Silk Road forums

Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: Wepromisetwenty on May 11, 2013, 10:49 am

Title: This journalist seems to be a real Silk Road and SR forum user.
Post by: Wepromisetwenty on May 11, 2013, 10:49 am
at the very least he is one of the many journalists using this place for inspiration and information. I think its more than that though.

So, I was casually browsing the Guardian News website just now - and on the front page, I saw an article about Cody Wilson, who is in the process of making 3D models of gun parts freely available to download and 3D print.

The article is here for anyone who is interested - CLEARNET http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/10/3d-printing-gun-blueprint-state-department-ban

On its own, I know this isn't much to shout about. But it got me thinking - because less than a week ago there was a thread on this forum started about this Cody Wilson guy (which was the first i'd heard of him). - http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=155044.0

Anyway, skimming through the many other articles hes written for the Guardian, I found these:
(Warning, CLEARNET links below.)

***"Internet drug dealing on the rise, survey finds"***
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/18/internet-drug-dealing-survey
---This is basically an article about Silk Road, with a big picture of the SR homepage as its leading image.

****"Silk Road: the online drug marketplace that officials seem powerless to stop"****
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/22/silk-road-online-drug-marketplace
--- Same again really. Except this time its written about a guy called "Mark Johnson" (fake name of course) "who rifles through his mail as he gets home from work. Among the usual bills is a small padded envelope. Though it doesn't have his name on, it's the package he's most interested in: inside lie two grams of, he hopes, relatively pure MDMA."

These are just from the past 2.5 months - I didnt go back further than that but he has 600 articles in total - so im betting theres more.

The reason I think hes a real user are the other things he writes about. He writes about Bitcoin, Activism, Privacy vs google, Politics, and he has a whole section on Wikilieaks and Assange. and of course, he probably is "Mark Josnson" ;).

Anyway, his other articles are good, and they take an angle not dissimilar to how most Silk Roaders would - so it seems like for the most part hes one of the good guys. That aside, I really take issue with anyone reporting about SR, using images from the SR homepage, etc. I know its happening a lot, but im especially unhappy to see it from someone who actually seems to have more than two brain cells to rub together, and potentially a real user and contributor to the forum. I know the days of this place being out of the media are gone. But thats usually because of ignorant journalists who wouldnt even be able to sniff out an ounce of weed if it was under their pillow.

Anyway, I thought this was interesting to decided to share.

If you're reading this buddy - sorry for outing you, and please don't write an article about this post ;)



Title: Re: This journalist seems to be a real Silk Road and SR forum user.
Post by: Lemonade on May 11, 2013, 04:26 pm
It's possible and IMHO because it is possible I think it would be polite to take down what you've posted. I can see it now - in one week he will be writing an article from prison entitled "SR User Wepromisetwenty Snitched" lololol. Just fucking around. But yeah, I think it would be doing the guy a favor if you deleted your post regardless.
Title: Re: This journalist seems to be a real Silk Road and SR forum user.
Post by: Ron Swanson on May 11, 2013, 04:42 pm
if you work in journalism there's this part of the job they call research... and it's the guardian, of course they wrote about it in a positive light :) are you really surprised that people who write about this place actually come on here?! even the daily mail and the sun did a little bit of work on this. not sure if the express have found some way to link it to princess di so they can write about it but sr articles are tucked away all over the place, it's more a case of who hasn't written about it now. the 3d gun thing is EVERYWHERE, saw a fairly long piece on the beeb about it the other day. all that other stuff he's written about has been huge news, guardian had the uk exclusive first access connection with wikileaks, it was massive, they probably had half the staff working on it. gotta say i find it refreshing to read articles written from that kind of angle in mainstream media, i don't get why you're pissed off about it. just because he's familiar with this whole weird world on tor doesn't mean he's a drug user or wants to chat shit with us lot. his job is to know this stuff and write about it.
Title: Re: This journalist seems to be a real Silk Road and SR forum user.
Post by: jackofspades on May 11, 2013, 04:47 pm
Fun read, i don't think this puts Mr. Wilson in danger though, everything is anonymous. If anything, Mr. Wilson could use his article as a defense as to why he most certainly isn't a user ("who is dumb enough to write about something like this if they use it") even if he is a user. Although the research and curiosity of my fellow SR users never ceases to amaze me.

I wonder when the first celebrity will be busted for using SR, i am willing to guess there might be a 1 or 2 congress members or low level local/state government officials who have dipped into SR, maybe even a couple LEO's (not for their job, but rather for personal indulgence) doctors, teachers, firemen, etc. they gotta get high too!

How famous does a person have to be in order to make mainstream news for using SR though? Would they (corporate news media) even let that shit out or would they suppress that info for fear more copycats would flock to the site?

Title: Re: This journalist seems to be a real Silk Road and SR forum user.
Post by: android465764E on May 11, 2013, 08:58 pm
Sounds like Max Keiser to me. lol
Title: Re: This journalist seems to be a real Silk Road and SR forum user.
Post by: Wepromisetwenty on May 12, 2013, 08:41 am
It's possible and IMHO because it is possible I think it would be polite to take down what you've posted. I can see it now - in one week he will be writing an article from prison entitled "SR User Wepromisetwenty Snitched" lololol. Just fucking around. But yeah, I think it would be doing the guy a favor if you deleted your post regardless.

Haha. Lets hope not..

I think I may have come across differently from what I intended. I'm not trying to snitch on the guy for using or buying drugs - or get him in trouble with the law, or his employers. The thought this could be tied to him in any legal way hadn't really crossed my mind - I figure there really would be no way to prove he had a genuine forum account, or had used SR for anything other than research anyway.

Most of the original post is just speculation from me, a semi-high person, and some of the facts/articles from which I drew the conclusion. I was actually curious to know if anybody else got the same vibe from this.

My point, in summary, was:

I was amazed to see that to me there seemed to be a plausible possibility that this guy was a genuine user and supporter of this whole community. Unlike most of the journalists who write about this place, who really have no clue about a) silk road and b) the surrounding issues it encompasses. But at the same time, if that is the case, and he was an SR visitor or a genuine forum user BEFORE deciding to write an article about it - then yeah its a little disappointing to me, considering how many of us around here discourage journalism on the subject…

Anyway, i'd be up for taking it down if anyone thinks this is a real threat to the guy. Thats not what I intended. Sorry if i came off that way. Just thought the whole thing was interesting...