Ask HN: P2P co-signing services? - <AUTHOR>

Are people here willing to co-sign loans, rental applications, etc. for other people if they are shown info from facebook/linkedin/credit profiles? Why or why not? <comment><AUTHOR> I should've mentioned - the intermediary company will take the liability for any defaults. So, consider the case where you are getting paid a certain amount for one credit-check (this credit check is removed from your history after one year) and you are not taking the liability of default.

</comment><comment><USER2> I guess I'm confused how are you going to take liability for default? if you have that much money just invest it. If not its some kind of insurance.

<comment><AUTHOR> The intermediary company will be responsible for correctly assessing someone's risk. All the money earned from co-signing could be used to pay off very few that default (just like an insurance.) This model allows more people to access services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What benefit would why I have to co-sign someone else's car loan? I don't get to drive their car... But if they defaulted, I would be on the hook.

<comment><AUTHOR> the intermediary company will assume the risk of default, so you wouldn't be on the hook.</comment></comment>


You can now install a GSM network using apt-get - <AUTHOR> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20160328-osmocom-in-debian/ <comment><USER2> What does it mean to install a GSM network via apt-get? If I run this command 2G mobile antennas will grow out of my laptop?

<comment><USER3> Are you having a bad day? May I suggest you remove this comment for your and this comment page's benefit.

<comment><USER4> My parents told me, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

But here I am responding to your comment anyway, sorry mom and dad.

<comment><USER5> I carved out an exception to that rule, to say something surreal. Have a nice fish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> King-Aaron I've read this three times now, and still can't work out the context. Am I right in understanding he's talking about GSM mobile/cellular networks?

<comment><USER6> Yes, the project he talks about is OSMOCom, Open Source Mobile Communications. [http://osmocom.org/](http://osmocom.org/) will give you a little more context. I'm assuming this would allow you to route data over these types of networks given the proper hardware in your own environment.

<comment> King-Aaron Thank you for that. This is quite interesting, I thought there were quite strict guidelines about who was allowed to broadcast on 2/3G frequencies? Or is this bandwidth not as controlled as others?

<comment><USER6> As "extrapickles" pointed out in another comment thread, the spectrum requirement for this is an even bigger hurdle than getting all of the expensive equipment together to pull it off. The tech requires an amount of frequency separation that spreads outside the bounds of the ISM spectrums, so you'd need licensing or would need to be running in a third-world country with no regulations (which is actually a viable use for the tech).

For the unaware, ISM = Industrial, Scientific and Medical. These are the shared unlicensed frequencies that the general public may use. Wifi falls inside of this range.

<comment><USER7> ...or in a place where no one who cares can receive your unauthorised transmissions. If you're not interfering with anyone who has the "right of way" on those frequencies, then you might as well not exist to them.

<comment><USER8> the cartels in northern mexico have been known to run their own rouge cell networks

[http://www.npr.org/2011/12/09/143442365/mexico-busts-drug- ca...](http://www.npr.org/2011/12/09/143442365/mexico-busts-drug-cartels- private-phone-networks)

<comment><USER9> Ah, the ol' Red commie cell nets ;)

(Just in case this wasn't a typo and you're not a native speaker, rouge is red - in french-, rogue is probably the word you want :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this is the same software the NOC is using at chaos events to build our local GSM infrastructure. Works pretty flawlessly! I kinda want to see it done using a couple of rad1os or HackRFs though... if that's at all possible...

</comment><comment><USER11> So, this and a bunch of Raspberry Pis and we can start disrupting the cellular industry?

<comment><USER12> You'll need to disrupt the ITU/UN bureaucracy first though; or make do with over crowded ISM frequencies for which GSM isn't designed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> can this be of good use in developing countries?

<comment><USER14> That was an explicit goal of OpenBTS when I was following it years ago. The GSM vendors want something like $250k per base station, which is unreasonable for third-world or very-rural applications. OpenBTS thinks they can get the radio hardware costs down to a tiny fraction of that to serve low volumes, backed by a Linux box running this software.

Interestingly, their first large-scale field tests were at Burning Man ([http://openbts.sourceforge.net/FieldTest/](http://openbts.sourceforge.net/FieldTest/)), where there were thousands of active GSM handsets but no cell coverage. They were able to provide limited SMS support between local participants and in later tests allowed some outgoing VoIP calls.

<comment><USER13> Great,the only concerns I could think of were legal, around ownership of frequency ranges abd interference.

<comment><USER15> The answer is to work with legal spectrum owners (aka cellular carriers), which is what we ([https://fairwaves.co](https://fairwaves.co)) and other in the space are doing.

Someone mentioned that building a full networks (or even a full base station) is much harder than just apt'ing some software and snapping some cheap SDR. So we spent couple years developing an SDR which is more expensive than your typical hobbyist one ([http://umtrx.org](http://umtrx.org)) - btw even hardware of the simple version of our SDR is open-source - and then couple years building a base station which complies with all regulations and has open-source in its heart (based on Osmocom obviously). And now we've added a bit of (unfortunately proprietary) glue and we can run fully fledged cellular networks for carriers - mostly in developing countries, as was mentioned before, because demand for simple voice communications is through the roof there. At the same time you can buy one of our stations for your lab and play with it as much as you want (get your test license first though).

So yes, you can't stop progress and technology gets cheaper and more accessible. Which is very exciting.

<comment><USER13> Any idea what the largest opeb source or non commercial gsm network is?

There must be some widely used ones in developing regions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Do does that mean everyone can put up develop their own Stingray now?

<comment><USER17> No. For that, you'll want [0] (on HN a few days ago). This is mostly for making it easier to run your own legitimate GSM network, and of course the software has been available for a long time, it's just now available via the Debian repositories.

[0]: [https://www.evilsocket.net/2016/03/31/how-to-build-your- own-...](https://www.evilsocket.net/2016/03/31/how-to-build-your-own-rogue- gsm-bts-for-fun-and-profit/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is there any way to use this software to implement a network-connected femtocell cheaper than the ones AT&T, etc sell?

</comment><comment><USER19> Where's some good reading (general GSM stuff, etc) to do to be able to use this in a meaningful way?

I'm kind of interested in the idea of setting up a phone network for Nowhere (and other burner events, where often there's no actual phone signal at all), but it's a whole area I'm completely unfamiliar with.

</comment><comment><USER20> Is it [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_on_wheels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_on_wheels)

<comment><USER5> No, that (COW) is a combined radio station, power supply, and equipment for connecting to ground based backhaul networks. This release is only software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's just apt now.</comment>


Using Awk and R to parse 25tb of DNA sequencing data - <AUTHOR> https://livefreeordichotomize.com/2019/06/04/using_awk_and_r_to_parse_25tb/ <comment></comment>


Ask HN: What headless CMS do you recommend? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I like forestry.io. it's not API based, so you just use stock Hugo backed by git. The change you make get committed back to git. So the nice thing is you're not tied to them. If they go away, you still have Hugo and can generate manually. You can host at netlify or AWS. Most the other static CMS are API based, so all your data is with them. If the go away, aodoes your site maintainability.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have been using [https://getmesh.io/](https://getmesh.io/) for a while now, the developers are very helpful, the features are excellent, the underlying architecture and frameworks are great, and documentation excellent. Thumbs up.

<comment><USER4> What is even better: You can host it yourself and it is free.

[https://github.com/gentics/mesh](https://github.com/gentics/mesh)

[https://getmesh.io/docs/beta/administration- guide.html#_lice...](https://getmesh.io/docs/beta/administration- guide.html#_license)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use Cockpit or FeathersJS.. sometimes even Wordpress WP-JSON :-/ I'm looking for something better, but not really into using a SaaS.

[https://getcockpit.com](https://getcockpit.com)

</comment><comment><USER6> I would recommend Prismic.io. They have what I have searched for on anothers services: slices. This allows you to have different block and empower people to use them as they want to create landing pages for instance.

<comment><USER7> that slice feature remind me of how [http://www.webhook.com](http://www.webhook.com) do the admin area. it is nice that someone else is doing that as webhook is "dead" for some time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> On the .NET side, I've had a lot of success with Umbraco, using it as a headless CMS to provide content for a Node/Express application.

[https://github.com/umbraco/Umbraco-CMS](https://github.com/umbraco/Umbraco- CMS)

[https://github.com/umbraco/UmbracoRestApi](https://github.com/umbraco/UmbracoRestApi)

</comment><comment><USER9> Can we assume you're already familiar with [https://headlesscms.org](https://headlesscms.org)?

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm using Contentful's ([https://contentful.com](https://contentful.com)) free plan to power the docs and blog for my website ([https://resurfaceapp.com/docs/](https://resurfaceapp.com/docs/))

</comment><comment><USER11> I've been asking me the same question to switch a static site to basic CMS.

Contentful.com seems to be the leader.

Graphcms looks nice, GraphQL is a promising technology to only fetch the content/relations you need to render that page.

I was thinking about using Airtable for even a simpler MVP

<comment><USER12> using Airtable as backend sounds interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> if you are looking for an open source self hosteable option, there is directus ([https://github.com/directus/directus](https://github.com/directus/directus)) or cockpit([https://github.com/agentejo/cockpit](https://github.com/agentejo/cockpit))

<comment><USER14> What's unfortunate about Directus and Cockpit, is they still have a hard dependency on a PHP.

