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Chapter 30<br />
THE ARMORY OPENS<br />
Ross had anticipated a lot of different scenarios for the Silk Road, but not this. In his mind,<br />
years earlier, he had envisioned a free market where anyone could buy or sell anything without<br />
being traced by the government. There would be no bureaucrats telling people what they could sniff,<br />
swallow, or inject. It would be completely free and open. And that was exactly what the site had<br />
become.<br />
Yet to some of the buyers and sellers on there, this freedom was a problem. The mellow people<br />
who bought and sold weed on the site didn’t want to be associated with the speedy people who<br />
bought and sold cocaine. Some of the hard drug dealers didn’t want to be in the company of the rightwing<br />
crazies who hawked guns. And some of the gun guys didn’t want to be in the same shopping cart<br />
as the scummy heroin dealers. Round and round it went.<br />
Even though all these people were dealing in illicit activities, they each had a moral sense that<br />
their particular outlawed product was more just than another.<br />
Variety Jones was preternaturally aware of these hidden dynamics. He had been warning his boss<br />
about this for some time, pressing Dread to at least get the guns off the site so he didn’t lose the weed<br />
sellers. This would also help mainstream customers feel more comfortable shopping in the drug<br />
aisles. “So grandma can come here for her cheap Canadian pharma meds,” VJ wrote, “and not trip<br />
over a Glock 9mm” handgun on the way to the cash register.<br />
Ross saw things differently. The ability to accept anyone was in many ways Ross’s superpower.<br />
He had practiced this philosophy from high school to the Silk Road. So he found it perplexing that<br />
others couldn’t just go about their business and enjoy the free world he had created.<br />
Because of his unflinching acceptance, there were now more than two thousand different types of<br />
drugs for sale on the site, as well as lab supplies to make your own drugs and products to store and<br />
sell those drugs. There were digital goods, including key loggers, spy software, and other similar<br />
tools to hack into someone’s e-mail or webcam. People could buy forged documents, including<br />
passports, fake IDs, and even counterfeit cash that was indistinguishable from real money. And then<br />
there was the most contentious section of the site, labeled “weapons,” which had grown so much that<br />
you could buy everything from handguns to AR-15 automatic weapons. You could pick up bullets,<br />
grenades, and even a rocket launcher if need be.
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