I had a late night so I didn’t manage to get any new posts up. A lot has happened since I wrote my posts for yesterday though. The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) claims to have Dread Pirate Roberts in custody:
The FBI arrested Ross William Ulbricht, known as “Dread Pirate Roberts,” in San Francisco on Tuesday, according to court filings. Federal prosecutors charged Ulbricht with one count each of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, according to a court filing.
As of right now Silk Road remains offline so Mr. Ulbricht may very well be the actual Dread Pirate Roberts. Reading through the complaint [PDF] explains how the FBI was able to nab him. Tor wasn’t exploited as far as we know, Mr. Ulbricht simply fucked up by failing to separate his “legitimate” life and his secure life. I will write about this in more detail later. For now I urge you to read through the complaint because there are many things we, as online denizens, can learn from Dread Pirate Roberts’ mistakes.