Hackers target Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht’s legal fees fundraising campaign

By Jonathan Keane Published October 28, 2020

free ross ulbricht hackers — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Free Ross, a fundraising campaign to help the defense of imprisoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, was the target of hackers but since last week, it has regained control of its various accounts.

The Free Ross campaign is run by the family of Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for operating the dark web bazaar Silk Road. The money raised was to fund his appeal of the sentence. However, the campaign sent a message out to all donors and supporters to cease making donations for the time being as hackers had set their sights on its accounts and the money within them.

Recommended Videos

“Friends, we are sad to inform you that we have been a target of a terrible hack. Please do not make any donations to Free Ross at this time,” said the family in a Facebook post recently. Reportedly, the hacker(s) gained access to its email, PayPal, Twitter, and bitcoin wallet accounts, and sent donation solicitations to the group’s contacts.

A supporter of the campaign, Roger Ver, took to Reddit shortly after to explain how someone had contacted him claiming to be Ulbricht’s mother, Lyn Ulbricht, and asking for a loan. “I knew right away that it wasn’t her due to the horrible English. Whoever the hackers are, they aren’t native English speakers,” he said.

Ver, who is also a prominent bitcoin startup investor, followed up on Twitter to warn users about the hack and denounce the hackers. “Hackers that prey upon those who are already dealing with so much heartache deserve all of our contempt,” he wrote.

According to Ver, there are further concerns that the hackers may have gained access to the cell phone accounts of someone from the campaign in order to cross any SMS two-factor authentication hurdles on the other accounts.

Free Ross has since said that even though hackers appeared to breach its PayPal accounts and bitcoin, no funds have been stolen but donors should be wary.

“Our PayPal account is secure and safe to donate through,” the group said in one of its latest updates after the breach. “Our bitcoin is safe, but we’re in the process of regaining access to the frozen account, so please wait to give bitcoin donations. We’ll announce when this is done.”

Ulbricht was sentenced to life without parole in the summer of 2015 for founding and operating the Silk Road, which facilitated online drugs and arms sales via the dark web. His lawyers are currently building an appeal.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Jonathan is a freelance technology journalist living in Dublin, Ireland. He's previously written for publications and sites…

Computing

Best early Black Friday deals under $100: Amazon Echo, TVs, headphones and more

The Amazon Echo Pop on a desk.

Update 11/19/24: Black Friday is still over a week away, but you can already start your shopping with the Black Friday deals under $100 that we've gathered here. There's a possibility that these affordable items get even bigger discounts when the sale officially launches, but we won't blame you if you're already tempted by today's prices.

Black Friday will start on November 29, but if you've already got the itch to shop, check out the early Black Friday deals under $100 that we've gathered here. The offers cover smart home devices, laptops, TVs, kitchen gadgets, and so much more, so if you want to start enjoying discounts without blowing your entire budget for the shopping event, take a look at our favorite bargains below.

Computing

Understandably, Stalker 2 is a bit of a mess on PC

Key art for Stalker 2. A character in a lit-up gas mask and a gun on their back.

Stalker 2 is one of those games I never thought would actually release. Originally announced 14 years ago, the project was shelved after developer GSC Game World closed its doors, only to be reignited in 2018. Then, as the originally announced 2022 release of the game approached, Ukraine, where the developer was based, was invaded by Russia.

There are plenty of games that suffer in development hell, but they pale in comparison to the struggles Stalker 2 has gone through. The fact that the game is even here is nothing short of a miracle. Like other titles stuck in development hell, though, Stalker 2 is far from perfect, particularly when it comes to PC performance.

Computing

Nvidia may keep producing one RTX 40 GPU, and it’s not the one we want

The Alienware m16 R2 on a white desk.

The last few weeks brought us a slew of rumors about Nvidia potentially sunsetting most of the RTX 40-series graphics cards. However, a new update reveals that one GPU might remain in production long after other GPUs are no longer being produced. Unfortunately, it's a GPU that would struggle to rank among Nvidia's best graphics cards. I'm talking about the RTX 4050 -- a card that only appears in laptops.

The scoop comes from a leaker on Weibo and was first spotted by Wccftech. The leaker states that the RTX 4050 is "the only 40-series laptop GPU that Nvidia will continue to supply" after the highly anticipated launch of the RTX 50-series. Unsurprisingly, the tipster also reveals that the fact that both the RTX 4050 and the RTX 5050 will be readily available at the same time will also impact the pricing of the next-gen card.