This really is an interesting story, but I wish he'd taken it to a journalist instead of writing it himself. The narrative is choppy and has a lot of holes in it. I would have loved to see this done as a feature from someone with a lot of experience writing about technology. That might also have given some extra credibility and context to things.
Ha. I was going to write a very similar comment. It's a really interesting situation, but the story as told is incomplete and lacking in really obvious parts, such throwing out "30 FBI agents kicking down the door" but not giving anything concrete. Was he there at the time? Was he even still living there? If so, it seems to go directly against his lawyer's "[you will] never hear from the FBI".
Really? I actually like it this way. Journalist tries to make it intriguing and longer. But that doesn't change the events or make them more interesting. I guess I just like simple and straightforward.
I agree. This would be awesome if it was written up like the Paul le Roux story on The Atavist [0]. That was gripping. I'd be so excited to read the next piece each week. I want to hear the rest of this story.
I thought you were just being petty until I tried to read it. There is so just much context switching without any clues at all to the reader, it is really jarring.
Edit: Turns out the headline is completely made up. This was in the comment section:
> So was “Sciview” actually some sort of analytics app for Silk Road, with the “sensors” representing some other Silk Road metrics? Or was BB truly freelancing for SpaceX while administering Silk Road?
> AUTHOR: Excellent question, I don’t know.
So he has no idea if he was just a subcontractor or if he was doing work for Silk Road. If I had to bet on this, I'd guess the friend subcontracted a project to him for easy cash (or because he was in over his head) and the Silk Road stuff was completely unrelated.
What would Silk Road do with such an application anyway?
Don't recall if I ever met the author of this blog post personally, but his boss/roommate mentioned this particular application to me several times over several months. I was thousands of miles away from SF but it came up repeatedly in casual conversations and after leaving SpaceX he seemed to genuinely believe he had a shot of selling this product to SpaceX as an internal tool. He always juggled lots of projects and besides this SpaceX idea, I remember him telling me 2 weeks before the arrest about another unrelated project he was trying to get a team together for so he could apply to Y Combinator. Never once did I hear anything hinting at involvement with the Silk Road, but he always talked about a million ideas at once. Anyone who knew him for long knew that he traveled a lot for years and years (back in 2010 he was the first person I knew who jumped on Jet Blue's special offer of a month of unlimited travel for only $600), so the author would've realized that was routine if he knew him for long. I do find the author's story very plausible.
Not sure, but Silk Road obviously couldn't rely on traditional third party web analytics, even though they still needed to identify and fight spammers/fraud.
There's also a lot of open-source solutions for things like this (PiWik, AWStats) so, as you said, the author probably was involved in the outsourcing a different project for someone in L.A. But then why would they try to disguise the sample as rocket sensor data?
I also don't think you can go this long with living and working with someone, notice the major purchases/parties (with outstanding invoices from SpaceX), and not get a hint about what's going on. If there were so many parties, what did they think when none of the coworkers from SpaceX showed up to one? Or his roommate's Linkedin profile shows something else other than SpaceX?
I'm not doubting the story, but it doesn't seem to fit together much the way that it's told here. Exactly who was he really working for, and what was his "friend"s relationship to them?
All I can really say is maybe you should be extra skeptical when somebody talks about working for a "big name" company, like SpaceX, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. If you're never reading or writing emails from a company.com email address, going to company's actual public website, going for interviews or meetings at an actual company office, then maybe you should look really closely at who you're really working for.
He was working for "Defcon" or Blake Benthall (his roommate in the story). Defcon was running Silk Road 2.0 after the second "Dread Pirate Roberts" left.
If you take a look at the code on Github you quickly realize it's complete bullshit, a bit of hardcoded data [1] and one file of backend code that looks like it was copied from somewhere [2].
The lawyer was correct. If you have reason to suspect the FBI is watching you, they already have what they need. The men-in-black routine is meant to alter your behavior, to cause you to do something rare like empty an account or contact a distant friend. This was federal investigation 101.
Walk past the car and photograph the driver. They really love that.
I have a PI friend (retired) who pretended to be a cable guy as one of his go-to methods, even had a van with the right paint job. In that context, what you're saying sounds about right--why would you make yourself more obvious if you didn't have to?
I would love to hear more about this. Both you and the lawyer in the story recognize it as true, but is this something you're taught ... or learn officially ... or learn unofficially?
Walk past the car and photograph the driver. They really love that.
I assume you're being sarcastic, but they might actually "love that" if their objective at that point of the investigation is to alarm you and see what you do. It's an acknowledgment that they have indeed alarmed you.
Why did the silk road want a data visualization app?
The "live demo" in the linked github doesn't seem to be very "live", in that it seems to be totally static. The post talks about "drawing correlations" but all it does it make a graph. http://sciview.herokuapp.com/#/data-sets/0
> Why did the silk road want a data visualization app?
Telemetry, analytics, data visualization, and things like AB testing would probably work just as well for a dark web market as they would for Amazon. It's all about the money.
As for why they felt they needed to create their own specific tool for this specifically, I'm not sure.
Is it possible he was really working a SpaceX project as a subcontractor of a contractor? I do that sometimes. Give my work to someone else to do because I am too busy working on something else.
I think this is a great story to tell buddies when grabbing a drink, but not really good for posting online which will last forever.
Maybe if the project was actually functional and high quality, but it's just a half baked project that doesn't even work.
Furthermore, there's no proof that what he worked on was actually silk road. Even looking at the screenshots it says nothing about silkroad, looks actually like a spacex project.
Like others said, I think his main motivation is to post it for the record, so if one day he disappears, people know where to track him down.
