[HN Gopher] US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Ko...
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US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea blockchain
presentation
Author : pseudolus
Score : 264 points
Date : 2022-04-13 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (markets.businessinsider.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (markets.businessinsider.com)
| erie wrote:
| But some may hint at 'pay back' for old grievances : June 3,
| 2009. SFI researcher, Virgil Griffith, created a program called
| WikiScanner, which tracks computers used to make changes and
| edits to Wikipedia entries. WikiScanner revealed CIA and FBI
| computers were used to edit topics on the Iraq War and the
| Guantanamo prison. https://www.santafe.edu/news-
| center/news/media-channel-cia-a...
| siruncledrew wrote:
| The main lesson of the story is not that he was using crypto, but
| that he was conscientiously trying to enrich himself by
| conducting illegal activities with a sanctioned dictatorship.
|
| Personally, if he's being this blunt about his intentions, then
| it shouldn't be a surprise that his actions landed him
| consequences.
| daenz wrote:
| How to make a supervillain, step 1
|
| Jokes aside, after 5 years, I'm not sure how he will not hold a
| serious grudge (if he didn't have one already) against the USA.
| hvs wrote:
| I think he pretty clearly already didn't agree with the USA
| since he ignored the fact that they told him he couldn't go and
| violated sanctions. I'm pretty sure they aren't worried about
| him "holding a grudge".
| [deleted]
| BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote:
| Unless NK operatives are totally ineffective when it comes to
| searching the internet, I have a hard time figuring out how he
| helped them do something they would have no trouble figuring out
| for themselves.
| csours wrote:
| From yesterday's Money Stuff (not about this incident):
|
| "Yeah. There is a vein of crypto libertarianism that imagines
| that you can have money that is immune from the claims of
| society, but that's only really true if the rest of your life is
| immune from the claims of society. If you live alone on a faraway
| island and have a lot of weapons then sure right maybe the
| authorities can't seize your Bitcoins. (Though you also can't use
| your Bitcoins to, like, order pizza delivery.) But if they can
| toss you in jail until you cough up your Bitcoins, then the
| Bitcoins aren't doing that much for you."
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-12/will-e...
| danielvf wrote:
| According to the original complaint, a few months _after_ being
| interviewed by an FBI agent on returning from his trip to North
| Korea, Griffith had the following conversation over text
| messages:
|
| Griffith: I need to send 1 [REDACTED UNIT OF CRYPTOCURRENCY]
| between North and South Korea. Other Guy: "Isn't that in
| violations of sanctions?" Griffith: It is.
|
| A few day later, also in text messages to someone else:
|
| Someone: What interest does North Korea have in cryptocurrency?
| Griffith: Probably avoiding sanctions... who knows."
|
| It looks like it wasn't just speaking at a conference after being
| denied permission from the US that got him in trouble, it looks
| like both before and after the trip he was working on a variety
| of ways to get the North Korean government more onboard with
| cryptocurrency, including discussions about mining ventures,
| moving funds in and out of the country, and offering connections
| with other cryptocurrency people.
| xtracto wrote:
| > I need to send 1 [REDACTED UNIT OF CRYPTOCURRENCY] between
| North and South Korea
|
| I find this fascinating. How can you send _any_ crypto between
| one country and the other? In reality, _everyone_ who is using
| crypto is doing the transaction in every country where a
| validator /node is running. There is no concept of "sending BTC
| between Mexico and the USA". There may be a concept of someone
| paying USD money to somebody else to write something in the
| blockchain (i.e. write a transaction that says to move some BTC
| from Wallet A to Wallet B).
| ashtonbaker wrote:
| This is indeed fascinating, but is it unique to crypto? Seems
| like analyzing any electronic transfer like this would get
| you into a discussion of which bits are stored where on
| earth. If you're doing something which transfers value to a
| party under sanctions, and you're publicly announcing that as
| your intent, then I think courts are unlikely to be
| interested in metaphysical discussions like this.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The same argument was trotted out when evaluating (in the
| early days of the web) a crime had committed if 'the
| internet' had been involved because the internet was global.
| But that didn't hold any water and I don't think in a world
| defined by 'endpoints' it is going to matter much here. Who
| verifies a transaction isn't relevant, who is the ultimate
| beneficiary and who is the sender are the relevant bits.
| kube-system wrote:
| When I swipe my credit card at a store, I say "I spent money
| at the store", not "I transferred bits in a bank's datacenter
| somewhere"
|
| Colloquially, when people talk about transfers of wealth,
| they talk in terms of the people who they belong to, not the
| literal physical manifestation of the transaction.
| inopinatus wrote:
| Fundamentally, law cares about the beneficiaries and
| intentions, especially as these pertain to rights and
| obligations. The mechanisms are a technical detail.
| jaywalk wrote:
| You're probably reading too deeply into it. Remember, North
| Korea is mostly firewalled off from the worldwide Internet,
| so that's most likely where the problem begins.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| In order for crypto to exist, it has to be on the _global_
| Blockchain. There is no isolation via firewall possible.
| arcticbull wrote:
| You're sending cryptocurrency from a wallet belonging to an
| individual physically present in country A to one belonging
| to an individual physically present in country B. It's not so
| much where the wallet is, obviously, but where the people
| using it are.
| joshcryer wrote:
| Where ever the private keys reside is where the crypto
| resides. It's pretty simple.
| vkou wrote:
| Practically, no.
|
| If I were committing, say, fraud, by sending an email from
| foo@gmail.com to bar@gmail.com, with both me and the
| recipient being in the United States - even if the connection
| between the Google datacenters is physically routed through
| Canada, you'd have a hell of a time convincing a judge and
| jury that I'm committing international fraud.
|
| The owner of the wallet is what's important, not the
| implementation detail. The legal system cares a great deal
| about intent, because it isn't interested in playing rules-
| lawyer with wise-asses.
| genidoi wrote:
| You don't even need a validator/node running in your country
| -- another standard node merely needs to hear about it, run
| the standard bitcoin-core code for tx propagation to its
| connected peers (happens automatically ofc.) and it will be
| included in the next block if network congestion conditions
| permit miners to do so.
|
| Interestingly, this leads to a startling scenario if you use
| an 'advanced' client such as Electrum, where you have the
| ability to create & sign a valid transaction, before
| broadcasting it. During that time, which is ofc defined
| entirely by your decision to hold off broadcasting the TXO,
| the transaction 'exists' but isn't recorded in the
| blockchain. In fact anyone who can get ahold of that
| transaction data (not to be confused with your private key)
| can send it off to the network, and it will be registered in
| the next block. So a valid transaction, once signed by the
| corresponding private key, is almost entirely removed from
| the signor, and the decision to broadcast it can be viewed as
| a seperate one altogether from signing.
| [deleted]
| xnx wrote:
| Sounds like some _light_ treason.
| pwdisswordfish9 wrote:
| > [REDACTED UNIT OF CRYPTOCURRENCY]
|
| ???
| DavidVoid wrote:
| Yeah, it doesn't exactly seem like a William Worthy[1] type of
| scenario.
|
| If you actively aid a country in avoiding financial sanctions+
| then you pretty much only have yourself to blame when you
| eventually get thrown in prison for a few years.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Worthy#Right_to_travel...
|
| +: Medical and food sanctions are a different question imo.
| mzs wrote:
| Yep starts on page 6 - sure DPRK I'll do this crime for you so
| that you can blackmail me into further service for the rest of
| my life.
|
| https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1222646...
| wnevets wrote:
| So the title is incredibly misleading?
| tommek4077 wrote:
| I've read it as a time reference. He got trialed after the
| conference.
| wnevets wrote:
| there are certainly others commenting on this post who
| didn't read that way. They're posting as if he was
| literally sent to prison for _just_ talking about crypto.
| bhelkey wrote:
| I think the title implies a causal relationship between the
| two events.
|
| Edit: In this thread:
|
| > I wonder how the arrest went down, why he took a plea,
| what the details of his presentation were
|
| >What if he did the exact same presentation in youtube, and
| in NK they saw that presentation?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Well yes, the executive summary of the article obviously
| tries to make this look like the US is punishing a
| freedom researcher for saying things a ten-year old
| knows:
|
| > The US sentenced a crypto researcher to five years in
| prison after he presented at a blockchain conference in
| North Korea.
|
| > Prosecutors say Virgil Griffith, 39, undermined US
| sanctions imposed on North Korea.
|
| > "The most important feature of blockchains is that they
| are open" Griffith said in his presentation, according to
| prosecutors.
| levi-turner wrote:
| Source for those curious about this:
| https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1222646...
| outworlder wrote:
| It is interesting that the cryptocurrency in question is not
| named (simply referred to as "Cryptocurrency-1").
|
| Possibly because there are ongoing investigations about it?
| If this was bitcoin, they would likely state that.
| gruez wrote:
| probably USDT?
| yakak wrote:
| It being eth would seem to match their narrative he was an
| expert. Maybe it was eth hence their narrative or maybe
| they redacted it for not being eth.
| tomphoolery wrote:
| He should be in jail for longer. What a traitor.
| behringer wrote:
| Imagine knowing literally anything about north Korea and
| wanting to help that government. He should be put away for
| life for aiding crimes against humanity.
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| What if the news about NK is not entirely unbiased? (I have
| no proof either way, just asking the question)
|
| Edit: People are taking my comment wrong. I am asking this
| because there are a lot of assumptions people have, I know
| almost nothing about NK, and the comment I replied to
| seemed somewhat irrational, a little reactionary and
| certainly vindictive.
| jcrash wrote:
| There are many different sources of information about
| what goes on in NK, including people who have escaped
| from there.
| xtian wrote:
| True: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkUMZS-ZegM
| outworlder wrote:
| No news sources are entirely unbiased, even when they
| make an effort to be.
|
| Regardless, we know a lot from NK from multiple sources.
| The main reason we don't know more is because of how
| closed that dictatorship is.
| rat9988 wrote:
| Or how closed we are to them? There is no media unbiased
| about them in the west. But I do know you can travel to
| NK and see for yourself.
|
| That said, it is easier to know things about Portugal
| than NK. They are definitely doing something to hide
| information. I'm just trying to say that any image based
| on the media from non friendly country is bound to be
| wrong. No matter how much different sources you have.
| mythopedia wrote:
| > But I do know you can travel to NK and see for
| yourself.
|
| My understanding is that tourists in North Korea only see
| what the government of North Korea wants them to see.
|
| Here's one (admittedly potentially biased) source that
| claims as much:
|
| "Tourist travel to North Korea is only possible as part
| of a guided tour. Independent travel is not permitted. If
| you are not prepared to accept severe limitations on your
| movements, behaviour, and freedom of expression, you
| should not travel to North Korea." [0]
|
| [0] https://wikitravel.org/en/North_Korea
| sterlind wrote:
| you can travel to NK, but you might end up like Otto
| Warmbier and come home a couple years later braindead.
| (he stole as a propaganda poster a souvenir, but brain
| death after a year of brutal torture seems.. extreme.)
|
| you're also not allowed to travel without a guide.
|
| also, given the videos I've seen taken by tourists when
| they've been able to sneak away from their minders, NK
| does not look very happy.
| watwut wrote:
| We are not closed to them. The relationship in terms of
| how much each country sees inside the other is highly
| asymmetric here.
| outworlder wrote:
| > But I do know you can travel to NK and see for
| yourself.
|
| No you cannot. You'll be chaperoned everywhere and only
| shown things they want you to see.
| samhw wrote:
| There's a difference between "media companies may have
| conflicts of interest or ideological bents" and "every
| single proposition ever stated by a journalist is
| specifically false".
| skrtskrt wrote:
| it is true that a lot of mainstream media outlets that
| people consider "probably biased but overall trustworthy"
| just regurgitate talking points from the State
| Department, law enforcement, etc as fact.
|
| One only needs to read the CIA's Wikipedia page or the
| CIA's own website to understand how embarrassing of a
| failure of thought and journalism it is to trust these
| institutions
| glerk wrote:
| Sanctions have achieved nothing but isolate North Korea,
| ruin the lives of generations of innocent people and
| entrench an authoritarian ruling class. Sanctions are a
| crime against humanity.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Lol what if by spreading crypto knowledge in totalitarian
| states, you give people in those states a viable way to
| preserve their income and assets in a way that no other
| asset class can? Imagine someone trying to protest or
| escape a regime imposing capital controls on citizens such
| as North Korea or Canada. What if, those citizens could
| simply memorize or encode a 12-24 word phrase that could
| preserve their net worth against all forms of tyranny? What
| if by doing so, you create the conditions that lead to the
| eventual collapse or reform of said totalitarian state?
