Back in the early 90s when I ran a dial-up BBS in a small town, I would have been surprised and happy if one of the many shareware files on the BBS was ever downloaded more than one or two hundred times. Today, I see how many times the high-res versions of my photos on morgueFile have been downloaded -- around 175,000 -- and feel disappointed.

When I first started writing novels in the late 70s (yeah, yeah... showing how old I am), I would have been very happy if I could have had even a couple dozen people read what I'd written, and all of them would have been local to me. Now, the first novel that I published on Amazon has been downloaded for free thousands of times by people all over the world (you can get a copy via the link in this thread) -- but I'm disappointed.

As recently as the beginning of this century, I could have reasonably reached out to a hundred people or so, maybe a little more. Now, with multiple social networks, I can reach out to thousands in my first and second degrees of separation. Yet... I'm disappointed my reach is so limited.

I was always a little fish in a big sea, and I'm still a little fish, but maybe I'm just more aware of it now. Celebrities like Emma Watson can potentially influence millions of people with a single Tweet. A popular author like Hugh Howey can post something on Wattpad and potentially have tens of thousands of people reading it in a matter of minutes or hours. I'm not even in the same ballpark... but I know people with less "reach" than what I have, so I can intellectually say that it's all a matter of scale... and still feel disappointed.

The passage of time, the advancement of technology, and the increase in a person's potential global reach can sure shift a person's perceptions. 

(Just some ramblings....)

The article does not say that TOR was broken, nor that TOR is "not anonymous anymore," nor that it has been "cracked by the FBI," nor that x% of nodes are controlled by the US federal government. What it does say, in addition to that there is "no reason to panic," is that nothing is perfectly secure (i.e., vulnerabilities are expected), that the Feds may have simply piggy-backed onto CERT research that was irresponsibly done in a live environment instead of in a lab, and (via a linked document) that the actual number of real sites (as opposed to scam/clone sites trying to fool people seeking the real ones) taken down in Operation Onymous was far lower than originally claimed. The CERT research in question apparently was oriented around the already-known "traffic confirmation" model of attack, and this instance was ostensibly stopped when the CERT nodes were given the boot and vulnerabilities that enabled the attack were patched.

As for the use of public WiFi, if (theoretically) I'm using TOR via Tails on non-writable optical disc in a laptop while I sit outside a retail store with a generous WiFi presence, what are the real odds that my anonymity for that session will be broken after I power down (assuming no ridiculous behavior such as posting something in public that literally announces who and where I am)? I've never even tried this, but the idea of securing a truly anonymous connection is intriguing. I suppose that should just be a hypothetical question since this thread is about Ross Ulbricht (and OJ Simpson???) and not my curiosity.

Pretty sure Google Translate and other products know how to spell "America" and "promoted" and "than" and....

OTOH, I can't speak any non-English language well enough to converse in a forum where it is used by native speakers, so I won't knock those who may struggle to participate in English when it's not their first language. Oh, for the mutual meeting ground dream of Esperanto.


At the federal level, the highest law in the land states that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Considering what is done to limit arms ownership and carry at the federal and state level via lower laws, apparently "shall not be infringed" is actually in a foreign language that means the exact opposite of English.

Yeah, pretty sure I didn't say that, so either try reading for comprehension or don't intentionally misrepresent what I wrote.



Viewed through a very statist lens, which clearly was not what I was supporting. Somebody in this thread said "government should get out of the way of peaceful transactions between consenting adults..." oh, wait, that was me. Not sure how your extradition fantasy is supported by government staying out of the way.



I guess you missed the "this is not the kind of discussion that should be done in haste and in private" part. And you might want to grok individual sovereignty and natural rights before making comments about how a treaty between nations could "change" individual sovereignty.

This is an anti-protectionism clause.

I'm a service supplier, I help indie authors format their books so they're ready to publish on Amazon and elsewhere. It's all digital. This is 2015, I can easily work with people around the world. I'm in the US, one of my clients is in Dubai. It looks like I'm about to gain a new client in France. Why should that person who wants to use my service be denied that, and why should I be denied the opportunity to provide that service, simply because I don't use computing facilities in France (or Germany, or whatever other country wanted to impose such a condition)?

From a libertarian perspective, government should get out of the way of peaceful transactions between consenting adults (whatever those transactions may be).

Screw national "sovereignty" how about individual sovereignty? Saying "you must use our computing facilities to do business here" is like saying "you must use our currency to do business here" -- not something I'd expect to see support for on a Bitcoin-focused forum! It's statist bullshit, to put it bluntly.

Are there privacy implications? There might be. And I agree that this is not the kind of discussion that should be done in haste and in private. But at least with respect to giving individuals the ability to do business without protectionist governments getting in the way, I'm all for it.

This isn't Kevin Mitnick we're talking about -- and Mitnick spent years in prison. I'm not deeply familiar with Ross's background, but nothing I've read so far indicated he was a "master hacker" -- a hacker, maybe, but mostly somebody who used existing tools to do what others had not done (at least not as successfully) and was, at least initially, very careful about security (which does not imply being a hacker at all).

So the phrases "two for life" and "no chance of parole" somehow escaped your comprehension?

Still unwilling to read what amazon4u wrote. Maybe bold red text would help you see it?