If I'm going headless, the last thing I want to do is setup a PHP stack.

<comment><USER15> I don't know what is hard about setting up a PHP stack. "yum install" and you're on your way.

It's certainly no more work than setting up nodejs, ruby, python, a go compiler, etc.</comment></comment></comment>


Learn to Brew Beer - American Homebrewer's Association - <AUTHOR> http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/community/videos/show?title=homebrewing-lesson-1-introduction

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm submitting this because a friend recently introduced me to homebrewing. It's really easy to get started, and doesn't take much time or equipment (unless you want it to).

I thought it might be something that some people around here might be interested in, and might not see otherwise. It is fantastically geeky in all the right ways.

P.S. I'm not endorsing drinking more beer, I'm endorsing drinking better beer. Brew exactly the beer you would want to drink, even if it would never be commercially viable to sell.

<comment><USER2> I agree, although I haven't started brewing yet (my brother does). Doing it by yourself, I think, is hard, cause it's difficult to make a "reasonable" amount of beer for one person.

That said, it is def. appropriate for HN. Beer brewing is on my short-list of "telling hobbies" that is most certainly hacker-tastic. It just seems to be the kind of thing that good devs are drawn to, I could only make an educated guess as to why. I told my brother he needs to put it on his resume, somewhere at the bottom, because if I saw it on a resume, I'd give mental bonus points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been brewing for several years, and always enjoyed it. Two pieces of advice, they cost more, but the results are worth it.

1) Keg your beer, or bottle in larger containers. I brew 5-6 gallons at a time. Putting that in 12oz beer bottles requires sanitizing and capping more than 50 bottles. Screw that. Use 1-2 liter bottles, or even better, keg your beer. Kegging tastes better, is less work, but more expensive (because you need a CO2 tank, a regulator, and a keg).

2) Don't kegerator. Kegerating is problematic because your beer line runs from the cold to room temperature. Germs can crawl up the tap, causing the beer to taste skanky. Kegerating requires cleaning the tap frequently.

Instead, put your whole keg inside the fridge, tap and all. Doing this, I've had a batch last 6 months, with no skankiness.

<comment><USER4> > Instead, put your whole keg inside the fridge, tap and all.

The brother of a friend is in a local brew club. Also very technical and (selectively) a perfectionist. That's how he/they do it.

Just be ready to take a few shelves out of the refrigerator. He has a second one in the basement devoted to this.

Once a year, they have a big Oktoberfest fund-raiser for charity. Everyone gets to bring and share their brews with the crowd, and it all goes to a good cause.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I actually presented this (<http://www.slideshare.net/mattmichielsen/how-to- make-beer>) at a local BarCamp a couple years ago instead of the talk I was planning to do on mercurial vs. git. I got a lot of people excited about it and at least one has been brewing himself lately.

</comment><comment><USER6> I recommend the book Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher. It's a fun read, comes with a crap ton of tables of what ingredients add what flavors and comes at brewing from the angle of wanting to make the perfect green chile prickly pear doppelbock.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've been doing this for a couple years and I've got to say, it has been pretty satisfying, quick and cheap. Depending on the yeast you use and how dedicated you are to experimentation, you can clone almost anything after less than 3 months of serious reading/tinkering/tasting.

I can't think of too many hands-on knowledge investments that have such a quick, broad return with such a low monetary cost. [I've been building a spare brewing kit from more-or-less rummage sources, just to see how cheap I can go. Half-way finished and I've literally spent only $5.]

</comment><comment><USER8> Brewed my first batch last month. <http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html> was essential. Everything went to plan...except when we got too vigorous a fermentation and the airlock blew off at 3am. Thankfully the beer turned out great, but next time I'll be using a blowoff hose.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've got to mention 'Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew' by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer here. It contains examples of both all-grain and extract recipes for every BJCP category. The breadth of styles provided and the consistent, accurate recipes make it a _great_ reference for any level of brewer.

</comment><comment><USER10> Great link, as someone who has just gotten into home brewing it's a lot fun. I'm really only on my 1st brew (bottling day is sunday!) another thing to check out would be the Basic Brewing (found @ basicbrewing.com) podcast which has some good info as well.

<comment><USER11> The Brewing Network (<http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/>) is also a great resource for beginners and all the way to advanced and commercial brewers. They have a handful of live shows that are archived to podcasts ranging from completely offtopic drunken chatter to clear cut how-to's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a beer lover, I have looked into brewing and decided I don't have the patients for it. So I did the next best thing. I have a good friend who loves to brew. He always wants to give away as much beer as he can so he has room to brew and store more beer.

<comment><USER11> As someone who homebrews, this is fantastic advice. I give most of my product away to friends because I can't drink the quantity I end up producing all by myself.

To anyone who says they don't have patience, don't worry. Beginning with extract brewing, a very simplified approach is boiling a large pot of water for about 2 hours and then tossing it in a bucket for a week. Don't worry, the first batch will be garbage. Learn why it failed (it was because you weren't clean enough), and try again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you want to ruin perfectly good edibles, there are faster ways than turning them into beer.

</comment><comment><USER14> thanks a lot for this... always thought it would be cool to learn!

<comment><AUTHOR> No problem. I hadn't really given it much thought until recently, but when a friend suggested it I jumped at the idea. I have been dreaming about all kinds of exciting things to try, like beers brewed with fruits and peppers.

Like programming language communities, hobby communities can also add or detract from the experience. In general, I have found homebrewers to be pretty laid back. You don't want to do the fancy processes and equipment? No problem, you brew the beer you want the way you want to do it. There's no right way, do what makes you happy.

<comment><USER6> So the greatest pepper beer I've ever made/drank was a green chile ale made with the grain bill of a marzen.

That recipe though is part of a friends business plan so I can't share it I can share this older one though:

10 gallon batch:

      16lbs english pale
      4 lbs green chile
      2 lbs biscuit malt
      2 lbs crystal 10L
      2 lbs white wheat
      1 lbs german wheat
      1 lbs melanoidin
      1 lbs carapils
      1 lbs munich 10L

Mash in 8 gallons of water at 155F for 3 hours

Sparge with 9.5 gallons

60 minute Boil time with:

      1.25 oz Pioneer 8.5% at T-60
      0.75 oz Wilamette 4.1 at T-30
      1 tsp irish moss
      1 tsp gypsum at T-25
      0.75 oz Saaz 5.9% at T-15
      0.75 oz Cascade 5.9% at T-5

Nottingham yeast

Let hang in primary for a 10 days then transferred to secondary and added 4lbs Green Chile.

It's been a while since I've lived in New Mexico so I haven't made this in a couple years, but aside from the quantity of chiles it should work pretty well for any pepper. Though I'd use more cascade and less pioneer if it was a citrus-y pepper like a habanero.

<comment><USER5> This is definitely added to my list of beers to try. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How a Silly Phone for Teens Reveals Microsoft's Plan for Us All - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5547676/

<comment><USER2> All of my email is in Gmail, contacts in Google Contacts, text messages in Google Voice.

Google beat them. Once the new Market launches with music and music sync, it won't batter what MS is doing.</comment>


Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/nyregion/ross-ulbricht-creator-of-silk-road-website-is-sentenced-to-life-in-prison.html <comment><USER2> That seems way too harsh to me. I have strong opinions on the US War on Drugs and it's failure to meaningful deal with drug use/abuse in the USA. And I feel even worse about how it's spilling out into the rest of the world as we go "global" with everything.

I can't say I know every detail of the case but I don't recall anyone getting killed or even hurt by Mr. Ulbricht so in my mind the punishment does not fit the crime. IMHO the death penalty should be off the table completely (go Nebraska!) and life in prison reserved for only violent offenders. You can argue that he enabled people to harm themselves but I think that's stretching it. If people want to take drugs, even take too much drugs their going to get it somewhere. If drugs were legal and treatment of abuse the focus instead of punishment Silk Road wouldn't have existed in the first place.

<comment><USER3> You have to understand that the "murder for hire" evidence was introduced as part of the trial (at which point Ross' lawyer could have disputed it, but didn't) so it could be used as part of the sentencing decision... and that kind of takes the luster off of the "non-violent crime" argument.

<comment><USER4> Plus, it happened multiple times. Even if no one was actually killed the guy still tried to have multiple people killed.

<comment><USER5> _allegedly_ tried to have multiple people killed.

The prosecution brought this up at trial but he was not charged or convicted of this in the criminal trial.

<comment><USER6> This is the key point. He is going to spend the rest of his life in prison, pretty much, for running a website. Not for hurting anyone, not for even threatening to kill anyone - those charges weren't a part of his conviction - but simply by enabling the exchange of drugs he apparently should be locked away forever.

Go Team 'Murica....

<comment><USER7> Are you implying drugs don't hurt anyone?

Even the most ardent proponent of full legalization usually acknowledges that many drugs are very harmful--they just believe the people should be free to do things even if they are harmful to themselves.

I generally support decriminalization or even legalization, but I would be reluctant to allow internet sales. I'd require sales to be through licensed dealers and in person, so that an addict cannot completely cut themselves off from human contact. Internet sales make drugs too easy.

