read through the Jo Walton threads? They are very good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 It feels like the thread is tangentalising away from discussion of the Rothfuss situation. Granted it's been a bit loose for a while now, but it feels like some of these discussions would be better had in their own thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 2 hours ago, Werthead said: It feels like the thread is tangentalising away from discussion of the Rothfuss situation. Granted it's been a bit loose for a while now, but it feels like some of these discussions would be better had in their own thread. While true...there has been some divergence, maybe a lot...the whole process feels like we're real-life experiencing a Kvothe method of storytelling...so there is that...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lysmonger Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/ Well at least we get an update from another author. that is very good indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derfel Cadarn Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 13 minutes ago, lysmonger said: https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/ Well at least we get an update from another author. that is very good indeed. Curious; do we tell George the whole covid-19 is nothing more than an elaborate hoax to get him to finish ASoI&F this year or next? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaston de Foix Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 1 hour ago, Derfel Cadarn said: Curious; do we tell George the whole covid-19 is nothing more than an elaborate hoax to get him to finish ASoI&F this year or next? Duh. Not until TWOW manuscript is delivered and a publication date is set. Let's keep up the pretense until ADOS is finished as well. I know millions of people are having to stay at home but if it gets us a single page of TWOW a day earlier it'll all have been worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 1 hour ago, Derfel Cadarn said: Curious; do we tell George the whole covid-19 is nothing more than an elaborate hoax to get him to finish ASoI&F this year or next? I was worried he was going to realise that it was just too implausible for so many things to go so badly wrong in a single year, but he seems to be buying it so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Not Appearing Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 2 hours ago, lysmonger said: https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/ Well at least we get an update from another author. that is very good indeed. This is cool. Regarding the thread getting off track, there's something of a missing track so this thread (series) kind of meanders back and forth over that absence in space. Personally, I'm fine with this. But I understand that others might not be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted August 17, 2020 Author Share Posted August 17, 2020 On 8/15/2020 at 3:30 AM, polishgenius said: heeey jude Hey "Dude" per Ed Sheeren. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted August 17, 2020 Author Share Posted August 17, 2020 On 8/15/2020 at 10:47 AM, Chataya de Fleury said: Omg, there is a person out there who hasn’t heard of Silkroad or Dread Pirate Roberts???? I haven't heard of that and now I'm afraid to look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhom Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Hey "Dude" per Ed Sheeren. Funny, that was the first thing I thought of as well!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorshach Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 15 hours ago, Chataya de Fleury said: Nah, it’s not like you’re going to accidentally stumble across the dark web. You’ll just know a lot more about some really shady and very interesting people. For instance, Dread Pirate Roberts was basically with many millions of dollars in bitcoin, yet was...living in a basement, I think? The super low profile lifestyle actually hindered the FBI a bit. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesdigitalcovers/2019/12/23/meet-the-dread-pirate-roberts-the-man-behind-booming-black-market-drug-website-silk-road/#4e7e3ed0482a I refuse to look at any of this, seeing as Dread Pirate Roberts solely exist in The Princess Bride. Case closed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lysmonger Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 14 hours ago, Chataya de Fleury said: Nah, it’s not like you’re going to accidentally stumble across the dark web. You’ll just know a lot more about some really shady and very interesting people. For instance, Dread Pirate Roberts was basically with many millions of dollars in bitcoin, yet was...living in a basement, I think? The super low profile lifestyle actually hindered the FBI a bit. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesdigitalcovers/2019/12/23/meet-the-dread-pirate-roberts-the-man-behind-booming-black-market-drug-website-silk-road/#4e7e3ed0482a Same problem with founder of Bitcoin. The bitcoin developer who started it all, was an 30 something NEET developer who was 2008 Ron Paul fan/far right libertarian type who lived somewhere in the American southwest/ West Coast. Ironically he portrayed himself as Japanese living in Japan, but very easily it was determined just from his blog activity 12am -3am and response time, he was living somewhere in the American Southwest and probably a NEET. FBI, did a massive massive machine learning /complex matrix from his blog posts to correlate with known academic papers. Allegedly they did end up finding him and confronted him. I don't think they arrested him, but give or take how much he still owns or has simply lost/forgot of his bitcoin wallet, he could essentially destroy U.S. economy by dumping his bitcoin. Perhaps they discussed with him a rational "fair" IRS tax. They think he still owns perhaps 30 percent of the market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lysmonger Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 18 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: I haven't heard of that and now I'm afraid to look. Lol, how do you think Fentanyl/heroin got so insanely popular and methamphetamine replaced cocaine in Mexico? A lot of positive things came about out of that website, such as the proliferation of Mexican Pharmacies for U.S. patients. Very, very fascinating story most writers should read up on. Simple 20 something magically becomes prominent Drug Kingpin and then a maliciously corrupt FBI tracks him down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.