Also, since altoid directly posted a link to the Silk Road, I would guess (not sure) that Ulbricht argued in his court case that it wasn't actually his account. Maybe he wouldn't want to contradict his past testimony?
I tend to be on his side here, and I don't think this altoid was his account.
However, I am sure he had other forum accounts he used in early days and I would love to see him coming back and posting something in bitcointalk.
If he's going to rejoin here he'd probably be best just starting afresh with a new handle.
This is probably the best way to do it, but than we can always have some scammers registering new accounts and pretending to be Ross.