Silk Road forums

Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: eleanorrobot on June 05, 2013, 12:08 am

Title: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: eleanorrobot on June 05, 2013, 12:08 am
saw this on reddit a minute ago, thought it was an interesting discussion since i know zero about law...

By creating this free marketplace, how has DPR broken the law? If he was caught, for example, what would be the charges used to take him down?

CLEARNET WARNING - http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1foown/which_laws_has_dpr_broken/
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: raistlin on June 05, 2013, 12:16 am
Has DPR broken the law? No.Well none that matter or make sense.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: wiggum on June 05, 2013, 12:16 am
When in doubt they like to use income tax evasion because then all they have to prove is that there was untaxed income.  They'd also try to get him on drug charges like conspiracy to sell drugs, but DPR could argue he never did any transactions himself and never had intent for any specific transaction by SR users.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: eleanorrobot on June 05, 2013, 12:27 am
When in doubt they like to use income tax evasion because then all they have to prove is that there was untaxed income.  They'd also try to get him on drug charges like conspiracy to sell drugs, but DPR could argue he never did any transactions himself and never had intent for any specific transaction by SR users.

yeah, thats what i thought and maybe money laundering? i dunno im gonna keep an eye on the reddit thread though another was posted in the legaladvice subreddit, will be interesting to see what they think
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: Buttercup. on June 05, 2013, 01:13 am
Ah, but Silk Road isn't free.  DPR takes a percentage of every transaction made, and thus receives income derived from violations of the Controlled Substance Act.  If he's in the US, it would be a pretty cut and dried conspiracy case. Conspiracy just involves "participating in an agreement between two or more people to commit a crime such as selling or transporting drugs".   Even if DPR is not directly selling anything illegal, he's quite clearly profiting from such sales, and he is obviously knowledgeable about what gets sold in the marketplace he runs. Even without the marketplace itself coming into it, the fact that DPR gets a part of the take from every transaction made on SR is enough to make him a "conspirator" in every instance of trafficking on the site. 

Also:

"It shall be unlawful for any person who has received any income derived, directly or indirectly, from a violation of this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter punishable by imprisonment for more than one year in which such person has participated as a principal within the meaning of section 2 of Title 18 to use or invest, directly or indirectly, any part of such income, or the proceeds of such income, in acquisition of any interest in, or the establishment or operation of, any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect interstate or foreign commerce."

So if he's cashed out even one Bitcoin he'd be guilty of the above as well.  If he gets caught, I think tax evasion, unfortunately, would be the least of his worries.  I hope for his sake he long ago moved to a country with no US extradition treaty. 


Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: colorblack on June 05, 2013, 01:40 am
And the point of this thread is?
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: hemolyzer on June 05, 2013, 01:42 am
We are all breaking laws. It's not a contest.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: scout on June 05, 2013, 01:44 am
And the point of this thread is?

I was wondering the same.  :\
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: iLoveTaffy on June 05, 2013, 02:40 am
Ah, but Silk Road isn't free.  DPR takes a percentage of every transaction made, and thus receives income derived from violations of the Controlled Substance Act.  If he's in the US, it would be a pretty cut and dried conspiracy case. Conspiracy just involves "participating in an agreement between two or more people to commit a crime such as selling or transporting drugs".   Even if DPR is not directly selling anything illegal, he's quite clearly profiting from such sales, and he is obviously knowledgeable about what gets sold in the marketplace he runs. Even without the marketplace itself coming into it, the fact that DPR gets a part of the take from every transaction made on SR is enough to make him a "conspirator" in every instance of trafficking on the site. 

Also:

"It shall be unlawful for any person who has received any income derived, directly or indirectly, from a violation of this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter punishable by imprisonment for more than one year in which such person has participated as a principal within the meaning of section 2 of Title 18 to use or invest, directly or indirectly, any part of such income, or the proceeds of such income, in acquisition of any interest in, or the establishment or operation of, any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect interstate or foreign commerce."

So if he's cashed out even one Bitcoin he'd be guilty of the above as well.  If he gets caught, I think tax evasion, unfortunately, would be the least of his worries.  I hope for his sake he long ago moved to a country with no US extradition treaty.