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| That's not the case with North Korea. Most people don't
| have access to computers, let alone the internet, so they
| can't use crypto for their personal finances.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Really? Most households have a cell phone, though
| internet access is spotty.
| HyperRational wrote:
| markdown wrote:
| You sound like someone who's never lived outside a
| western first world country.
|
| Like those folk who pushed crypto as the saviour of the
| average Venezuelan. I mean, your next door neighbour
| doesn't understand bitcoin, how is someone in the third
| world who has never used a computer supposed to figure
| this shit out, and why should anyone trust crypto at all
| when most of it is scams?
| Cd00d wrote:
| You're implying that he's helping the citizenry directly
| and not the state itself. I think that's a dubious claim
| when it's a conference hosted in Pyongyang.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| > What if, those citizens could simply memorize or encode
| a 12-24 word phrase that could preserve their net worth
| against all forms of tyranny?
|
| ... What if, they then LOST ALL OF IT in an instant
| because of a scam, a random crypto-market fluctuation or
| because it just becomes worthless because they have no
| way to ever translate it into something of value, let
| alone actually spend the "currency".
| MisterTea wrote:
| > Lol what if by spreading crypto knowledge in
| totalitarian states, you give people in those states a
| viable way to preserve their income and assets
|
| JFC. They don't have income or assets to begin with. Why
| TF else do you think they're stuck in those shitholes?
| The ones with money already left.
| petre wrote:
| Yeah, sure. Guess how Kim Jong Un financed his nukes and
| ICBMs. Aided by people like this guy and through state
| sponsored ransomware attacks. Now imagine Russia using
| the same strategy. They're already using weapons from
| Iraq smuggled through Iran against Ukrainians.
|
| https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-backed-militias-in-
| iraq-r...
| mdoms wrote:
| He was presenting his "crypto knowledge" _to the
| totalitarian state_.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| You can know that North Korean government does bad things
| but still be against sanctions. It is not self evident that
| broad sections help the situation or the people of NK.
| nradov wrote:
| The point of sanctions is not to help the people of NK.
| The point is to starve their military of resources and
| reduce the threat they pose to the US and our regional
| allies. If the people of NK are harmed in the process
| then that's just unfortunate collateral damage. And no
| one is under any illusions that sanctions alone will
| result in regime change or eliminate the threat entirely;
| sanctions are just one essential component of a broader
| strategy.
| jnwatson wrote:
| You can be against sanctions without actively supporting
| an enemy of the state.
| forinti wrote:
| Exactly. Sanctions against Cuba, Iran and NK have
| achieved very little. They might even be helping keep the
| status quo in those countries.
| tptacek wrote:
| We should end sanctions on Cuba and Iran, and maintain
| them on North Korea. Consistency is not one of the
| premises of sanctions.
| marcinzm wrote:
| You're assuming the goal is some sort of democratic
| revolution rather than keeping the economies of those
| countries constrained so they have less money to spend on
| weapons.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Interesting implications for the case of Cuba. If so,
| their primary crime is being a country in close proximity
| to the USA. So much for arguments of respecting national
| autonomy.
| kyleplum wrote:
| Refusing to trade with a country is not a violation of
| their national autonomy.
| yazantapuz wrote:
| This. A lot of people seems to think that the USA bans
| everyone in the world to trade with cuba, even if they
| could buy an Havann Club in the store.
| wspess wrote:
| While USA does not ban everyone from doing trade with
| Cuba, USA does ban everyone who trades with Cuba from
| doing trade with the US.
|
| You can clearly see how this creates insentives for not
| trading with Cuba and instead trading with the far larger
| market next to it.
| sterlind wrote:
| shouldn't countries be allowed to decide whom to trade
| with? if so, doesn't that extend to countries being
| allowed to make their own rules of trade, including not
| trading with those who trade with unfriendly nations?
| kyleplum wrote:
| If Cuba refused to trade with anyone who traded with the
| US, would you say that Cuba is violating the national
| autonomy of the US?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Yes, however the severity of the violation is dependent
| on the influence of the violator. Cuba's violation would
| be wrong but mostly meaningless compared to the US's.
| kyleplum wrote:
| Would it not be a violation of Cuba's National Autonomy
| to force them to trade with partner's that they did not
| wish to trade with?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Yes, but I don't see how that's relevant. Not banning
| trade doesn't force the countries to trade, it just gives
| them the choice.
| kyleplum wrote:
| > Not banning trade doesn't force the countries to trade,
| it just gives them the choice.
|
| And the choice made by the US is to not trade with Cuba
| or anyone who trades with Cuba - it's their right to make
| this choice.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| It's not. They're free to choose who they trade with,
| using who that country trades with as a decider violates
| their autonomy.
|
| You're just framing the violation as a choice and saying
| their right to make that choice. Sure, they also have the
| right to make the choice to invade Canada, but actually
| invading is obviously violating their autonomy.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Not just the US, but also the third party.
| yazantapuz wrote:
| A lot of countries do international trade with Cuba. USA
| is not banning everyone who trades with Cuba. I can go to
| any licor store in my country and buy a bottle of Cuban
| ron, for example.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The US penalizes any country giving foreign aid to Cuba,
| and prevents its membership in International Financial
| Institutions like the IMF.
|
| Any company in the world doing business in Cuba is also
| sanctioned by the US and it's employees are barred from
| entering the US.
|
| You may be able to buy a bottle of Cuban rum at your
| liquor store, but that store can not do business in the
| US, use US banks, and the senior employees may be barred
| from traveling to the US.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms%E2%80%93Burton_Act#Su
| mma...
| tristor wrote:
| > Interesting implications for the case of Cuba. If so,
| their primary crime is being a country in close proximity
| to the USA. So much for arguments of respecting national
| autonomy.
|
| I believe their primary crime is being a country in close
| proximity to the USA, that is unfriendly to US interests,
| and at least once offered the USSR, a then enemy of the
| US, to host nuclear ICBMs on their territory so they
| could more easily target Americans.
|
| It's not like the US randomly and unilaterally decided to
| sanction Cuba, nor is it like thousands of Cubans fled
| the country by any means possible to end up seeking
| asylum in the US for no reason.
| vkou wrote:
| > to host nuclear ICBMs on their territory so they could
| more easily target Americans.
|
| ... After the United States invaded it!
|
| It's weird that you forget to mention the Bay of Pigs in
| this history lesson. It's not like Cuba randomly and
| unilaterally decided to host ICBMs...
| tptacek wrote:
| Doesn't matter. Like Clint Eastwood said, "deserve's got
| nothing to with it".
| vkou wrote:
| And here I thought that since march of this year, we're
| of the general impression that countries have the right
| to defend themselves, and to seek external allies when
| bullied by a bigger neighbour...
| tptacek wrote:
| We didn't invade after the Cuban Missile Crisis; in fact,
| Cuba remained closely aligned with the USSR until the end
| of the USSR. If Russia merely sanctioned Ukraine, nobody
| would be discussing this. Your rebuttal is facile.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The comparison is striking.
|
| Kennedy ordered a naval "quarantine" to prevent missiles
| from reaching Cuba. By using the term "quarantine" rather
| than "blockade" (an act of war by legal definition), the
| United States was able to avoid the implications of a
| state of war.
|
| After several days of tense negotiations, an agreement
| was reached between Kennedy and Khrushchev. Publicly, the
| Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba
| in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement to
| not invade Cuba again.
|
| When it came to Russia and Ukraine, the US refused
| ultimatums to stay out of Ukraine, and Russia did invade
| Ukraine a second time.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Russia did invade Ukraine a second time.
|
| In the real world, Russia never stopped the first
| invasion, it just consolidated, worked to advance, and
| then massively escalated.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Sure, depending on if you definition of invasion requires
| advancement, or if occupations counts.
| jacquesm wrote:
| And they are now looking to do the same thing again.
| bonzini wrote:
| > the US refused ultimatums to stay out of Ukraine
|
| Which is just a pretense. On different days, the "special
| military operation" has been to avoid NATO bordering
| Russia (which it already does in the Baltic), "remove
| Nazis", "fix Lenin's mistake of separating Ukraine from
| Russia", "free Donbass and Luhansk" and probably others
| that I forgot.
|
| And anyway, US didn't do anything (this time). Ukraine
| has a right to join NATO if they want, without asking
| uncle Vladimir beforehand.
| vkou wrote:
| The invasion is one of the things that _caused_ the CMC.
| Leaving that (as well as the CIA campaign of sabotage and
| terrorism against Cuba) out of the context is incredibly
| misleading.
|
| If the US simply sat around on its hands and sanctioned
| Cuba, and left things at that, nobody would be discussing
| this. It went way, way, way beyond sanctions.
| tptacek wrote:
| What point are you trying to make? The invasion of Cuba
| was idiotic, I agree. It has nothing to do with our
| foreign policy afterwards, which is not subject to rules
| about fairness.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >which is not subject to rules about fairness.
|
| I think this is the point everyone agrees on. You are
| right that "deserve's got nothing to with it"
|
| IT is just obnoxious when most of rhetoric and discussion
| is about fairness, equality, and high minded ideals when
| directed outside the US.
|
| Might makes right. Given that, coherent discussion on how
| and when to use that power is best served by dropping the
| rhetoric.
|
| Once you accept the US _can_ embargo Cuba to keep it
| impoverished for personal gain, Then, you can ask if the
| US should continue doing so.
| tptacek wrote:
| We should not continue the Cuba embargo. It serves no
| public policy purpose. We should continue and enhance
| sanctions on North Korea, which actively works to
| destabilize the rest of the world, unlike Cuba. Iran is a
| trickier case, but on balance the world would be better
| off with more normalized relations with Iran, and its
| trajectory forward after normalization would very likely
| be better than it is with sanctions. The opposite is true
| of North Korea.
|
| You can disagree with any or all of this, but the
| underlying point is: we are within our rights to
| coordinate sanctions on any country for a diversity of
| reasons.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| It sounds like we basically agree. I just find it a
| timely discussion with respect to Ukraine and the fact
| that the US positions nuclear assets all over the world.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Since whataboutism is so hugely popular in threads
| involving Russia, let's talk about the nuclear SRBM
| dispenser formerly known as Kaliningrad Oblast located
| between Poland and Lithuania (that's in Central Europe).
| Kinda makes those American gravity nukes stationed in
| West Germany look old-fashioned.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The whataboutism is strong because the hypocrisy and
| double think is so pervasive.
|
| Many people believe in moral exceptionalism when it comes
| to USA foreign policy when the vast majority of the time
| it boils down to the same self-interested realpolitik as
| other countries.
| [deleted]
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| TO AYBABTME:
|
| >It's not hypocritical to want "your" side to win, and
| it's not from a lack of moral standing when you're
| motivating this taking-sides with "well, I like and wish
| democracies on people more than I like and wish brutal
| dictatorships on people". Yes, it's a "our side is better
| than theirs" but I think hard and yes, our "side" is
| indeed better than NK's, Russia's, Iran's, Cuba's. I
| could contort myself in saying that our side is only
| better insofar as it makes me ~believe that it's better,
| behind a veil of fake democracy. But then that's be
| contortionism, and not a down to earth, pragmatic look at
| it.
|
| >All sides in this stuff will play realpolitik and use
| their armies and kill and what not. But at the end of the
| day, where do you want to live? In which of these regimes
| is life preferable?
|
| I agree that this is the correct framework to think about
| things, discarding the chaff of what is fair, good guys,
| and bad guys.
|
| However, I don't think that where I would want to live
| translates to my country can do no wrong.
|
| For example, I would rather live in the US than Cuba, but
| I don't think that warrants an invasion and regime change
| in Cuba. I also don't think it warrants sanctions on
| Cuba.
|
| I think life in the US is better than most countries, but
| I have a moral and logical framework that usually opposes
| foreign intervention and coercion.
|
| That is to say, I don't think the US has an moral
| obligation to be the world police and initiate regime
| change around the globe
| arghnoname wrote:
| > I believe their primary crime is being a country in
| close proximity to the USA, that is unfriendly to US
| interests, and at least once offered the USSR, a then
| enemy of the US, to host nuclear ICBMs on their territory
| so they could more easily target Americans.
|
| You do understand that if this is the bar under which
| nations can take drastic actions (up to and including
| fiascos like Bay of Pigs and assassination attempts), US
| criticism of the adventurism of others (e.g., Ukraine)
| has to be much more measured. For instance, it is fine to
| violate the sovereignty of nations, just maybe in a more
| limited way, etc.
|
| How many countries on earth, do you think, had hostile
| foreign arms on their soil (e.g., the US) within the past
| 60 years that their neighbors might find threatening?
| mywittyname wrote:
| > How many countries on earth, do you think, had hostile
| foreign arms on their soil (e.g., the US) within the past
| 60 years that their neighbors might find threatening?
|
| A lot. And the threaten countries all abso-fucking-lutely
| want to do something about it.
| Paradigma11 wrote:
| Cuba was far from an innocent victim but a very active
| opponent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_
| of_Cuba#Post-...
| babypuncher wrote:
| I do not think it is relevant today, but during the Cold
| War their crime was being all buddy-buddy with the USSR
| and offering to host some of their nuclear ICBMs.
|
| The USSR is long dead though, and nobody is asking Cuba
| to hold on to WMDs for safe keeping, so the continued
| sanctions make no real sense in 2022.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > The USSR is long dead though
|
| Someone is attempting a revival just now.
| nradov wrote:
| Cuba can have their national autonomy, but other
| countries have no particular obligation to trade with
| them.
|
| The primary "crime" which originally led to the
| imposition of sanctions on Cuba was that they
| nationalized assets owned by US entities without paying
| compensation. Now you could perhaps make a case that the
| Cuban government had a moral right to do that, but
| regardless of who was right of wrong it was certainly
| contrary to US interests. We don't want to set a
| precedent for allowing countries to get away with
| stealing US assets.
| mcguire wrote:
| One might argue that their primary crime is having a few
| thousand ex-Cubans with outsized political power and a
| very long grudge.
|
| As far as I've seen, _no_ one else cares about Cuba or
| sanctions.
| tomatowurst wrote:
| I'm no lawyer but I can only dream that they might find more
| stuff to throw the book at him but somehow i doubt this.
|
| How you go and help a country that your own country is at war
| with, starves women and children, sends a prisoner's entire
| family to prison camps for three generations where do all
| sorts of horrible things and spend only 5 years in prison.
|
| People have been sent to prison far longer just because they
| had a bag of weed on them.
