Lyn Ulbricht’s son, Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, currently sits behind bars waiting to learn his sentence for breaking multiple laws while running the online drug bazaar – and Lyn believes that the U.S. government broke the law in putting him there. Lyn and director Alex Winter, who produced a documentary about Ross, Deep Web, spoke to uInterview exclusively at SXSW in 2015.

Q: Lyn, how did you find out about your son’s involvement in with Silk Road?

A: We got a call from a Reuters reporter at our house. That’s how I found out. To tell you the truth, sometimes I still can’t believe it. I had mentioned this to Alex, in the movie, it’s kind of like when someone dies. It’s such a shock to have Ross in prison that sometimes I wake up in the morning, and then I remember. It’s such a shock. It’s such a disconnect from who Ross is. It’s been a real emotional adjustment.

Q: Alex, how did you become interested in the topic of Silk Road?

A: Well, it kind of started with the work I’d done on Downloaded on the Napster story and examining some of the more nuanced ideas behind these global movements online. Then I became very interested in the case of Ross Ulbricht and the Silk Road case, which is being presented in a very specific, fairly black-and-white way in the media, and I was hoping to give it more specificity and nuance. Shine a light on some of the bigger issues at play.

Q: Lyn, how has your perception of Ross changed?

A: I love Ross. He’s so dear to my heart. He’s such a wonderful person. I’m sure if you knew him, you would like him very much. Everybody does. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like Ross. Roger Ver said that a reporter told him he was struggling to find anyone to say anything negative about Ross. And he was looking. He’s known for his sweetness, compassion, integrity – caring about people. So it’s very painful to read the smears that have been perpetuated in the media and by the prosecution; not changed at the trial, of someone who would be a thug and plan murder. It’s just inconceivable and anyone that knows him will tell you that. So because I think he’s a very special person, of course, I’m his mom, so every mother thinks that, but he’s a son we’re fighting for and I’m going to fight for him. He’s worth fighting for.

Q: Alex, what are your impressions of Ross?

A: I’m loath to kind of go down a hard road there because I haven’t met Ross. I can only say that there were inconsistencies for me, and they’re in the movie. It’s just that I’ve done a lot of work with hackers and computer specialists and technology experts, like Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, and people who really were like building complex computer systems when they were 13, 14, 15 years old, which is not the story of Ross. So, in a way, there’s a guy at the center of a very complex technological organization who is not actually a technology person. So that struck me as not odd necessarily, but representative of I think of some of the misunderstandings we have about how these technologies work. They’re sort of hive-oriented; they’re community-based. A misperception I dealt with at Napster, that it was all one guy it was all this and that. And so I was interested in talking to a lot of the other people who worked on Silk Road, which I did, who shed more of a light on the community that actually ran the thing. So that was interesting, but it also sort of helps exemplify some of the disconnect between how technologies work and sort of how new and destructive technologies work as opposed to how we represent them.

Q: Lyn, how much did you previously know about Ross’s interest in radical Libertarian philosophies?

A: Well, I knew he supported Ron Paul. I don’t really consider that radical, but hey, I agree with a lot of it to. And it didn’t surprise me. I was surprised to hear the defense say he created the site. It wasn’t what I was expecting to hear in the opening statements, but then I thought it makes sense because Ross is very idealistic and creative and he believes in free markets and voluntary actions, and so I thought yeah, I can see that. He’s not into drugs. He did not create it as a drug site, but as a free market where some things weren’t allowed that would hurt people, but from the libertarian perspective, drugs were allowed if you choose to do that. So yes, I can see that.

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Q: Lyn, how did you find out about your son’s involvement in with Silk Road? -

We got a call from a Reuters reporter at our house. That’s how I found out. To tell you the truth, sometimes I still can’t believe it. I had mentioned this to Alex, in the movie, it’s kind of like when someone dies. It’s such a shock to have Ross in prison that sometimes I wake up in the morning and then I remember. It’s such a shock. It’s such a disconnect from who Ross is. It’s been a real emotional adjustment.

User
Q: Alex, how did you become interested in the topic of Silk Road? -

Well, it kind of started with the work I’d done on Downloaded on the Napster story and examining some of the more nuanced ideas behind these global movements online. Then I became very interested in the case of Ross Ulbricht and the Silk Road case, which is being presented in a very specific, fairly black-and-white way in the media, and I was hoping to give it more specificity and nuance. Shine a light on some of the bigger issues at play.

User
Q: Lyn, how has your perception of Ross changed? -

I love Ross. He’s so dear to my heart. He’s such a wonderful person. I’m sure if you knew him, you would like him very much. Everybody does. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like Ross. Roger Ver said that a reporter told him he was struggling to find anyone to say anything negative about Ross. And he was looking. He’s known for his sweetness, compassion, integrity – caring about people. So it’s very painful to read the smears that have been perpetuated in the media and by the prosecution; not changed at the trial, of someone who would be a thug and plan murder. It’s just inconceivable and anyone that knows him will tell you that. So because I think he’s a very special person, of course I’m his mom so every mother thinks that, but he’s a son we’re fighting for and I’m going to fight for him. He’s worth fighting for.

User
Q: Alex, what are your impressions of Ross? -

I’m loath to kind of go down a hard road there because I haven’t met Ross. I can only say that there were inconsistencies for me, and they’re in the movie. It’s just that I’ve done a lot of work with hackers and computer specialists and technology experts, like Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, and people who really were like building complex computer systems when they were 13, 14, 15 years old, which is not the story of Ross. So, in a way, there’s a guy at the center of a very complex technological organization who is not actually a technology person. So that struck me as not odd necessarily, but representative of I think of some of the misunderstandings we have about how these technologies work. They’re sort of hive-oriented; they’re community-based. A misperception I dealt with at Napster, that it was all one guy it was all this and that. And so I was interested in talking to a lot of the other people who worked on Silk Road, which I did, who shed more of a light on the community that actually ran the thing. So that was interesting, but it also sort of helps exemplify some of the disconnect between how technologies work and sort of how new and destructive technologies work as opposed to how we represent them.

User
Q: Lyn, how much did you previously know about Ross’s interest in radical Libertarian philosophies? -

Well, I knew he supported Ron Paul. I don’t really consider that radical, but hey, I agree with a lot of it to. And it didn’t surprise me. I was surprised to hear the defense say he created the site. It wasn’t what I was expecting to hear in the opening statements, but then I thought it makes sense because Ross is very idealistic and creative and he believes in free markets and voluntary actions, and so I thought yeah, I can see that. He’s not into drugs. He did not create it as a drug site, but as a free market where somethings weren’t allowed that would hurt people, but from the libertarian perspective, drugs were allowed if you choose to do that. So yes, I can see that.