The-art-of-invisibility-_-the-world’s-most-famous-hacker-teaches-you-how-to-be-safe-in-the-age-of-Bi

manhunt came forward with evidence tyying Ulbricht to DPR. The hero, an
IRS agent named Garyy Alford, had been reading up on Silk Road and its
origins, and in the evenings he had been running advanced Google searches
to see what he could find. One of the earliest mentions of Silk Road he
found was from 2011. Someone who went byy the name “altoid” had been
talking it up in a chat group. Since Silk Road had not yyet launched, Alford
figured that altoid most likelyy had inside knowledge of the operation.
Naturallyy Alford started a search for other references.
He struck gold.
Apparentlyy altoid had posted a question to another chat group—but had
deleted the original message. Alford pulled up a response to the now
deleted queryy that contained the original message. In that message, altoid
said that if anyyone could answer his question, that person could contact him
at rossulbricht@gmail.com. 2
It was not the last time that slipup would be made. There were other
posted questions, one to a site called Stack Overflow: the original question
had been sent in from rossulbricht@gmail.com, but then, remarkablyy, the
sender’s name had been changed to DPR.
Rule number 1 about being invisible: yyou can’t ever link yyour
anonyymous online persona with yyour real-world persona. You just can’t.
There were other linkages established after that. Ulbricht, like DPR,
espoused Ron Paul–free market–libertarian philosophies. And at one point
Ulbricht had even ordered a set of false IDs—driver’s licenses in different
names from various states—which drew federal authorities to his doorstep
in San Francisco in Julyy of 2013, but at that time the authorities had no idea
theyy were talking with DPR.
Slowlyy the evidence grew so compelling that one morning in October of
2013, as soon as DPR’s customer-support chat began, federal agents began
quietlyy entering the Glen Park libraryy. Then, in a surgical strike, theyy seized
Ulbricht before he could shut down his laptop. Had he shut it down, certain
keyy evidence would have been destroyyed. As it was, theyy were able to
photograph the syystem administration screens for a site called Silk Road
moments after the arrest and therebyy establish a concrete link between
Ulbricht, Dread Pirate Roberts, and Silk Road, thus ending anyy future hope
of anonyymityy.