Silk Road was an online
black market
A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...
and the first modern
darknet market
A darknet market is a commercial website on the dark web that operates via darknets such as Tor or I2P. They function primarily as black markets, selling or brokering transactions involving drugs, cyber-arms, weapons, counterfeit currency, stole ...
.
It was launched in 2011 by its American founder
Ross Ulbricht
Ross William Ulbricht (born March 27, 1984) is an American serving life imprisonment for creating and operating the darknet market website Silk Road from 2011 until his arrest in 2013. The site operated as a hidden service on the Tor network ...
under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts". As part of the
dark web
The dark web is the World Wide Web content that exists on ''darknets'': overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access. Through the dark web, private computer networks can communi ...
, Silk Road operated as a
hidden service
Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to conc ...
on the
Tor network
Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to conc ...
, allowing users to buy and sell products and services between each other anonymously. All transactions were conducted with
bitcoin
Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...
, a
cryptocurrency
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...
which aided in protecting user identities. The website was known for its illegal drug marketplace, among other illegal and legal product listings.
In October 2013, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
(FBI) shut down Silk Road
and arrested Ulbricht.
Ars Technica
''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...
How the feds took down the Dread Pirate Roberts
, 3 October 2013 Silk Road 2.0 came online the next month, run by former site administrators,
but was shut down the following year as part of
Operation Onymous
Operation Onymous was an international law enforcement operation targeting darknet markets and other hidden services operating on the Tor network.
Background
Operation Onymous was formed as a joint law enforcement operation between the Federa ...
. In 2015, Ulbricht was convicted in federal court for multiple charges related to operating Silk Road and was given two
life sentences
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...
without possibility of
parole
Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...
.
History
Operations
The website was launched in February 2011;
development had begun six months prior.
The name "Silk Road" comes from a
historical network of trade routes started during the
Han Dynasty
The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...
(206
BCE
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
– 220 CE) between Europe, India, China, and many other countries on the Afro-Eurasian landmass.
Silk Road was operated by the
pseudonymous
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
"Dread Pirate Roberts" (named after the
fictional character
In fiction, a character (or speaker, in poetry) is a person or other being in a narrative (such as a novel, play, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life person, ...
from ''
The Princess Bride The Princess Bride may refer to:
* ''The Princess Bride'' (novel), 1973 fantasy romance novel by American writer William Goldman
William Goldman (August 12, 1931 – November 16, 2018) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He ...
''), who was known for espousing
libertarian
Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...
ideals and criticizing
regulation
Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. For ...
.
Two other individuals were also closely involved in the site's growth and success, known as
Variety Jones and Smedley
Variety Jones (aka Cimon) and Smedley (Smed) Charger are pseudonyms of individuals reported to have been closely involved with the founding of the darknet market Silk Road.
Involvement
According to security researcher Runa A. Sandvik, Variety Jo ...
.
In June 2011,
Gawker
''Gawker'' is an American blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers and based in New York City focusing on celebrities and the media industry. According to SimilarWeb, the site had over 23 million visits per month as of 2015. Founded in ...
published an article about the site
which led to an increase in notoriety and website traffic.
U.S. Senator
Charles Schumer
Charles Ellis Schumer ( ; born November 23, 1950) is an American politician serving as Senate Majority Leader since January 20, 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, Schumer is in his fourth Senate term, having held his seat since 1999, and ...
asked federal law enforcement authorities to shut it down, including the
Drug Enforcement Administration
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within th ...
(DEA) and
Department of Justice
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a v ...
.
In May 2013, Silk Road was taken down for a short period of time by a sustained
DDoS
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host
A ...
attack. On 23 June 2013, it was first reported that the DEA seized 11.02
bitcoin
Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...
s, then worth a total of $814, which the media suspected was a result of a Silk Road
honeypot sting. The FBI has claimed that the real IP address of the Silk Road server was found via data leaked directly from the site's
CAPTCHA
A CAPTCHA ( , a contrived acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") is a type of challenge–response test used in computing to determine whether the user is human.
