The fall of the Silk Road: The Aftermath

So, the silk road has fallen and its so called leader, the Dread Pirate Roberts (hereafter referred to as DPR) is in FBI custody awaiting arraignment. I can't help but wonder what the repercussions are of this development in terms of TOR anonymity and security and also how it sits as an incident in the continued spectacular and catastrophic failure of "The War on Drugs".

No doubt the FBI and other involved law enforcement groups are giving themselves a collective slap-on-the-back right now. They did, after all, take down a site that may have generated upwards of $80 million in illegal revenue in the two and a half years it was online. In the process of taking it down it has been reported that they seized $3.6 million in Bitcoins - which may have been DPR's commission earnings from the site. Taking this many coins out of circulation is no small blip especially considering there is a finite supply on the open marketplace. The reality is, however, that this is not a large bust in the grand scheme of things and is designed more to frighten inhabitants of the dark web who think they can discreetly and anonymously involve themselves in illegal trade without consequences. Right now, on the Silk Road forums, a lot of the site's former vendors are scurrying away to the nether regions of the TOR network to lie low or, in some cases, giving up their trade altogether. As for the site's moderators, who were reportedly paid between $1000 and $2000 a week - many have gone into hiding, not surprisingly fearing for their safety.

A lot of questions have arisen now that the news of the bust has settled. Namely, what will the FBI's next move be? They have already taken an image of the site's server and have had this in their possession since July 2013. No doubt they will be examining the server for clues relating to the location of the site's vendors and those who did not encrypt their communications using PGP or Privnote are probably wondering when the knock on the door is coming.

And what about the site buyers? Will the FBI be drilling down into this data and passing on what they find to police authorities across the world or will the sheer task of trying to piece together the ebb and flow of Bitcoin transactions amongst what is estimated to be nearly 1 million users prove too overwhelming and beyond their resources? We can only guess and over time I am sure the picture will become more complete.

It seems that DPR made some catastrophic errors of judgement in terms of concealing his identity, especially in the early days of trying to promote the web site - leading the feds to a simple gmail address and, ultimately, to the identity of the man himself. This seems inconceivable from someone who was so concerned about keeping a tight ship in terms of the site security and safety of its vendors and customers. Why didn't he practice what he preached? Well, to a great extent he probably did but he got sloppy and careless when it came to covering his tracks which lead to his undoing.

As I have already mentioned above, at the time of writing the Silk Road forums are still open and full of confused souls trying to make sense of the fallout from the site's collapse. Questions are being raised as to how truly anonymous the site's transactions were. It is alleged that once an order was marked as shipped by a vendor, the buyer's address was deleted from the server. It is not inconceivable however that this data could be recovered by law enforcement and possibly used to justify a raid or ten. Also, questions are being asked about how truly anonymous you can remain on the darknet as a result of this raid. Although the smartest buyers and vendors encrypted communications using PGP, even the strength of this encryption method is being called into question by some forum users in the current atmosphere of paranoia.

"Maybe the NSA have cracked PGP already?", wrote one user.
"We should be worried," wrote another.

How worried they should be remains open to debate for now. There will always be those who take their digital security so seriously as to be ultra careful when it comes to concealing their online identity and covering their tracks. So much so that it would prove futile, expensive and time consuming to try and uncover them. Unfortunately for the million or so users of the Silk Road, the Dread Pirate Roberts wasn't one of them.

Authority figures - Elliott Smith lyrics Part 2

What I find curious when I dive into Elliott Smith's lyrics are the plethora of references to institutions of authority in some way, especially the army or the police. Figure 8 is particularly awash with such references in the form of metaphor or more explicit referrals:

Now I'm a policeman directing traffic
Keeping everything moving, everything static
I'm the hitchhiker you recognize passing
On your way to some everlasting...
(Junk Bond Trader)

This metaphor of a policeman directing traffic reoccurs towards the end of the album in the song "Happiness/The Gondola Man"

Activity's killing the actor
And a cop's standing out in the road 
Turning traffic away

