When I questioned the morality of his booming business, DPR laid out a strict, if somewhat oversimplified, code of ethics: “We don’t allow the sale of anything that’s main purpose is to harm innocent people, or that it was necessary to harm innocent people to bring it to market.” That meant no violent services like hit men or extortion, no child porn, not even counterfeit coupons. The Silk Road had at one point briefly allowed the sale of firearms—DPR argued guns could be used in self-defense—but his code of conduct forbade weapons “that are designed to be used on crowds of people or whole
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