| dahdum wrote:
| The sanctions are intended to exacerbate the destitution
| and starvation in North Korea in order to provoke political
| upheaval. They are also just the current strategy, and have
| been ineffective from a humanitarian perspective.
|
| I wouldn't undermine them personally, but I understand how
| a rational person could come to believe it was even a moral
| obligation to do so.
| af78 wrote:
| Quoting one of the lawyers who helped draft sanctions
| law:
|
| https://freekorea.us/sanctions-nkspea-faq/
|
| """ Section 207 of the NKSPEA contains broad exemptions
| for food imports and humanitarian aid, and provides for
| waivers for humanitarian reasons, or when a waiver is
| important to the national security or economic interests
| of the United States. The Treasury Department has also
| published general licenses permitting humanitarian aid.
| """
| freemint wrote:
| The sanctions are to slow the nuclear weapon program and
| that an ally (south korea) has to spend less on defense.
| postsantum wrote:
| Two questions:
|
| 1) Why SK spending less on defense is a good thing for
| US?
|
| 2) Now that Russia is under even more sanctions, why not
| share some rocket tech with Kim and accelerate their
| program?
| tofuahdude wrote:
| > intended to exacerbate the destitution and starvation
|
| What support is there for this statement?
| dahdum wrote:
| I'll rephrase. While the _intent_ is to topple or pacify
| the government by starving the regime, this strategy
| essentially requires the suffering of the people. Happy
| and content people don't revolt or push for political
| change.
|
| We are openly doing this to Russia right now, rooting for
| the economic collapse and stark decline of living
| standards.
|
| In both situations we assume that making life much more
| difficult for the people now will achieve our goals.
| awillen wrote:
| If he were smuggling in food, sure, but I struggle to see
| how helping the North Korean government use crypto is
| going to lead to the people eating better.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The santions are resposible for starving women/children.
| Should he be in prison for helping children eat?
| racnid wrote:
| With all due respect, that's the point of sanctions.
| You've brought it up as some sort of gotcha. It's not.
| They're a means to cripple the war-making ability of a
| nation without actually bombing them into submission or
| shooting them. As such they're not just placed on a
| nation for fun or random purposes.
| ipaddr wrote:
| To say look North Korea is evil they don't feed women and
| kids misses the fact that this is a policy we did for
| whatever justifible reason. Kids are not eating and dying
| because of choices we made.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Kids are not eating well because NK leadership spends all
| the country's money on themselves and the military in
| order for them to stay in power.
|
| If your neighbour beats his children and constantly
| threatens to shoot your house up, you are not morally
| obligated to spend money at their restaurant.
| arcticbull wrote:
| International trade is a privilege not a right. If you
| want to thumb your nose at the international community on
| whom you rely to provide basic sustenance to your people
| you should prepare to have a bad time. Or figure out how
| to sustain your population without trade. But either way
| its the responsibility of NK, not the world, to find a
| way to feed the people of NK. That can be by
| participating in the world order and benefiting from
| trade, or by figuring out how to grow enough food at
| home.
| tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote:
| That's like saying the judge is responsible when a man is
| experiencing a bad time in jail, instead of the man being
| responsible because he commited the crime which put him
| there.
| ipaddr wrote:
| A judge is responsible for decisions around sentencing
| and prision conditions. The choices they make have a big
| impact on whether prison will be successful in reforming
| a person. Sending 16 year olds to adult prison or
| decisions around solitary or conditions (no visitors) or
| type of prison can have a huge impact.
| tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote:
| Lol, what. You really read to read my message again and
| if your takeaway remains the same then good luck fixing
| your brain.
| kgwgk wrote:
| Fat Tony : Bart, is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to
| feed your starving family?
|
| Bart : No.
|
| Fat Tony : Well, suppose you got a large starving family.
| Is it wrong to steal a truckload of bread to feed them?
|
| Bart : Uh uh.
|
| Fat Tony : And, what if your family don't like bread?
| They like... cigarettes?
|
| Bart : I guess that's okay.
|
| Fat Tony : Now, what if instead of giving them away, you
| sold them at a price that was practically giving them
| away. Would that be a crime, Bart?
|
| Bart : Hell, no.
| hayd wrote:
| > The santions [sic] are resposible [sic] for starving
| women/children.
|
| This is a lie, and if you think NK leadership is going to
| be spending crypto on food for their populace you're
| deluded.
| lazyier wrote:
| haltingproblem wrote:
| I speculate, that there are plenty of North Koreans living in
| South Korea and perhaps even the US who send funds to the
| family members in N. Korea. Are they all guilty of evading
| sanctions regime and can be sentenced to prison? Does this
| extend to any country that does trade with North Korea? North
| Korea has a pretty advanced missile program and actively trades
| in them with many countries including those which are not un-
| friendly to the US.
|
| I don't know how this makes sense for just making an
| presentation. On the other hand, I don't know _how_ the Feds
| will let him get away with sending 1 [REDACTED UNIT OF CRYPTO]
| between N and S Korea. You cant stop Pakistan or Iran from
| trading with N. Korea but you can stop an ordinary American. We
| live in a weird world.
| bell-cot wrote:
| How far down the "flew 8,000 miles to get there, climbed over
| the barbed wire fence, licked both his thumbs, and pressed them
| against the shiny parts labeled 'DANGER! 25,000 VOLTS!'..."
| rabbit-hole-of-stupid should one have to go, before it's 100%
| okay for me to stop caring whether or not his sentence was
| just?
| vsareto wrote:
| "Man involved in community that regularly gets away with
| illegal shit surprised when he goes to jail for illegal shit"
|
| I'm definitely not defending him, but I can see why he'd feel
| confident not getting caught
| javajosh wrote:
| It sucks but the world seems to punish people who are
| honest (like this guy) and help people who lie (like
| everyone who did what this guy did and lied about it). In
| the same vein, police get away with brutal abuse because
| they know what lies to tell to justify it ("I felt afraid
| for my life", etc). But the police would _not_ get away
| with it if they told the truth, ( "They showed me
| disrespect and I knew I wasn't going to get caught so I
| beat and arrested them on trumped up charges.")
| afarrell wrote:
| It similarly sucks that our justice system punishes the
| clumsy criminals and lets the really skillfully sneaky
| ones go unpunished. Nobody has yet faced charges for
| robbing the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
| [deleted]
| djsdlkfjgdkjg wrote:
| Right? Anyone can see this case have too much evidence.
|
| you don't need two brain cells to see that either A) guy was
| a dumbdumb and nothing he said could have been better than
| leaning it on tiktok with a dance on top; or B) he knows the
| stuff and would never say something as dumb as this.
|
| ...My guess is that they didn't even had to fabricate this.
| Having access to all digital data from someone for years,
| they could probably find that conversation on my grandma's
| facebook memes if they wanted to frame her instead.
| adfhdfhdryheryh wrote:
| mywittyname wrote:
| Five years seems pretty mild when you consider the chief
| purpose of sanctions is to provide an alternative to war as a
| means of settling disputes. And this man is willfully
| undermining the ability of his country to levy sanctions.
|
| Surely actively undermining the security of ones country is a
| serious offense.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > as a means of settling disputes
|
| As a means of forcing someone to unwillingly settle a
| dispute in your favor that is.
|
| I have no sympathy for North Korea, but sanctions are not
| an alternative to war. Sanctions are an alternative to
| bullets.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Sabotaging your own military's weapons still sounds an
| awful lot like treason
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Sanctions have never ever in human history worked, so
| more like sabotaging one's placebos...
| cf0ed2aa-bdf5 wrote:
| The sanctions imposed on South Africa in the 1980s
| absolutely crippled the country and are widely seen as a
| successful contribution in the efforts of bringing down
| Apartheid.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| It at least worked so far in preventing another Korean
| war. It didn't topple the Kim regime, but South Korea is
| mostly safe now.
| Delitio wrote:
| Do you have any sources for this?
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Fidel Castro, Kim jong Il, and Vladimir Putin.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| I think we'd have to be in an actual formally declared
| war with someone first.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Sanctions are an alternative to bullets.
|
| I'm going to have to disagree there. Sanctions once
| enacted are definitely an alternative to war, after all,
| bullets all by themselves don't constitute an act but
| sanctions _are_ an act.
| axlee wrote:
| > As a means of forcing someone to unwillingly settle a
| dispute in your favor that is.
|
| what kind of strange take it is? What do you think war is
| ?
| user3939382 wrote:
| Someone recently explained their view, that sanctions are
| akin to siege warfare in days of old. Whether you agree
| with that analogy or not, there is an underlying valid
| point that not all warfare requires physical violence. We
| use the term cyber warfare as another example.
| chaosite wrote:
| Cyber-warfare is in most instances comparable to sabotage
| as used in warfare.
|
| I can see the point you're making about sanctions being
| similar to siege warfare. The main difference being that
| sieges separate you from your own forces and allies in a
| way that sanctions don't.
| zardo wrote:
| They are more like blockades, they just use diplomacy and
| legal systems instead of parking ships with big guns
| outside the harbor.
|
| And I suppose the difference between a siege and a
| blockade is pretty much whether or not you fire those big
| guns into the city.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| How are bullets and war different?
| polski-g wrote:
| Sanctions are war.
| hxkabsnxksl wrote:
| hxkabsnxksl wrote:
| Is this the vibe you are going with?
|
| https://original.antiwar.com/daniel_larison/2021/05/03/sa
| nct...
|
| Edit: more sauce:
| https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/04/what-are-
| sanctions-ra...
|
| Is also a Putin line, so take as you will.
| arcticbull wrote:
| You can't force someone to trade with you - while being
| able to trade within your state is a right, international
| trade is a privilege. This privilege is negotiated at the
| state level. If you decide to thumb your nose at your
| trading partners they can stop trading with you, because
| they don't _owe_ you trade.
|
| If you built an economy entirely dependent on foreign
| trade for the survival of your own citizens it's best not
| to bite the hand that feeds, eh? But making sure your
| citizens survive is your responsibility and yours alone -
| not that of your trading partners.
| ambrozk wrote:
| This is a dumb statement every time it's asserted.
| Sanctions are not an act of war in any sense. Not in
| theory nor in a pragmatic sense. The distinction between
| _war_ and other modes of interstate hostility is an
| important one which we should not abandon. "Sanctions
| are war" is the same sort of statement as "speech is
| violence": it's sophistic, and it collapses nuance
| instead of encouraging it.
| FrenchDevRemote wrote:
| "Go beat/kill this guy" is violence, yet it's just words.
| Putin haven't killed people with his bare hands(at least
| for a few years...)But who wouldn't call him violent?
|
| If your sanctions cause people to die, of hunger,
| sickness or anything else, it's violence.
|
| I'm not against sanctions depending on the circumstances,
| but you're just wrong
| WalterBright wrote:
| If people don't follow Putin's orders, they get
| imprisoned or executed. His orders are not "just words".
| ummonk wrote:
| Well only because people follow his orders to imprison
| those who aren't following his orders.
| hxkabsnxksl wrote:
| More sauce: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/04/what-
| are-sanctions-ra...
| rbanffy wrote:
| It's war, without bullets.
| AsusToss wrote:
| Sometimes bullets are amongst the items sanctioned, so
| not necessarily
| victor9000 wrote:
| I'm not sure about the exact threshold, but in this case we
| have definitely crossed it.
| nmwnmw wrote:
| This is the same Virgil of:
|
| - Ethereum Proof of Stake [1]
|
| - King of the Nerds TV Show
|
| - Wikiscanner [2]
|
| Source [3]
|
| [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.09437 [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiScanner [3]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil_Griffith
| gmuslera wrote:
| What if he did the exact same presentation in youtube, and in NK
| they saw that presentation? What if someone in NK downloaded the
| open source implementation of that blockchain, participated on
| it, or even mined quite a few coins?
|
| Could be argued the same about any open source program (and their
| developers) dealing with encrypted information in any way?
|
| What was the problem? Going in person? Answering questions in the
| same way that he would do to any other person? Giving a
| "forbidden hint" that is basically spam all over internet by now?
|
| I don't care about crypto, but I do care about what this
| precedent implies.
| tofuahdude wrote:
| The precedent here is that if you deliberately and clearly help
| a sanctioned company against the laws of your own nation, you
| will suffer the consequences.
|
| There's nothing here about the random other ways of passively
| sharing information. It isn't a crime to have posted a video on
| youtube that gets watched in North Korea. Its obviously a crime
| to physically go to North Korea and intentionally teach them
| how to evade sanctions.
|
| What about that is related to the precedent you're talking
| about? You can't compare apples to oranges and call the apple
| orange.
| woah wrote:
| That's what I thought at first too, but no, it's much more
| ridiculous and openly criminal.
|
| "The document also includes [...] photos of Griffith, clad in a
| traditional-style North Korean suit, writing on a white board,
| on which "No sanctions!" was written with a smiley face."
|
| https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/04/11/former-ethereum...
| mcphage wrote:
| > What if he did the exact same presentation in youtube, and in
| NK they saw that presentation? What if someone in NK downloaded
| the open source implementation of that blockchain, participated
| on it, or even mined quite a few coins?
|
| I guess if he hadn't committed a crime, then he probably
| wouldn't have been arrested.
| mtoner23 wrote:
| Read the article, he knowingly broke sanctions rules sending
| money across borders
| starwind wrote:
| > What if he did the exact same presentation in youtube, and in
| NK they saw that presentation?
|
| If it was general information about how Blockchain can be used
| to evade sanctions, it would probably be fine as long as he was
| reporting how it could be done and not encouraging it.
