On Friday, May 25, 2015, 31-year-old former physics student and nonprofit-used bookstore owner

Ross Ulbrich, who led a double life under the online alias of the dread pirate robberts

was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The initial charges against him included money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy

to traffic narcotics, even procuring murder.

He was found guilty on seven counts including trafficking fake IDs and a drug-kingpin charge

that in and of itself carried a mandatory 20-year prison sentence.

The jury became convinced that Robert was the architect and administrator behind the Silk

Road, an online marketplace for just about every vice you can think of.

The Silk Road was constructed on the dark web, a portion of the internet unable to be found

using traditional search engines and browsers, a place where you can use various cryptocurrencies

to buy and sell just about anything imaginable.

From heroin, to guns, to fake passports, counterfeit money, stolen credit cards, or even murder.

Did Ross get the sense he deserved for creating a virtual flea market for felonies?

Is Ross even the real person behind the persona, dread pirate robberts, the FBI was chasing?

What is the dark web?

The deep web?

What don't we know about a portion of the web 500 times larger than the one Google allows

us to see?

What horrors lurking its shadows?

And despite its vices, should we actually fight to keep the dark web anonymous?

Find out on this occasionally disturbing and often eye-opening edition of Time Suck.

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