Took the words right out of my mouth. Couldn't have said it any better myself. With how rich DPR is, he has to be in a different country other than America.

However, I can imagine him staying in the States. You know his political views. He's an extreme activist in this (which is a good thing IMHO), and I can see him staying in America based on principle alone.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: touchthesky on June 05, 2013, 02:53 am
he's upheld common law.

he's not harmed a single soul. In fact he's helped thousands if not millions. I'd like to see the government try to touch this guy.

Imagine DPR creating a single thread "Help needed. Facing Heat". He'd have just about every city on every continent to hide on. With people readily making high quality fakes + whatever else he may need. Suck dick LE, you can't do shit. This is a monster baby
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: iLoveTaffy on June 05, 2013, 03:01 am
he's upheld common law.

he's not harmed a single soul. In fact he's helped thousands if not millions. I'd like to see the government try to touch this guy.

Imagine DPR creating a single thread "Help needed. Facing Heat". He'd have just about every city on every continent to hide on. With people readily making high quality fakes + whatever else he may need. Suck dick LE, you can't do shit. This is a monster baby

So true. I have a basement, hidden, that I buit for protection. I'd offer it to him, fully furnished, for his use, for as long as he'd like to stay.

99% of SR would do everything in their power to protect DPR. Nearly. Everyone.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: Railgun on June 05, 2013, 03:23 am
I so doubt this is one guy.  I wouldn't be surprised if it were a group of Ivy League computer scientists currently in the PhD program for crypto or something lol

The sheer fact they he (they/have) has managed to steer clear of anywhere near getting caught is miraculous. These guys know what they're doing, and are making a huge profit. good for them
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: iLoveTaffy on June 05, 2013, 03:33 am
I so doubt this is one guy.  I wouldn't be surprised if it were a group of Ivy League computer scientists currently in the PhD program for crypto or something lol

The sheer fact they he (they/have) has managed to steer clear of anywhere near getting caught is miraculous. These guys know what they're doing, and are making a huge profit. good for them

Have you read DPR's writings? He himself is a single man. It is very obvious. He's eloquent and highly intelligent. He clearly has other people working below him, but he is the guy running the operation.

Plus, catching a single person with the level of anonymity he has is next to impossible. The only possible way to catch DPR would be serendipitously. Randomly running across SR's server (and to be honest, I will bet my life that he that covered as well).

SR, and DPR, are here to stay.
 
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: Rastaman Vibration on June 05, 2013, 04:42 am
Different countries have different laws, but in the U.S. they have RICO statutes they could pin on DRP. They can charge him with running a criminal enterprise. This is what they use to take down crime bosses, which, as far as they're concerned, he is.

Too bad they'll never catch him ;)
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: iLoveTaffy on June 05, 2013, 04:57 am
Different countries have different laws, but in the U.S. they have RICO statutes they could pin on DRP. They can charge him with running a criminal enterprise. This is what they use to take down crime bosses, which, as far as they're concerned, he is.

Too bad they'll never catch him ;)

Unless they somehow crack Tor and PGP, he'll never get caught. And even if they do that, he STILL won't get caught. There's simply too much anonymity, and he's not stupid in the slightest.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: Jack N Hoff on June 05, 2013, 04:58 am
None, that nigga gets a free pass.  His G card is good in all hoods. O0
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: Buttercup. on June 05, 2013, 05:26 am
Not that it matters.  We all know the real DPR is retired already and living like a king in Patagonia. ;)

Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: Railgun on June 05, 2013, 06:33 am
I so doubt this is one guy.  I wouldn't be surprised if it were a group of Ivy League computer scientists currently in the PhD program for crypto or something lol

The sheer fact they he (they/have) has managed to steer clear of anywhere near getting caught is miraculous. These guys know what they're doing, and are making a huge profit. good for them

Have you read DPR's writings? He himself is a single man. It is very obvious. He's eloquent and highly intelligent. He clearly has other people working below him, but he is the guy running the operation.

Plus, catching a single person with the level of anonymity he has is next to impossible. The only possible way to catch DPR would be serendipitously. Randomly running across SR's server (and to be honest, I will bet my life that he that covered as well).