<comment><USER8> Licensed & regulated dealers (aka pharmacies) would be great.

In regards to the harm from drugs-- I'd add the obvious point that prohibition comes with a really high cost.

I recently did dry-january and I was really happy with the results of cutting back on my drinking. I wake up more rested, and had more energy in the evenings. I've been thinking that going totally dry might be a good thing to do in my life.

But would I make alcohol, one of the top killers in america, illegal? (ref: [http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol- use.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm) ) Absolutely not. If you went to US high school you know why--- alcohol-dealing gangs took over. People turned to bad products (wood alcohol, that potentially included methanol) to get their alcohol fix. I imagine we needlessly jailed a lot of alcohol drinkers and pushers.

A more indepth analysis of alcohol prohibition: [http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html](http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html)

Why does the general public consider drug prohibition to be that much different than alcohol prohibition??

<comment><USER9> > Why does the general public consider drug prohibition to be that much > different than alcohol prohibition??

The average IQ of most western countries, including the US, is around 100. That's probably significantly lower than the average reader here on Hacker News. I'm not sure if a person with an IQ of 100 ever asks themselves intelligent questions like yours...

<comment><USER10> May I reccomend [http://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart/top/](http://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart/top/) to you?

Also you're assuming some sort of strong correlation between IQ or some other measure of intelligence and good political judgement.

<comment><USER11> I was recently in a conversation where it was pointed out that my rather cold analytic nature when it comes to these kinds of things puts me at odds with more emotionally driven decisions. Even without agreeing, I can see the point.

That said, in my mind short of violent action, I find it hard to see how having to serve more than two decades in prison is any kind of justice for any kind of non-violent crime. I also find that seeing the U.S. prison population at near 1% is rather depressing, and that most drugs probably shouldn't be criminalized and their use are more representative of other social issues at hand.

When black markets exist to the extent that the drug trade does, it usually indicates that the law is probably wrong. A black market for anything will always exist, but when you're starting to see it affect even 1% of the population as it does in this case, that should indicate that legally, the position should change in a way that reduces the need for such markets. However, time and time again governments try to push in the other direction, the U.S. revolution from England is in a large part based on this.

<comment><USER12> There is no justice in this sentencing. The sentence is to set an example (words of the judge) which by it's very definition is unjust. Regardless of what you think of the laws relating to this case everyone deserves the same treatment under the law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's interesting. On one hand, if a leader of a traditional drug distribution network landed a life in prison sentence, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. With Silkroad though, I'm actually convinced by the defendants argument: that it provided safer, more trustworthy drugs to users.

I've had friends who've died from purchasing bad drugs at raves from people who were looking to make money and run. In one situation it ended up being rat poison. The guy had other drugs in his system, and combined with the poison his body went into shock. With darknet markets and independent lab testing networks, this type of thing doesn't happen.

People are still going to use drugs. I'd rather law enforcement go after the guys who are selling rat poison at raves than the guys who are setting up safe distribution networks.

<comment><USER3> Though I agree with you about the "safer drugs" argument, Ross' site was the worst possible thing that could happen to the supporters of safe, anonymous marketplaces- The evidence that he was willing to use brutal mob-style violence to support his business has yet to be disputed by anyone in a credible way.

<comment><USER14> His mistake was shitty opsec - he should not have allowed any third parties into a position where they could extort him. However, after the fact, if you're facing someone threatening to imprison and destroy the lives of many vendors and patients, then what is the lesser evil? The extortionist choose to attempt to endanger people. You can't use the state. What other ethical choice is there?

I'm not saying this is the case for Ross, but it's a possibility, at least for one of the contracts. Using violence to protect innocents is not something bad. It's just unfortunate he created the situation in the first place - instead of an extortionist, he may have confided in a LEO, thus hurting his users. (Which is apparently what happened.)

Anyways, the big lesson is that when your startup has major security requirements, go slow and don't break things. There's no real reason he shouldn't be retired now, enjoying his life while enhancing others. Just technical incompetence.

<comment><USER15> Can't the exact same argument be made by the mob or any other organized crime that uses violence?

<comment><USER14> Sorta. But one difference is that Silk Road wasn't out robbing or murdering anyone. So there's no justification in extorting it or informing on it. Where for a gang, an informant might be trying to overall save lives.

Another difference is scale. The extortionist that was after Ross was threatening to leak data on hundreds or thousands of innocent people. Do gangs usually find themselves in such situations?

If a gang is just selling drugs, not otherwise robbing or killing or hurting others, then I'm not very troubled by them killing extortionists, no. I just doubt that scenario makes up a notable portion of gang violence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hard drugs are one of those things that have different consequences for different types of people.

An intelligent, wealthy, employable person can dabble with them, have a good time, and _usually_ get away with it. Should they get addicted and screw up their lives, they can usually get help and bounce back without permanent consequences.

People who're a little less well-off intellectually and economically aren't so resilient. Should they get addicted to hard drugs and screw up their lives, they usually don't bounce back from it - their lives are ruined forever.

Since HN is full of intelligent, wealthy, employable people, the comments on this thread don't surprise me a bit. And yes, I agree that drug policy in the United States could stand to be reformed a little. But when evaluating the harm a person's actions can cause to society, I wish people would think a little more about not just themselves, but that vast chunk of society that's not lucky enough to not be as privileged as we are.

<comment><USER17> This kind of rationalizations may ruin your entire life one day. You cannot and do not know where will any experimentation with drugs bring you to.

Remember that the first step of the twelve steps is "admitting that one _cannot_ control one's alcoholism, addiction or compulsion". Finding reasons why you are more privileged than others makes this step even harder.

<comment><USER18> I really appreciate this comment, even though I personally don't agree with it.

You can't take drugs 100% safely, but their safety level does vary, and it definitely varies with wealth.

Amphetamines, for example. Rich Americans get prescriptions for Adderall. Poor Americans make meth. Or take opiates. Vicodin vs. heroin.

<comment><USER19> > _You can 't take drugs 100% safely_

I guess this depends on your definition of "100% safely", and probably also on your definition of "drugs". Let's assume that "drugs" means "psychoactive drugs". In that case, I'd suggest that you can take a cup of coffee pretty much as close to 100% safely as is achievable for anything in the world that you can ingest. And coffee is psychoactive. So, it is possible to take drugs 100% safely.

Even alcohol can be taken safely: so long as you keep the dose low, and you're not someone with a special sensitivity to it (e.g. an alcoholic), you can have a glass of red wine with pretty much zero chance of anything bad happening.

That also applies to all the other psychoactive drugs in between: speed, cocaine, LSD, heroin, mushrooms, peyote, MDMA, whatever. They can all be taken 100% safely. The key in _all_ cases is always the same: good education and moderation.

All of these drugs can also be abused. You can kill yourself with caffeine too (though unlikely in coffee form - you'd need about 50-100 espresso shots). I recall a story of someone who ate a whole pack of caffeinated candy, thinking it was normal candy, and died.

Shit happens.

Shit happens more often without good research, education and clear guidelines.

Shit happens even more often without good research, education and clear guidelines, and with dodgy suppliers who may or may not be selling you the thing you think you're buying because they're all criminals.

The real culprit in every drug death? The three branches of the government, who have failed to do the right thing on this topic for 50+ years now.

<comment><USER20> There's some kind of phrasing problem when you exclude a sensitive group of people in order to state that something is 100% safe.

I think that"100% safe" is an exaggeration intended to emphasize that the risk is manageable and it would be more polite to simply state that many substances can be ingested with minimal risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> gr8b8m8-88 So let's get this straight for the justice system:

1\. misleading the American public into going to a series of costly wars through lies about WMDs -> not punishable

2\. Weakening Glass-Stegal and encouraging questionable and irresponsible risk-taking at major banking institutions -> not punishable

3\. Fraudulent evaluation of risk-ratings by trusted agencies for the sake of profit leading to worst financial disaster since great depression -> not punishable, actually, rewarded with billions in bail-out by tax payers

4\. setting up and running a website to host underground drug trade with bitcoins -> punishable by life-sentence

Not that what Ulbricht did was right or that he shouldn't be punished... but his biggest problem was that his business didn't generate enough profit at the expense of the public. Justice might be blind, but even she can still smell money.

<comment><USER21> 1\. There is no evidence to support purposeful lying about WMDs. Bush admin rushed the intelligence agency and relied on Yes Men to build their story. I'm sure there was some law breaking going on but good luck identifying who what and when.

2\. Glass Stegal wouldn't have prevented shit. In fact the combination banks Glass Stegal would have prevented--BoA and Chase--were the banks who were strong enough to absorb the shitty failed banks--merill and lehman--that were often just investment banks.

Taking irresponsible risks isn't a crime either.

3) No evidence of fraud. These agencies trusted the financial models and those models didn't work.

Fuckups aren't punished in our society the way intentional law breaking is.

Should be guillotine every founder whose company fails?

<comment><USER22> Maybe a better example is the tobacco companies. They were convicted of a 50 year conspiracy to mislead the public about the health dangers of smoking, an activity that has led to trillions of dollars in health care costs and the deaths of literally millions of people in that span (in the US alone). No one went to jail for this...the companies "just" had to pay a $200 billion dollar fine (global annual tobacco sales revenue is estimated at $500 billion).

