The Silk Road trial: Explained in detail
The Silk Road trial is one of the most notorious cases in the history of the United States. It’s also incredibly complicated, and that’s before we get into the whole thing involving the dark web, Dread Pirate Roberts, and Bitcoin. To help you get a grip on everything that’s happening in the courtroom, here’s our Silk Road trial explainer.
Silk Road: The Amazon of the dark web
Silk Road was a dark web site notorious for its illegal activities. It was known as the Amazon of the dark web and allowed users to buy and sell drugs, firearms, false documents, and more. The trial of Ross Ulbricht, alleged creator of Silk Road, has been ongoing since November 2013, and has taken some unexpected turns. Here’s the lowdown on Ulbricht, the dark web, and most importantly, Silk Road.
Who is Ross Ulbricht?
Ross Ulbricht is a 31-year-old American citizen and graduate of the University of Texas. Originally from Austin, Texas, Ulbricht moved to San Francisco in 2012, where he began work as an IT specialist.
On October 1, 2013, Ulbricht was arrested at the Glen Park public library in San Francisco for allegedly being Dread Pirate Roberts, the pseudonymous leader of Silk Road. The FBI alleges that Ulbricht created Silk Road in 2011 and, under the alias Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR), ran it until his arrest. Ulbricht denies this, claiming he’s been framed by the real DPR.
DPR has been a major part of the Silk Road trial, with Ulbricht’s lawyer Joshua Dratel claiming that there is more than one DPR. Dratel says that, although Ulbricht is guilty of creating Silk Road, he’s not responsible for the illegal activity that occurred on the site. He claims that there are multiple people who could have taken over the DPR account after Ulbricht handed it over, and that Ulbricht was “the first DPR, but not the last”.
The dark web and the Tor browser
The Silk Road trial is mostly about an illegal dark web marketplace for drugs. But there’s a lot more to Silk Road than just drugs – it’s an important part of the history of the dark web, which is a part of the internet that many people don’t know about.
The dark web is a collection of websites that aren’t indexed by search engines, making them difficult to find unless you already know their address. The dark web is often associated with illegal activities, but that’s not always the case – it’s also a great place for whistleblowers and journalists to safely share information. It’s also where you’ll find cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, which we’ll talk about later.
The dark web exists because it’s possible to use a piece of software called the Tor browser to hide your location and identity online. The Tor browser is freely available, and allows you to browse the normal internet anonymously, but it’s particularly useful on the dark web.
The drugs and the downfall
The Silk Road trial is about the takedown of an illegal dark web marketplace for drugs. But there’s a lot of information to get through, and a lot of different entities to keep track of. Here’s a breakdown of the key players, things, and places you need to know.
As we’ve already covered, Silk Road was an illegal dark web marketplace. Founded in 2011, it became notorious for the illegal drugs that were sold on it, and was a big part of the dark web’s rise to mainstream awareness. The dark web is still used for illegal drug sales, but Silk Road’s collapse has meant that it’s now much more closely monitored.
Dread Pirate Roberts was the pseudonymous leader of Silk Road and, according to the FBI, Ross Ulbricht. DPR ran Silk Road as an administrator, performing tasks like hiring moderators and making policy decisions. DPR also posted messages on the Silk Road forum, where users could discuss the activities of the marketplace.
The FBI claims that Ulbricht created Silk Road in 2011, and that he was DPR until his arrest in 2013. Ulbricht denies this, saying he was framed by the real DPR and that he simply created Silk Road as an “economic experiment”.
Silk Road vendors sold a wide range of drugs on the site, but the most popular products were cannabis, ecstasy, and psychedelic mushrooms. The drugs sold on Silk Road were often purer and cheaper than those sold on the street, which made it popular with users.
AlphaBay and the aftermath
Following the Silk Road takedown, other dark web marketplaces such as Sheep Marketplace, Agora, and AlphaBay popped up to try and fill the void. AlphaBay was the biggest of these sites, and was the largest illegal dark web marketplace before it was taken down in 2017.
In March 2018, Canadian citizen Alexandre Cazes was arrested and accused of being AlphaBay’s administrator, or Dread Pirate Roberts. Cazes allegedly ran AlphaBay from 2014 until his arrest, and was also allegedly responsible for illegal activities conducted using his personal laptop. Cazes was found dead in his prison cell in Thailand in July 2017, shortly after his arrest, after apparently taking his own life.