Now the title of the album is "Figure 8" and the later reference is probably deliberate as Smith explores the movement of life and the idea of infinity. We can almost imagine this constant flow, constant movement. The policeman in "Junk Bond Trader" is Smith himself, acting as a living contradiction because the traffic is both moving and static, illustrating how we are almost perfect contradictions as human beings. Later on in "Happiness", the traffic is being turned away which could hint at an accident or on a symbolic level an attempt to deflect away from finding the deeper, emotional meaning to the situation at hand. We are not led to understand what truly happened in the song although it touches on regret, and the importance of listening to friends and receiving advice properly when it comes to how to handle an emotional situation. Then Elliott picks up the third party references and transfers them onto his own view of his own mortality and the root of his true desires:

What I used to be will pass away and then you'll see
That all I want now is happiness for you and me

"Happiness" is certainly one of his most moving songs as it reaches us on so many levels and is, for me, one of his best lyrics because it starts off with what seems a simple theme and delves deeper - stretching out to touch our hearts with the final, emotional plea outlined above.

Continued in Part 3 (Coming Soon)

Dead on my feet - a poem for Elliott Smith

Dead on my feet

Falling through my ears
like soft, aural snow your

Voice has a scent
like sweet wine in summer
or dirty whiskey winters

I wish I could
write words across years
across sounds like these

Maybe I won’t but there
will still be your songs
to keep hold of
and wonder at

While time draws
strange patterns across my chest
and twilight dancers form

A figure of eight
head to toe

Sunshine
to go

(For Elliott Smith)

A natural realignment

In a previous post I asked the question: How do you live a radically different life? I did not propose a defining answer to this question but it has since occurred to me that there is a perception in the west that if you do want to live a radically different life then it would likely involve "dropping out" of society in some way.

I personally dislike this phrase "dropping out" because it implies that everyone in society is included in some way anyway - which they aren't because the nature of society in the west is that competitiveness results in a feeling of exclusion if you not one of the successful alpha types. Additionally, I hear a common theme when this idea of dropping out and living a greener way of life closer to nature is discussed at length on message boards and other areas of the internet. This will be something along the lines of "You won't last two weeks before you miss all the comforts of your life such as tv, internet, computers, washing machines etc. The reason we invented all these technological advancements is to make our lives easier so harking back to some bygone era will not make you happier as you are just romanticising the idea that things were better in the past."

There is some truth in this statement. There is a tendency for someone of an idealistic nature to over romanticise the past but it is worth asking the question: How much better are our lives truly with the benefits technology has given us? We are more distant from each other than ever before. While it is undoubtedly true that technology has made things easier on a practical scale it has not resulted in an increase in our overall happiness as much as we think. There has been a sharp increase in diagnosis of mental health conditions in western countries over the last thirty years which coincides with an increase in cheap, affordable technology. We have an over abundance of devices to communicate with each other but we have become obssessed with the means at the expense of the value of what we are communicating.

The truth is, it would be easier to drop out and live closer to nature if you are already the type of person who does not feel reliant on technology in their lives and has the necessary skills to allow them to make the transition to a way of life that is kinder to the environment. It is about shifting your viewpoint and looking at a natural realignment of your life priorities. Even if we all made the effort to do just one simple thing that allowed us to find a way of aligning to nature instead of our daily obssession with our social media profiles and updates then that would be a really important achievement; because it would allow us to see more clearly that we are an integral part of nature and not an aloof observer of it.

What is a man's role in modern society?

Men have changed. Of this, there is no doubt. Men no longer occupy a traditional hunter-gatherer role, at least not in modern, western society anyway. In a lot of ways, they still perform aspects of this role but in a seriously diluted way. I know some may argue that men are still the main providers for the family so it's just a question of semantics. They are now office managers / service supply organisers. Their pile of metaphorical "firewood" gets bigger with each promotion but does the distance from their true selves grow deeper with each advancement up the hierarchical rung as well?

I would argue that a man's role in modern society has deepened the void within themselves and created a wealth of contradictions and contra-indications that, for some, is difficult to live with. If man's true nature is an outdoor connection and a reminder of their innate wild selves then a failure to connect with this can cause deep issues and fragmentation of a man's psyche and being. A man's life is connected to the earth, grounded in nature and the more divorced they are from this state the more out of balance they become and more prone to issues with their own masculinity and, in extreme cases, susceptible to mental illness as well.

