YouSaid · the spoken record

Chris Tarbell

lines on the record: 224
first: 2022-11-22
most recent: 2022-11-22
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Still have victims. I mean, you're laughing at someone. Someone's the butt of this joke. Whether it's major corporations or the individuals, I mean, some of the stuff they did was just, you know, releasing people's PII and their personal identifying information and stuff like that. I mean, is it a big deal? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not, but if you could choose to not have your information put out there, probably wouldn't.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just a place where you hang out. I mean, it's just it started on 4chan, went to 8chan, and then it's really just anyone. You could be anonymous right now if you wanted to. Just you're in there hanging out in the channel. Now, you're probably not going to get much cred until you work your way up and prove who you are or someone vouches for you. But anybody can be anonymous. And you can leave anonymous.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's their online names. They're Nicks. And so, you know, they knew each other as, you know, they talked as those names. And they worked well together. And so they formed a hacking crew. And that's when they started the, at first they didn't name it this, but it was the 50 days of lulls where they would just release major, major breaches. And it stirred up the media. I mean, it put hacking in the media every day. They had 400 or 500,000 Twitter followers. And it was kind of interesting. But then they started swinging at the beehive and they took out some FBI affiliated sites. And then they started fuck FBI Fridays where every Friday they would release something. And we waited it with bated breath. I mean, they had us hookline and sinker pissed. We were waiting to see what was going to be dropped if Friday.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Developed into that. So I think the hacktivism and the anonymous stuff wasn't so much for the Lulls. But from that HB Gary Federal hack, then there were six guys that worked well together and they formed a crew, a hacking crew, and they kind of split off into their own private channels. And that was Lulsek or laughing at your security was their motto.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They outwardly said that they were going to go after people that they thought were corrupt. So they were judging jury on corruption. They were going to go after it. Once you get inside and realize what they were doing, they were going after people that they had an opportunity to go after. So maybe someone had a zero day and then they searched for servers running that zero day. And then from there, let's find a target. I mean, one time they went after a toilet paper company. I still don't understand what that toilet paper company did, but it was an opportunity to make a splash.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Anonymous started doing their like hacktivism stuff in 2010 or so. The word hack was in the media all the time then. And then right around then there was a federal contractor named H.B. Gary Federal, the CEO is Aaron Barr. And Aaron Barr said he was going to come out and de-anonymize anonymous. He's going to come out and talk at Black Hat or DEF CON or one of those and say, you know, who they are. He figured it out. So he figured it out by based on, you know, when people were online, when people were in IRC, when tweets came out, there was no scientific proof behind it or anything. So he's just going to falsely name people that were in anonymous. So, anonymous went on the attack. They went and hacked in HP Gary Federal, and they turned his life upside down. They took over his Twitter account and all that stuff pretty quickly.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably anonymous. Anonymous was a decent, it still is, I guess, a decentralized organization. They call themselves headless. But once you look into them a little ways, they're not really headless. The power struggle comes with whoever has a hacking ability. That might be you're a good hacker or you have a giant botnet used for DDoS. So you're going to wield more power if you can control where it goes.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Goes with the propaganda. I mean, if you were to build a story, you have to have on the other side, you know, the homes are going to be destroyed, the non-military targets are going to be destroyed.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When you see a human being bad to another human, you can't. Get rid of that in your You can't imagine that we can treat each other like that. That's the hard part, I think. I mean, for me it is. When I saw parents, like when I did the child exploitation stuff, when they rented their children out, they literally rented infant children out to others for sexual gratification. Like, I don't know how a human being could do that to another human being. That sounds like the kind of thing you're going through. I mean, I went through a huge funk when I did those cases afterwards. I should have talked to somebody, but in the FBI, you have to keep thatismo up or they're going to take a gun away from you.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You let that hate influence you? I mean, can you be bullied into a different opinion than you think you really are just because of that, hate?”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But you don't grow. I mean, do you want to be just static and not grow? You have to question yourself on some of these things if you want to grow as a person.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A tough job. I mean, if you're the liaison, if you're the FBI's liaison to Facebook, there are certain people that I'm sure they were offered a position at some point. There's FBI agents, the Goat. I know a couple that's gone to Facebook. There's a really good agent that now leads up their child exploitation stuff. Another squad mate runs their internal investigations, both great investigators. So, you know, there's good money, especially when you're an FBI agent that's capped out at a 1310 or whatever pay scale you're capped out at. It's alluring to be maybe want to please them and be asked to join them.