Soon after Ross moved out, Julia had convinced her friend Erica to move from New York City to Austin, renting the spare bedroom in Julia’s studio. Everything was moving along just fine until one evening, while partying, Erica had a bad acid trip from drugs purchased on the Silk Road and ended up in the hospital. When she returned, a fight erupted between her and Julia. Ross, who just happened to be there, tried to break up the brawl. This only exacerbated Erica’s and Julia’s tempers, and the fight grew so raucous that the police were called. Ross, who at first was trying to be helpful, soon lost his patience and pushed Erica out of the apartment. As Erica left in a taxi to the airport to return to New York City, Ross and Julia assumed that was the end of it. Good riddance, Erica; thanks for the story we’ll get to tell our friends tomorrow.
But the next morning, when Ross went back to his apartment, he opened his beloved laptop, and checked the stats on the Silk Road before navigating to his social media accounts. There, in all its terrifying glory, was a new message from Erica posted on his Facebook wall, publicly, for all to see. “I’m sure the authorities would like to know about Ross Ulbricht’s drug website,” she had written, like a giant neon billboard on the Internet.