there seems something similar to the Scots defence of “alibi and incrimination” here (which I have never understood).
That said; Ross Ulbricht came across as a bit of a rum ‘un compared to the second guy who got nicked for SR2 – there seems to be a hidden agenda witth this use of cryptocurrencies by a small clique of intelligent libertarian types who want to disrupt the process of elected governments especially legislation, regulation and taxation; and I sometimes wonder if young people who want instant gratification such as drugs or free stuff are in fact being used as “useful idiots” to try and test how possible this is.
I hope he gets a fair trial but TBH I think selling drugs is the smallest of his crimes – he does need to explain the threats of violence etc he’s been pulled up for; and more so justify whatever other agendas he has. In some ways I’m glad this was stopped or curtailed as I could see how it could jepoardise the fairly successful cannabis decrim experiments elsewhere in the USA.
I wonder sometimes if the world is actually only years/month away from decrim to some extent; and stuff like this is counterproductive as although SR etc works; it tends to create a new network of middle class intelligent middle level dealers around college/uni/high tech circles; simply as you still have to put a lot of effort into using darkweb compared to buying NPS online.
Evemtually dealers can be tracked simply by the incidents their clients get into such as overdoses/dropping out/road collssions/domestic arguments as all those are logged on computers and using big data techniques and standard detective work can be matched up groups of communities and the movement of packages and parcels. Decrypting the comms traffic isn’t even required; although geolocating it may be used and any flaws in the encrypt will of course be exploited.