The term was coined in 2003 ...
and it was located in
Reykjavík, Iceland. IT Security Experts have doubted the FBI's claims because technical evidence suggests that no misconfiguration that could cause the specific leak was present at the time.
Henry Farrell
Henry Farrell (September 27, 1920 – March 29, 2006) was an American novelist and screenwriter, best known as the author of the renowned gothic horror story '' What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?'', which was made into a film starring Bette ...
, an associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, analyzed Silk Road in an essay for
Aeon
The word aeon , also spelled eon (in American and Australian English), originally meant "life", "vital force" or "being", "generation" or "a period of time", though it tended to be translated as "age" in the sense of "ages", "forever", "timeles ...
in 2015. He noted that Ulbricht created the marketplace to function without government oversight but found it difficult to verify anonymous transactions. To sustain a steady stream of revenue, he started increasing oversight to ensure low
transaction cost
In economics and related disciplines, a transaction cost is a cost in making any economic trade when participating in a market. Oliver E. Williamson defines transaction costs as the costs of running an economic system of companies, and unlike produ ...
s. To do this, he added measures to ensure trustworthiness with implementation of an automated
escrow
An escrow is a contractual arrangement in which a third party (the stakeholder or escrow agent) receives and disburses money or property for the primary transacting parties, with the disbursement dependent on conditions agreed to by the transacti ...
payment system and automated review system.
Arrest and trial of Ross Ulbricht
![Bitcoin October 2013](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Bitcoin_October_2013.png)
Due, in part, to off-duty research conducted by IRS criminal investigator Gary Alford, Ross Ulbricht was alleged by the FBI to be the founder and owner of Silk Road and the person behind the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts" (DPR). He was arrested on 2 October 2013 in San Francisco
in Glen Park Library, a branch of the San Francisco Public Library
The San Francisco Public Library is the public library system of the city and county of San Francisco. The Main Library is located at Civic Center, at 100 Larkin Street. The library system has won several awards, such as ''Library Journals L ...
. Ulbricht was indicted on charges of money laundering
Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...
, computer hacking
A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...
, conspiracy to traffic narcotics, and attempting to have six people killed. Prosecutors alleged that Ulbricht paid $730,000 to others to commit the murders, although none of the murders actually occurred. Ulbricht ultimately was not prosecuted for any of the alleged murder attempts.
The FBI initially seized 26,000 bitcoins from accounts on Silk Road, worth approximately $3.6 million at the time. An FBI spokesperson said that the agency would hold the bitcoins until Ulbricht's trial finished, after which the bitcoins would be liquidated. In October 2013, the FBI reported that it had seized 144,000 bitcoins, worth $28.5 million, and that the bitcoins belonged to Ulbricht. On 27 June 2014, the U.S. Marshals Service
The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The USMS is a bureau within the U.S. Department of Justice, operating under the direction of the Attorney General, but serves as the enforcem ...
sold 29,657 bitcoins in 10 blocks in an online auction, estimated to be worth $18 million at contemporary rates and only about a quarter of the seized bitcoins. Another 144,342 bitcoins were kept which had been found on Ulbricht's computer, roughly $87 million. Tim Draper
Timothy Cook Draper (born June 11, 1958) is an American venture capital investor, and founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), bought the bitcoins at the auction with an estimated worth of $17 million, to lend them to a bitcoin start-up called Vaurum which is working in developing economies of emerging markets.
Ulbricht's trial began on 13 January 2015 in federal court in Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
. At the start of the trial, Ulbricht admitted to founding the Silk Road website, but claimed to have transferred control of the site to other people soon after he founded it. Ulbricht's lawyers contended that Dread Pirate Roberts was really Mark Karpelès
Mark Marie Robert Karpelès (born June 1, 1985), also sometimes known by his online alias MagicalTux, is the former CEO of bitcoin Digital currency exchanger, exchange Mt. Gox. Born in France, he moved to Japan in 2009.
Early life and education
...
, and that Karpelès set up Ulbricht as a fall guy. However, Judge Katherine B. Forrest
Katherine Bolan Forrest (born February 13, 1964) is a partner at New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, and a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New Yor ...
ruled that any speculative statements regarding whether Karpelès or anyone else ran Silk Road would not be allowed, and statements already made would be stricken from the record.[Bush, John (28 January 2015]
"Recapping Week Two of the Silk Road Trial".