<comment><USER23> Lesson to be learned: ulbricht should have incorporated the Silk Road.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Judge Forrest told Mr. Urlbricht that "what you did in connection with Silk > Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric."

That's one of the most ridiculous claims I have seen in a while.

<comment><USER25> If it did, they should be able to prove it with some data. SR shut down in 2013, did they see a cliff of less ODs / deaths in hospitals?

But yea, I believe it is ridiculous as well, but the court needed to voice their opinion with the sentence.

<comment><USER24> If you want data about damage to society, just look at basically any statistic related to the war on drugs.

<comment><USER25> 'what the government did in connection with the war on drugs was terribly destructive to our social fabric'

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Murderers get less than that. We are truly an interesting society, aren't we - somehow kids doing LSD, a mostly harmless substance, is causing us more harm, as a society, than, say, violence?

<comment><USER27> Ulbricht was also convicted of hiring a hitman.

edit: this is something that vice news [0] reported that is apparently wrong.

> But despite these setbacks, Ulbricht was ultimately convicted in February on > a raft of charges, including drug trafficking, computer hacking, money > laundering, and hiring assassins to take out members of Silk Road.

[0]: [https://news.vice.com/article/ross-ulbricht-convicted- master...](https://news.vice.com/article/ross-ulbricht-convicted-mastermind- behind-silk-road-website-sentenced-to-life-in- prison?utm_source=vicenewstwitter)

<comment><USER28> No, he wasn't. He was never even charged with that; the story of one attempt to hire a hitman was admitted into the trial as evidence that he was running the Silk Road and knew what he was doing, but that was never one of the actual charges against him.

<comment><USER29> The prosecution sentencing memo rebuts this argument, pointing out that Ulbricht's attempts to procure murder for hire were explicit factual components of one of the charges he faced.

Ulbricht's argument to the effect that he wasn't properly charged with the murder-for-hire scheme was addressed in detail by the court:

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1391...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1391926/gov- uscourts-nysd-422824-142-0.pdf)

<comment><USER30> > The prosecution sentencing memo rebuts this argument, pointing out that > Ulbricht's attempts to procure murder for hire were explicit factual > components of one of the charges he faced.

The prosecution memo does not rebut this argument, it rebuts instead the clearly different but related argument that the murder-for-hire scheme was _uncharged_ conduct which could therefore not be considered in sentencing. It was -- as they correctly point out -- _charged_ , as it was one of the overt acts specifically laid out in the Count One narcotics trafficking conspiracy charge.

It is nevertheless inaccurate to say he was convicted of hiring a hitman, since a conspiracy conviction requires (as far as overt acts go) only a finding that the defendant committed at least one overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy, there were several overt acts charged in that count, and the verdict form did not direct the jury to return separate findings of fact on each charged overt act.

<comment><USER29> I'm certainly not saying he was convicted of hiring a hit man. He was convicted of a conspiracy to traffic narcotics, one overt act of which was the attempt to procure a murder for hire.

The argument I'm challenging is the notion that the factual claim of Ulbricht's attempt to hire a hitman wasn't subjected to scrutiny during the trial. It was a specifically introduced factual claim, which Ulbricht's counsel was required to rebut.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The fact that he explicitly paid for the murder and torture of former employees and their roommates is enough for me to feel like life in prison is fair. Yes, an actual murder is a worse outcome than a murder-for-hire that never materialized, but if you're a rich and sophisticated drug-kingpin attempting to commission torture and murder to secure your criminal enterprise, the punishment _should_ be the most severe. Murder is always a heinous crime, but in my view, it is more heinous to direct an organization that systematically orchestrates torture and murder for profit.

<comment><USER32> It's also a case where I don't think the fact the hitmen were part of a sting would vindicate him. I can understand the argument you were pressured into buying drugs. But actually _paying money to have someone murdered_? That would pass a moral barrier most people have. You can't use the fact it's a sting as an opt-out there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The dual solicitations of murder put him well off the list of people I will ever have any sympathy for. Having said that, he's 31 and reading "two life sentences" and "no chance of parole," was a little bit of a shock. He didn't actually kill anyone and I would guess some actual murderers have served less time. I can't help but feel this is mostly meant as a warning to any other smart guy who might think about setting up a black market.

<comment><USER34> I'm very against making examples of people. Justice should be dealt entirely equally. Punishing one person more harshly as a warning to hypothetical criminals with a like mind is an unequal application of justice.

I didn't know he had solicited murder (it's not mentioned in the short article linked) so I was wondering what made a glorified drug dealer middleman deserve life in prison.

I agree that "without parole" is ridiculous.

<comment><USER35> _I didn 't know he had solicited murder (it's not mentioned in the short article linked) so I was wondering what made a glorified drug dealer middleman deserve life in prison._

But the thing is: he wasn't even convicted for that!

<comment><USER29> He was convicted of the charge to which that allegation was formally attached.

<comment><USER35> Yes, but he can still be convicted for that in Maryland, right? So massively inflating this sentence due to the murder-for-hire allegations sounds like potentially convicting him twice for the same crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> > and that at least six deaths were attributable to drugs bought on the site. > The government recommended a sentence "substantially above" the 20-year > minimum.

Man, that is a bit of a mental stretch to blame drug ODs on the runner of a forum. He did not make the drugs, sell the drugs, or transfer the drugs, but the prosecutors faulted him in the OD of people who used those drugs?

<comment><USER37> I agree. By that logic, the directors of the country's top liquor producers should get the death penalty.

<comment><USER38> Not to mention liquor stores, Walmart, Bayer AG, anyone who's ever manufactured a gun or a knife, ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think the sentence is obscene. I doubt my teachers growing up, who would shriek "just say no!" at school assemblies, feel the same way. I imagine they find the idea of little Johnny being able to buy meth over the Internet terrifying. Guess who votes. It's like stoning people for adultery in the Middle East. You have to really figure out why people consider drug use such an existential threat to the community to figure out why they suoport such harsh enforcement of these laws.

<comment><USER40> tptacek's comment [1] makes a convincing argument that Ross's attempts to hire a hitman were a legitimate factor in his sentencing. If so, then a life sentence seems quite fair based on what I've read.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9627094](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9627094)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> No surprises there. The libertarian defense is hard to hold once fat stashes of cash and murder come in to play: the US certainly did a good and legally questionable job on public character assassination prior to the sentencing!

That said, one can't help but wonder if perhaps the movement in which characters as diverse as Assange, Dotcom, Snowden, ThePirateBay and Ulbricht can be placed is too powerful to snub out with mere regulatory reactionism... particularly given the economic state of much of the educated world and the imminent environmental challenges we face as a planet.

If there's one thing that the study of complex systems teach us, it's that there is strength in heterogeneity. Perhaps it's time for America to change its tune and stop pressuring countries worldwide to overpolice their populations in myriad ways (drugs, internet piracy, IP laws). May we live to see more enlightened times, progressive approaches to state-sponsored social remediation, and less of this nationalism "my way or the highway" / "with us or against us" claptrap that Einstein so eloquently summarized: _Nationalism is an infantile disease: the measles of mankind._

</comment><comment><USER42> The guy who ran "The Farmer's Market" AKA Adam's Flowers who was pre Silk Road and busted during Operation Adam Bomb was only given 10yrs for hustling MDMA/Acid/weed, and ran an impressive smuggling operation where he had US resellers pick up ocean freight shipments, and his plea has him serving time in a Netherlands prison.

The difference is he didn't make his black market political, which unfortunately Ross did. He also didn't try to kill anybody which although thrown out was still referenced by the sentencing judge. Still no word on what happened to the guy who was running SR 2.0 who worked for SpaceX and was busted.

I remember people peddling drugs on MindVox forums when Lord Digital ran it back in the day none of this is new except for Ulbricht trying to market his biz as a revolution. Online drug sales will continue regardless of this sentence.

<comment><USER29> No part of the allegation that Ulbricht commissioned a murder appears to have been "thrown out"; that accusation was a formal predicate (the second listed "overt act") of the conspiracy charge for which he was convicted.

Can someone help me understand why people keep suggesting that this murder- for-hire allegation was dropped? That does not at all seem to be the case.

<comment><USER43> Why are you riding this belief so hard? It's like a one man fan group trying desperately to make an untruth truth.

Was he convicted of this charge you speak of? No. And who really cares what the legal system decides, it is an utter farce.

<comment><USER30> Yes, he was convicted of the Narcotics Conspiracy count in which the murder- for-hire scheme was one of the several charged over acts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Let's just ruin a mans life so maybe we'll deter %.0000001 of a billion dollar drug industry. Why does the United States continue with this nonsense "War on Drugs"? Could it have anything to do with the for profit prison system? Giant militarized police force? Booming civil asset forfeiture?

For a country that prides itself on freedom and fairness, why create a system that punishes for doing what they want with their body? What if we spent the billions we do now on a failed drug war for education, addiction treatment, mental health, job training? Why ban certain drugs and allow alcohol and cigarettes that have just as addictive properties and kills just as many people?

<comment><USER45> SR sold drugs, yes. It also sold identity theft kits, credit card fraud kits, hacking tools, and other gear that is meant to harm others through coercion.