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, yeah, it sounded like there was a wink wink with it. I don't know if Mark meant for that to be that way. Again, are we being social engineered or was that a true expression that Mark had?”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, you asked me when I was in the FBI, I wouldn't believe it from being on the inside and I wouldn't believe these things. But there's a certain narrative being written that is surprising to me that the FBI is involved in these stories.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You would have asked me when I was inside and before all this happened, I would say it never happened. I don't believe in conspiracies. There's too many people involved. Something's going to come out with some sort of information. But, I mean, from the more the stuff that comes out, it's surprising that, you know, agents are being fired because of certain actions they're taking inside and being dismissed because of politically motivated actions.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's tough. It is tough, you know, because again, they're only limited to what they're legally allowed to do in a search warrant is the only legal way of doing it. I have my personal and political views on certain things. It might be surprising to somewhere those political.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The FBI and Maralagon, FBI taking the documents for Donald Trump. It's a tough spot. It's a really tough spot. The FBI has gotten a lot of black eyes recently. And I don't know if it's the same FBI that I remember when I was there.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Someone, a victim has come forward and said, We're the victim of this. And I agree with you because, again, the basis of the internet was to share academic thought. I mean, that's where the internet was born. But it's not up to you. So the role of the FBI is to enforce the law. Correct. And there's a limited number of tools on our Batman belt that we can use not to get into all the aspects of the Trump case and Mar Lago and the documents there. I mean, the FBI has so many tools they can use and a search warrant is the only way they could get in there. I mean, that's it. There's no other legal document or legal way to enter and get those documents. What do you think about the...”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You have to press forward with that. I mean, you have to charge you bring the case to the UNS Attorney Office and whether they're going to press charges or not. You can't really pick and choose what you press and don't press for it. I never felt that at least that flexibility, not in the FBI. I mean, maybe when you're a street cop and you pull somebody over, you can let them go with a warning. So an FBI, you're sitting in a room, but you're also a human being. You have compassion. You arrested Ross, the hand on the chest. I mean, that's a human thing. So there's, but I can't be the jury for whether it was a good hack or a bad hack.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He stood for that ideal and was punished harshly for it. That's the other criticism is too harshly. And of course, deeply unfortunately, that also led to a suicide because he's also tormented on many levels. I mean, are you familiar with him? What do you think about that line between what is legal and what is ethical? It's a tough case. I mean, the outcome was tragic, obviously. Unfortunately, when you're in law enforcement, your job is to enforce the laws. I mean, if you're told that you have to do a certain case, you know, and there is a violation of at the time, you know, 18 USC 1030 computer hacking.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he basically broke the law to do the ethical thing. Now, you could challenge it. Maybe it is unethical, but there's a gray area, and to me at least, it is ethical. To me at least, he is a hero because I'm familiar with the paywall created by the institutions that hold these publications, they're adding very little value. So it is basically holding hostage the work of millions of brilliant scientists for some kind of, honestly, a crappy capitalist institution. Like they're not actually making that much money. It doesn't make any sense to me. To me, it should all be open public access. There's no reason it shouldn't be all publications should be.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was rough. Just to linger on this ethical versus legal question, what do you think about people like Aaron Schwartz? I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he was somebody... Who broke the law in the name of an ethical ideal, he downloaded and released Academic publications that were behind a paywall And he was arrested for that and then committed suicide. And a lot of people see him, certainly in the MIT community, but throughout the world as a hero. You look at the way knowledge, scientific knowledge is being put behind paywalls, it does seem somehow unethical.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really, exactly, gritty. I mean, shows like Chernobyl from HBO made me realize, okay, you can do a good job of a difficult story and reveal the human side, but also reveal the technical side and have some deeper fond understanding on that case, on the bureaucracy of a Soviet regime. In this case, you could reveal the bureaucracy, the chaos of a criminal organization, of a law enforcement organization. I mean, there's so much to explore. It's fascinating. Yeah, I liked Chernobyl. When I rewatch it, I can't watch episode three though, the animal episode. They go around shooting all the dogs and all that. I got to skip that part. You're a big softy, aren't you? I really am. I'm sure I'll probably cry at some point. I love it. I love it. Listen, don't get me talking to that episode you made about your grandmother. Oh my God.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The operation of BI is fascinating. Just tracking down these people on the cybersecurity front is fascinating. The other is just how you run Tor, how you run this kind of organization, the trust issues of the different criminal entities involved, the anonymity, the low-hanging fruit, the being shitty at certain parts on the technical front, all of those are fascinating things. And, you know, that's what a movie should reveal. It should probably be a series, honestly, a Netflix series than a movie. Yeah, one an FX show or something like that. Kind of gritty, you know.