Earlier this year, Ross William Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his involvement with the dark net drug market Silk Road. Ulbricht was slammed with all seven of the charges brought against him, including computer hacking, drug trafficking, money laundering, and even what’s known as the “kingpin” charge, which is more commonly doled out to cartel leaders and mafia members. Serious crimes? Yes. Worth life in prison? Director Alex Winter doesn’t think so.
In his documentary Deep Web, Winter gains exclusive access to Ulbricht’s family and key operators of Silk Road for an engaging breakdown of one of the most seminal cyber cases in recent history. Winter wades into the murky allegations of Ulbricht’s murder-for-hire plots, the mystery of Silk Road ambassador(s) “Dread Pirate Roberts,” and the raging debate over online anonymity and the cryptocurrency Bitcoin to extract a narrative that breathes humanity into the nether regions of the web and challenges how the media covers and the government prosecutes cyber crimes.
Dispatches From The Front 