Deep Web
Introduction
It’s just after noon in San Francisco’s Public Library. The tables are almost empty. It’s a Tuesday in October, 2013. There is a peaceful silence. The librarians finish ordering the books that were consulted last night. The reading tables are almost empty. At one of them, to the left, sits a man wearing jeans and a t-shirt. He has just taken two
books. He opens them and puts them on the table. Then, he takes his laptop, opens it and starts typing.
A reader who was sitting in the right silently approaches the man, grabs him by the shoulders, pulls him away from his laptop making sure he does not close it, and then pushes him against the wall. Suddenly, the silence breaks as a group of armed FBI agents bursts into the reading room and seizes the man.
The suspect is Ross Ulbricht. He has just typed the user key on his computer, which is already connected to the library´s wireless network. He is 29 years old. In the virtual world he operates under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts.
The most important goal of this scandalous FBI operation had not been to capture Ulbricht, but to confiscate his computer while it was open and unblocked. If Ulbricht had been able to close his laptop, a complex protection system would have turned it into a regular student’s computer when opened again, leaving no chance to trace any data whatsoever.
That laptop had been Silk Road’s administration center, the biggest drug trafficking market worldwide. It was an online market, similar to Amazon or eBay that offered different varieties of drugs.
The pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts was taken from a character from novel The Princess Bride by William Goldman. It is about a pirate of legendary reputation, known in the seven seas for his cruelty and skilled fencing.
The FBI discovery was later published by the US Government. In Silk Road’s administration page were found commercial transactions, types of drugs for every transaction, and even digital accounting evidence, which reflected income for approximately 80 million dollars.
Dread Pirate Roberts was a mere intermediary between dealers and consumers. He withheld a 15% of every transaction. Sellers would publish their products without neither qualm nor language restrictions, for example “five grams of pure crystal cocaine”. There was a tutorial which guided the beginners, and a services section which illustrated topics such as how to hack into automatic teller machines. There were guides about other digital products and even about falsifications.
But the investigation would end up revealing a terrifying fact: Ulbricht seemed to have spent part of his income on hiring hitmen. However, the investigation failed to prove that any murder had been committed.
For some months, Silk Road had signified many millions for Ulbricht, but also many headaches. There were blackmailers, swindlers, and even buyers who had been captured and could connect Dread Pirate Roberts, aiding the Federal Drugs Administration. Concerned about the possibility that someone would speak, Ulbricht had ordered the murders.