In his film Downloaded, Alex Winter charted the rise and fall of Napster. Here, he focuses on another virtual paradigm. Silk Road was born out of the anonymity and cryptocurrency made possible by Darknet, a deeper layer of the Internet not indexed by search engines. Conceived as a vehicle for private commerce, the site gave way to a vast “dark market” drug trade. In Deep Web, Silk Road’s success, and demise, is explained by thought leaders and cryptographers behind the deep web’s architecture, as well as vendors and law enforcement officers involved in the site’s criminal investigation. Andy Greenberg, who obtained access to Silk Road’s elusive administrator “Dread Pirate Roberts” for an interview with Wired, is an essential voice of the film. In 2013, the FBI arrested 29-year-old Ross Ulbricht, alleging he was the man behind the alias. With exclusive access to the Ulbricht family, Winter follows the subsequent trial, exposing a gulf between the government’s analysis of events and the opinions of those who were close to the visionary entrepreneur. The consequences of the case reach far beyond Silk Road to question policies regarding electronic search and seizure, and increasing threats to online privacy.  ST