Daily Archives: December 24, 2013

Three alleged Silk Road moderators indicted on federal charges

Posted: December 24, 2013 at 7:44 am

At least three alleged moderators of the forums for the Silk Road online drug marketplace have been indicted on federal charges, according to a document unsealed today.

The three suspects -- Andrew Michael Jones, Gary Davis and Peter Phillip Nash -- have been indicted in the Southern District of New York on conspiracy charges related to drug trafficking, money laundering, and hacking,according to the document(.pdf).

All three allegedly worked for Dread Pirate Roberts, the owner and operator of Silk Road, who authorities say was 29-year-old Ross Ulbricht. Ulbricht was arrested last October in San Francisco after a years-long investigation that brought down the Silk Road, which facilitated the marketing and sales of illegal drugs.

Jones, who allegedly went by the name Inigo, is accused of being an administrator on the Silk Road site since at least October 2012. Davis, who allegedly used the name Libertas, was also an alleged administrator on the site since at least last June.

Nash, who allegedly used the aliases Samesamebutdifferent and Batman73, among others, allegedly served as the chief moderator of the Silk Road discussion forum since at least last January. The forum was a place where users discussed the sale of drugs and exchanged advice about taking drugs, eluding the feds, and other topics.

Silk Road administrators were responsible for monitoring user activity on the site and handling customer disputes. Forum moderators were responsible for providing guidance on how to use the Silk Road site, monitoring discussions, and reporting problems discussed in the forums to Silk Road administrators and Dread Pirate Roberts, the owner of the site.

Moderators and administrators were paid between $50,000 (30,000) and $75,000 (45,000) a year by Dread Pirate Roberts, according to the indictment.

Word of the arrests began swirling online when a user of the Reddit forum (which is owned by Wired's parent company) posted a message indicating that her boyfriend had been arrested. The user, who posted under the name PrincessBtcButtercup before deleting the name, wrote that the person with whom she was in a relationship was an admin on Silk Road and had been the subject of a search warrant in the Eastern District of Virginia.

"I'm not sure what his login name was, all i know is that apparently he was an admin and then a mod and that he also ran the book club. He is a wonderful person and has been supporting me (due to my chronic pain), so to say the least my world has been turned inside out and upside down. They told me they were making arrests all around the world at the same time.can anyone give me any info on who he was? i'm hoping he was well liked and respected because even though i didn't know he was doing this, I can guarantee he was doing it out of his passion for Libertarianism and for the idea of a free marketplace. Just thought i would pass on the message.."

She then posted a copy of the search warrant along with a copy of a business card from FBI Agent Christopher Tarbell.

View original post here:
Three alleged Silk Road moderators indicted on federal charges

Posted in Libertarianism | Comments Off on Three alleged Silk Road moderators indicted on federal charges

Gazing Into Eternity (Trance Mix) – 432hz – Video

Posted: at 7:43 am


Gazing Into Eternity (Trance Mix) - 432hz
This video was created for promotional purposes. If you enjoy the content, please support the artists and labels by downloading or buying the tracks. If you...

By: Synovia Futurism

Read more here:
Gazing Into Eternity (Trance Mix) - 432hz - Video

Posted in Futurism | Comments Off on Gazing Into Eternity (Trance Mix) – 432hz – Video

Five days of ‘Her:’ How Spike Jonze created the future

Posted: at 7:43 am

For those whove seen the buzziest of buzzy holiday movies, Spike Jonzes Her, youprobably left the theater with much to think about. One of the biggest questions, at least from a filmmaking standpoint: How did Jonze and his team arrive at the future we see on the screen?

Infinitely relatable though gently different, the Los Angeles of Jonzes unspecified future occupies a new and exciting place in cinematic history--and the history, as it where, of futurism itself. Hers L.A. is a million miles from Blade Runner, but it also not entirely a utopia. What looks bright and cheery can also conceal a dark undertow.

Perhaps the best evidence of this worlds complexityare the words being used to describe it, which according to a quick survey ofarticles on the film include the not-exactly-compatible phrases of utopian, dystopian, near-dystopian, gentrified dystopia, both utopian and dystopian and--why not--neither dystopian nor utopian.

PHOTOS: Holiday movie sneaks 2013

With this in mind, The Times set out to discover how, and why, the world was created. We conducted interviews with the five key people who helped Jonze shape the movies look and feel. It is a team that in most instances have worked with Jonze for years, going back to his 1990s wunderkind days, even as what its members do here is astonishingly forward looking. Over the next five days we will run a separate conversation with each of these players, exploring the rich psychological and philosophical reasons for their choices and the challenges they had to overcome after making them.

Today, costume designer Casey Storm.

Movies Now: One of the things that stands out right away in the filmbesides those much-discussed high-waisted pantsis how basic clothes looks in the future, how simple, how unfuturistic. Was that very much a part of your discussion?

Casey Storm: When we first started talking about how to depict the future we immediately disliked anything you usually see in movies about the future. We wanted to use updated elements of things we know rather than project things we didnt. We didnt want to guess.

MN: Because so many of those movies do just thatthe clothes and the whole movie has this sheen to it, black-and-silver uniforms, latex, lots of bootsalmost as though theres some unofficial rule in a costume-designer handbook that mandates that.

CS: I think with a lot of other movies the logic is that with technology taking over our lives that it creates distance. And when theres distance you lose warmth and end up with coldness. And the way you depict coldness is you use clothes and colors that suggest coldnessblacks and silvers and whites and blues. Or I guess thats the thought progression. We thought what really made more sense, what could very likely be happening, is access. You can choose from everything in the world, so clothes become more individual. The word "bespoke" kept coming up. If you had all the things in the world, what would you gravitate to? For a lot of people it would be something warm and comfortable. So thats what we tried to create.

Excerpt from:
Five days of 'Her:' How Spike Jonze created the future

Posted in Futurism | Comments Off on Five days of ‘Her:’ How Spike Jonze created the future