Personally I find it annoying when people claim that I'm saying the exact opposite of what I've said, but I won't speak for amazon4u.

Really? You use race in your response to a statement that does not refer to race... and then you say racial issues are "exactly what's wrong" with the system? Well, if you believe racial issues are the problem, then feel free to -- as the Michael Jackson song says -- start with the man in the mirror and "take a look at yourself, and then make a change." Or maybe when you reply to someone you should just set aside your own issues and see what they're trying to say (you know, like "locking people up is not the solution, re-educating them should be a main priority" which apparently escaped your notice).

No argument here, I agree. I consider it a glaring violation of the 8th Amendment. Rapists can get out of prison in under 10 years, murderers can get out in under 30, but somebody running an online market without the supervision and taxation of the government gets multiple life sentences...? The "powers that be" don't like having their power undermined, and they made clear that his sentencing was meant to make an example out of him to discourage others. Whether Ulbricht is a saintly martyr on the temple of libertarianism or a scum only out for money and power means nothing (and meant nothing to his sentencing). This case, and the sentence, was entirely about government power; it's a libertarian issue regardless of the character, actions, or intentions of the man in the middle of the storm.

Relevant to your tangent about how people may view him. Not relevant to the rest of the thread about his sentencing.

"Even if we could all agree" that "there is nothing that can can justify murder" ("murder" being an unfortunately malleable concept), that's irrelevant. The multiple life sentences he was given have nothing to do with the attempted murder charge. There were seven charges behind this excessive sentencing, none of which are for crimes with direct victims, unlike (attempted) murder. And convicted murderers can do less time, so even if the attempted murder charge was somehow relevant, it still does not justify Ulbricht's sentencing.

Three charges were for crimes related to the "war on drugs" which was a failure from the very moment it was conceived, one is merely "you're a bad guy according to us," one is ridiculous starting with the very title of it (ooooh, computer "hacking"), and two are about government control over citizens (regarding money and identity documentation).

The charges were:

• Distribution/Aiding and Abetting the Distribution of Narcotics
• Distribution/Aiding and Abetting the Distribution of Narcotics by Means of the Internet
• Conspiracy to Distribute Narcotics
• Continuing Criminal Enterprise
• Conspiracy to Commit or Aid and Abet Computer Hacking
• Conspiracy to Traffic in Fraudulent Identity Documents
• Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering

See: Reference
Also see: 8th Amendment to the US Constitution

That hasn't been true for decades. In fact, even when the US did fairly wide bombing of cities in WWII, there was no consensus supporting that strategy.

Micromanaged air strikes, to avoid political repercussions? Where have we seen that before... oh, right:

A little history might explain why US training of other militaries doesn't work. During the Normandy invasion in WWII, the Germans were solid fighters but were overwhelmed by the sheer amount of material the Allied forces were plowing into the continent. A "will to fight" is meaningless when bombs and artillery shells are raining down and tearing apart man and machine (especially, in that case, with no effective air opposition from the Luftwaffe, giving the Allies air superiority).

The US has a history of arming others that they want to support, but "training" may be limited to how to use the gear (including coordination of forces). If it doesn't also include (and may not be possible to include) a solid will to fight, then you get what we see today -- US-backed fighters dropping their US-supplied gear and running away, and the enemy gaining the use of all that equipment.

The answer might seem to be US taxpayers demanding that their earnings not go toward this de-facto arming of "enemy" forces. That ignores too much, however, including decades of accumulation of effects, electoral politics, cultural myopia, and more. I can't offer a better answer, but I don't see this "answer" happening anytime soon -- or ever.

"Statists gonna state."



Two life terms from a judge in the Land of the Free. Because real freedom is a Bad Thing.

Good article, thanks for sharing the link!

Unfortunately, people don't want to think things through. Some of them can't, others are just too lazy. It's not about what's ethical, what's logical, what's connected to reality -- it's all about what makes someone feel good. Not everybody is like that, but you only need a majority....

I haven't been here for many months, but the hack/password-reset alert brought me back. While I'm here, I figured I'd share the option to freely download my novel, which I think some libertarian-leaning folks around here might enjoy reading.

You can see a little about Lesson One: Revolution! on Goodreads. On my site I have links to download the second edition in ePUB, MOBI, and/or PDF. No cost, no DRM, no info collected, no obligation (but an honest & thoughtful online review would be nice). Download a copy and give it a peek.

Never had the redirect problem. Could be client-side, are you sure your system was clean? Also, was this just hitting the front page or in "earn" mode? If in "earn" mode then maybe it was a framebreaker site that snuck through or changed after validation (if they manually check? don't remember).

Did get a payout the other day (a little on the slow side, but it still came through).

I've advertised there and plan to do so again.

As for the CISPA blackout, it makes sense to me -- I'm glad people are doing things to maximize the visibility of that nasty bit of legislation.

This doesn't really answer anything. Asking for the same information privately just takes away transparency rather than improving how the situation is being handled. So, specifically, how will they "fix the problem" for someone?

As mentioned above, I don't care about my token balance, either accumulated on CV or in my Instawallet wallet. For the former, I'd prefer that it was rolled back into the prize pot. I only ask how this is being handled because I'm curious and because those who do care -- specifically those with a large Instawallet balance potentially at risk -- should have a more concrete answer.