|
| > What if someone in NK downloaded the open source
| implementation of that blockchain, participated on it, or even
| mined quite a few coins?
|
| Almost certainly not a problem. His tool is legal and he can't
| control other people taking it and using it to commit crimes.
|
| > What was the problem?
|
| His intention was the problem. The point of his talk was to
| help the North Koreans use crypto to evade sanctions. In law,
| intentions matter. There's a massive legal difference between
| hitting a pedestrian with your car and running down a
| pedestrian with your car, even if the outcome is exactly the
| same. The first is an accident, the second is assault.
|
| > Judge Castel read a series of text messages and emails from
| Griffith in which the defendant admits to sharing information
| with North Korea for the express purpose of helping the
| repressive Kim regime evade sanctions.
|
| > What the judge found most damning, perhaps, was a photo of
| Griffith presenting at the conference, wearing a traditional
| North Korean suit and standing in front of a blackboard on
| which it read "No sanctions!" with a smiley face.
|
| https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/04/12/former-ethereum...
|
| > I don't care about crypto, but I do care about what this
| precedent implies.
|
| That the intentions of the defendant matter? I have bad news
| for you, you find this Hammurabi's code and the Old Testament
| drc500free wrote:
| > In law, intentions matter.
|
| This is almost always the sticking point when people from
| tech misunderstand law.
|
| The fact that computers do not understand intent is
| fundamental to learning code. I think that leads to a lot of
| tech folks not groking that one of the primary functions of
| the legal system is to systematically determine intent.
| [deleted]
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Here's a NY Times from the time of the arrest which has many
| relevant details:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/nyregion/north-korea-virg...
| mort96 wrote:
| Wait the title calls this guy a cryptography expert but nowhere
| in the article is that mentioned again? He just seems to be a
| cryptocurrency researcher?
| flatearth22 wrote:
| throw8383833jj wrote:
| I really wonder if he knew he could go to jail for this. did he
| know the risks?
| nathias wrote:
| It's really astounding the lengths people will go to in order to
| rationalize their dealings with tyrannical regimes, but yea North
| Korea is obviously also bad.
| locallost wrote:
| If North Korea did this, it would be further proof that they're a
| dictatorship. But alas, where they have their ruthless dictator,
| we have our* rule of law.
|
| *I am not American.
|
| I wish I get to see in my lifetime that this vicious misuse of
| moral values by the US finally ends, but I am not optimistic. By
| misuse I mean pretending that certain actions are done on moral
| grounds, while looking the other way when they or their allies do
| the same things.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Mods: Better link: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/united-
| states-citizen-p...
|
| Better title: "United States Citizen Pleads Guilty To Conspiring
| To Assist North Korea In Evading Sanctions"
| mzs wrote:
| or this for the sentencing itself:
| https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-citizen-who-conspired-assi...
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Business Insider isn't a great source, but I don't like primary
| sources: They will be very biased in their own interest. A good
| secondary source can provide context, information from sources
| that disagree or have other perspectives or concerns, etc.
| That's one reason Wikipedia requires secondary sources.
| flatearth22 wrote:
| spamizbad wrote:
| Not surprised: it seems a common theme with crypto evangelists is
| the application of the blockchain to avoid sanctions. I don't
| think its deeply ideological (as in anti-America/Pro-NK) - it's
| more like they view US financial hegemony as a "competitor" to
| blockchain technology and a hinderance to global cryptocurrency
| adoption.
|
| Why he would throw his life away like this seems silly. I don't
| see the point in taking payment for a presentation you could
| record and upload on youtube which can be readily viewed by North
| Korea's leadership.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| It's the ultimate place any honest monetary cipherpunk ends up
| at. Either you have government controlled financial systems, or
| you have decentralized financial systems.
|
| Getting to any middleground is pretty tortured, both
| technically and morally.
|
| Sort of like "Strong encryption permits a world in which child
| pornography cannot be tracked" with respect to encryption. It's
| ugly, but true.
|
| (Said as someone who doesn't care about cryptocurrency enough
| to have a strong opinion either way)
| woah wrote:
| No, I think this is a misconception. Sanctions can work
| without government controlled money. Prosecuting terrorism or
| organized crime can be done without government controlled
| money. Catching tax evaders can be done without government
| controlled money. Everything can work without government
| controlled money, it just requires more on the ground police
| work. All of these things were done without government
| controlled money not very long ago.
|
| Similar to how the job of police would be a lot easier if
| every citizen was required to carry a surveillance
| microphone, their job is easier if all transactions are can
| be censored and surveilled. But it is not necessary.
|
| For example, sanctions: Find people who are trading with a
| sanctioned regime by looking at if they are importing goods
| from there. Very easy. If they are paying for labor (remote
| IT work or something), you can also catch that. Informants,
| etc.
| djrogers wrote:
| Sanctions only work that way in a world that doesn't exist
| - one with 100% agreement and compliance with sanctions at
| a nation-state level. The reason monetary controls are so
| critical to sanctions is that they make it more difficult
| for the countries that don't want to abide by the sanctions
| to do bypass them. Not impossible, but more difficult.
| woah wrote:
| I think India's massive trade volume with Russia
| contradicts you
| some_random wrote:
| Sure, but you don't have to go to a child predator conference
| to advice professional child abusers on how to avoid being
| tracked.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Either you have government controlled financial systems, or
| you have decentralized financial systems.
|
| Some parties control the latter; don't be fooled. The
| question is, who?
| lawn wrote:
| You can be pro encryption, but acknowledge that it makes
| tracking child porn harder is an unwanted side effect,
| without aiding the child porn creators.
|
| So you can be pro decentralized financial systems without
| actively helping totalitarian governments to use them.
| malermeister wrote:
| I'd say it _is_ deeply ideological. Not necessarily anti-US
| /pro-NK, but anti- _any government_ and pro market supremacy.
| paulwooden wrote:
| He likely decided to give the speech in person so that he could
| spend time in North Korea and develop relationships with
| government officials for the purpose of future (illegal)
| business.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > I don't see the point in taking payment for a presentation
|
| Maybe taking payment _was_ the point!
| unethical_ban wrote:
| You almost have to wonder if there is more we don't know. I can't
| imagine anyone person being able to fundamentally alter NK's
| understanding of Blockchain. Laugh at that country, but there
| must be a few doctorate level brains that can watch proxied-
| Youtube.
|
| He knew what he was doing and he took a principled stand on
| sharing information with a very unsympathetic party. It would be
| like teaching mobsters how to clean an AK-47 when there is a
| specific law against it - sure, the law may sound bogus, but you
| broke it, and you aren't being exactly noble about it.
| erdos4d wrote:
| No, there isn't more, the US would certainly detail it in the
| indictment if there was. This is obviously a political
| prosecution against a guy they just didn't like hanging out
| with guys they don't, and lending those guys a certain
| legitimacy in the process. He provided NK with nothing of
| value, as you say, they certainly know about cryptocurrency and
| have been using it for quite some time now.
| timcavel wrote:
| tptacek wrote:
| Called it. :)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21666694
|
| Doing the guidelines sentence exercise is sort of fun, in a nerd-
| snipey way, and is a way to understand a bit of how federal
| criminal law works for us non-lawyers.
| ricochet11 wrote:
| This is so sad, how does locking him up for 5 years really helps
| anyone? or keep anyone safer? He did something stupid maybe, but
| his work was exploring how digital systems can help bring peace
| to the world, and he thought a good place for that to happen is
| NK, so who doesn't agree with that? None of the information he
| presented was secret, it was all publicly available.
|
| For comparison here is a company that actually facilitated NK
| building Nuclear Weapons, 145 violations of the law , they got
| fined $15k more than Virgil and had no jail time.
| https://www.complianceweek.com/regulatory-enforcement/td-ban...
|
| What a stupid and harmful legal system.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >but his work was exploring how digital systems can help bring
| peace to the world, and he thought a good place for that to
| happen is NK, so who doesn't agree with that?
|
| Anyone who understands that trying to transfer technology to
| North Korea that aids in avoiding sanctions is not going to
| contribute to peace. That a bank got away with doing something
| similar is of course equally stupid and hypocritical, but
| doesn't really change the point.
| CyberRabbi wrote:
| Well it wasn't like he did this by accident:
|
| > "The most important feature of blockchains is that they are
| open. And the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea]
| can't be kept out no matter what the USA or the UN says,"
|
| He intentionally violated the law. Sure, one may consider the
| law stupid but one should expect to be punished if one
| blatantly violates it. That's how laws work, he's not
| imprisoned by the whim of a king.
|
| It would be more stupid to violate the law and expect no
| negative repercussions. There are more constructive ways to
| reform laws than openly violating them.
| tofuahdude wrote:
| He expressly stated he knew he was helping to evade financial
| sanctions and you think it's "sad" to punish him for violating
| the laws of our country?
|
| How does it help anyone? It sets the tone that people who break
| the rule of law will be punished. It establish that there is
| real "stick" so that other people do not perpetrate similar
| crimes with other rogue states.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| > but his work was exploring how digital systems can help bring
| peace to the world, and he thought a good place for that to
| happen is NK
|
| Except that North Korea uses that money to build nuclear
| weapons. Sanctions are the only reason North Korea doesn't have
| a nuclear arsenal with ICBMs that it can used to threaten the
| entire world. Giving North Korea access to more money is not
| good. It does not promote peace.
|
| Locking him up does plenty of good. It means that someone who
| would help a ruthless dictator build up weapons that could end
| the world, is not out there doing it.
|
| > For comparison here is a company that actually facilitated NK
| building Nuclear Weapons, 145 violations of the law , they got
| fined $15k more than Virgil and had no jail time.
|
| Let's read the article. TD processed $300k. That's.. nothing.
| I'm sure Kim spends that much on wine every month.
|
| This person was trying to give North Korea a roadmap by which
| it could evade sanctions with as much money as it wanted.
| That's far worse.
| sofixa wrote:
| > but his work was exploring how digital systems can help bring
| peace to the world
|
| Surely nobody is that naive? Wars and sanctions aren't a
| technical problem that can be "solved" with a "digital system".
| [deleted]
| weego wrote:
| As a neurodivergent person in tech, mentoring and MH support,
| I've met a number of similarly ND people who are indeed
| convinced that human scale problems are just issues we've not
| solved with technology yet.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| That is so obviously true that denying it is like denying
| evolution.
|
| If we had one of the those shields from Star Trek, we
| wouldn't have to worry about NK.
| sofixa wrote:
| You should look into MAD, and why the USSR and USA signed
| a treaty restricting anti-missile defenses. If any
| country was close to getting ironclad missile shields,
| it's adversaries would probably act preemptively.
| kayamon wrote:
| Yes they are. Wars are funded via inflation. Bitcoin solves
| inflation by using computers to allow trading bottled energy
| online, thereby pulling the funding out from under oligarchs.
| root_axis wrote:
| Trading bottled energy? What? That is a totally dishonest
| characterization, the energy is not "bottled" it it's
| burned and never again recoverable.
| kayamon wrote:
| The coin is the proof that the energy was used. You're
| effectively trading how much you value energy.
| root_axis wrote:
| No, that's incorrect. The price of the bitcoin has no
| relationship to the amount of energy burned mining it; if
| this were true then Satoshi's wallet would be worthless.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Wars are funded via inflation
|
| That's got to be one of the weirdest things I've ever
| heard. Inflation is a side effect of war, either due money
| printing to fund ( rare in non-failing countries, bond
| issues and loans are much more popular) or, more often, due
| to supply scarcity ( due to more limited trade, redirection
| of resources to the military, conscription of men for the
| army).
|
| Bitcoin does nothing for either scenario. Obviously it
| doesn't help supply, and no government would limit itself
| on monetary policy by exclusively adopting bitcoin; and
| even if for some reason they do, they can still emit bonds
| and get loans.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| That is actually.. a very intriguing ( yet horrifying )
| question. Were there any studies of inflationary
| pressures pre, during, and after a war? My gut tells me
| it depends on the scale of destruction ( WW2 comes to
| mind ), but I don't remember reading anything on that
| subject.
| sofixa wrote:
| Hm. I'm not aware of anything specifically about
| inflation, but IMHO it would be very hard to compare due
| to the plethora of variables - e.g. rationing,
| destruction, death, all of which would be deflationary.
| kayamon wrote:
| And what happens if the people can trade without
| requiring the governments or their monetary policies?
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| >thereby pulling the funding out from under oligarchs
|
| Only works if the people have access to the technology.
|
| "As of December 2014, 1,024 IP addresses are known to exist
| in North Korea"
|
| "North Korea - Population 2014 - 25,057,793"
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Wars are funded via inflation_
|
| This is _such_ a weird claim. Did we not have empires and
| colonies and wars when the world mostly used metal for
| money?
|
| If anything, the world has been most peaceful since the
| fall of Bretton Woods. (I attribute none of that to our
| monetary system versus nukes.)
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| So if they are, they should be imprisoned?
|
| Maybe you haven't met someone with high-functioning autism.
| Being naive is essentially a symptom.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| All the solutions to your math homework are publically
| available, you can find plenty of examples all over.
| Nonetheless, you're not allowed to go to your friend's desk and
| do it for him.
|
| North Korea is a country under sanction from the international
| community for... Cartoon-level villainy, but in the real world.
| Some of the regimes' crimes are unbelievable because they seem
| too cruel. They remain actively at war with t This man did not
| give a talk about how North Korea could evade sanctions, he
| _traveled to Pyongyang to teach them_. This is pretty close to
| being the definition of "Treason".
| orangepurple wrote:
| It is obvious that the US penal system is designed for
| retribution not rehabilitation. Furthermore, you are not
| allowed to do anything important unless you are affiliated with
| the Party.
| beebmam wrote:
| North Korea actively threatens the use of nuclear weapons,
| offensively, against its neighbors and enemies. There should be
| no sympathy for this regime or anyone who collaborates with it.
| ricochet11 wrote:
| How do we go about improving relations? How do we improve the
| lives of the people living under that awful regime? How do we
| give people ways to exit and escape, and have access to the
| freedoms we have?