Chuck Pahlanuik's "Fight Club" touches on issues of a man's role in modern society as well as questions of masculinity.


Tyler Durden: Do you know what a duvet is? 
Narrator: It's a comforter... 
Tyler Durden: It's a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then?
Narrator: ...Consumers?
Tyler Durden: Right. We are consumers. We're the bi-products of a lifestyle obsession.

"Fight Club" argues that men have become detached from their own gender, their roles subverted so that they no longer occupy their traditional role and place in society - they have become mere consumers. This has caused a malaise which, in the terms of the book, causes them to seek solace and try and reconnect with their masculinity in a concentrated, distorted way via the underground "Fight Clubs" that are created by the narrator. Also, because women are occupying the hunter-gatherer role more and more this has left men feeling confused and resentful and, as men's traditional role models disappear i.e their fathers take off and the family unit dissolves, they are raised by women and surrounded by women as they grow up resulting in a lack of clarity regarding a sense of their own identity and masculinity. Such men can find themselves in a wilderness in their adult lives wondering what it truly means to be a man. If they are thrust into a family provider role when they haven't grown up with a sense of what that means then there is a risk of things becoming unbalanced if they cannot reconcile their feminine and masculine self as one within.

It is self-evident that men feel a need to be competitive in modern society. This can be seen in countless spectacles in the sporting arena and, in a less overt way in the business arena. They compete with each other for the prize of being top of the heap but they also compete with each other for the affection and attention of women. Perhaps if men knew how to authentically communicate with women they wouldn't feel the need to turn it into a competitive exercise? Just because our society has arranged itself in terms of these set conventions, it does not mean that they cannot be subverted. I ask the question: Why do men feel they cannot be in touch with their feminine aspect? Why are they so afraid of displaying this aspect of themselves, especially when it can play a vital part in allowing the substance that compiles their identity - the core of their being, in fact, to be in harmony so they can exude their true nature and be who they really are?

Some might say that this is an impossible dream. Men must be full of contradiction as it is these contradictions that help make society tick. I think this is, in essence, a load of rubbish. There are too many examples of depressed men who go to their jobs day in, day out, perform the tasks asked of them and then, at night, return home to anaesthetise their brains via video games or alcohol. They can't connect to their partners because they are unwilling to reach out to meet the feminine aspect halfway. Yet the ones who are able to do this often report a great awakening in how they are able to live their lives because they can relate to their partners and women as a whole, authentically.

Perhaps this is the role that men must undertake in modern society: being authentic. They must embrace their feminine aspect so that they can remain balanced and can communicate with women in a balanced way. Be in touch with their connection to the earth and not lost in a false world of office paperwork, video games and the dulling technological and consumer world. This is not the fate of man and if he opens his eyes, he will see this clearly.

Oh well, okay - musings on Elliott Smiths lyrics - Part 1

I could honestly write about a hundred blog posts on Elliott Smith. His life, his music, his sense of being and his spirit absolutely fascinate me. But mostly it's his music and clever lyrics that are the main draw. I have, quite literally, had four of his albums on constant rotation in my car stereo for the last few months. Normally by now I would have been sick to death of hearing the same songs over and over if it was any other artist I was listening to but not Mr. Smith. He has this uncanny ability to reveal more and more of his psyche each time one of his songs spin into your sub-conscious. In fact some songs carry off this other worldly setting and feeling almost like it is a natural thing. In From a Basement on the Hill, his last album, the opening track Coast to Coast bleeds slowly into an aural soundscape of industrial noise and grimy power pop.

Last stop for a resolution
End of the line, is it confusion?

Hinting at Smith's death which occurred while the album was still in its last stages of being mixed, the "last stop for a resolution" line stands out like the awkward, premonitory line it is. And these lines are also interesting because they point towards a familiar theme in a lot of Elliott Smith's song - this sense of no closure and the fact that he leaves an open ended interpretation dangling in mid air, offering no definite end.

