Nick Bilton

A really good look at the genesis and evolution of the Silk Road website, from a place to sell pot and 'shrooms to a place to sell weapons, poison and body parts and the hunt for Ross Ulbricht, creator of the site. Ulbricht's website led to countless deaths, but the Orange Menace thought 11 years in prison was enough. Read this book and you will seethe with anger that this dangerous man was pardoned. And you will likely seethe with anger at the fact that, despite the lessons of 9/11, federal show more agencies still couldn't play nice together or Ulbricht would have been caught much sooner. My favorite "character" was Gary, the IRS guy who read everything 3 times. As someone with mild OCD, I could relate. And Gary was instrumental in identifying Ulbricht. show less

American Kingpin is the implausible but true story of a twenty-something self-taught programmer with intense libertarian beliefs, named Ross Ulbricht, who, in 2011, single-handedly set up a soon-to-be very popular covert site on the Dark Web called “the Silk Road.” The site was started as a marketplace for illegal drugs, but Ulbricht eventually expanded operations to trade in forged passports, counterfeit cash, guns, poisons, and even body parts. By using the Dark Web platform Tor, show more financing his activities with Bitcoin, and adopting the nom-de-guerre Dread Pirate Roberts, Ulbricht remained anonymous, free, and unpunished for two years.

[The Dark Web is a part of the internet that is incapable of being penetrated by conventional search engines. Therefore it tends to be used by those engaged in illicit activities and/or those excessively concerned with privacy. Tor is the internet browser of choice for exploring the Dark Web. It operates on a worldwide network of servers specifically made for private communication. Tor was created by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in the mid-1990s by military researchers, and employs technology enabling users to engage in online activity with masked identities, encrypting any data sent from anyone's computer. Bitcoin makes it possible to send and receive money without giving any personal identifying information.]

In June 2011, "Gawker" published an article about the site which led to an increase in website traffic, helping to expand the Silk Road to a $1.2 billion per year enterprise. Once the site was known publicly, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer asked federal law enforcement authorities to shut it down, including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Department of Justice. As the Feds closed in, Ulbricht took even more drastic steps to protect himself and silence anyone who might know his identity. After an online quest that seemed as thrilling for this reader as any car chase in the movies, Ulbricht was finally arrested, convicted, and sentenced to a life in prison. (He is currently working on securing a presidential pardon.)

Nick Bilton was able to piece together the convoluted history of the rise and eventual capture of Ulbricht with the help of some relentless government agents finding unusual clues as to Ulbricht’s identity and whereabouts. Adding yet another dramatic twist to the story was the involvement of two now-convicted, corrupt federal agents. A Secret Service agent stole hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin from the Silk Road, and a DEA agent attempted to extort Ulbricht, and even sold him secret information from the Silk Road investigation.

Bilton is somewhat sympathetic in his treatment of Ulbricht, whom he describes as oddly idealistic in attempting to establish a libertarian Shangri-La where freedom-loving people could enjoy personal pleasures without interference from Big Brother. Judge Katherine Forrest, who ultimately sentenced him, was not similarly disposed. In her words:

"You are no better a person than any other drug dealer, and your education does not give you a special place of privilege in our criminal system.”

Evaluation: American Kingpin is a fascinating account of a tale almost too quixotic to be fiction. If you want a non-fiction page turner, this book will not disappoint.

(JAB) show less

Somewhat overtold/repetitive but still engaging story of the creator of Silk Road, the website where people could order drugs, guns, and poisons to be delivered through the mail and believe they’d stay anonymous. I learned that two of the main agents on the case used the opportunity to enrich themselves—one by stealing Bitcoin from a lower-level guy they arrested and another by selling information to the Dread Pirate Roberts who ran Silk Road. That they caught him at all ends up being a show more combination of his mistakes and the dedication of a couple of other, noncorrupt agents. The story is tightly focused on the Silk Road investigation, with only one story of a kid who died from the drugs it sold; we will never know many of its other impacts. show less

For a story that hinges on fights over the product, Twitter itself is almost invisible here.

EG The war over the API and third-party tokens gets barely a sentence, which is strange since third-party clients are what made and saved Twitter. (Twitterrific came up with "tweet" as a verb). Also absent is any mention of Tweetdeck, which they bought and killed after it gave them a way into business. Dick's reign is handled very gently, too. No mention of dickbar, even.

Still, the VCs come out of show more this terribly. Fred Wilson especially. show less