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The reality is the technical details for five hours with him, for ten hours with him is what people actually want to see, even people that don't program. They want to see a brilliant mind, the details that they're not, even if they don't understand all the details, they want to have an inkling of the genius there. That's just one way I'm saying that you want to reveal the genius, the complexity of that world in interesting ways and to make a Hollywood almost parody caricature of it, it just destroys the spirit of the thing. So one...”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I didn't have anything to do with that movie. I've watched it once. It was kind of cool that Jimmy Simpson, you know, was my name in the movie. But outside of that, I thought it sort of missed the mark on some things. When Hollywood, I don't think they understand what's interesting about these kinds of stories. And there's a lot of things that are interesting, and they missed all of them. So, for example, I recently talked to John Carmack, who's a world-class developer and so on. So Hollywood would think that the interesting thing about John Carmack is some kind of like shitty parody of a hacker or something like that. They would show really crappy emulation of some kind of Linux terminal thing.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think he's somewhere out Arizona. I know he was in the one next to Supermax for a little while, like the high security one that shares the fence with Supermax, but I don't think he's there anymore. I wonder if you can do interviews in prison. That would be nice. Some people are allowed to, so I've not seen an interview with him. I know people have wanted to interview him about books and that sort of thing. Right, because the story really blew up. Did it surprise you how much the story and many elements of it blew up movies? It did surprise me. My wife's uncle, who I didn't, I've been married to my wife for 22 years now. I don't think he knew my name. And he was excited about that. He reached out when Silk Road came out. So that was surprising to see. Did you think the movie was on the topic was good?”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I possibly could have been if I took that 20 million then. I could have been, we could have this conversation in Venezuela.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think so. I think he kind of got caught up in how much money it was and how when crypto started, it was pennies. And by the time he got arrested, it was $120. I mean, $177,000 Bitcoins even today, you know, that's a lot of Bitcoins.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think that. I mean, he did offer me $20 million to let him go when we were driving to the jail. And I asked him what I was going to do. We were going to do the agent that sat in the front seat.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From that point on, I can't question him When he asked for a lawyer, or if I did, it wouldn't be used against him. So we just had a conversation where I talked to him. You know, he could, you know, could say things to me, but then I would remind him that he asked for a lawyer and he'd have to waive that and all that. But we didn't talk about his case so much. We just talked about like human beings.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I mean, he'd already had lawyered up, so we, you know, which is his writing can do that. So I knew we weren't going to work together, you know, like I did with Hector. But, I mean,”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We took him to the jail and we, so it was after hours, so he didn't get to see a judge that day. So we stuck him in the San Francisco jail. I hadn't slept for about four days because I was dealing with people in Iceland, bosses in DC, bosses in New York. And I was in San Francisco. So time frame, like the Iceland people were calling me when I was supposed to be sleeping. It was insane. I still went out that night while Ross sat in jail and bought him breakfast. I said, what do you want for breakfast? I'll have a nice breakfast for you because we picked him up in the morning and took him over to the FBI to do the FBI booking, the fingerprints and all that. And I got him breakfast. I mean, and you don't get paid back for that sort of thing. I'm not looking, but out of my own taste.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was a human being. He was an actual person. He was nervous when we arrested him. So one of the things that I learned through my law enforcement career is if I'm going to be the case agent, I'm going to be the one in charge of dealing with this person, I'm not putting handcuffs on him. Somebody else is going to do that. Like I'm going to be there to help him. I'm your conduit to help. And so, you know, right after someone's arrested, obviously you've had them down for weapons to make sure everybody's safe. But then I just put my hand on their chest. Just feel their heart, feel their breathing. I'm sure it's the scariest day. But then to have that human contact kind of settles people down. And you can kind of, let's start thinking about this. I'm going to tell you, you know, I'm going to be open and honest with you. You know, there's a lot of cops out there and federal agents cops that just go to the hard ass tactic. You don't get very far with that. You don't get very far being a mean asshole to somebody, you know.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, that Uber hacker, I think that's just you not realizing what consequences are. I mean, based on his actions, Ross was a little bit older. I think Ross truly is a libertarian. He was truly had his beliefs that he could provide the gateway for other people to live that libertarian lifestyle and put in their body what they want. I don't think that was a front or a lie.