Fuck Russ, and fuck you for repeating the lie that SR was nothing but drugs.

<comment><USER46> And more importantly, the guy tried to have people killed.

This is not a good prompt for a "war on drugs is evil" rant. I sympathize with the position, but using somebody as an example of supposed injustice, when a big part of his punishment is because he hired hitmen (plural!), is not going to make your point look at all good.

<comment><USER47> "the guy tried to have people killed", allegedly.

And the alleging being done by someone who is himself in quite a bit of legal trouble for stealing from Silk Road and embezzling bitcoin during the course of his official duties.

<comment><USER46> He was convicted for it so we don't need to say "allegedly" anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> "I strongly believe that my son would be here today if Ross Ulbricht had not created Silk Road," said the man, who was identified in court only as Richard.

Such an ignorant comment it doesn't even deserve to be commented.

<comment><USER49> Jurors probably aren't experts in rhetoric so such statements have a huge influence on them.

<comment><USER50> The jury wasn't involved; juries convict, judges sentence.

<comment><USER49> I was assuming the sentence was spoken during the trial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Gross miscarriage of justice. People have a right to buy drugs.

Every single government actor involved in this case is far more guilty than Ross and, frankly, they are the ones that deserve prison.

Yes, Ross should have realized you can't massively break the law and get away with it. He made a big mistake.

But the mistake he made was assuming that other people were more benevolent than they really are.

This young man viewed the world with a child-like, rosy-eyed perspective, and for that, he gets crushed by the boot of government brutality.

Disclaimer: I have no involvement with any dark nets or online drug trade.

edit: I don't know if he hired hitmen and if he did, I suspect it was in his own defense.

<comment><USER30> > Gross miscarriage of justice. People have a right to buy drugs.

Legally, they do not. If you have a problem with that, take it up with (relevant to the federal laws at issue here) the Congress.

<comment><USER52> That's very unlikely to work, now what?

<comment><USER30> > That's very unlikely to work, now what?

Try harder, like by working to convince the public that such a right should exist, so that other people join you in your effort to convince Congress to change the law.

<comment><USER52> Also very unlikely to work unless you happen to be extremely talented at this and spend your life doing it. And even then, it could take decades.

<comment><USER30> Yes, radically changing everyone's idea about what rights should exist is hard.

Of course, you haven't provided any argument _here_ for your position on rights, just a bald statement that the right you would like to exist does, as if that were some kind of uncontroversial, universally-accepted thing that required no justification.

<comment><USER52> And you've made a bald statement equivocating between the morality of legality of something.

Would you like a list of examples where extremely illegal actions are clearly and controversially moral, or can you think of historical examples yourself?

<comment><USER30> > And you've made a bald statement equivocating between the morality of > legality of something.

No, I haven't. "Equivocating" is, you know, pretty exactly the opposite of "expressly disambiguating".

> Would you like a list of examples where extremely illegal actions are > clearly and controversially moral

Presuming you mean "clearly and uncontroversially", no.

Though if you are arguing that "the right to buy drugs" is in that category, I'd like to see an argument for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Jyoti Saran had 15,000 customers a week, made 200 million dollars, and was filling 3,000 orders per day.

Sentence? 12 years.

Rick Ross _was_ sentences to life. For 100kg of cocaine. Sentence was reduced to 20 years.

So, we will see what happens to Ulbricht.

My guess is that the life will stick, though. After all, this involved computers.

<comment><USER54> A cursory Google search does not reveal much about this Jyoti Saran other than the details of his indictment [1] and the auction of his Arlington mansion[2].

Is little else known about this figure, even as he is nearing completion of his prison term?

[1] [http://www.justice.gov/usao/txn/PressRel09/saran_sen_pr.html](http://www.justice.gov/usao/txn/PressRel09/saran_sen_pr.html)

[2] [http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487038592045755264...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703859204575526421570642784)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> > The 31-year-old physics graduate and former boy scout was handed five > sentences: one for 20 years, one for 15 years, one for five and two for > life. All are to be served concurrently with no chance of parole.

Meanwhile:

> Hu Wanlin was in prison for human trafficking. That didn't stop him from > opening a medical practice while jailed. Once he was released after a > retrial in 1997, Hu treated hundreds of patients with an herbal remedy that > actually contained sodium sulphate. 146 people died of his treatments. He > was arrested in 1999 and sentenced to 15 years in prison for practicing > medicine without a license.

146 people dead.. 15 years in prison.

Run a website that helps people connect with drug dealers.. multiple life sentences.

<comment><USER56> You are comparing two completely different legal systems (US vs China) and you are surprised there is a difference?

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Life without parole seems excessive. I think they're trying to make an example out of him due to how hard it is to detect and prosecute this type of crime.

<comment><USER58> It's life, not life without parole. He'll get paroled, eventually.

People should read some of the background, including haggling over the cost of a murder for hire. - [http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk- road-2/](http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/)

Truth is, it's hard to run this sort of thing without getting ripped off, and then violence is the only way to discourage people from ripping you off. Watch Godfather movies, esp. part 2... Mafias arise out of human nature and the nature of the game.

One of the many ironies of libertarian extremists is that actions which are considered illegitimate when taken by a democratic government become OK when taken by concentrated private power to protect private property.

<comment><USER59> > One of the many ironies of libertarian extremists is that actions which are > considered illegitimate when taken by a democratic government become OK when > taken by concentrated private power to protect private property.

Huh? Libertarian extremists do not condone murder or murder-for-hire. Most libertarian extremists also support proportional self-defense and damages doctrine (Rothbard et al) so would not consider murdering someone who steals from you acceptable.

<comment><USER60> They might consider killing someone who has threatened to reveal information to a brigade of killers that will kidnap and imprison, or outright kill people who have trusted and relied upon them to protect those people from such actions as at the very least worthy of consideration.

That was the situation here; party A attempts to blackmail party B with revealing the identities of group C to entity D which will then ruin the lives of all people within group C. Is it _definitely_ right or wrong to hire somebody to kill party A? What duty of care does party B owe group C? Entity D exists and is not going away and will continue to behave in the fashion which party A relies upon as the stick in the equation. Attacking entity D directly is suicidal and ineffective.

If party A was directly threatening to kidnap and imprison or murder all the people in group C, I think aggressive action against them would be much less questionable, and effectively that _is_ what they are actually doing, given the behaviour of entity D.

Putting all those pieces in place already, what is the appropriate response supposed to actually be?

Any way you look at it, it's certainly an interesting situation that people who otherwise would think there was no problem here must take into account. It's all well and good to believe the state is a gang of thieves and murderers writ large (disclaimer; I certainly do), and go about constructing a parallel strategy to circumvent them, but that strategy can't just _ignore_ them, or the consequences of their existence, either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I'm not sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, the kid rolled the dice in a high stakes game and was fully penalized. On the other hand, the logical basis behind the prohibition of illicit substances seems flawed.

I wonder how things would have turned out without the murder for hire angle.

</comment><comment><USER62> The cost of imprisoning someone as of 2010: 31,000 USD per years.[1]

Ross is 31 years old, so he may live for 40 years. That mean imprisoning this man will cost the US taxpayer 1.4 million USD in lifetime cost.

This doesn't take into account opportunity cost, expenses for trial, the cost of the drug war, and so on.

[1] [http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/inside-criminal- justice/2...](http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/inside-criminal- justice/2012-02-the-high-cost-of-prisons-using-scarce-resources-wise)

<comment><USER63> The government seized Bitcoin worth many millions from him, so they're still ahead.

<comment><USER64> Which came from the people anyways…?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> > But prosecutors, in their memo, argued that praising Silk Road for "harm > reduction measures" was "akin to applauding a heroin dealer for handing out > a clean needle with every dime bag: The point is that he has no business > dealing drugs in the first place."

Lovely.

<comment><USER66> Mistaking some delusional world of zero crime doesn't do any good for people living in reality. That 'moral dealer' who hands out clean needles would be doing good. I guess the moral high-ground is ignoring the number of users who die or contract diseases from dirty needles? That's a pretty fucked perspective.

I see an issue with treating drug users (esp. recreational drug users) as somehow "less than human" because of their choices. If a heroin user dies or contracts disease from using a dirty needle, that is a sad thing and I would applaud a dealer who hands out clean needles to his clients to prevent it. Regardless of my stance on drugs and drug users.

<comment><USER65> Yes exactly, the reasoning proceeds from this silly world of "shoulds" which does not actually exist. In the actually-existing world, people buy drugs, and so there is value in addressing that demand as safely as possible. Instead we have cynical people like these, talking about how the _real_ right thing is to just not sell drugs at all.

(And that's not even getting into the issue of whether we should be allowed to have drugs as supposedly free people)

<comment><USER66> I originally read the parent quote in a non-sarcastic tone and thought you were supportive of their line of reasoning.

(Libertarians say hi.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Black markets exist because demand exists, whether we like it or not, whether we think it's good or bad. Black markets are self regulated and that is why you see so much violence in the illegal drug market. Restricting supply drives up prices and profit and increases incentives to increase supply. This is a vicious never ending cycle.

