so many people claiming that there is some deeper conspiracy because they want to believe it. But in fact it's just not true. What is true is that DPR is a name that gets passed, just like in The Princess Bride, and a new DPR will take over and take command of the ship and learn from the previous and do even better.
it's pretty clear that Ulbricht was DPR. Here is the evidence: http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf
for those who don't want to read it:
1. the FIRST POST EVER about SR was found on Shroomery under alias Altoid. (posed as a question asking if he should buy, but was also asking for feedback, advertising the site), he referenced silkroad420.wordpress.com which had a link to the silk road URL and instructions for how to download TOR and how to get to it. silkroad420.wordpress.com was opened 4 days prior to this post.
2. the SECOND POST EVER was also by Altoid a few days later, on bitcoin forums. All the same info in the post, clearly advertising and looking for feedback from two entirely separate communities. Still, it was all posted anonymously so he's good up to this point, other than linking Altoid to Silk Road's creator.
3. 8 months later Altoid posts that he's looking for an IT pro for a bitcoin backed venture. clearly Silk Road is one of very few IT-based ventures backed by bitcoins. Here he posts his real email rossulbricht@gmail.com. Biggest mistake and the reason they followed him.
4. a user with RossUlbricht@gmail.com as their registered email address posts on stackoverflow asking for advice for how to connect to an onion server using curl commands and php. Later, he changes his e-mail address associated with his account to frosty@frosty.com, which has been determined by the FBI to be a fake email address.
5. FBI gets records from google of IP addresses used to access rossulbricht@gmail.com, showing San Francisco IP addresses. They also find messages from DPR referencing the PST timezone, which matches these IP's location.
6. FBI seizes the SR website server and finds that the ssh key associated, or needed to log-in ends with frosty@frosty, meaning ross has a computer named frosty with a username frosty, this computer is able to access the server without a password due to this key, but it was another one of his biggest mistakes, associating frosty with himself. This computer however, has not been found to my knowledge.
7. the FBI identifies the revised piece of code that ulbricht was asking about on stackoverflow.com as part of the SR server.
8. Package heading to ulbricht containing 9 fake IDs with different names and the same picture of ulbricht is seized shortly after DPR discusses buying fake IDs to rent servers to avoid identification by companies that lease server space.
additional: his linkedIn profile mission about creating an economic simulation without the systemic use of force, or something like that. Also, one of his very few links is to the Mises institute, which is about the Austrian school of economics, something that DPR holds dear and talks about often. He even holds a book club that talkes about Mises. Clearly there are many similar interests.
clearly this is DPR. The only missing piece is his money, which is easily explainable.$80million in BTC could easily fit on an ironkey flash drive that nobody but himself could access, and that flash drive could be hidden very easily. It's a lot easier to hide $80million in BTC than it is $80million in cash. Lucky for him, I don't think he'll ever lose that money, though it will be difficult for him to launder and use in the future.
the evidence is pretty clear cut if you read the complaint, the FBI did their job on this case, and Ulbricht slipped up too much. There is plenty of evidence to prove that he is indeed DPR. If he's not DPR, then DPR is beyond genius, having thought of this plan every step of the way, and actually going out of his way to frame ulbricht. That, or ulbricht was in on it and being paid off. However, neither of the latter seem likely to me based on the actual evidence.
learn from his mistakes.
