"The Dread Pirate Robert" Is Out Of Jail

Ross Ulbricht is a name that 99% of you have never heard. Before yesterday he was serving two life sentences without the chance of parole. After those sentences were served, he was ordered by a US District Judge in New York City in 2015 to serve an additional 40 years in prison. An inmate serving such a draconian sentence would normally be a serial killer or a large-scale international drug dealer like El Chapo. Yesterday thanks to President Donald Trump, he is now a free man. One could say that "he won the lottery." I will not go into the merits of the pardon. Let us look at the life story of this man. He was born in Austin, Texas forty years ago. He got an undergraduate degree at the University of Dallas and a postgraduate degree at the prestigious Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Ross is a very bright man. He has incredible technical skills. He is a true visionary. Had he chosen to lead an honest life, he could be a billionaire at the level of Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, etc. Ross chose a different direction in life. Perhaps it was the librarian ideology that dominated his life. He saw the potential of The Dark Web and Bitcoin. He formed an entity he called "The Silk Road." He gave himself the pen name "The Dread Pirate Robert." He built an Amazon-like platform on The Dark Web. One could use the Tor Browser to gain access to this platform. All sorts of illegal drugs were for sale. All kinds of illicit weapons were for sale. A multitude of false identity documents were on offer. Information obtained by hacking was for sale. Other contraband was on offer. The platform generated hundreds of millions in sales. Ross earned a commission in Bitcoin worth $13,000,000 or 37,681 Bitcoins. Today these Bitcoins would be worth $376,800,000. Success went to Ross's head. He started to broadcast challenges to the authorities. He did this while living in the San Francisco Bay area. He should have been living in a country with no extradition treaty with the US that gave him citizenship. Massive law enforcement resources were mobilized to find this man and stop him. One low-level IRS criminal agent in New York City cracked through all his barriers and encryptions. Ross was located and arrested without incident at a branch of the San Francisco Public Library. He was extradited to New York City. A massive criminal case was launched against him. He was found guilty of many major crimes including international drug dealing. A woman judge decided to deter others from similar conduct by imposing the draconian sentence that Ross received. His platform was taken down. His $13 million fortune was confiscated. These draconian sentences failed to deter others from setting up similar platforms on The Dark Web. I never venture into this part of the internet. It would not surprise me to hear that a tactical nuclear warhead was for sale in that segment of the web.