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High Agency Story:
The man who outperformed the FBI using Google search.
In 2012, the FBI's top priority was to identify the owner of the illegal drug website: Silk Road.
Despite billions of dollars of resources and the best investigative teams in the world... they couldn't do it.
Gary Alford was the first person to do it.
He was a solo tax inspector when he started investigating Silk Road.
He had no knowledge of the dark web, Bitcoin, or Tor when he started.
Here's what Gary did have:
1. He reads everything 3x
Every book, email, or article he reads 3x.
It's an unusual habit.
He does this to ensure he retains more than those around him.
2. The Gamblers Run Problem
Gary read the Bitcoin Whitepaper 3 times... (Of course)
In the paper, he became obsessed with "The Gamblers Run Problem":
No matter how much money a gambler has, the casino, with its infinite resources, will always win in the end if the game continues indefinitely.
Gary believed the Dread Pirate Roberts (owner of the site) was the gambler and he was the casino.
3. Student of History
His favorite case from history was "The Son of Sam": A NY Serial Killer from 1976-1977.
The NYPD threw unlimited resources at this case... But they couldn't find him.
Rather than search the crime scene for weapons, one officer started looking for parking tickets in the areas of the murder sprees
Why?
Hypotheses: No serial killer would stop mid-way through murder to pay for parking
A Ford Galaxie had tickets for every murder night
When detectives went to the murderer's home - he admitted on the spot and said" "What took you so long?"
Gary's lesson from this story:
You could solve an unsolvable mystery by looking at the problem differently.
"A change in perspective is worth 50 IQ points"
----
How Gary Used Google Search:
Gary became obsessed with the idea of a "Digital parking ticket"
He worked from first principles on the following question:
"What is the earliest post about Silk Road on the internet?"
He searched for "Silkroad . onion" and filtered by date within Google search settings.
The oldest post he could find was on a Bitcoin forum from an account called "Altoid"
Gary contacted all forums that were associated with the "Altoid" handle.
Most forums had fake emails in their database for the handle - except one...
"RossUlbricht @ gmail. com" was associated with the oldest Altoid account.
He managed to achieve what the FBI, CIA, and DEA with their billion-dollar budgets and world-class experts could not do.
-------
Note: The point of this story isn't to comment on whether drugs should be illegal, the corruption in the case, or if the life sentence was justified.
The point of the story is to highlight the tremendous leverage an individual with an internet connection, agency, and out-of-the-box thinking can achieve.
One man with Google Search outperformed the best investigation agencies in the world.
The man who outperformed the FBI using Google search.
In 2012, the FBI's top priority was to identify the owner of the illegal drug website: Silk Road.
Despite billions of dollars of resources and the best investigative teams in the world... they couldn't do it.
Gary Alford was the first person to do it.
He was a solo tax inspector when he started investigating Silk Road.
He had no knowledge of the dark web, Bitcoin, or Tor when he started.
Here's what Gary did have:
1. He reads everything 3x
Every book, email, or article he reads 3x.
It's an unusual habit.
He does this to ensure he retains more than those around him.
2. The Gamblers Run Problem
Gary read the Bitcoin Whitepaper 3 times... (Of course)
In the paper, he became obsessed with "The Gamblers Run Problem":
No matter how much money a gambler has, the casino, with its infinite resources, will always win in the end if the game continues indefinitely.
Gary believed the Dread Pirate Roberts (owner of the site) was the gambler and he was the casino.
3. Student of History
His favorite case from history was "The Son of Sam": A NY Serial Killer from 1976-1977.
The NYPD threw unlimited resources at this case... But they couldn't find him.
Rather than search the crime scene for weapons, one officer started looking for parking tickets in the areas of the murder sprees
Why?
Hypotheses: No serial killer would stop mid-way through murder to pay for parking
A Ford Galaxie had tickets for every murder night
When detectives went to the murderer's home - he admitted on the spot and said" "What took you so long?"
Gary's lesson from this story:
You could solve an unsolvable mystery by looking at the problem differently.
"A change in perspective is worth 50 IQ points"
----
How Gary Used Google Search:
Gary became obsessed with the idea of a "Digital parking ticket"
He worked from first principles on the following question:
"What is the earliest post about Silk Road on the internet?"
He searched for "Silkroad . onion" and filtered by date within Google search settings.
The oldest post he could find was on a Bitcoin forum from an account called "Altoid"
Gary contacted all forums that were associated with the "Altoid" handle.
Most forums had fake emails in their database for the handle - except one...
"RossUlbricht @ gmail. com" was associated with the oldest Altoid account.
He managed to achieve what the FBI, CIA, and DEA with their billion-dollar budgets and world-class experts could not do.
-------
Note: The point of this story isn't to comment on whether drugs should be illegal, the corruption in the case, or if the life sentence was justified.
The point of the story is to highlight the tremendous leverage an individual with an internet connection, agency, and out-of-the-box thinking can achieve.
One man with Google Search outperformed the best investigation agencies in the world.
The best ideas I've found -- or essays I've written, can all be found here for free:
george-mack.com
george-mack.com
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