TechCrunch. (Retrieved 30 Jan 2015).
In the second week of the trial, prosecutors presented documents and chat logs from Ulbricht's computer that, they said, demonstrated how Ulbricht had administered the site for many months, which contradicted the defense's claim that Ulbricht had relinquished control of Silk Road. Ulbricht's attorney suggested that the documents and chat logs were planted there by way of BitTorrent, which was running on Ulbricht's computer at the time of his arrest.
On 4 February 2015, the jury
A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartiality, impartial verdict (a Question of fact, finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a sentence (law), penalty o ...
convicted Ulbricht of seven charges, including charges of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and computer hacking. He faced 30 years to life in prison. The government also accused Ulbricht of paying for the murders of at least five people, but there is no evidence that the murders were actually carried out, and the accusations never became formal charges against Ulbricht.[Nicole Hong]
"Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison"
, ''Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', 29 May 2015.
During the trial, Judge Forrest received death threats. Users of an underground site called The Hidden Wiki
The Hidden Wiki was a dark web MediaWiki wiki operating as Tor hidden services that could be anonymously edited after registering on the site. The main page served as a directory of links to other .onion sites.
History
The first Hidden Wik ...
posted her personal information there, including her address and Social Security number. Ulbricht's lawyer Joshua Dratel said that he and his client "obviously, and as strongly as possible, condemn" the anonymous postings against the judge. "They do not in any way have anything to do with Ross Ulbricht or anyone associated with him or reflect his views or those of anyone associated with him", Dratel said.
In late March 2015, a criminal complaint issued by the led to the arrest of two former federal agents who had worked undercover in the Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
Silk Road investigation of Ulbricht, former Drug Enforcement Administration agent Carl Mark Force IV and Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges.[Two US agents charged over Silk Road](_blank)
. ''The Financial Times''. Retrieved on 31 March 2015. The agents are alleged to have kept funds that Ulbricht transferred to them in exchange for purported information about the investigation.[ The agents were charged with ]wire fraud
Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to fraud, defraud another, and are Federal crime in the United States, federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the ...
and money laundering
Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...
. In late November 2016, Ulbricht's lawyers brought forward a case on a third DEA agent, who they claim was leaking information about the investigation and tampered with evidence to omit chat logs showing conversations with him.
In a letter to Judge Forrest before his sentencing, Ulbricht stated that his actions through Silk Road were committed through libertarian
Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...
idealism and that "Silk Road was supposed to be about giving people the freedom to make their own choices" and admitted that he made a "terrible mistake" that "ruined his life". On 29 May 2015, Ulbricht was given five sentences
''The Four Books of Sentences'' (''Libri Quattuor Sententiarum'') is a book of theology written by Peter Lombard in the 12th century. It is a systematic compilation of theology, written around 1150; it derives its name from the ''sententiae'' o ...
to be served concurrently, including two of life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...
without the possibility of parole
Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...
. He was also ordered to forfeit
Forfeit or forfeiture may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Forfeit'', a 2007 thriller film starring Billy Burke
* "Forfeit", a song by Chevelle from ''Wonder What's Next''
* ''Forfeit/Fortune'', a 2008 album by Crooked Fingers
L ...
$183 million. Ulbricht's lawyer Joshua Dratel said that he would appeal
In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...
the sentencing and the original guilty verdict. On 31 May 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied Ulbricht's appeal, and affirmed the judgment of conviction and life sentence, in a written opinion authored by Gerard E. Lynch
Gerard Edmund Lynch (born September 4, 1951) is an American lawyer who serves as a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He was confirmed to that seat on September 17, 2009, after previo ...
, United States circuit judge. The Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
declined to review the case.
Other trials
In February 2013, an Australian cocaine
Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from t ...
and MDMA
3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), commonly seen in Tablet (pharmacy), tablet form (ecstasy) and crystal form (molly or mandy), is a potent empathogen–entactogen with stimulant properties primarily used for Recreational dru ...