This story is completely unintelligible. I have no idea what this story is about, where does it say he was designing for Silk Road? Did he say he was talking with DPR or something?
...thank you. I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt this way. I kept backtracking thinking I missed something. It's reads like a random stream of thoughts.
horrible story.. i guess anyone can write on medium and the nice layout makes it somewhat legitimate looking. It could have very well been a rant on IRC
I honestly have no clue how this is voted so high on HN right now, I assume it's just the title people are voting on. It makes no sense, jumps around and no flow. I had to re-read parts multiple times and I still have no clue what is going on.
Wtf? Why would spacex utilize a freelancer front end Dev / designer to develop a one off crappy custom soln for data analysis? When much more robust, performant, established solutions exist?
Also space x is not a green start up, why would they still lack the ability to visualize and analyze data?
The author obviously failed to ask himself this obvious questions.
On the plus side, the OP had plausible deniability. I wonder whether he could've been considered an accomplice or liable in any way, or not knowing who he was working for completely exonerated him.
The Silk Road reference--is he saying he was working for Chinese interests? Where was the sensor data coming from?
I understand it's probably a painful story to tell, but a lot of little details are missing here, and they'd probably help both the author's friends and new readers like me understand what happened.
The author's title seems misleading, since in the post's comments Thomas acknowledges how he's not sure if his design was being actually used for Silk Road or if his leaseholder really was freelancing for SpaceX.
[+] [-] stiva|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nebulous1|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csomar|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daniel-levin|9 years ago|reply
[0] https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind
[+] [-] the_hangman|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wheelerwj|9 years ago|reply
I sent the following email (below) shortly before receiving the previous one (above).
[+] [-] gthtjtkt|9 years ago|reply
> So was “Sciview” actually some sort of analytics app for Silk Road, with the “sensors” representing some other Silk Road metrics? Or was BB truly freelancing for SpaceX while administering Silk Road?
> AUTHOR: Excellent question, I don’t know.
So he has no idea if he was just a subcontractor or if he was doing work for Silk Road. If I had to bet on this, I'd guess the friend subcontracted a project to him for easy cash (or because he was in over his head) and the Silk Road stuff was completely unrelated.
What would Silk Road do with such an application anyway?
[+] [-] stephenhuey|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bduerst|9 years ago|reply
There's also a lot of open-source solutions for things like this (PiWik, AWStats) so, as you said, the author probably was involved in the outsourcing a different project for someone in L.A. But then why would they try to disguise the sample as rocket sensor data?
I also don't think you can go this long with living and working with someone, notice the major purchases/parties (with outstanding invoices from SpaceX), and not get a hint about what's going on. If there were so many parties, what did they think when none of the coworkers from SpaceX showed up to one? Or his roommate's Linkedin profile shows something else other than SpaceX?
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ufmace|9 years ago|reply
All I can really say is maybe you should be extra skeptical when somebody talks about working for a "big name" company, like SpaceX, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. If you're never reading or writing emails from a company.com email address, going to company's actual public website, going for interviews or meetings at an actual company office, then maybe you should look really closely at who you're really working for.
[+] [-] griffinmb|9 years ago|reply
Blake had been working for SpaceX, and left to work on Silk Road. This is his HN account: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=blakeeb
[+] [-] minus7|9 years ago|reply
[1] https://github.com/tdrach/Sciview/blob/master/public/javascr...
[2] https://github.com/tdrach/Sciview/blob/master/routes/api/v1/...
[+] [-] weaksauce|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TrevorJ|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the_hangman|9 years ago|reply
No wonder he was going 70+ days without being paid.
[+] [-] sandworm101|9 years ago|reply
Walk past the car and photograph the driver. They really love that.
[+] [-] themodelplumber|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jawns|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] downandout|9 years ago|reply
I assume you're being sarcastic, but they might actually "love that" if their objective at that point of the investigation is to alarm you and see what you do. It's an acknowledgment that they have indeed alarmed you.
[+] [-] Archio|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zodPod|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sbierwagen|9 years ago|reply
The "live demo" in the linked github doesn't seem to be very "live", in that it seems to be totally static. The post talks about "drawing correlations" but all it does it make a graph. http://sciview.herokuapp.com/#/data-sets/0
[+] [-] CoryG89|9 years ago|reply
Telemetry, analytics, data visualization, and things like AB testing would probably work just as well for a dark web market as they would for Amazon. It's all about the money.
As for why they felt they needed to create their own specific tool for this specifically, I'm not sure.
[+] [-] drops|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vinhboy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hughes|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cocktailpeanuts|9 years ago|reply
Maybe if the project was actually functional and high quality, but it's just a half baked project that doesn't even work.
Furthermore, there's no proof that what he worked on was actually silk road. Even looking at the screenshots it says nothing about silkroad, looks actually like a spacex project.
Like others said, I think his main motivation is to post it for the record, so if one day he disappears, people know where to track him down.
[+] [-] pfarnsworth|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mawburn|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johansch|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jordache|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hrayr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wongarsu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshstrange|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] welder|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cocktailpeanuts|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ukyrgf|9 years ago|reply
"I don't know whether to smile or laugh" isn't a very powerful expression.
[+] [-] nommm-nommm|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jordache|9 years ago|reply
Also space x is not a green start up, why would they still lack the ability to visualize and analyze data?
The author obviously failed to ask himself this obvious questions.
[+] [-] pzh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] themodelplumber|9 years ago|reply
I understand it's probably a painful story to tell, but a lot of little details are missing here, and they'd probably help both the author's friends and new readers like me understand what happened.
[+] [-] jpeg_hero|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jnpatel|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] shitgoose|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yeukhon|9 years ago|reply