In one of Smith's more famous songs, Angeles, he seems to be saying: Life is cyclical. I will be gone one day but the same scenes will replay themselves over and over until, maybe, one day we pull ourselves out of this karmic knot:

Someone's always coming around here
Trailing some new kill

As much as anything, the song seems like a comment on the decadent nature of the entertainment industry that places itself in this position of a great draining, feeding entity. Whenever I see the song played live, Elliott reminds me of the devil narrating the song. He seems almost to be channeling another worldly entity and the complex structure of the song's guitar arrangement only acts to reinforce this perspective.

I can make you satisfied in
Everything you do
All your secret wishes could right
Now be coming true

The devil will promise the world to whoever listens and wants to be seduced by his charms. The big city lights are a strong pull for those wanting fame, fortune and recognition. The shortcut to all these is where temptation has the biggest sway.


When I am listening to Elliott Smith's music and I allow myself to drift off, sometimes I find myself imagining I am an extra in a movie about his life, watching musical sequences wrap themselves around certain songs. The autobiographical Waltz #2 paints a really vivid picture of a small child reciting anguished lyrics as he observes his mother and stepfather in the early throes of their romance.


First the mic, then a half cigarette
Singing "Cathy's Clown"
That's the man that she's married to now
That's the girl that he takes around town

Later on in the song you can feel this negative entity in the form of his stepfather creating a dark energy over the proceedings. He's already told the young boy he's "no good" and now he's fighting back:


Tell Mr. Man with impossible plans to just leave me alone
In the place where I make no mistakes
In the place where I have what it takes

Smith is making it clear that his life cannot be controlled by an overbearing step-parent who wants to put him in his place. So he retreats into the "place where I make no mistakes " and "have what it takes" i.e his musical talent and ability to create songs that are appreciated by people. The source of a lot of Smith's anger can be found not just in this song but in a song also found on XO called Pitseleh.

Continued in Part 2 >>

The truth about wifi and how safe technology really is

Not long ago I was interested in finding out if there had been any real significant long-term studies on the affect of wi-fi technology on human health. What I discovered was that there are very few such studies out there which draw any definite conclusions. The long and short of it is that there seems to be a general consensus that wi-fi is safe, based on the knowledge we currently have, as it uses a non-ionising form of radiation that is similarly found in microwaves, infrared light etc. and:

 "does not carry enough energy to ionise atoms and at high levels of exposure can only excite atoms, causing heating." (BBC News, 21st May 2007)

However, some scientists have raised the question as to whether wi-fi can be so easily brushed aside as safe. Indeed, some have found that:

"low levels of non-ionising radiation can cause damage to chromosomes. But there is currently no scientific evidence that wi-fi, in particular, causes this to happen." (BBC News, ibid.)

The belief is still there, however, that non-ionising radiation can do more than just excite atoms but this is difficult to prove with wi-fi. It is my belief that in circumstances like these and with issues as important as this one, we step outside our scientific framework and model for quantifying existence and explore the issue on an energetic level.

How does wi-fi really make you feel? Does it make you feel anything at all? For some the answer might be no. But have you tried turning off your router for a number of hours when not needed (at night for instance) and seen if it has a positive affect on you or not? It may not do or it might take you a while to notice it, in which case, it may be that you decide it is not worth exploring for any length of time and you just go back to leaving it on constantly. This is a modern syndrome that is typically played out in the west as the speed of our lives often demands that we receive instant or quick feedback because we are so used to having an almost infinite amount of information and resources at our fingertips. But I say to you there is great benefit from stepping outside of this mentality and persevering, because it is in this empty space that you can reconnect with one of the greatest human tools you possess. Your own instinct.

We've recently started turning off our wifi router for certain periods in our house, mostly at night, and although it is early days we feel that it has made a difference to the quality of our sleep on a subtle level. And I think it raises an important point that sometimes it is better to take direct action yourself to determine how safe something is rather than waiting for an expert to tell you whether it is safe or not. At the end of the day it is your body and your health and taking control of that is an empowering thing. I am not for one second advocating you dismiss concrete medical advice on other issues and adopt this approach universally, but with wi-fi, because it is so difficult to conclude its safety one way or the other,  it is a prime example of how your own judgement and instinct can guide you down the best path of action.