SR, and DPR, are here to stay.

Being eloquent and highly intelligent is basically everyone I can think of in an Ivy League for science/computer crypto.  If you look at the manner in which he types and go to a board such as, stackexchange.com's computer security section, you will find many people that use similar sentence structure and verbiage. 

I've read some of his stuff, and there are slight variations in the wording and organizing that would suggest that equally intelligent people are working as a collective.

This is all speculation and really has little to do with the security he has (or they have) ensured. Was just an aside.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: jackofspades on June 05, 2013, 06:48 am
One day the govt will have better computers and hackers than any civilian and then they will find DPR. And thus we will find out.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: Jack N Hoff on June 05, 2013, 06:51 am
One day the govt will have better computers and hackers than any civilian and then they will find DPR. And thus we will find out.

Nah man nah.  We've got a Debbie downer over here...
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: Railgun on June 05, 2013, 07:04 am
One day the govt will have better computers and hackers than any civilian and then they will find DPR. And thus we will find out.

I dunno how soon that will be.  Every Tor node goes through what? 1024-bit encryption? Tor is just now working on a 2048-bit encryption scheme.

It took a bunch of elite number theorists to recently break 768-bit encryption of a text file; at the moment, we don't have computers powerful enough for it.  Not to mention, he(they) probably change identities every now and again. They'd have to decrypt every single peice of info on the way to his node.

Maybe when quantum computers come out, but the gov't seems to be having a hard time containing encryption paradigms from the general public because the companies can make a bigger profit on selling it to private companies.  Look at truecrypt...

If anything, they're just hoping he logs on his account un-Tor'ed or gets busted for something else, leading them to discover the servers.  One of the inventors of Tor said this is basically the only way given current technology.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: eleanorrobot on June 05, 2013, 02:46 pm
And the point of this thread is?

the reddit thread made me curious since i know nothing about law, and wondered what people here thought since most of the people on the silkroad reddit seem to still be stuck struggling with how to buy bitcoins. i thought the discussion here would be more intelligent. does this break the rules somehow? sorry if so.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: Miah on June 05, 2013, 08:16 pm
Quote
One day the govt will have better computers and hackers than any civilian and then they will find DPR. And thus we will find out.

They already do, it's called the NSA. Not sure where I read it but I read that they could crack the encryption that ToR and PGP use. but I think the big question is would it be worth it for them with the amount of time invested to do that? DPR getting caught I think is highly unlikely. Someone to pull off something like SR is not your average bear when it comes to intelligence. That being said I'd find it highly unlikely that DPR or the people working as DPR are even in the states. If DPR ever gets caught which I hope not it's not only his safety and freedom it could mean everyone that uses SR. A typical plan if SR were taken over by LE would be to continue running it as nothing had happend and harvest information to start busting vendors and buyers alike. It would truly be a cluster fuck of enormous proportions. The day that happens is the day one of our last freedoms get taken away from us which I hope none of us see that day.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: Jack N Hoff on June 05, 2013, 08:44 pm
Quote
One day the govt will have better computers and hackers than any civilian and then they will find DPR. And thus we will find out.

They already do, it's called the NSA. Not sure where I read it but I read that they could crack the encryption that ToR and PGP use. but I think the big question is would it be worth it for them with the amount of time invested to do that? DPR getting caught I think is highly unlikely. Someone to pull off something like SR is not your average bear when it comes to intelligence. That being said I'd find it highly unlikely that DPR or the people working as DPR are even in the states. If DPR ever gets caught which I hope not it's not only his safety and freedom it could mean everyone that uses SR. A typical plan if SR were taken over by LE would be to continue running it as nothing had happend and harvest information to start busting vendors and buyers alike. It would truly be a cluster fuck of enormous proportions. The day that happens is the day one of our last freedoms get taken away from us which I hope none of us see that day.

No one has broken 1024 bit RSA which is what hidden services use for authentication.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: Miah on June 05, 2013, 09:17 pm
Quote
No one has broken 1024 bit RSA which is what hidden services use for authentication.

