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But reassuring Julia that he wasn’t in danger was a completely different challenge for Ross. Over<br />
the past two months the two had started fighting constantly about the Silk Road. There were now<br />
hundreds of people signing up for accounts every week, and Julia worried that Ross, whom she one<br />
day hoped to marry, could be caught and spend the rest of his life in prison.<br />
“It’s secure,” Ross assured Julia, explaining how uncrackable Tor was and how Bitcoins were<br />
completely anonymous. “It’s safe. Trust me, no one can ever figure it out it’s me behind the site.”<br />
But the cautionary voice of Julia gnawed at him and, to be sure that he was covering his tracks<br />
properly and knowing full well how limited his programming skills were, Ross decided to explore<br />
hiring other experts (besides Richard) to rewrite some new security protocols on the site. He posted a<br />
job listing on the Silk Road, and some antigovernment programmers were happy to help in the battle<br />
to stop the Man, part time and for a fee.<br />
Ross’s Web site hadn’t received any press yet, which was surprising given the chatter on some<br />
forums, though he wasn’t entirely sure he was ready for any. Yet the time had come. Someone with the<br />
username Adrian802 had been sniffing around the site, telling Silk Road customers he was working<br />
on a story for Gawker about the Silk Road.<br />
Ross knew he couldn’t stop the story, so he figured it was best to message Adrian802. He was<br />
polite and grateful for the interest, voicing his belief that the Silk Road was making it safer for people<br />
to buy drugs. “Our community is amazing,” Ross wrote under the guise of the anonymous<br />
administrator of the Silk Road. Then, completely oblivious to the consequences, Ross decided to go<br />
full bore with Adrian802 and took the opportunity to get his libertarian message out, explaining that<br />
the site was going to show the government that it was flat-out wrong to deny people their rights. “Stop<br />
funding the state with your tax dollars and direct your productive energies into the black market,” he<br />
wrote to Adrian.<br />
He didn’t foresee that this kind of message would have vast and grim consequences.<br />
• • •<br />
At 4:20 p.m. on June 1, 2011, Adrian sat at Café Grumpy, sipped his black coffee, and watched as his<br />
blog post about the Silk Road went live. The title read: THE UNDERGROUND WEBSITE WHERE YOU CAN<br />
BUY ANY DRUG IMAGINABLE. The article began, “Making small talk with your pot dealer sucks. Buying<br />
cocaine can get you shot. What if you could buy and sell drugs online like books or light bulbs? Now<br />
you can: Welcome to Silk Road.”
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