Ross was tempted by helping to increase supply. Maybe if we had a legal and regulated location where you could do any drugs but under the supervision of counselors we could help reduce demand and end the cycle.

I believe a church in the Netherlands did this in their basement. They provided discounted heroin that could only be used there and addicts reduced their consumption and had access to counselors.

I am not supporting what Ross did to give access to illegal drugs, I just believe because there is such demand trying to reduce supply is a losing battle where only law enforcement equipment supply companies win.

<comment><USER6> You don't really have to just believe. It isn't even the fifty years of historical evidence on the contrary in the US, it is how almost every nation south of the US boarder in our hemisphere has been systemically destroyed trying to supply all of the black market US drug needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> FTA: "Judge Forrest told Mr. Urlbricht that "what you did in connection with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric.""

Can't help but counter this claim by stating that buying drugs via Silk Road is probably not very destructive in any sane analysis, especially compared to street level drug dealing.

There's no corners to hold, no rivals to fight with territory over, no deals to go bad, no real access by minors, and no real impedance to the function of any tangible physical location or bystander.

<comment><USER69> Edit: I didn't know he ordered ordered 5 hits before writing this post, but i'm going to leave it up. I guess he got desperate and crazy towards the end

Seriously. The way he invokes the words "our social fabric" makes it out like Forrest was personally affected. It's easy to imagine Urlbricht rehabilitating and becoming a productive member of society but instead his life has just been destroyed. It's not justice and it's not the right thing to do.

If one person decides to put another person in a cage for the rest of their life, it's clearly a horrendous stomach turning crime. It's no less horrendous when the justice system does it. But we've decided that it's a necessary evil that society requires. We should be working as a society to minimize the necessary evil and rehabilitate people but we're not and it's a tragedy.

<comment><USER70> _I didn 't know he ordered ordered 5 hits before writing this post, but i'm going to leave it up. I guess he got desperate and crazy towards the end_

Just to throw out an observation: the idea that being in this business kicked off a spiral of actions which led to him being "crazy and desperate" to the point of trying to have people killed is _precisely_ the argument that's been made by people who support the drug war, about the slippery slope of consequences that follow from getting involved with drugs.

I am not sure why someone who so perfectly embodies the other side's narrative is being held up as a shining heroic example by supporters of legalization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> His trailblazing has parallels to Sean Parker.

Of course, liberating music was hardly as valuable to society as removing the need for bloodbaths to distribute drugs. But what are you going to do.

<comment><USER15> He didn't quite remove that need according to prosecution evidence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> I think that this is completely disproportionate. He is being treated as if he was a serial killer or a mob-boss. Hell, even Al Capone was only sentenced to 11 years in Prison.

<comment><USER73> Capone was sentenced to eleven years for tax evasion, not more serious criminal offenses.

<comment><USER74> Right, but everyone knew that he'd had people whacked, and maybe even done some whacking himself.

Just like the not-very-explicit "murder for hire" used to justify the astonishing sentence given Ulbricht.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> "What you did in connection with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric".

That sounds like something from the 19th century.

</comment><comment><USER76> This has nothing to do with what he did. They're making an example of him.

</comment><comment><USER77> It looks like the lessons here are

1) Be careful how your promote your criminal enterprise (early bitcoin talk pages about silk road are from Ross)

2) Don't commit a crime to cover up a lesser crime (Covering up running silk road by trying to commit murder by hire)

3) regularaly check the IP of your service that is running a TOR site. Requests sent to that IP should have been blocked.

<comment><USER21> The real lesson should be don't serious commit crimes. I don't know any organization that has never had a security fuck up.

<comment><USER74> _The real lesson should be don 't serious commit crimes._

The whole of morality is not contained by the law. How about those folks who broke apartheid law by going to the University of Alabama? I stipulate that operational security is not exactly part of breaking apartheid laws, but still...

Copyright laws are going way way overboard. How about breaking those laws in order to expose corruption? That could happen, easily. "Don't commit serious crimes" is advice for the conformist.

<comment><USER21> Well now he is going to conform his ass to federal prison for his entire life.

Going to UofA during segregation wasn't a serious crime.

As a practical matter, civil disobedience is most effective when you aren't committing serious crimes.

Throwing a rock through a window to support coffee farmers in Guatemala is one thing. Bombing a logging operation is quite another.

Even if you think you are being moral, it's really stupid to commit serious crimes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Sentencing, based solely on creating/running the site, has more to do with the difficulty of finding, investigating and prosecuting these cases and therefore the value of harsh sentencing as a deterent to other current or would be offenders.

Effect might perhaps be to drive others who are or want to do this stuff to operate from Russia or other harder to reach places. It might have been wiser to keep him operating and under long term surveillance, and as such indirectly control the beast he created.

</comment><comment><USER79> What are the other sentences people have received for attempted murder/ hiring a hitman?

People seem to be hinging their "this is a relatively fair judgement" opinions on the fact that he attempted to/hired one or more hitmen for one or more hits...

If that's what they're prosecuting on, then there's precedent, right? Is that precedent life in prison?

While I don't agree/defend what Ulrich was doing, I think the sentence is heavy-handed. I think arguments can be made for life in prison being worse (or more cruel) than death. And if we compare his crimes to some of the things governments do (or allegedly do) behind closed doors, I wonder if this is really "justice".

I don't know if there's much merit to him "more safely distributing drugs", but I wonder if a sentence this heavy would have been issued elsewhere outside the US.

[EDIT] - Reading other posts, it seems like he wasn't actually charged/convicted for the attempted murder/hitman stuff. If that wasn't the case, then I disagree with the verdict that much more

[EDIT2] - People who are under the impressions that Snowden should have stayed in the US to face proper sentencing should also note the sentencing in this case. Circumstances are different, but, I'm pretty sure Snowden could have faced worse, since Treason is pretty high up there (and makes you eligible for the death penalty). Ironic given that we (american culture) iconize Nathan Hale ("I regret that I have but one life to give...")

</comment><comment><USER32> In a tragic miscarriage of justice, a man who made bucketloads of money from exploiting drug addiction and who hired hitmen, is sentenced. This innocent liar, drug dealer and moblord has been incorrectly sentenced for life. Free Ross Ulbricht, he never did anything wrong, except for all that stuff he did do.

Ross Ulbricht, who is tragically falsely accused of running Silk Road, is a hero for challenging the War on Drugs by definitely not selling drugs, and a nice guy.

</comment><comment><USER80> If there is any justice, maybe he'll get a pardon in 20-30 years for good behavior.

 _The government said they identified six individuals who overdosed and died of drugs they purchased on Silk Road. The parents of two of those individuals—25-year-old Bryan B. from Boston and 16-year-old Preston B. from Perth, Australia—spoke at Friday's sentencing, pleading emotionally to the judge to give Mr. Ulbricht a harsh sentence._

More people die of prescription and OTC drugs.

</comment><comment><USER81> So he gets life for starting and operating a shady business that was "terribly destructive to our social fabric" and "lowered the barriers to obtaining illegal [goods and services]".

Great. Now that we have a solid benchmark for the minimum level of criminality possible to get a lifetime imprisonment sentence, we can finally start prosecuting those responsible for the financial fraud that caused the last recession. It was pretty destructive to our social fabric. There was a lot of bar-lowering going on, too.

Right?

Hello?

Anyone?

[ _mic goes dead, and house lights shut off_ ]

I guess I'll just go home, then.

In light of the differential between the outcomes of prosecutions of highly publicized crimes, I think perhaps he was convicted for " _failing to pay the minimum campaign contributions tax and lobbying tax on filthy lucre_ " and also got the mandatory minimum sentence for " _we need to make a really big example of this guy because we are totally unprepared to handle anyone smarter and more cautious than him_ ", with just a little shot of " _X on the Internet is a thousand times worse than X in person_ ".

</comment><comment><USER82> Because real, actual murder isn't a serious enough crime for Life in Prison.

<comment><USER83> It's his fault for getting into the wrong business. If he only laundered drug cartel money like HSBC, he would have just paid a fine.

<comment><USER75> HSBC? You mean Wachovia? Or HSBC is at it too?

<comment><USER84> HSBC were deep into it

[http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/10/news/companies/hsbc-money- la...](http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/10/news/companies/hsbc-money-laundering/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Fuck the war on drugs

<comment><USER86> It saddens me that acknowledging the war on drugs as being corrosive and detrimental is seen as extreme by mainstream modern society. Few seem to question extreme punishments for crimes related to the manufacture or distribution of drugs.

<comment><USER87> It's not that extreme of an opinion. What is extreme is thinking the Ross Ulbricht is somehow a champion against the war on drugs, or that his conviction should be considered as representative of a pattern.

Either way, people don't question these punishments because they don't fear them. And the don't fear them because they don't aspire to be drug lords or murderers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> Other figures running drug distribution operations at this scale stay physically outside the US and build up paramilitary defense/enforcement. They either face an identical fate to Ross or meet a violent end.

This is not a surprising outcome in any way, and his use of the Internet rather than traditional methods absolves him of nothing.