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| The same way that the West won the cold war and liberated
| Eastern Europe: information.
|
| My parents and grandparents would sit and listen to Radio
| Free Europe at night, at low volume, so the neighbors
| couldn't hear and turn them in (years later we found out
| which neighbors told on them, it was.. interesting). That's
| how people in communist countries heard the truth and why
| they eventually overthrew their governments.
|
| If you listen to defectors what made a huge difference for
| them is just seeing normal life in smuggled tv shows and
| soap operas. Seeing hard evidence for the fact that other
| people live far better than they do. The government of
| North Korea tells people they live a great life and
| everywhere else is miserable.
|
| The problem is that today, the West has a huge
| disinformation problem. News networks like Fox routinely
| lie, politicians like Trump convince their people of things
| that are obviously false, etc. The truth simply doesn't
| play as much of a role.
|
| Russia learned this lesson too. There are fervent pro-Putin
| supporters out there now. This wasn't the case under
| communism. People generally understood that the system was
| garbage.
| mdanger007 wrote:
| Sanctions are one of the few tools the world has against
| nuclear armed despots. If you're really interested in the
| questions you ask, I would start here:
| https://nymag.com/strategist/2018/03/the-10-best-books-
| about...
| endisneigh wrote:
| Agreed. And once we finish with North Korea we should turn
| our eyes to the United States, the country that developed and
| currently only user of nuclear weapons in combat.
|
| No sympathy for users of nuclear weapons or any country who
| threatens its use!
| egberts1 wrote:
| ... only user ...?
|
| Clearly, you are qualified to comment on world affair.
| /sarcasm
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Assuming you didn't miss the "in combat" part, this may
| be an English issue: To be a "user" of nukes here means "
| _has used_ nukes in combat ", not " _has_ nukes for use
| in combat ".
| endisneigh wrote:
| What other countries have used nuclear weapons in combat?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That statement is entirely correct; the US is the only
| country ever to use nuclear weapons in combat. Everyone
| else has only ever tested them, or used them as
| threats/deterrence.
| garbagetime wrote:
| Did a whole nuclear war go by without my noticing?
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Not an entire nuclear war, but you may remember the end
| of the second world war.
| egberts1 wrote:
| you all are being disingenuous by the mere highlighting
| of "who used nuclear weapon", as opposed to "who is now
| able to use".
|
| But, please do soldier on.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| The post read "... only user of nuclear weapons in
| combat", and you replied, "... only user ...?" You chose
| to leave it at that, and in English, this implies that
| you disagree with the _fact_ of the two quoted words,
| "only user", not that you disagree with the point the
| parent was making via that fact. If it is actually the
| latter, you should clarify. It's very reasonable for
| everybody to take your post the way they did, and has
| nothing to do with politics or dishonesty.
|
| Also, the sarcasm is unnecessary.
| garbagetime wrote:
| The USA are the good guys so I'm happy they have their
| defensive nukes all around the world.
|
| Also, the one time when they used their nukes offensively
| that was actually to save lives.
| xtian wrote:
| > Also, the one time when they used their nukes
| offensively that was actually to save lives.
|
| That's contradicted by the historical record. US
| intelligence believed that Japan was ready to surrender.
| The goal of using the nukes was to intimidate the Soviet
| Union.
| kayamon wrote:
| > The USA are the good guys
|
| lolwut
| everfree wrote:
| > The USA are the good guys
|
| That kind of reductionism doesn't really forward the
| discussion. The USA is a complex system of interconnected
| organizations run by constantly churning groups of
| people. It's a topic that needs to be approached with
| some level of nuance.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I appreciate your honesty. That being said I stand by my
| position. It's better if no one supports anyone who uses,
| threatens to use, develop or has used nukes.
|
| Needless to say only a small number of countries fit that
| criteria.
|
| United States will not be a "good guy" forever.
| etherael wrote:
| Giving North Korean citizens access to an economy outside
| their locked down one where they can engage in trade may well
| be the exact opposite of collaborating with the North Korean
| regime. This could easily be the most practical and realistic
| way to destroy North Korean control over its economy.
|
| If those citizens are no longer beholden to the regime for
| their economic livelihood and that encourages internal
| organisation as well as more people seeing they have other
| options, sooner or later that's going to have a corrosive
| effect on state control of the economic affairs of North
| Korean citizens.
|
| Frankly the US should be all over encouraging this activity,
| but given how stupid they have been for all modern history I
| can't say I'm surprised they're not.
| mef wrote:
| I don't think this rationale holds up to the least bit of
| scrutiny. How would a DPRK citizen hold or transact with
| cryptocurrency? On their heavily locked down and monitored
| computer devices on the heavily locked down and monitored
| national network?
| kube-system wrote:
| Cryptocurrencies have no way to unilaterally accomplish
| that.
|
| Bitcoin can't stop anyone from knocking down your door and
| taking your belongings. It doesn't work without access to
| communication technology. It doesn't do anything to
| circumvent barriers to trade in the physical world. Trade
| requires _two_ transfers. And, you can't eat a bitcoin.
|
| The only people in NK who have the ability to use bitcoin
| in trade are the political elite.
| etherael wrote:
| You can store crypto in your head, and you can certainly
| use it to put together funds which would be helpful to
| escape.
| kube-system wrote:
| I'd really like to hear how you think that would
| physically take place.
| Symbiote wrote:
| North Korean citizens don't have internet access.
| elliekelly wrote:
| How many times do we have to try this "stronger economic
| ties will encourage freedom/peace/democracy" theory before
| we accept that it only serves to enrich those who are
| already wealthy and doesn't do a thing to preserve peace.
| It perhaps even does the opposite: becomes a tool of
| coercion the bad actor can use to manipulate the free
| economies with which they trade. The free markets get
| hooked on the cheap $thing provided by the authoritarian
| government and then we're stuck. Our consumers are fat and
| happy with the cheap $thing so our politicians look the
| other way as the evil regime does more and more overtly
| evil things. Trade makes us more tolerant of the
| authoritarians' bad behavior. It doesn't encourage the
| authoritarians to behave better. _See, e.g.,_ Russia 's
| sale of natural gas to Europe, China's sale of
| labor/consumer products to the West, KSA's sale of petrol
| to the States.
|
| Time and again we do business with evil regimes and pretend
| it might result in some good. It doesn't. It won't. Let's
| not keep repeating the same failed experiment.
| grapeskin wrote:
| Vietnam is certainly a lot more relaxed than it used to
| be. That coincides with the world deciding to do business
| with them.
|
| So far, the track record of "cut off all interactions
| with the country until they instate the government we
| want" doesn't have a good track record. Iran, Cuba, and
| North Korea are still doing the same thing they were
| doing 50 years ago. Thinking another 50 years will change
| things is insanity. Let's stop continuing this obviously
| failed experiment.
|
| Sanctions are potentially effective in the short term.
| Once they reach the scale of entire human lifespans,
| you're just making the people suffer for your own moral
| superiority.
| etherael wrote:
| I didn't claim anything about stronger economic ties
| between the organisational units of the States in
| question. I was making the exact opposite claim, that you
| weaken a closed state proportional to the degree of its
| closure by using countereconomics to erode the control it
| can directly exert upon its citizenry.
|
| I absolutely agree with you that trade with dystopian
| hellholes that provide economic resources the rulers of
| those dystopian hellholes can use to continue with their
| strategies is counter-productive and that all trade of
| that kind should to the maximum degree possible, be
| stopped.
|
| The kind of trade however that is enabled by peer to peer
| participants all over the world being directly able to
| trade with each other for goods and services to the
| extent the rulers of those dystopian hellholes cannot
| profit from is another thing entirely, and that is the
| kind of trade that blockchains can enable. That black
| market trade sets up competitive and progressively
| independent organisational units not beholden to the
| dystopian rulers they would otherwise be and directly
| compromises their economic power.
|
| Ask a soldier in the Venezuelan army what he thinks of
| the regime, and then ask a Venezuelan software engineer
| with the skills and experience in demand that would
| enable him to work remotely for dozens of well paid jobs
| transacting in crypto all over the world the same
| question. I guarantee the responses you get will
| illustrate my point very clearly.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| This is the Merkel-Steinmeier system that was applied to
| Russia. Bring Russia into the fold economically. Ignore its
| bad actions. Give it access to money, technology, etc. So
| that it will become economically dependent with us and then
| it won't want to attack anyone. Surely as Russians become
| more economically able they will fight against Putin's
| brutal reign. Well, exactly the opposite happened.
|
| Look at Ukraine today. People are fighting for their lives
| while Russians slaughter women and children and throw their
| dead bodies into wells. That's what the Merkel-Steinmeier
| approach gives you.
|
| Giving a regime like this money makes the regime more
| powerful, not less.
|
| > Frankly the US should be all over encouraging this
| activity, but given how stupid they have been for all
| modern history I can't say I'm surprised they're not.
|
| The US had been warning Germany to stop its dependence on
| Russian gas for a decade.
|
| The idea that we should trade with these kinds of regimes
| is very clearly refuted at this point.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| You can't look at the failure of the Merkel-Steinmeier in
| isolation and say "we tried that".
|
| At the same time the US encircled Russia with bases,
| weapons and nukes. At the same time the US bombed Russian
| allied states.
| etherael wrote:
| As I clarified above, I am not promoting state to state
| white market economic activity. I am promoting peer to
| peer countereconomic black market activity which cripples
| the control and power of the closed economy with the
| express goal of destroying the control and parasitism
| enabled by the closed economy.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| "Peer to peer" is a superset of "state to state". There
| is no technology which will allow a North Korean citizen
| to sidestep their government's parasitic internal economy
| without also allowing the North Korean government to
| sidestep international sanctions.
| etherael wrote:
| Which is another way of saying that trade that might be
| either can't even be effectively policed by the dystopian
| state if they want to use it for evading sanctions to the
| extent they're able without simultaneously shooting
| themselves in the foot.
|
| If they can't police it effectively all the more reason
| for more people to do it.
| garbagetime wrote:
| Why do you think it is that the DPRK places such a priority
| on emphasizing its nuclear capabilities?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Probably because a country that once razed every city in
| North Korea has spent seventy years threatening them with
| nukes.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Because the civilized world would bring down the Kim
| regime, as we certainly should, if we could. Because they
| have nukes, we can't.
|
| This is getting to be a real problem as 21st-century
| history continues to unfold.
| SamReidHughes wrote:
| The "civilized" world had plenty of time to do that
| before NK got nukes, and it didn't. War in Korea would be
| far worse than peace.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _War in Korea would be far worse than peace._
|
| The Korean War saw about 1.5 million civlian deaths,
| according to [1]. It's impossible to say how many died in
| the 1994-1998 famine alone, but [2] puts it at "240,000
| to 3.5 million" and [3] cites figures of "up to 3
| million."
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine
|
| [3]:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/12/how-
| kim...
|
| So, no. There _are_ worse things than war. For allowing
| this situation to fester for multiple generations,
| history will judge us the way we talk about the "good
| Germans" who didn't lay a hand on anyone but who also did
| nothing to stop Hitler.
|
| You're correct, though, in that the North Korean nuclear
| program is now an ideal excuse for continuing to do what
| we did before, which was nothing.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| This sounds like a catch-22/ circular logic.
|
| We would invade and topple the government if they didn't
| have those pesky nukes.
|
| The government needs to be toppled because they are
| developing nukes and we don't want them to.
| dirtyid wrote:
| "actively threatens the use of nuclear weapons, offensively,
| against its neighbors and enemie"
|
| Citation needed. NK nuclear policy is No Preemption
| understood to be borderline No First Use. Until last month
| when Japan and South Korea were threatening base strike
| capabilities in which case NK turned into only retaliation
| strikes against military targets if attacked first.
| chatmasta wrote:
| I met Virgil at an academic workshop back in 2014. We went out in
| Amsterdam. He was a weird guy, to say the least (he'd probably be
| the first to agree). He was generally quite affable and obviously
| highly intelligent.
|
| He's an idiot for this fiasco. But it's also sad to see him in
| jail; I don't see how this benefits society in any way. Five
| years in prison seems like a disproportionate punishment for an
| arguably victimless crime. None of us is safer today because
| Virgil is in prison.
| gnulinux wrote:
| What? North Korean government is the most totalitarian, brutal,
| ruthless state in the world today. You can't just play "there
| is no victim" card when you illegally help out an enemy
| government like that. Even if you're ideologically or for some
| other reason inclined to support NK, you need to understand
| that being a US citizen makes your actions extremely impactful
| on world stage. It seems like Virgil was truly in a position to
| help NK, which makes him responsible.
|
| I think the punishment is not nearly enough. I believe the same
| thing should be done to people helping Russia evade sanctions
| too.
| eldenwrong wrote:
| chatmasta wrote:
| This argument would be more convincing if he provided
| material support to NK and didn't simply relay publicly
| available information. It seems he's been sanctioned
| primarily for his speech, not selling weapons or purchasing
| contraband. And it's not like he was divulging state secrets.