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you get the accolations of it. I mean, there's power that comes along. If you have success, look at the kid that was hacking into Uber and rockstar games. He put it out there that he was doing it. I mean, he used the name whatever hacked into Uber was his screen name. He was very proud of it. I mean, one Bill Nevans against himself. But, you know, he wanted that slap on the back. Like, look at what a great hacker you are.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I stopped playing because it's so embarrassing. It's embarrassing. It's like wrestling with your kid and he finally beats you. He's like, well, fuck that. I'm not wrestling with my kid any ever again.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Anything. No, you can't. You honestly can't. And like, you can talk to two different people, and it's the same person. There's so many different, you know, Hector had so many different identities online of things that, you know, the lies to each other. I mean, he lied to people inside his group just to use another name to spy on make sure what we're talking shit behind his back or weren't doing anything. It's all lies. And people that can keep all those lies straight, it's unbelievable to me.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, it's way too slow Way too slow, but I mean, you can't even know some people use it to like view movies like Netflix, you can only view certain movies in certain countries. You can use it for that, but it's too slow even for that.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, Tor's still the main one out there. I mean, there's a few others, and I'm not going to put an advertisement out for them. But, you know, I thought that market would have grown.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't understand it. It would have been something for me. I thought it was going to collapse. But, I mean, it's just gotten bigger in what's going out there. Now, I'm really surprised that it hasn't grown into other networks where people haven't developed other networks.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because all the projections and anonymity decloaking all that would have been drastically more difficult. And a lot of people in upper management, the FBI didn't have the appetite of running something like that. That would have been the FBI running a drug market. How many kids, how many fathers would have to come in and said, my kid bought while the FBI was running a site, a drug site, my kid died. So I didn't know of anybody in the FBI in management that would have the appetite to let us run what was happening on Silk Road. We still believe and six people are dead. We're still investigating where all these bodies. That's pretty much why we took down Ross when we did. I mean, we had to jump on it fast.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it increased. I think, you know, that's one of the things I think about a lot with Silk Road was that no one really knew. I mean, there was thousands of users. But then after that, I was on the front page of the paper and there was millions of people that knew about Tor and Onion Sights. It was an advertisement. I would have thought crypto was going to crash right after that. Like, I don't see that bad people are doing bad things with crypto. That'll crash. I'm obviously wrong on that one. And I thought, you know, Ross was sentenced to two life sentences plus 40 years. No one's going to start up these dark markets exploded after that. Some of them started as, you know, opportunistic. I'm going to take those escrow accounts and I'm going to steal all the money that came in. They were for that. But, you know, but there were a lot of dark markets that popped up after that. Now we put the playbook out there.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. I mean, as I've gotten older, I'm starting to, I like to see both sides of an argument. And when I can't see the other side, that's when I really like to dive into it. And I can see the other side. I can see why people would say that, but I don't want to be my race children in a world where drugs are just free for use.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Might be above my pay scale. I mean, I understand the other side of the argument. I mean, people said that I don't have to go down to the corner to buy drugs. I'm not going to get shot on the corner buying drugs or something. I can just have them sent to my house. People are going to do drugs anyways. I understand that argument from my personal standpoint. If I made it more difficult for my children to get drugs, then I'm satisfied.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So there was a time period of when we found out the infrastructure and when we built the case against Ross. I don't remember exactly six weeks, a month, two months, I don't know, somewhere in there. But then at Ross' ascendancing, there was a father that stood up and talked about his son dying. And I went back and kind of did the math, and it was between those time periods of when we knew we could shut it down. We could have pulled the plug on the server and gone. And when Ross was arrested, his son died from buying drugs on Sellgrown. And I still think about that father a lot.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“His mind and where he wrote in his diary was that I had people killed, and here's the money. He paid it. He paid a large amount of bitcoins for that murder. Those murders”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, the only regretting is that the internet doesn't seem to understand they just kind of blow that part off that he literally paid people to have people murdered. It didn't result in a murder, and I think God no one resulted in a murder.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They wanted us just to turn the data over to them Thanks for getting us this far. Here it is. I mean, it came to the point where they sent us. Had a picture of what they thought Ross was, and it was an internet meme. It really was a meme. It was a photo that we could look up. Like, it was insane.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, why would you, why is that at stake? Just because you've worked on it long enough, longer than I have, that means you did better? It's insane to me that it's rewarding bad behavior.”
2022-11-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #340 – Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source