("ecstasy") dealer became the first person to be convicted of crimes directly related to Silk Road, after authorities intercepted drugs that he was importing through the mail, searched his premises, and discovered his Silk Road alias in an image file on his personal computer. Australian police and the DEA have targeted Silk Road users and made arrests, albeit with limited success at reaching convictions. In December 2013, a New Zealand man was sentenced to two years and four months in jail after being convicted of importing 15 grams of methamphetamine
Methamphetamine (contracted from ) is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug and less commonly as a second-line treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity. Methamph ...
that he had bought on Silk Road.
23 year-old Dutch drug dealer Cornelis Jan "Maikel" Slomp pled guilty to large-scale selling of drugs through the Silk Road website, and was sentenced in Chicago to 10 years in prison on 29 May 2015 with his attorney, Paul Petruzzi, present. Dealer Steven Sadler was sentenced to five years in prison. There have been over 130 other arrests connected with Silk Road, although some of these arrests may not be directly related to Silk Road, and may not be public information due to legal reasons.
Later seizures
On 3 November 2020, after years of inactivity, observers of the bitcoin blockchain detected that two transactions totaling 69,370 bitcoin
Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...
and bitcoin cash
Bitcoin Cash is a cryptocurrency that is a fork of Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash is a spin-off or altcoin that was created in 2017.
In November 2018, Bitcoin Cash split further into two cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV.
History
Since i ...
, worth approximately $1 billion in total at the time of transfer, had been made from a bitcoin address associated with the Silk Road. At the time of transfer, it was worth 58 times its value in 2015. It was subsequently revealed that the transfer had been made by the United States government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...
in a civil forfeiture
Asset forfeiture or asset seizure is a form of confiscation of assets by the authorities. In the United States, it is a type of criminal-justice financial obligation. It typically applies to the alleged proceeds or instruments of crime. This a ...
action. According to a press release by the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of California
The United States Attorney for the Northern District of California is the United States Attorney responsible for representing the Federal government of the United States, federal government in the United States District Court for the Northern Dist ...
, the bitcoin wallet belonged to an "Individual X" who had originally acquired the bitcoins by hacking the Silk Road.
Products
In March 2013, the site had 10,000 products for sale by vendors, 70% of which were drugs.
Archive
[ Drugs were grouped under the headings ]stimulants
Stimulants (also often referred to as psychostimulants or colloquially as uppers) is an overarching term that covers many drugs including those that increase activity of the central nervous system and the body, drugs that are pleasurable and inv ...
, psychedelics
Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips").Pollan, Michael (2018). ''How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of ...
, prescription, precursors
Precursor or Precursors may refer to:
* Precursor (religion), a forerunner, predecessor
** The Precursor, John the Baptist
Science and technology
* Precursor (bird), a hypothesized genus of fossil birds that was composed of fossilized parts of un ...
, other, opioid
Opioids are substances that act on opioid receptors to produce morphine-like effects. Medically they are primarily used for pain relief, including anesthesia. Other medical uses include suppression of diarrhea, replacement therapy for opioid us ...
s, ecstasy, dissociative
Dissociatives, colloquially dissos, are a subclass of hallucinogens which distort perception of sight and sound and produce feelings of detachment – dissociation – from the environment and/or self. Although many kinds of drugs are capable of ...
s, and steroid
A steroid is a biologically active organic compound with four rings arranged in a specific molecular configuration. Steroids have two principal biological functions: as important components of cell membranes that alter membrane fluidity; and a ...
s/PED
Peds are aggregates of soil particles formed as a result of pedogenic processes; this natural organization of particles forms discrete units separated by pores or voids. The term is generally used for macroscopic (visible; i.e. greater than 1 mm i ...
s. Fake driver's licenses were also offered for sale. The site's terms of service prohibited the sale of certain items. When the Silk Road marketplace first began, the creator and administrators instituted terms of service that prohibited the sale of anything whose purpose was to "harm or defraud". This included child pornography
Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a chi ...