|
| Anyway, the conviction mostly makes sense to me. The
| sentencing seems disproportionate.
| 9991 wrote:
| tomatowurst wrote:
| How in the world do you see this victimless? North Korea has
| been violating human rights in it's own borders and South
| Korea. It has nukes pointed at Seoul holding it and US troops
| hostage.
|
| I can't believe he only got 5 years in jail for this. It
| should've been life imprisonment for aiding and abetting
| terrorist organizations like North Korea.
|
| Can you say the same for someone caught laundering money for
| Hamas or ISIS? That it's a victimless crime?
| ttybird2 wrote:
| _" How in the world do you see this victimless?"_
|
| Just because NK has victims does not mean that his actions
| have victims as well.
|
| _" It has nukes pointed at Seoul"_
|
| Every nuclear country has their nukes pointed at somewhere.
| US included.
|
| _" holding ... US troops hostage"_
|
| I really do not get what you mean by this.
|
| _" It should've been life imprisonment"_
|
| It is easy to call for absurd amounts of vengeful punishment
| towards someone that poses no danger.
|
| _" for aiding and abetting terrorist organizations like
| North Korea"_
|
| I think that your definition of "terrorist organization" is
| too wide. Might as well call the US a terrorist organization
| at that point.
|
| _" Can you say the same for someone caught laundering money
| for Hamas or ISIS? That it's a victimless crime?"_
|
| He did not launder money. He just did a cryptocurrency
| presentation.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| It benefits society because Virgil will now likely think a lot
| harder before attempting to do something so foolish. He thought
| he was flying under the radar and possibly teaching North Korea
| how to avoid sanctions.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| Yup. He's being made an into example. The US loves to do this.
|
| Let's put emotions aside and look at the situation. This man is
| an expert in his field and possesses a lot of knowledge. He
| doesn't have to share this information with anyone, but he does
| so for the advancement and progression of society. Sharing
| information in this scenario was evidently a crime.
|
| How did we get to the point where knowledge sharing lands you
| in prison? It's because we have mindless shells of human beings
| in society, the type of people that would call this man a
| traitor. Let me set something straight: if you are a citizen of
| a country, it doesn't imply that you love and support your
| country. You are likely a citizen simply because you were born
| and trapped there. If you have an urge to defend and protect an
| imperialistic, globally-dominating sack of shit like the United
| States Government, you're part of the problem.
| tptacek wrote:
| Leaving aside the questions of whether this is a victimless
| crime, amply addressed by sibling comments, I'd like to point
| out that people like Virgil Griffith benefit from these
| sympathetic assessments, in large part for being part of our
| in-group, but most defendants do not. You wouldn't want to live
| in a system where these kinds of sentiments actually controlled
| even more than they already do.
| jacquesm wrote:
| People engaging in acts like this should automatically be no
| longer considered to be part of the 'in group' but part of
| another group called 'criminals'. And in this case a very
| special kind of criminal: one that knowingly aids a regime
| that is beyond despicable.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Agreed. This feels like early-90s computer crime sentencing.
|
| Making it easy for someone to bludgeon you over the head with a
| legal charge is your own fault. But the net impact of the
| charge can also be useless.
| Daishiman wrote:
| If you were to advice a sanctioned country on how to launder
| money or evade currency controls you would also be penalized
| in the same manner.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Explaining how cryptocurrency works is itself advising a
| sanctioned country on how to launder money and evade
| currency controls.
|
| Is Wikipedia liable?
| unnouinceput wrote:
| This is about sending a message, especially to brilliant minds.
| No prosecution was involved when Rodman was visiting NK and
| definitely helped NK with having a highly visible star being
| personal friend with Kim, but hey Rodman is not a brainiac.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Five years in prison seems like a disproportionate punishment
| for an arguably victimless crime
|
| It's not victimless: the United States (government) is the
| victim, albeit one that's not particularly sympathetic.
|
| Just because the victim is diffuse/a collective doesn't mean
| the wrongs against it are victimless - this is about as
| victimless as handing over nuclear secrets to another country
| (in quality, not severity).
| jacquesm wrote:
| I would say the people of NK are the victim of anything that
| further strengthens the regime there.
| throwaw0123 wrote:
| mtoner23 wrote:
| Victimless? North korea is not a victimless country. There's a
| reason why they are sactioned. He clearly broke a big and
| important law and knew he was doing it. idk what else one would
| expect
| thereddaikon wrote:
| Yeah I don't see how anyone could consider it victimless. By
| helping North Korea circumvent sanctions he indirectly has
| blood on his hands. This is a country that sentences multiple
| generations of a family to work camps.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| outworlder wrote:
| The fragment "albeit with better conditions" is doing a
| lot of work here.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Quite a bit better on average. At the extremes, the US
| can be just as bad.
|
| # Prisoners being beat to death
|
| # Prisoners' shackled in restraint chairs being nasally
| force fed and tortured
|
| # Solitary confinement for 40+ years
| tcgv wrote:
| Nonetheless two wrongs don't make a right.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| sure, Im not saying that they do make it right. I am
| pointing out the conspicuous hypocrisy that people don't
| feel that they have blood on their hands for paying US
| taxes, but aiding NK in any way is a mortal sin.
| Lanolderen wrote:
| I find this comparison extremely weird.
|
| North korean prisons are described as hellholes whereas
| US prisons actually seem decent to me (eastern european)
| if we exclude that you likely won't have the best of
| company.
|
| Plus that only a small amount of taxes go towards the
| prison system.
| quantum_solanum wrote:
| > whereas US prisons actually seem decent to me
|
| based on what? Places like Angola or San Quentin are as
| brutal as any gulag.
| starwind wrote:
| > I don't see how this benefits society in any way.
|
| It sends a message to those would otherwise help North Korea
| (or Russia or Iran) of "don't violate sanctions."
| boc wrote:
| If you helped smuggle $1M in cash across the NK border you'd
| also be arrested and convicted for helping to evade sanctions.
| If anything crypto-enthusiasts should be happy to hear that the
| US government treats crypto as a legitimate means of moving
| money between nations, and punishes actors accordingly.
|
| I'm glad he's a nice guy based on your interactions, but he
| knowingly tried to enrich an totalitarian state that has
| successfully built offensive nuclear weapons and is actively
| testing ICBMs. That's insanely anti-social behavior which
| endangers the lives of millions of innocent people in the
| region. He deserves those 5 years. You can't hide behind the
| curtain of victimless crypto-evangelism while also admitting in
| text convos that you're likely helping them evade sanctions.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > If anything crypto-enthusiasts should be happy to hear that
| the US government treats crypto as a legitimate means of
| moving money between nations, and punishes actors
| accordingly.
|
| Cryptocurrencies being easy to move is old news. It would be
| much more interesting to discover that some cryptocurrency is
| actually immune to government sanctions.
|
| Monero has shown hints of this. US treasury tried to sanction
| a wallet and ended up sanctioning a transaction hash.
|
| https://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/sdnlist.txt
|
| > Digital Currency Address - XMR 5be5543ff73456ab9f2d207887e2
| af87322c651ea1a873c5b25b7ffae456c320;
|
| https://localmonero.co/blocks/search/5be5543ff73456ab9f2d207.
| ..
| istjohn wrote:
| Personally, I support imprisoning anyone who helps subvert
| sanctions against a despotic state pursuing nuclear weapons.
| zopa wrote:
| No issue with your main point, but "pursuing nuclear weapons"
| is such a strange and revealing phrase. North Korea has
| nuclear weapons. They've had nuclear weapons for at least 16
| years (probably over 20). The last best chance to roll back
| their nuclear program was in the mid-aughts, and it didn't
| work.
|
| Lots of good and useful steps we could pursue to reduce
| tensions and make an accidental nuclear war on the Korean
| peninsula less likely, even with a regime as awful as the one
| in Pyongyang. But being a superpower means never needing to
| admit we've lost at something, I guess.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Looking forward to see how you'll imprison the German
| government for continuing to purchase oil from Russia through
| shell companies like Gazprombank.
| relativeadv wrote:
| lol, this comment is too much.
| mayankkaizen wrote:
| May be a bit extreme comment but not completely
| nonsensical. It is raising somewhat valid point.
|
| Currently Russian regime is not that much different from
| NK regime. Both are under sanctions. In fact, Russia is
| more dangerous than NK in current situation. Germany
| needs fuel and it is essentially financing Russia. The
| only difference between NK and Russia is that nobody is
| dependent on NK for anything.
|
| This guy helped NK and went to jail. Germany giving money
| to Russia (for fuel), it's all ok.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Germany _needs_ those btu 's. And the German authorities
| are invested with the authority and responsibility to
| make exactly that sort of decision.
|
| Did this guy need to help NK for anything remotely like
| that sort of responsibility?
| linspace wrote:
| > Did this guy need to help NK for anything remotely like
| that sort of responsibility?
|
| This is what keeps me wondering. I guess that a guy with
| a doctorate from Caltech and in the current technological
| context could be making a lot of money legally.
|
| From outside it looks like he is some kind of crypto
| idealist.
| samhw wrote:
| Well, he's not wrong, really.
| watwut wrote:
| Germany is not breaking the law there. They are preventing
| the law from happening, which is something different
| entirely.
|
| Also, USA does not have jurisdiction over Germany. Nor
| should have.
| kelnos wrote:
| I think you don't understand how sanctions work.
| postsantum wrote:
| I don't think you understand the worldview of the average
| american
| some_random wrote:
| How is that relevant in the current discussion?
| stickfigure wrote:
| At the moment that is still legal. The German government
| may decide to change that in the future.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| >At the moment that is still legal.
|
| Is the discussion on what is legal or on what is moral to
| legally enforce? I had read the parent discussion as
| being the latter.
| function_seven wrote:
| Both. But if an action is both immoral _and_ still legal,
| it is then wrong to jail people for it. Fix the law to
| match the morality.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| " I don't see how this benefits society in any way." The law
| breaks down when you start giving exceptions to the law
| arbitrarily
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| To an extent, I wonder if this is the fear of the unknown. Here
| is a guy, who actually seems to understand the 'magic' of
| crypto. God only knows what he could do with dangerous
| knowledge like that.
|
| I am not foreign policy, NK, crypto, or national security
| expert, but it is not about safety. It is about sending a
| message at a time when US engages in very heavy sanctions
| effort ( currently against Russia ).
|
| From that perspective, as sad as it sounds even as I type it,
| Virgil is a sacrifice government makes to send a message.
|
| I too feel his mind locked behind bars is a terrible waste.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| He's helping an enemy state to avoid sanctions - countries
| will always prosecute cases like that.
|
| If he didn't want his mind locked behind bars, he probably
| shouldn't have done what he did. I'm sure he's a smart guy,
| but this was not a smart move.
| mattnewton wrote:
| His mind behind bars is a total waste but I don't see
| anything magical about what he did. Replace "unit of
| cryptocurrency" above with "duffel bag of diamonds" or any
| other store of value and it's transparently illegal.
| water-your-self wrote:
| What 'magic' is there in crypto.
|
| Besides, cryptography as a munition is a known meme in the
| right circles. This is textbook what not to do.
| samhw wrote:
| > What 'magic' is there in crypto.
|
| Well, there's magical thinking, does that count? ;)
|
| (Also, perhaps it's just me, but I really dislike the term
| 'crypto'. Cryptography is a genuinely valuable field. Maybe
| we can call them 'waste-backed internet tokens' or
| something. When they actually implement Moxie Marlinspike's
| suggestion[0] of using cryptography rather than distributed
| consensus as proof of validity, then maybe they can call
| themselves cryptocurrencies.)
|
| [0] _" We should accept the premise that people will not
| run their own servers by designing systems that can
| distribute trust without having to distribute
| infrastructure. This means architecture that anticipates
| and accepts the inevitable outcome of relatively
| centralized client/server relationships, but uses
| cryptography (rather than infrastructure) to distribute
| trust."_ (https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-
| impressions.html)
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| If someone is nice but dangerous through lack of judgement,
| then the nice doesn't matter because the dangerous is still
| dangerous and has to be dealt with.
|
| He's in prison because he was willing to help hurt the world.
| It benefits society and we are all safer today because that
| person was relieved of his ability to act, and because of the
| warning the example sends to others.
|
| I say that because of the specific factors in this case being
| about NK, not just because the US (my) government decreed
| something. IE, I care that he violated everyone else's trust,
| not that he violated a rule.
| edm0nd wrote:
| I think it's more about just being a high profile victim to
| send a public a message.
|
| He openly defied the US government after they denied his
| travel. In a big F YOU, he still went anyway and did his thing.
| US government cant allow people to do such things so they had
| to throw him in prison. He should have just 'anonymously' video
| conferenced in if he really wanted to give the talk. It sucks
| but thats why he's in prison. Cant make the US government look
| foolish. He also should never have agreed to be interviewed by
| FBI agents without a lawyer.
|
| NK has very talented hacking teams that have stolen $400M+ in
| crypto (in 2021 alone) as a way to fund themselves and evade
| financial sanctions. Virgil def got put on the US gov radar at
| which point he certainly became a causality of this cyber war.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59990477
| some_random wrote:
| Yeah, a victimless crime.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_North_Kor...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_North_Korea
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwalliso
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mas...
| nickysielicki wrote:
| The founders of this country are rolling in their graves. Every
| part of this story. All he did was go to another country and
| spread truthful information.
