Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht‘s life sentence won’t stop the darknet
HE’S the criminal genius who will never taste freedom again. The sentence handed to Ross Ulbricht, 31, has created shock waves, but some say it’s completely pointless.
A RUTHLESS villain profiting from a trade in human misery, or a digital crusader well ahead of his time?
Either way, Ross Ulbricht will never taste freedom again.
The criminal mastermind behind darknet marketplace Silk Road was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Friday, though it is believed his punishment will do very little to stem the online trade in illegal goods.
Convicted of a total of seven felonies — including narcotics-trafficking conspiracy, trafficking drugs on the internet, computer-hacking, running a continuing criminal enterprise and money-laundering — Ulbricht, 31, claimed he “wanted to empower people to make choices in their lives and have privacy and anonymity” while doing what they were going to anyway.
But, not all share the view of Ulbricht as tech-savvy libertarian pioneering a solution to the war on drugs. Manhattan US lawyer Preet Bharara described him as nothing more than a modern day mobster.
“Make no mistake,” he said. “Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people’s addictions.”
“I understand what a terrible mistake I made,” Ulbricht, who made an estimated $13 million fortune from the site, told the court.
“I’ve had my youth, and I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age.
“Please leave a small light at the end of the tunnel, an excuse to stay healthy, an excuse to dream of better days ahead, and a chance to redeem myself in the free world before I meet my maker.”
Judge Katherine Forrest would not be swayed. Describing his enterprise as “deeply troubling, terribly misguided, and very dangerous”, she handed him a jail sentence so harsh that others tempted to follow Ulbright’s lead could be in no doubt about the consequences.
But some say it is pointless, lauding Ulbricht as a “hero” who at least enforced an ethical code in the murkiest corners of the darknet.
Long before Silk Road, people were using coded listings on websites like Craigslist and Gumtree for the sale and procurement of illegal drugs.
However, when Silk Road appeared on an encryption service on 2011, it offered vendors and customers a new level of anonymity and, it was argued, safety.
Using bitcoins, customers were able to browse for drugs based on a review system that detailed the quality and purity of the drugs.
While acting as an online black market for drugs, the website was strict in its rules and banned the sale of child pornography, stolen credit cards, weapons and murder for hire.
When Silk Road was eventually shut down in 2013, the FBI thought they had demolished the online drug trade because the marketplace was the only site of its kind operating on a large scale.
Conversely, in the two years since Silk Road went offline, dozens more darknet marketplaces began to surface.
Prosecutors claimed that Ulbricht had not only committed a serious crime, but he had developed a blueprint for these copy cats.
“Using that blueprint, others have followed in Ulbricht’s footsteps, establishing new ‘dark markets’ in the mould of Silk Road, some selling an even broader range of illicit goods and services than Silk Road itself.”
Firstly, there was Silk Road 2.0, which was established by several administrators of its predecessor.
Its success was to be short lived, as it was quickly shut down following an ongoing FBI investigation.
Another large marketplace called Evolution also had a short reign; it was closed earlier this year when administrators decided to fleece users of more than $12m in bitcoin.
Currently, the black market site Agora is the largest of its type still in operation and has tens of thousands more products listed for sale than Silk Road ever offered.
However, the darknet is frequently seeing more illegal marketplaces emerge and they are not operating under the same ‘moral’ code as Silk Road.
Speaking under the pseudonym James, the editor of darknet news website DeepDotWeb said the current digital landscape of darknet marketplaces had far surpassed the early days of Silk Road.
“It’s becoming bigger all the time,” he told the Guardian.
“Currently there are over 40 markets, forums, private vendor shops and a higher number of product listings than ever.
“I can personally testify that we, as a site who is reporting the darknet, see more and more traffic from people searching for specific markets — 1000% more than we saw last year.”
While Ulbricht’s arrest was a stern warning for administrators of darknet marketplaces, James said they wouldn’t cease their activities, and would instead learn from the mistakes of Silk Road.
It’s a theory backed up by a number of studies suggesting lengthy prison terms do very little deter crime.
A 2012 study from the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics is one such example.
Bureau director Don Weatherburn said while the risk of arrest and the likelihood of being sent to prison acted a deterrent, the length of the sentence had no effect at all.
“The question most offenders are asking is, am I going to get caught? They’re not sitting down and thinking, well if I am caught will I go to jail and if I do how long will I go for?” he told the ABC.
“The only question in the front of their minds, many of them not being great long-term planners, is what the chance of being caught is if I do this?”
Users of the darknet market subreddit, which boasts close to 60,000 subscribers, were also quick to dismiss the effectiveness of Ulbricht’s punishment.
“Take a street dealer out, two more pop up in their place. Take a market out, five more pop up in its place. This will be a never-ending battle with no clear winner,” wrote MLP_is_my_OPSEC.
“Making an example out of someone is the most clear evidence of not treating them fairly. Laws are supposed to apply to all men equally,” wrote PistolMcDaniels.
“This will not be the end of deep web markets at all, the balance of power will just shift from American/Western to Eastern, foreign based ones from Russia, Eastern Europe, East Asia, etc where the money we spend goes to support deadly organised crime groups there and brutal regimes,” wrote auto587643.
So while the US Justice Department might think throwing the book at Ulritch was the best option, it appears it will do very little to stem the darknet’s nefarious trade.