</comment><comment><USER89> I knew Ross for a few years in college. I find it almost inconceivable to believe that he tried to have people killed. I also find the sentence completely disproportionate to the 7 charges he was tried and convicted of. This is a sad day.

edit: I also understand the point that his hiring the hitman was an overt act under one of the other charges, but, speaking as someone who is not a lawyer, it seems to me that such a weighty punishment should have to be based on a much more explicit charge than this. I sincerely doubt that they would have been able to make the case for life in prison if not for the murder-for-hire angle, and as such i think it should have been charged. This seems like a dishonest and sneaky way to prosecute someone. Of course, i have my biases.

</comment><comment><USER90> This isn't really surprising. I think most "drug kingpins" would be able to get much shorter sentences by agreeing to turn in a bunch of smaller dealers. It seems like Ross' work was pretty solitary, so that wasn't really an option for him.

</comment><comment><USER91> Everyone seems to be looking at this as some sort of travesty of justice. However, there is significant evidence that he tried to order hits on people. While there's no (public) evidence that he successfully murdered anyone, he clearly had lost his regard for human life.

We're in a day and age where people can cause tremendous harm to others using their mind alone, without throwing a punch or pulling a trigger. Just because he didn't personally cause physical harm to people doesn't mean he can't cause it to happen!

I think it's important for society to be protected from people with his mindset.

<comment><USER92> From other comments, it seems he wasn't tried for that stuff though. I don't think it's a good thing to include considerations in sentencing that he wasn't tried for. If there's evidence he did that, and you want to put him away for a long time because of it, then try him for it!

Punishing him for that without trying him for it seems like punishment without trial, which is bad. The alternative is that this punishment is just for nonviolent stuff, for which it seems excessive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> I'd say it's an unfair sentence, given that with bitcoin & a decentralized approach, it is unlikely that future versions of this sort of thing will be stoppable by any centralized government. They stopped & sued Napster. Did it stop file sharing? I think the government misplayed their cards -- again. Better to have partnered with Ulbricht -- and had a part in creating whatever future version of the market would be. Better to get some market share in whatever comes next -- then make some big busts that way.

<comment><USER94> >it is unlikely that future versions of this sort of thing will be stoppable by any centralized government

Silk road 2 has already been busted.

<comment><USER95> What about Abraxas, BlackBank, Agora, KISS, Outlaw, East India Company, Babylon, Oxygen, The Real Deal, Bloomsfield, and The Crypto Market?

<comment><USER94> I don't know. But hinging the argument on bitcoin and decentralization seems short-sighted and letting yourself fall into the same traps as the guys who have been busted.

<comment><USER93> Well I have no idea what will be the ultimate version of this, but like all ideas, it will probably continue to evolve and improve itself. software is just codified ideas you know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> As I stated much earlier (I believe it was during pre-trial), Ulbricht was convicted in the court of public opinion, even before he went to trial.

Some may hail this sentence as a victory for justice or some similar nonsense, but there is a deeper problem here. Civil liberties continue to be eroded at an extremely alarming rate in this country that the concept of "justice" applies in a very political context. It's pretty much a joke.

The message here is that if you attempt to live outside of this current system, you will be punished.

</comment><comment><USER97> > Judge Forrest told Mr. Urlbricht that "what you did in connection with Silk > Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric."

Certainly his actions were destructive to a social fabric, or elements thereof. However, I don't think that anyone of good sense takes too seriously the nightmarish visions of a total collapse of order that Forrest's words summon to mind if the site had been left to run. The alternatives do not reduce to the current structure of a fabric and no fabric at all.

Nor does the charge itself make any particular sense, at least in terms of ideals to hold to. Progress is always built on the destruction, partial or total, of a previous way of life. Thus, when destruction becomes impossible, the liabilities that history places upon us, both in terms of mistakes and in terms of functions which no longer match the demands of life, come to dominate all attempts to adapt society to a more fitting form.

The sentence is, at least on those grounds, a farce. Some social fabrics should be destroyed - that something _better_ may take their place. I'm not going to advocate either way on whether that's the case here, but to imprison someone simply because they perform an act with such a function is to reduce yourself to a tyrant.

</comment><comment><USER98> Have any of the carding forum operators been sentenced to life in prison? Or any prison time? Or even been arrested?

I say this as someone who just found out he's had $500 stolen from him. Of course I half blame the banks and credit card processors who allow card numbers to be passed around so easily.

</comment><comment><USER99> As an aside, since this is HN, I thought some portion of the audience here might be interested to know that the code for the Silk Road marketplace appears to have been in PHP, using CodeIgniter as the framework:

[http://www.wired.com/2015/01/heres-secret-silk-road- journal-...](http://www.wired.com/2015/01/heres-secret-silk-road-journal- laptop-ross-ulbricht/)

"In any case, I decided to rewrite the site in an mvc framework as suggested by my benevolent hacker adviser. So, while still manually processing transactions and responding to a bigger and bigger message load, I learned to use codeigniter and began rewriting the site."

</comment><comment><USER100> Perhaps if he had made even a token effort to not permit illegal sales on SilkRoad he'd be hailed as the new Jeff Bezos. Instead, he'll be denounced as a drug peddling fraudster. A shame; I thought his ideas had merit.

<comment><USER52> No, he'd have been a shitty competitor to eBay no one would have ever heard of. Illegality is/was the whole point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> Like many commentators here, I am tremendously opposed to the prohibitionist approach to law-enforcement of any sort.

One of the greatest tragedies of prohibition (and there are a multitude), is that it transfers so much money and other resources into the hands of existing criminal organisations. It also creates criminals as these profits incentivise illicit trade and legislates users as criminals.

That being said, what Ulbricht was doing was clearly nefarious and the punishment should come as no surprise.

</comment><comment><USER102> For what charges exactly - did they sentence him for murder or planned murder now? Or just for distributing narcotics? It seems rather weird.

<comment><USER28> Here's a list I found:

Narcotics trafficking, distribution of narcotics by means of the Internet, and conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identification documents, participation in narcotics trafficking conspiracy, continuing criminal enterprise, computer hacking conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy.

Source: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2014/08/25/alleged- si...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2014/08/25/alleged-silk-road- creator-ross-ulbricht-hit-with-three-new-drug-and-identity-fraud-charges/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER103> Ross Ulbricht did more to civilize the drug trade, to prevent the violence and mayhem associated with dealing drugs, than any law.enforcement agency anywhere in the world ever has, and I can't wait for the day we finally abolish prisons and acknowledge this tragedy.

</comment><comment><USER100> On the surface the sentence seems a bit steep doesn't it? I expect it's because he attempted to have at least two people killed. I don't think either case succeeded but there was clearly intent to murder.

</comment><comment><USER104> I don't know enough about this story to have an overall opinion, but this particular exchange made me angry:

> His lawyer, Joshua L. Dratel, in submissions to the judge, argued that the > website's "harm reduction" ethos made it safer than traditional drug dealing > on the street.

> But prosecutors, in their memo, argued that praising Silk Road for "harm > reduction measures" was "akin to applauding a heroin dealer for handing out > a clean needle with every dime bag: The point is that he has no business > dealing drugs in the first place."

When one side of the argument is based in real-world impacts, and the other side has nothing but an appeal to existing rules, it's a pretty good indication that the rules need changing.

It's an infuriating power play to say "you had no business doing that" if you can't come up with a good reason why not.

<comment><USER105> Bear in mind that prosecutors have a professional duty to zealously argue the government's case just as the defense lawyers have a duty to zealously argue for innocence or lenity of their clients. Unfortunately judges no longer have that much discretion to weigh the competing arguments because of the mandatory sentencing guidelines Congress came up with. It has since been established by the Supreme Court that the guidelines are just guidelines rather than being binding, but sadly any judge that says 'these guidelines are crap, I've considered them and now I'm going to ignore them' is committing career suicide unless the high sentence would be so bizarre as to truly shock the conscience.

And the American legal conscience unfortunately has a very high shock threshold these days, as does the population in general. I mean, look at how many people cheerfully support torture despite the massive intellectual and ethical pitfalls involved. Many of those people are also indifferent to the Constitutional basis of the judicial branch and start foaming at the mouth any time a court says a piece of legislation is unconstitutional.

<comment><USER104> My understanding is that this entire discussion is in the context of sentencing, and that the defense's argument here is in that context.

If the defense had made the harm reduction argument in the context of the guilty/not-guilty question, that would be one thing. But in the sentencing phase, it seems appropriate to take into account the actual harm of the crimes involved.

When the prosecution's answer to this discussion of harm is "it doesn't matter, it was illegal," that's when I get cranky.

<comment><USER81> _Lex talionis_ has been a part of human legal tradition for at least 3700 years. The retaliatory penalty shall be equal or lesser than the harm caused by the crime.

This is a big problem with victimless crimes and offenses against the public welfare. The extent of actual harm to actual people cannot be easily measured, so there is no rational limit upon punishments levied against the offenders.

Evidence that a criminal intentionally acted in such a way as to reduce the potential harms wrought by his crimes is _VERY_ relevant to sentencing, in my opinion. The same holds true for malice and negligence.

For instance, if you sell heroin, that's illegal. If you refused to sell heroin to people younger than 18, and also embargoed and beat the excrement out of anyone you discovered to be passing heroin on to minors, that would still be pretty awful. But it would also show that you were making some attempt to be less awful than you could be. If, perhaps, you kidnapped any customer who lost his job, and forced him to dry out and clean up in your own private rehab, that would still be pretty nasty. But it would also show a commitment to reduction of harm. You should probably get a below-median sentence, as punishments for drug kingpins go.