|
| > "The most important feature of blockchains is that they are
| open. And the DPRK can't be kept out no matter what the USA or
| the UN says,"
|
| This is _conspiracy_? Is telling someone that a gun can kill now
| considered conspiracy to murder, too? Is it really the stance of
| the US government that North Korea knew enough about
| cryptocurrency to hold a cryptocurrency conference, but that they
| wouldn't have been capable of evading sanctions if not for this
| man speaking this sentence?
|
| And while I'm at it, free citizens should not have to ask
| permission from the government for where they are allowed to go.
| In free societies, if the other country lets you in you can go.
|
| We are not a free country. Half of a decade! Over 5% of his life,
| gone. Unbelievable.
| jp57 wrote:
| Some of the founders of this country were responsible for the
| Alien and Sedition Acts.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Seriously, the weird veneration we have for the founders is
| very bizarre mainly because once they got in power, they
| largely acted like any other ruler.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I don't think their intent was ever to act unlike a
| government. But then again who can really divine intent?
| All we can do is live by laws.
|
| But even a self-limiting government has to play politics
| internationally, and that requires a specific set of tools.
| I don't see anything here that trips alarms to me.
| Zamicol wrote:
| Their practical actions clarified and tempered their
| espoused dogma. Wise individuals are frequently
| misunderstood thanks to the ambiguity of language, and
| listeners reasonably prefer assumption over nuance.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| It may surprise you, but providing information to sanctioned
| entities that could help them avoid sanctions is something
| Treasury does not like and it is explicitly listed as something
| that could land you in trouble.
|
| It does not help that Virgil, with his own words, seem to
| indicate that he was aware that this could help evade
| sanctions.
|
| In a sense, it is a little like openly saying you are aware
| this car was used for robbery. Obviously, we can easily argue
| that is not a good comparison at all, but in essence that is
| what is happening.
| jollybean wrote:
| Helping mass murderers with Nuclear Weapons avoid sanctions
| that are in place because they are ... mass murderers, is the
| issue here.
|
| Not arbitrary knowledge.
|
| Nobody is being arrested for giving Crypto talks otherwise.
| Jerrrry wrote:
| >The founders of this country are rolling in their graves.
| Every part of this story.
|
| Some of them were put in their graves, for similar reasons -
| treason is treason.
|
| > All he did was go to another country and spread truthful
| information.
|
| This is nearly a non-sequitur. Analogous to, "All he did was
| goto another country to take advantage of the lower age of
| consent," which is objectively true, but blatantly illegal.
|
| >This is conspiracy? Is telling someone that a gun can kill now
| considered conspiracy to murder, too?
|
| Yes, telling someone the whereabouts and function of a lethal
| weapon in the known context of a premeditated murder is
| obviously conspiracy.
|
| >Is it really the stance of the US government that North Korea
| knew enough about cryptocurrency to hold a cryptocurrency
| conference, but that they wouldn't have been capable of evading
| sanctions if not for this man speaking this sentence?
|
| If the argument here is "how can the mouse be charged for
| moving the mountain," then that is excusing, trivializing, and
| absolving actions unduly. How little treason is too much? Just
| a couple national security secrets okay?
|
| >And while I'm at it, free citizens should not have to ask
| permission from the government for where they are allowed to
| go. In free societies, if the other country lets you in you can
| go.
|
| You actually do not need a passport to leave, or come back,
| from and to, the United States. You may find it isn't
| frictionless, however.
|
| >We are not a free country. Half of a decade! Over 5% of his
| life, gone. Unbelievable.
|
| I agree, he shouldn't be locked up. He should had been
| sentenced to hanging, from the neck.
| ttybird2 wrote:
| _" treason is treason"_
|
| I find the idea that someone who has not pledged their
| allegiance to a particular country can commit treason against
| said country to not make much sense.
|
| _" Just a couple national security secrets okay?"_
|
| He shouldn't have access to any such secrets afaik.
|
| _" I agree, he shouldn't be locked up. He should had been
| sentenced to hanging, from the neck."_
|
| I understand that it is easy to say such things online,
| especially since it is hard to humanize someone that you have
| only seen being talked about in various sites, but I think
| that you treat human lives way too cheaply, especially for
| something as minor.
| causi wrote:
| _All he did was go to another country and spread truthful
| information._
|
| So did the Rosenbergs. So did Ephialtes of Trachis. I know
| we've been enjoying a few decades of touchy-feely existence but
| collaborating with the murderous enemies of your nation
| traditionally gets you hanged for treason. Five years is a
| relative slap on the wrist.
| clucas wrote:
| > All he did was go to another country and spread truthful
| information.
|
| Compare these two statements:
|
| "Mr. Kim, you can transfer money between bank accounts using
| wire transfers!"
|
| and
|
| "Mr. Kim, if you wire money to this bank account and paper the
| transaction in this specific way, no one will know you are
| evading sanctions!"
|
| Both are "spreading truthful information." One is illegal, and
| one isn't. I think most people can figure out which is which,
| and I don't think that just changing the underlying medium from
| "bank account" to "crypto wallet" muddies the issue at all.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I think you're over-reacting. Stories like this tend to be
| rorschach tests, and it's easy to see what you believe in these
| vague details.
|
| In fact, it appears he was helping NK avoid sanctions by using
| crypto, in an effort to increase crypto acceptance in NK.
|
| The details are (apparently) in the original complaint. Bad
| journalism/summaries strike again?
|
| > It looks like it wasn't just speaking at a conference after
| being denied permission from the US that got him in trouble, it
| looks like both before and after the trip he was working on a
| variety of ways to get the North Korean government more onboard
| with cryptocurrency, including discussions about mining
| ventures, moving funds in and out of the country, and offering
| connections with other cryptocurrency people.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| Well you'll have to forgive me because TFA mentioned none of
| that.
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| TIL: Articles on the internet can be misleading or outright
| wrong ;)
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Nothing to forgive. TFA was probably written to provoke as
| much reaction as possible, as is common nowadays. The way
| it's structured, it can get people who oppose the action
| and people support the action engaged by either calling it
| a just decision (what a traitor!) and a silly oversight (He
| was just giving a talk!).
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Are crypto currencies affected by export regulations on
| cryptography?
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Sure, but NK not already using crypto would be news to anyone.
| stuntkite wrote:
| This is a weird event that it's going to take me a long while to
| form an opinion on. I just... don't know what to say or think
| about this. That isn't a thinly veiled condemnation. I genuinely
| don't know what to think about this but it's clearly something
| that needs to be evaluated very critically and involves so many
| things that are so... of their time and place.
| insulfrable wrote:
| Come on! The man already got a PhD! Doesn't that count as time
| served?
| some_random wrote:
| Good. Sanction busting for one of the most evil regimes in the
| world is reprehensible.
| ttybird2 wrote:
| Reposting it from the previous thread:
|
| He is the creator of WikiScanner
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiScanner
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-security-wikipedia-idUSN1...
|
| He also created Tor2web with Aaron Swartz and used to work for
| the tor team.
|
| Seems like an interesting guy. It's a shame that this happened.
|
| The situation is kinda similar to the one with Bobby Fischer
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer
|
| _" In 1992, he reemerged to win an unofficial rematch against
| Spassky. It was held in Yugoslavia, which was under a United
| Nations embargo at the time. His participation led to a conflict
| with the US government, which warned Fischer that his
| participation in the match would violate an executive order
| imposing US sanctions on Yugoslavia. The US government ultimately
| issued a warrant for his arrest. After that, Fischer lived as an
| emigre. In 2004, he was arrested in Japan and held for several
| months for using a passport that the US government had revoked.
| Eventually, he was granted an Icelandic passport and citizenship
| by a special act of the Icelandic Althing, allowing him to live
| there until his death in 2008."_
| tofuahdude wrote:
| It's a shame that he took these actions or that he was punished
| for them?
| ttybird2 wrote:
| For me personally the second. But I am sure that regardless
| of what we think regarding what he did, we can all agree that
| it's a shame that someone like that won't be around to work
| on cool tech due to his sentencing, kinda like with Hans
| Reiser.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Help evil people, go to jail. I don't see a problem here.
| aaomidi wrote:
| We should imprison the entire US tax payer population then xd
| [deleted]
| pen2l wrote:
| Did his PhD at Caltech under Christof Koch in computation and
| neural systems, was a super talented mathematician... and then he
| gets involved in crypto.
|
| I remember conversations with friends only a few years ago in
| which we would lament how young brilliant minds were eventually
| going on to work on adtech, and we would sigh and hope that the
| tide would turn.
|
| Boy, we were not prepared for this tide.
|
| Anyway, the NYSD release gives some interesting details:
| (https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-a...)
| GRIFFITH identified several DPRK Cryptocurrency Conference
| attendees who appeared to work for the North Korean
| government, and who, during his presentation, asked
| GRIFFITH specific questions about blockchain and
| cryptocurrency and prompted discussions on technical aspects of
| those technologies. After the DPRK Cryptocurrency
| Conference, GRIFFITH began formulating plans to facilitate
| the exchange of cryptocurrency between the DPRK and South Korea,
| despite knowing that assisting with such an exchange would
| violate sanctions against the DPRK. GRIFFITH also
| encouraged other U.S. citizens to travel to North Korea,
| including to attend the same DPRK Cryptocurrency Conference the
| following year.
|
| Smart enough as he was, I'm sure he knew of the terrible human
| rights track record NK had. That he chose to start helping the NK
| government evade sanctions, I am not able to muster a lot of
| sympathy for the guy at this point.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Sounds like he simply didn't support the sanctions and doesn't
| believe in blind obedience to US law.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| AND was totally fine with large-scale, systematic, oppression
| and torture (so long as he profits from it).
|
| That's kind of the key ingredient needed to be someone that
| _HELPS KIM JUNG UN_.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| There are sanctions that are worthy of criticism - the
| decades-long sanction on Cuba, for instance, even though I
| disagree with their regime - but North Korea is pretty
| transparently a despotic regime that should be opposed.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I have yet to hear a convincing argument how sanctions do
| anything aside from impoverish the 25 million people living
| in North Korea.
|
| They don't bring about regime change, They don't impose
| hardship on the despots, and they don't take away nuclear
| capability from North Korea.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| They limit trade with NK, unfortunately that probably
| does contribute to impoverishing the people, alongside
| NK's own practices doing so, but as I understand it the
| point of sanctions is to stop material aid (trade, gifts,
| tech sharing etc) that would be used to empower the NK,
| which includes their military and nuclear capabilities. I
| don't know if the US itself allows food or medical aid to
| be sent, but I do know that NK receive a lot of food aid.
|
| Honestly I don't know how to feel about sanctions more
| generally, whether they help or harm the citizenry - but
| I'm not convinced that enabling the NK government to
| transact with crypto would lead to improvements in the
| regular people's lives, compared with them having greater
| access to military equipment.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| > They don't bring about regime change, They don't impose
| hardship on the despots, and they don't take away nuclear
| capability from North Korea.
|
| They _haven 't yet_ brought about regime change, They
| _haven 't yet_ imposed hardship on the despots, and they
| _haven 't yet_ taken away nuclear capability from North
| Korea.
|
| The point is, the world _needs_ regime change, in order
| to be safer (dictators with Nukes are a very dangerous
| thing to have on the one and only human populated
| planet). Without the pressure, change is far less likely.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Strong disagree. Sanctions prevent economic development
| and change. Constant application of pressure and tensions
| ensure that the risk is higher than it otherwise would
| be.
|
| Risk will always be highest if one country insist on
| destroying the government of another.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| > Strong disagree. Sanctions prevent economic development
| and change. Constant application of pressure and tensions
| ensure that the risk is higher than it otherwise would
| be.
|
| It would be startlingly easy for NK to get the sanctions
| lifted if the wellbeing of its people mattered to it's
| government more than the continuity of its power. If they
| lived up to the D in DPRK and stopped crushing its
| people's access to information they'd be gone overnight.
| So blaming the sanctions for stopping change or
| development is disingenuous. Sanctions are just an
| exclusion from participation in global trade, which NK
| seem to want no part of anyway (outside of weapons
| development).
|
| Also, what risk is raised by the sanctions?
|
| They keep the risk of war low, as NK knows it couldn't
| financially support any kind of drawn out conflict.
|
| They keep the risk from advanced weapons low, as NK is
| less able to advance their weapons technology.
|
| Sanctions are a nonviolent defensive weapon.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| All that education and they still didn't have the common sense
| to maybe not go to North Korea
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| I think there's a kind of naivete at work here.
|
| He cooperated when questioned after returning from North
| Korea, only to have his own words used against him when he
| was charged.
|
| He didn't take sanctions violations seriously enough and when
| he asked the State Dept for permission beforehand to go, they
| said no, and he went anyway.
| starwind wrote:
| Robert Jackson, Supreme Court justice and lead prosecutor
| at Nuremberg: "any lawyer worth his salt will tell the
| suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to
| police under any circumstances"
| Maursault wrote:
| > Robert Jackson, Supreme Court justice
|
| While that qualifier is unnecessary (we know who Robert
| H. Jackson is), and while being a Supreme Court Justice
| is certainly impressive, Jackson is even more impressive
| for applying his ideologies and simultaneously writing
| about them and publishing while serving as Attorney
| General.
