I'm in no way condoning this guys actions, but the articles bias is a joke.<p>> unemployed<p>> university drop-out<p>> White paid £10,700 up front to rent his plush apartment on Liverpool’s city water front.<p>..that's cheap. And he was employed - albeit running an 'illegal' website - and no-one refers to Zuckerberg et al as a university drop-out.
>Thomas White, now 26, took over the running of the notorious dark web site Silk Road after it was first closed in 2013.<p>How on earth does someone take a look at what happened to Ulbricht and think "I fancy doing that". Honestly, the lengths that they went to find Ulbricht were ridiculous and the consequences for him were essentially life-ending.<p>I'm actually astonished hearing about this now how short a sentence White got. Ulbricht is serving 2 life sentences without parole. White is serving 5 years - despite some extremely bad charges (child porn, drug trafficking etc)
> Although he had no legitimate income, White paid £10,700 up front to rent his plush apartment on Liverpool’s city water front.<p>This sounds so deeply out of touch. Has the writer never visited London? There are thousands of <i>students</i> fitting this description, often paying much more.
More information and background:
<a href="https://news.bitcoin.com/silk-road-2-founder-finally-sentenced-5-years-after-his-arrest/" rel="nofollow">https://news.bitcoin.com/silk-road-2-founder-finally-sentenc...</a>
If the previous guy who ran Silk Road got caught and is now in jail for basically life, why would you be confident that you could take over the same infra and get away with it?