A word from one of Silk Road's "Old Guard"

Those of you who have been around a while might remember "Guru" of the original Silk Road. Along with Pine and Astor (Astor, by the way, sadly passed away. I have no idea what happened to Pine), he provided hundreds of DNM users with security advice. He was always prepared to take time to answer questions of newbies and provide tutorials on all things Tor, Tails and PGP.

For a short while he was also a SR forum Mod.

I've kept in touch with him. He's mostly shied away from publicity since the arrests, but he's come out of the woodwork in defence of DPR recently.

Here's what he had to say


Comments


[11 Points] NinjaMonkeyBaron:

Thnx OG. Amazing read! Holy shit that takes it back man.. the feels are real tonight.

Thanks for this! You and Guru!


[5 Points] radium_fire:

Astor taught me almost everything I know opsec-wise.


[4 Points] None:

Very interesting read, the community thanks you for sharing!


[3 Points] mejuwi1:

daily star is bull crap, seriously getting worked up cuz an article is on the daily star is not worth it at all.


[4 Points] radium_fire:

DPR Needs more, aggressive def3nders. He's doing time for crimes he really didn't do. He violated the letter of the law a lot but not the spirit of it. His worst crime was his opsec


[3 Points] Vendor_BBMC:

Silk Road was created to provide total freedom to trade ANYTHING. Child porn was banned eventually. Even Ross thought that you could buy a murder on it.

Every other marketplace has banned child porn from day 1. Otherwise, you get this sort of reporting and there's nothing you can do about it because its not incorrect.

Ross is a good man with noble intentions, and Silk Road sorted out most of the problems for all other matrketplaces before it was busted.

To run a darknet marketplace safely, the owner has to be a good judge of character when assessing and employing people he will never meet. Humans are social animals, and we are the first generation in history to attempt this. Its completely alien to our nature.

Ross wasn't very good at this, and SilkRoad's AWFUL forum was the first clue. If you're not careful, exactly the kind of people who should be forum moderators become moderators.


[3 Points] Dark_OZ:

Thanks for posting!


[2 Points] octomarvel:

Talk about kicking a guy while he's down.

I hate the press sometimes. Oh, except you Eileen.

=)


[2 Points] None:

fuck man, hate reading stuff like this, these orginal guys will always stay in my fucking brain. when i started these guys are the reason i kept everything perfect, i need to go back to all my opsec roots


[2 Points] transamerican2:

Thank you OZ for sharing. Makes me sad everytime I think of these days.... Stay safe


[2 Points] igetdankstuff:

That was an awsome read! Tyvm.


[2 Points] shadowofashadow:

the hitman thing is stupid too. If someone has the reach to perform international hits they are not doing it for a few btc on silk road...those are probably all scammers.


[2 Points] LsdTripping:

Can you imagine the "Oh shit" feeling she got after reading that message.


[1 Points] GNAR-TheBarGoblin:

Guru's a straight savage!


[1 Points] cactuswaters:

Pine is hot.


[1 Points] brzaz:

Wheres that lawyer that was on SR...

Someone should sue the shit out of the publication and also the journalist.


[1 Points] ciphersexual:

Thanks. I never realized that /u/silkroadguru was a moderator on the early Silk Road forums. Or are those different "gurus"?