'Deep Web' Director Alex Winter on Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, and Online Privacy

"Whether you like the Silk Road or not, whether you agree with it or not, it was a political engine," says Alex Winter, director of the new documentary Deep Web. "That's the thing that the government has never wanted to talk about."

Winter sat down to talk with author, historian, and Reason contributor Thaddeus Russell following a Reason-sponsored screening of Deep Web at the Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles on July 28, 2015.

The film chronicles the rise and fall of the notorious online black market Silk Road and its founder Ross Ulbricht. In this exclusive Q&A, Winter shares his take on whether or not Ross Ulbricht was really the person who ordered the murder of several Silk Road's enemies under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=absaM9HliHw&t=3m48s).

In one provocative moment, Winter seems to align himself with the views of Cody Wilson, the founder of Defense Distributed, the first company to 3-D print a working firearm.

"Cody says, 'Look, the libertarians can't handle the fact that what if DPR did try to kill those people? This guy's a revolutionary and he wants to topple shit,'" says Winter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=absaM9HliHw&t=27m34s). "I think that's an important notion to contemplate."

Approximately 32 minutes. Interview by Thaddeus Russell. Camera by Alex Manning and Zach Weissmueller. Edited by Weissmueller.

Deep Web is available to watch on Epix and will be available on iTunes and all other VOD platforms on September 1.

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