, stolen credit cards, assassinations, and weapons of any type; other darknet markets such as Black Market Reloaded gained user notoriety because they were not as restrictive on these items as the Silk Road incarnations were. There were also legal goods and services for sale, such as apparel
Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials and natural ...
, art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
, book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...
s, cigarette
A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opp ...
s, erotica
Erotica is literature or art that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erotic art may use a ...
, jewellery
Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry (U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a wester ...
, and writing services. A sister site, called "The Armoury", sold weapons (primarily firearms) during 2012, but was shut down, due to a lack of demand.
Buyers were able to leave reviews of sellers' products on the site and in an associated forum, where crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...
provided information about the best sellers and worst scammers. Most products were delivered through the mail, with the site's seller's guide instructing sellers how to vacuum-seal their products to escape detection.
Sales
Silk Road provided goods and services to over 100,000 buyers. Based on data from 3 February 2012 to 24 July 2012, an estimated $15 million in transactions were made annually on Silk Road. Twelve months later, Nicolas Christin, the study's author, said in an interview that a major increase in volume to "somewhere between $30 million and $45 million" would not surprise him. Initially there were a limited number of new seller accounts available; new sellers had to purchase an account in an auction. Later, a fixed fee was charged for each new seller account. Buyers and sellers conducted all transactions with bitcoin
Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...
s (BTC), a cryptocurrency
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...
that provides a certain degree of anonymity
Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Some writers have argued that namelessness, though technically correct, does not capture what is more centrally at stake in contexts of anonymity. The important idea he ...
. Silk Road held buyers' bitcoins in escrow
An escrow is a contractual arrangement in which a third party (the stakeholder or escrow agent) receives and disburses money or property for the primary transacting parties, with the disbursement dependent on conditions agreed to by the transacti ...
until the order had been received and a hedging mechanism allowed sellers to opt for the value of bitcoins held in escrow to be fixed to their value in US$ at the time of the sale to mitigate against Bitcoin's volatility. Any changes in the price of bitcoins during transit were covered by Dread Pirate Roberts.
The complaint
In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of action) that the filing party or parties (the plaintiff(s)) believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party ...
published when Ulbricht was arrested included information the FBI gained from a system image
In computing, a system image is a serialized copy of the entire state of a computer system stored in some non-volatile form such as a file. A system is said to be capable of using system images if it can be shut down and later restored to exactly ...
of the Silk Road server collected on 23 July 2013. It noted that, "From February 6, 2011 to July 23, 2013 there were approximately 1,229,465 transactions completed on the site. The total revenue generated from these sales was 9,519,664 Bitcoins, and the total commissions collected by Silk Road from the sales amounted to 614,305 Bitcoins. According to the government, total sales were equivalent to roughly $183 million and involved 146,946 buyers and 3,877 vendors. According to information users provided upon registering, 30 percent were from the United States, 27 percent chose to be "undeclared", and beyond that, in descending order of prevalence: the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Canada, Sweden, France, Russia, Italy, and the Netherlands. During the 60-day period from 24 May to 23 July, there were 1,217,218 messages sent over Silk Road's private messaging system.[
]
Similar sites
The Farmer's Market
The Farmer's Market, formerly Adamflowers, was an online black market for illegal drugs. It was founded by Marc Peter Willems in or before 2006, and moved operations to the dark web in 2010 using the Tor anonymity network. It was closed and se ...
was a Tor site similar to Silk Road, but which did not use bitcoins. It has been considered a 'proto-Silk Road' but the use of payment services such as PayPal and Western Union allowed law enforcement to trace payments and it was subsequently shut down by the FBI in 2012. Other sites already existed when Silk Road was shut down and ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' predicted that these would take over the market that Silk Road previously dominated. Sites named 'Atlantis
Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...
', closing in September 2013, and ''Project Black Flag'', closing in October 2013, each stole their users' bitcoins. In October 2013, the site named ''Black Market Reloaded'' closed down temporarily after the site's source code was leaked. The market shares of various Silk Road successor sites were described by ''The Economist'' in May 2015.
On 3 May 2019 a similar website was shut down, and three German men were arrested by the FBI and DEA agents. The website, called ''Wall Street Market'', allowed for the illegal sale of drugs and fake documents such as driver's licenses.