Oh really? Wasn't 100% sure but was reading some prior threads and came to the conclusion it was possible. Not sure but I remeber someone else say that it is possible given enough time and hardware. Well besides that there are other ways to locate hidden services but I'm no expert but I'm sure someone with the right amount of motivation, knowledge, and unlimited funds anything is possible but I guess let's not give em a reason eh :P
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: happyhippy on June 05, 2013, 09:23 pm
And the point of this thread is?

I was wondering the same.  :\

Blue skying , its fun :)
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: Tyrion Lannister on June 05, 2013, 09:40 pm
Well, SR is fucking good idea. And it's not bad for the government at all. It have potential to end heavy armored gangs, and cartels and shit.

This is free market man. You won't get costumers by having your territory or by being the only source around, you will get costumers for you price and reputation. Think how awesome is that, and how good can this make to society.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: jameslink2 on June 05, 2013, 10:14 pm
Ah, but Silk Road isn't free.  DPR takes a percentage of every transaction made, and thus receives income derived from violations of the Controlled Substance Act.  If he's in the US, it would be a pretty cut and dried conspiracy case. Conspiracy just involves "participating in an agreement between two or more people to commit a crime such as selling or transporting drugs".   Even if DPR is not directly selling anything illegal, he's quite clearly profiting from such sales, and he is obviously knowledgeable about what gets sold in the marketplace he runs. Even without the marketplace itself coming into it, the fact that DPR gets a part of the take from every transaction made on SR is enough to make him a "conspirator" in every instance of trafficking on the site. 

True, but he is in good company with the whole conspiracy stuff. Congress breaks these two all the time.

Quote from: 18 USC § 241 242
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; ; or
If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured—
They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both

Personally I dont believe in all this conspiracy crap. :o
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: danconia on June 05, 2013, 10:25 pm
Didn't take the time to read the whole thread but "Which laws has DPR broken?" is just a hypothetical question.  If the identity of DPR was found and powerful politicians wanted him behind bars... he would almost certainly end up behind bars.

Keep in mind that judges typically favor the prosecution in general with the exception of cases that have a lot of publicity.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: imoscardotcom on June 06, 2013, 12:39 am
When it comes to the federal government, laws are arbitrary. They circumvent the rights laid out to United States citizens in the Constitution on a daily basis.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: iLoveTaffy on June 06, 2013, 12:46 am
When it comes to the federal government, laws are arbitrary. They circumvent the rights laid out to United States citizens in the Constitution on a daily basis.

Quote. For. TRUTH!
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: asianboy on June 06, 2013, 03:14 am
US Federal Law:

Conspiracy to import / sell / deliver controlled substances
Import / sell / deliver controlled substances (under joint conspirator rule)
Money Laundering
RICO

Multiple laws broken in each of the US 50 states, and other jurisdictions throughout the world.
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: curtnz on June 06, 2013, 03:47 am
the only way he could get caught is if someone snitched on him and i dont think anyone who knows the real DPR knows that he's involved with this at all
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: touchthesky on June 06, 2013, 03:49 am
With crypto. We need to be a bit cautious before making statements such as "1024 has never been broken"

It is a fact that NSA and IBM have worked/possibly still work together, hire the BEST cryptoanalyst, mathematicians and securities professionals to build advanced crypto methods and decrypt, or at least attempt to decrypt all current publicly available methods. There are a few crypto methods that aren't even made public. I even have a sneaking suspicion that most (read MOST, not ALL) crypto methods are only available to the public when agencies like NSA or CIA have found a way around the algorithms and can decrypt them successfully

There is constant research done on these by these HUGE organizations for their own purposes with the best equipment and top minds. I think we as a community should also research our own methods, and keep them as private as possible. I would assume this is what DPR has done, which has made him/her/them so successful.

I've seen many a people here who are very knowledgeable when it comes to computer security and crypto and I think we should develop an ongoing project that would be for this community
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: CrazyBart on June 06, 2013, 03:52 am
I heard he beats his wife too
Title: Re: Which laws has DPR broken?
Post by: drbrule on June 06, 2013, 04:18 am
I'm sure this has already been mentioned, but, profiting from a continuing criminal enterprise... I figured this would be pretty obvious.

He's basically not only the head of this organization, but is profiting obscene amounts of money from it. Even if he hasn't sold any drugs himself.