Contrariwise, if you keep your drug stash and your loaded shotgun in your baby's crib, then screw you, buddy; you're getting the maximum on all counts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER106> Nice show trial. The US justice system is a joke. Cops regularly murder unarmed citizens - nothing. The 'evidence' used to convict Mr Ulbricht should have been inadmissable as it was obtained illegally.

</comment><comment><USER107> So what confuses me now is what happens if prohibition ends in ~20 years. Does he have any hope of re-evaluation then, assuming the Government decides not to separately prosecute the other crimes?

<comment><USER30> > So what confuses me now is what happens if prohibition ends in ~20 years. > Does he have any hope of re-evaluation then, assuming the Government decides > not to separately prosecute the other crimes?

An act becoming legal after one has been sentenced for it generally has no effect on past sentences. Executive actions like pardon are possible, but are not in any way necessarily impacted by changes in the legality of the act for which one was convicted. (Though, the same changes in the political landscape which produce changes to the law may influence the politics of discretionary executive actions like pardons.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> Creating a platform that can be used to buy/sell illegal goods shouldn't be against the law IMO. Are car manufacturers thrown in jail when someone drives their product when drunk?

<comment><USER109> No, because the vast majority of people driving are obeying the law (or at least are committing very minor crimes). In contrast, the vast majority of people on Silk Road were buying and selling illegal goods.

It boils down to intent. If you intend to make a legitimate platform for commerce that _also happens to be used_ for illegal stuff, (Craigslist, for example) you're in the clear as long as you aren't actively aiding them.

In contrast, if you set up your platform with the explicit intention of selling illegal goods, then you're in trouble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER110> The thing that you need to take from this is the state re-asserting its primacy in the face of an incredibly disruptive* technology. I think that even if Ulbricht hadn't attempted to have people murdered the penalty would have been extreme. When challenged bureaucracy over compensates...through that lens the governments actions in several areas is explainable if not just.

* I'm sorry for using the word "disruptive".

<comment><USER111> > I'm sorry for using the word "disruptive".

I have the same amount of guilt you do when I use that word. But in this case I think it was probably the best word. Annoying when normal words get reclassed into buzzwords.

</comment></comment><comment><USER112> This sentence seems pretty disproportionate to the crime. Pretty fucked up at a human level too.

</comment><comment><USER113> Wouldn't the USPS/FedEx/UPS also be liable as a drug courrier?

<comment><USER114> No. Intent and context matters. USPS/FedEx/UPS are businesses that primarily perform legal services, and follow US laws when its discovered that they were used for illicit purposes. On the other hand, Silk Road was built from the bottom up as a black market to service illegal goods. The idea that they just provided an anonymous marketplace and that unfortunately had illegal stuff happen on it is transparent lie that ignores the work Ross and his team put into promoting it as a drug marketplace.

Context and intent are important and laws aren't computer programs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER115> This has made me feel so incredibly sad. Came to HN just to read the comments, I feel so much for him, I wish I could help him.

I hope we can change the way our society punishes it's members.

</comment><comment><USER116> "We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint..." \- Robert Falcon Scott

<comment><USER117> Perfect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER118> He is a political prisoner.

</comment><comment><USER119> I think it's great that his LinkedIn page is still online.

<comment><USER120> So it is! You would think the first thing he would have done given access to the internet would be to take it down.

Kind of suggests he hasn't even been online since the day he was arrested, crazy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER121> This is insanity! Life imprisonment for starting a website?!? Where are the "kingpin" charges for these guys [http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=...](http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13889)

</comment><comment><USER43> Total circus.

Torture people for the government and you dont even get a warning.

How do people continue believe they live in a society governed by law? It governed by naked, corrupt power.

</comment><comment><USER122> After reading comments here and on arstechnica, I'm terrified by the number of people who still seem to blindly trust our government and support the drug war.

Another scary thing is how many people have "convicted" this guy of things that he was never convicted of, and used those things as a point from which to justify his sentence here.

</comment><comment><USER123> The silent majority agrees with this sentence.

<comment><USER46> Why would anyone _disagree_ with this sentence, unless someone thinks having people killed is a normal part of business?

<comment><USER124> Because that's not what he was charged with?

<comment><USER46> Yes, it was.

<comment><USER124> No, it was not.

<comment><USER46> Yes, it was: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9627200](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9627200)

Or if you want to go straight to the source, see item 10b on page 5 of: [http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao- sdny/legacy/...](http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao- sdny/legacy/2015/03/25/US%20v.%20Ross%20Ulbricht%20Indictment.pdf)

As far as I can tell, the only reason people are saying he wasn't convicted of murder for hire is because the top-level charge is "conspiracy" or somesuch, with "murder for hire" as one of the specific conspiracy items, and they haven't dug down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER125> Let's not forget that this guy got the same sentence as the Boston Marathon bomber.

<comment><USER126> Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to the death penatly. Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison.

</comment></comment><comment><USER127> _I strongly believe that my son would be here today if Ross Ulbricht had not created Silk Road_

Wrong, you're son would be here if you were a better parent.

<comment><USER128> You don't know that.

For some kids better parents mean better behavior. But some kids will act badly no matter what their parents do.

It sucks to say this, but some people just have bad genes, and there is nothing someone outside can do to help.

<comment><USER127> Well then it's just natural selection. Unless his son managed to reproduce already... Then it's just a horrible cycle of pain and blame.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> My condolences go to the mutual friends Ross and I share.

Honestly, I don't have much sympathy for him directly (due to his complete and utter stupidity and lack of opsec), but I know this is going to hurt some people I care about, people who were good friends with Ross back in college, and I feel bad for _them_.

<comment><USER129> The amount of ego in this comment is astounding

</comment></comment><comment><USER130> Sad to see him get life, but I'm going to withhold my opinions beyond that statement because I know the feds will read this one day. Fuckers.

</comment><comment><USER131> I wonder why people assume Ulbricht tried to have someone killed? History has proven time and time again that police and prosecutors will fabricate information to get a conviction or even get bail removed. I wouldn't put it past the prosecution and DEA to stoop to such low-handed tactics.

<comment><USER132> The best information available suggests that he actively solicited hitmen. Yes, I suppose if you take the position that "absolutely anything incriminating is fabricated" then you could claim he didn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> Amazing. Write software, make billions. Write some other software, get life in prison.

<comment><USER133> Incredible. Fire a gun at a deer, get meat. Fire a gun at a baby, get life in prison.

Intransigent. Set a log on fire, keep warm. Set a house on fire, get convicted of insurance fraud and arson.

<comment><USER93> I was just thinking what it may have been like from his perspective. To him, it was the same set of actions as was required to start something like AirBnb or some such. You write software. You get your initial users, etc. You get feedback & you loop.

With the same set of actions & work, pointing in a different direction, he could have done quite well for himself working on another idea.

I'm guessing his biggest downfall really was in having an aversion to working with others. He could work with others at a startup and make some great stuff & quite possibly do well. Instead, he chose a more sure fire approach to making money on his own -- with the morality and legality of what he was doing as the cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER134> Wow, that's almost unbelievable and very sad. I mean, it's questionable whether he caused any actual harm.

<comment><USER135> Hiring a hitman?

<comment><USER136> That's just a rumor until he's convicted of it.

<comment><USER135> He hired an undercover cop. How guilty does he have to be?

<comment><USER136> He wasn't convicted, so in the eyes of the law he is still innocent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER137> You could make an argument that the alleged murder for hire attempts were simply self defense. The consequence of being exposed is life in prison, and I don't think any of us can say with certainty how far we'd go to avoid life in prison. It's not like he was trying to have innocent bystanders murdered. If selling drugs was not a crime, there would be no opportunity for blackmail, and nobody to silence.

<comment><USER137> I knew it wouldn't be a popular angle, but maybe some counterpoints along with those down votes please?

<comment><USER138> You don't get to claim self-defense when your own illegal actions led to the situation. Nor when there isn't an immediate threat to injure you and threatening to expose your illegal actions just isn't going to cut it.

You can find further details here: [http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=864](http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=864)

It's written by an actual lawyer, in spite of being in comic format.

<comment><USER137> I didn't mean to imply that it could be considered self-defense according to the letter of the law. Just floating the scenario where you're running a business that, while illegal, is not morally wrong, and you're faced with the possibility of spending the rest of your life behind bars. What do you do?

<comment><USER138> They would tell you not to run that business because it's illegal. There are legitimate ways to protest a bad law and running an illegal business isn't one of them.

<comment><USER139> Let's put it in other terms.

You run a business in the 1800s that frees blacks from the South and transports them to the North. If caught, you risk some severe penalties, maybe even death.

Someone finds out and blackmails you. What do you do?

<comment><USER138> I think it might be better understood if I said 'legal' instead of 'legitimate'. The law, by its nature, cannot excuse breaking the law.

EDIT: Also, in your example, this was eventually fixed by changing the law, not by breaking it. And, to the best of my knowledge, everyone ran the underground railroad for free, not for profit.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>