Book club
Silk Road had a Tor-based book club that continued to operate following the initial site's closure and even following the arrest of one of its members. Reading material included conspiracy theories
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
*
*
* The term has a nega ...
and computer hacking. Some of the titles included mainstream books as well as books such as ''The Anarchist Cookbook
''The Anarchist Cookbook'', first published in 1971, is a book containing instructions for the manufacture of explosives, rudimentary telecommunications phreaking devices, and related weapons, as well as instructions for the home manufacture o ...
'' and ''Defeating Electromagnetic Door Locks''. Most of the titles on this book club were pirated. This book club still exists as a private Tor-based chatroom.
Direct successors
Silk Road 2.0
On 6th November 2013, administrators from the closed Silk Road relaunched the site, led by a new pseudonymous Dread Pirate Roberts, and dubbed it "Silk Road 2.0". It recreated the original site's setup and promised improved security.[ The new DPR took the precaution of distributing encrypted copies of the site's source code to allow the site to be quickly recreated in the event of another shutdown.
On 20 December 2013, it was announced that three alleged Silk Road 2.0 administrators had been arrested; two of these suspects, Andrew Michael Jones and Gary Davis, were named as the administrators "Inigo" and "Libertas" who had continued their work on Silk Road 2.0. Around this time, the new Dread Pirate Roberts abruptly surrendered control of the site and froze its activity, including its escrow system. A new temporary administrator under the screenname "Defcon" took over and promised to bring the site back to working order.
On 13 February 2014, Defcon announced that Silk Road 2.0's escrow accounts had been compromised through a vulnerability in Bitcoin protocol called " transaction malleability".][ While the site remained online, all the bitcoins in its escrow accounts, valued at $2.7 million, were reported stolen.] It was later reported that the vulnerability was in the site's "Refresh Deposits" function, and that the Silk Road administrators had used their commissions on sales since 15 February to refund users who lost money, with 50 percent of the hack victims being completely repaid as of 8 April.
On 6 November 2014, authorities with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
, Europol, and Eurojust
Eurojust is an agency of the European Union (EU) dealing with judicial co-operation in criminal matters among agencies of the member states. It is seated in The Hague, Netherlands. Established in 2002, it was created to improve handling of serio ...
announced the arrest of Blake Benthall, allegedly the owner and operator of Silk Road 2.0 under the pseudonym "Defcon", the previous day in San Francisco as part of Operation Onymous
Operation Onymous was an international law enforcement operation targeting darknet markets and other hidden services operating on the Tor network.
Background
Operation Onymous was formed as a joint law enforcement operation between the Federa ...
. The creator of the relaunched website — an English computer programmer named Thomas White — was also arrested in the course of the shutdown, but his arrest was not made public until 2019 after he pled guilty to charges stemming from running the website and was sentenced to five years in prison. Among the charges White admitted to was creating child pornography, and chat logs recovered by police showed White discussing the possibility of launching a website to host such material.
Others
Following the closure of Silk Road 2.0 in November 2014, Diabolus Market renamed itself to 'Silk Road 3 Reloaded' in order to capitalize on the brand. In January 2015, Silk Road Reloaded launched on I2P
The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) is an anonymous network layer (implemented as a mix network) that allows for censorship-resistant, peer-to-peer communication. Anonymous connections are achieved by encrypting the user's traffic (by using ...
with multiple cryptocurrency
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...
support and similar listing restrictions to the original Silk Road market. This website is also defunct.
Advocates of dark web drug sales
Meghan Ralston, a former harm reduction manager for the Drug Policy Alliance
The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) is a New York City–based nonprofit organization that seeks to advance policies that “reduce the harms of both drug use and drug prohibition, and to promote the sovereignty of individuals over their minds and b ...
, was quoted as saying that the Silk Road was "a peaceable alternative to the often deadly violence so commonly associated with the global drug war, and street drug transactions, in particular". Proponents of the Silk Road and similar sites argue that buying illegal narcotics from the safety of your home is better than buying them in person from criminals on the streets.
Media
* ''Deep Web
The deep web, invisible web, or hidden web are parts of the World Wide Web whose contents are not indexed by standard web search-engine programs. This is in contrast to the " surface web", which is accessible to anyone using the Internet. Co ...
'' - On 15 March 2015, director/screenwriter Alex Winter
Alexander Ross Winter (born July 17, 1965) is a British-American actor and filmmaker. He played the slacker Bill in the 1989 film ''Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure'' and its sequels ''Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey'' (1991) and ''Bill & Ted Face t ...
debuted a film based on Silk Road which gives the inside story of the arrest of Ross Ulbricht.[John DeFore]
"'Deep Web': SXSW Review"
, ''The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'', 20 March 2015.
* ''Casefile True Crime Podcast
''Casefile True Crime Podcast'', or simply ''Casefile'', is an Australian crime podcast that first aired in January 2016 and is hosted by an Australian man who remains anonymous. The podcast is released on a Sunday (EST) for three consecuti ...
'' - Case 76: Silk Road (Parts 1, 2, 3) - aired 10, 17, 24 February 2018
* ''American Kingpin
Nick Bilton is a British-American journalist, author, and filmmaker. He is currently a special correspondent at ''Vanity Fair''.
Life and career
Bilton was born in Darlington, UK, and grew up in Leeds. He attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas ...
'' - by Nick Bilton
Nick Bilton is a British-American journalist, author, and filmmaker. He is currently a special correspondent at ''Vanity Fair''.
Life and career
Bilton was born in Darlington, UK, and grew up in Leeds. He attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas H ...
, a New York Times best-selling biography of Ross Ulbricht's life prior to, during, and after the Silk Road.
* ''Silk Road
The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...
'' - a 2021 film starring Jason Clarke
Jason Clarke (born 17 July 1969) is an Australian actor. He has appeared in many TV series, and is known for playing Tommy Caffee on the television series ''Brotherhood''. He has also appeared in many films, often as an antagonist. His film ro ...
, and Nick Robinson Nicholas, Nicky or Nick Robinson may refer to:
* Nick Robinson (journalist) (born 1963), British political journalist
* Nick Robinson (paperfolder) (born 1957), British origami artist
* Nicky Robinson (rugby union) (born 1982), Welsh rugby player ...
as Ross Ulbricht
Ross William Ulbricht (born March 27, 1984) is an American serving life imprisonment for creating and operating the darknet market website Silk Road from 2011 until his arrest in 2013. The site operated as a hidden service on the Tor network ...
See also
* Agorism
Agorism is a social philosophy that advocates creating a society in which all relations between people are voluntary exchanges by means of counter-economics, engaging with aspects of nonviolent revolution. It was first proposed by American liber ...
* Crypto-anarchism
Crypto-anarchism or cyberanarchism is a political ideology focusing on protection of privacy, political freedom, and economic freedom, the adherents of which use cryptographic software for confidentiality and security while sending and receivin ...
* OpenBazaar
OpenBazaar is an open source project developing a protocol for e-commerce transactions in a fully decentralized marketplace. It uses cryptocurrencies as medium of exchange and was inspired by a hackathon project called DarkMarket.
History
Ami ...
* War on drugs
The war on drugs is a Globalization, global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of prohibition of drugs, drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the Unite ...
References
External links
"'Silk Road' website called the Amazon of heroin, cocaine"
ABC Action News
WFTS-TV (channel 28), branded as ABC Action News, is a television station licensed to Tampa, Florida, United States, serving the Tampa Bay area as an affiliate of ABC. It is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company alongside Bradenton-licensed Ion Tel ...
. YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
. 10 June 2011
"Silk Road: Theory & Practice"
"United States of America v. Ross William Ulbricht" Grand Jury Indictment, District of Maryland (1 October 2013)
"United States of America v. Ross William Ulbricht" Trial Transcript
Archived early advertisement page for Silk Road
{{Tor hidden services
Defunct darknet markets
Retail companies established in 2011
Internet properties established in 2011
Retail companies disestablished in 2013
Internet properties disestablished in 2013
Internet services shut down by a legal challenge
Notorious markets