|
| The quote you pull is a good one, but I prefer what I
| think is a finger wag to all prosecutors, who actually
| hold the most powerful positions in our government
| (arguably more powerful than Judges, Senators or
| Presidents):
|
| _Nothing better can come out of this meeting of law
| enforcement officers than a rededication to the spirit of
| fair play and decency that should animate the federal
| prosecutor. Your positions are of such independence and
| importance that while you are being diligent, strict, and
| vigorous in law enforcement you can also afford to be
| just. Although the government technically loses its case,
| it has really won if justice has been done._
|
| Often enough, a federal prosecutor is seduced by their
| own ambition for the sake of their record (perversely
| seen as more important than justice), that their case
| should be won at all cost, and the process seems to be to
| unfairly pile on charges to exaggerate the actual alleged
| crime and induce outrage, and economically disenfranchise
| the suspect or defendant (often employing civil
| forfeiture for this effect) so that the defendant can not
| afford to mount a viable defense, in order to induce a
| plea deal, which often leads to innocent people accruing
| criminal records, serving time and subsequently being
| less able to earn a decent living paying less taxes, and
| not living as long as they might.
|
| I may have gone around the OT bend, but it seems like the
| way prosecutors operate in general in serving their own
| ambitions, against Jackson's recommendations, hurts
| America's bottom line by synthetically reducing the
| amount of taxes that can be collected and diminishes or
| disables that individual's ability to contribute to
| society. The story of Aaron Swartz comes to mind as a
| perfect example of this.
| guipsp wrote:
| While you may know who he is, I, for example, didn't.
| It's worthwhile pointing it out.
| drnonsense42 wrote:
| Immediately reminded me of:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Frampton
|
| But in my limited understanding, this seems much more
| malicious and I'm less inclined to give him the benefit of
| the doubt.
| egberts1 wrote:
| Ergo, not all brilliant mathematicians have common sense.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I think I agree and I am willing to defend him a little bit
| here.
|
| Vast majority of US population would be astounded if they
| learned even a fraction of screening that goes on behind
| the curtain; that does not even include existence of SARs
| or differences between jurisdictions.
|
| And they typically don't know, because, usually, those
| issues touch either sophisticated players with money to
| spend on defense, or actual designees, who know full well
| what they are doing. Average US national typically won't
| even know there is an issue unless in ~80% of cases.
|
| There is an argument to be made that with crypto that line
| of defense may be hard to swallow. After all, it is
| designed to avoid government oversight.. but I personally
| am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
|
| Still, the government wants the population to take
| sanctions seriously. Prosecution is one way to make people
| take notice.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| He was helping the worst dictator on Earth increase his
| power even more.
|
| Right now there are sanctions against Russia, and some US
| companies are giving Bitcoin to Russians to help to
| escape the country, but the US government doesn't make
| that illegal, because they are not helping Putin, but the
| refugees who got stuck in a horrible situation.
|
| Of course US can make sending Bitcoin to Russian people
| illegal at any time, and then any person will know that
| they are risking going to prison if they still want to
| help those people.
| eimrine wrote:
| > make sending Bitcoin to Russian people illegal
|
| Isn't it impossible? Bitcoins are being sent to random
| 256bits, not to people. Unless some Russian person
| reveals some adress and promises that he really owns the
| key, this kind of transaction may be hard to proove.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| It's a public ledger, it's the worst way to make
| something illegal, many drug dealers found it out too
| late.
|
| Just an example even if a person doesn't use an address,
| if a Russian person checks out a HD multisig public key
| from which other keys may be derived, the sender can get
| suspicious.
| spicymaki wrote:
| Indeed. +1 to this. The most talented among us could be
| building a better world, yet they are wasting time in rent
| seeking schemes.
| woah wrote:
| This guy literally traveled to a repressive totalitarian regime
| to perform services for them with the intention of helping them
| evade sanctions. The fact that crypto was involved is
| incidental.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| The sad thing is that smart people are going to crypto because
| there is easy money to be made and not because they support
| decentralisation and fighting the government
| ericd wrote:
| Doubt it, it's likely more because it's interesting, and
| there're interesting things to be done with it.
| tradertef wrote:
| US has terrible human rights track record as well (Guantanamo,
| Abu Gharib), .. so as other countries.
| timmytokyo wrote:
| I don't understand this response. Are you arguing that it's
| therefore justifiable to do what Griffith did? If not, please
| try to justify it without resorting to whataboutism.
| tradertef wrote:
| No, it is not justifying what he did. According to US law,
| he is clearly at fault. However, pointing out NK atrocities
| to have him morally wrong is not appropriate. With that
| logic, we should be also approving Iran or NK punishment of
| their citizens when they work with US.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| > However, pointing out NK atrocities to have him morally
| wrong is not appropriate. With that logic, we should be
| also approving Iran or NK punishment of their citizens
| when they work with US.
|
| Tht logic only holds if you believe the governments of
| the US, NK, and Iran are all equally just and legitimate.
|
| If you believe that, I have some crypto that might
| interest you...
| trasz wrote:
| vernie wrote:
| dionidium wrote:
| Tech nerds (like myself) tend to think in terms of software and
| protocols. " _If the server responds with a 200 OK to your
| request, then that means by definition that it gave you
| permission!_ " But this is a reminder that that's basically
| absurd. The government can actually just lock you up for
| violating the law and it doesn't matter what the stupid protocol
| says.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| Could someone explain why this wouldn't fall under freedom of
| speech? Sounds like there were not government secrets nor did the
| expert have a security clearance that would have held him to a
| higher standard.
|
| If Tor researchers gave a presentation at a security conference
| on how to install Tor, knowing full well that some would use it
| to engage in the proliferation of CSAM, would that also not fall
| under free speech?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| The problem isn't so much the presentation or the content, as
| it is the transaction. Doing business with North Korea is
| highly restricted, as it should be, in order to maintain the
| integrity of US and international trade sanctions against the
| Kims.
|
| Russia now finds itself in much the same position thanks to
| Putin, so it's probably a good idea for everyone doing business
| there to familiarize themselves with economic actions being
| taken against that regime. Few people in the West ever
| attempted to do business with Pyongyang, but that's not true of
| Moscow. There's a lot more legal exposure, much of which will
| come as a surprise to those affected by it.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| > Could someone explain why this wouldn't fall under freedom of
| speech?
|
| North Korea is under international sanctions and part of that
| means you can't aid them. Explaining how to launder money and
| evade sanctions to a general audience is probably fine.
| Explaining how to launder money and evade sanctions to North
| Korea is against the law.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| You can almost certainly get away with "If I were North
| Korea, here's how I would launder money" as an academic
| article. Presenting it in Pyongyang seems like a pretty
| bright and clear "Aiding and abetting enemies of the US"
| vmception wrote:
| If the security conference was in a place sanctioned under the
| US International Emergency Economic Powers Act, then yes.
|
| He applied for a travel exemption, and was denied. He went
| anyway. He was charged with that, not the speech. That's how
| its enforced, for this specific reason. Regulate the
| intermediary to control the desired behavior. Don't regulate
| the individual with first amendment rights.
| orangepurple wrote:
| The USA junta will punish you if you go against them,
| constitution be damned, the judges are on their side.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Freedom of speech is meant to preserve democracy
| domestically, not be a free for all to aid enemies for
| profit. Any sane state, including free democracies, would
| prohibit residents from teaching rogue enemy nations how to
| avoid sanctions.
| ttybird2 wrote:
| I do not think that this is a widely held view. Regarding
| the US constitution for example, Part of Bernstein v.
| United States was the complaint that DJB was not able to
| legally talk to or teach about cryptography to
| cryptographers and students that are not US citizens. As
| for the "freedom of speech" as a general concept, I think
| that it is more of an individualist than a collectivist
| principle. It does not refer to countries or groups by
| itself, it is the right for entities to speak freely.
| vmception wrote:
| Ermmmm not here. When you can afford to tango with them,
| they don't take surprising constitutional views actually.
| That part is in your favor. Its more about affording to get
| that far, in other cases. This case isn't one of those? He
| wasn't charged for the speech, he was charged for violating
| a travel and business sanction after explicitly asking for
| an exemption and being denied. He went out of his way to
| hop over barriers placed by the government, and got charged
| for hopping over after telling the government he was
| interested in hopping over. They watched him hop over, they
| didn't charge him for the speech he gave after hopping
| over. Hopping over isn't a constitutional right.
| orangepurple wrote:
| It is absurd to think that a government (armed group with
| a pretense of authority) can restrict your freedom of
| movement like this justifiably. Your individual
| sovereignty and agency is violated.
| vmception wrote:
| Yeah, if he had been willing to take this to appeal we
| could find the limits of these government powers. But he
| took the plea and is going in the slammer.
| eunos wrote:
| What piqued my interest is that why don't the NK held the
| conference in place like CN, HK or Macau? Pretty sure they
| can hook up more talents with much lower risk.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| The issue is not the subjective "will this be used for evil",
| but the more objective "does this violate international
| sanctions", which it seems to. It has very little to do
| directly/exclusively with cryptocurrency or crypto in general.
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| Same reason you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. There are
| limits to freedom of speech, especially when it interferes with
| national defense. Schenck v. United States is an interesting
| case where the supreme court ruled that passing out fliers to
| encourage resistance to the draft is not protected by the first
| amendment.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
| ttybird2 wrote:
| Funnily enough passing out said fliers is exactly what I
| believe "freedom of speech" is meant to protect.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's Time to Stop Using the 'Fire in a Crowded Theater'
| Quote:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-
| tim...
|
| Three Generations of a Hackneyed Apologia for Censorship Are
| Enough: https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-
| of-a-ha...
| happytoexplain wrote:
| I feel like you're having a kind of knee-jerk reaction to
| the fire example - your criticism makes sense when it is
| being used to _justify_ some censorship (because legal !=
| moral), but the GP is asking why this case isn 't covered
| by the federal concept of free speech, literally speaking,
| for which the fire quote is a totally valid example of
| speech having negative effects that outweigh the value of
| that specific example of speech (regardless of whether the
| legal origin of the example is apocryphal, since
| overturned, etc).
|
| I.e. the GP didn't ask "how is this not a violation of the
| spirit of free speech", they asked, "why this wouldn't fall
| under freedom of speech" (so it's not really "a Hackneyed
| Apologia for Censorship" in this case).
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| I read the Atlantic article, but I don't think they made a
| strong enough argument to justify retiring the quote.
| Regardless of the circumstances that it was first used,
| it's meaning is still very true. It is still illegal to
| yell fire in a crowded theater and there are many
| exceptions to the first amendment. An american citizen
| cannot verbally harass someone, they cannot share child
| pornography, and they cannot go around telling everyone how
| to make a nuclear bomb.
| simoncion wrote:
| You should read the Popehat essay. The guy is a former
| Federal prosecutor. He knows what he's talking about.
|
| Moreover, you forgot to read this part of what you linked
| to:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#Su
| bse...
|
| > A unanimous Court in a brief per curiam opinion in
| Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), abandoned the disfavored
| language while seemingly applying the reasoning of
| Schenck to reverse the conviction of a Ku Klux Klan
| member prosecuted for giving an inflammatory speech. The
| Court said that speech could be prosecuted only when it
| posed a danger of "imminent lawless action," a
| formulation which is sometimes said to reflect Holmes
| reasoning as more fully explicated in his Abrams dissent,
| rather than the common law of attempts explained in
| Schenck.
|
| > An american citizen cannot verbally harass someone...
|
| They can, actually. See the quote from the wikipedia
| article above.
|
| > ...they cannot go around telling everyone how to make a
| nuclear bomb.
|
| _Pretty_ sure that they can. It's widely said that any
| physics graduate student can work out how to make a
| useful but basic nuke. The issue is _actually building
| one_, or sending the materials to construct one to a
| sanctioned nation.
|
| First Amendment protections are _broad_ and exceptions to
| them have been (historically) carved out with _great_
| reluctance. This is a feature, not a bug.
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| >> An american citizen cannot verbally harass someone...
|
| >They can, actually. See the quote from the wikipedia
| article above.
|
| No they can't. Verbal harassment is a crime. Someone can
| serve a year in jail for it the state of Colorado
| simoncion wrote:
| > Verbal harassment is a crime. Someone can serve a year
| in jail for it the state of Colorado
|
| Would you be so kind as to link to the text of the law in
| question? I expect that a critical part of the law will
| be something along the lines of "The harasser follows
| around the harassed, despite requests by the harassed
| that the harasser desist.", which makes it more than just
| a restriction on speech. If it's a _pure_ restriction on
| speech, then I expect that it will not survive a First
| Amendment challenge.
|
| States can put whatever law they like into the books.
| States often have laws on the books that wouldn't
| withstand a Constitutional challenge. For example, even
| after Lawrence v. Texas, anti-sodomy laws were on the
| books in _many_ US states. If the state doesn't
| voluntarily remove a law, it takes expensive, slow court
| challenges to get rid of them.
|
| For a more recent example of nasty state law that is
| unlikely to survive long-term, look at the Texas
| Heartbeat Act.
|
| The fact that a state _really_ wants to prohibit
| something doesn't override Federal law that asserts that
| that something is _not_ to be prohibited. But -sadly-
| those fights frequently have to slog through the courts,
| so they don't happen nearly as often as they should.
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| " (1) A person commits harassment if, with intent to
| harass, annoy, or alarm another person, he or she:
|
| ...
|
| (b) In a public place directs obscene language or makes
| an obscene gesture to or at another person
|
| ...
|
| (2) Harassment pursuant to subsection (1) of this section
| is a class 3 misdemeanor; except that harassment is a
| class 1 misdemeanor if the offender commits harassment
| pursuant to subsection (1) of this section with the
| intent to intimidate or harass another person because of
| that person's actual or perceived race; color; religion;
| ancestry; national origin; physical or mental disability,
| as defined in section 18-9-121(5)(a) ; or sexual
| orientation, as defined in section 18-9-121(5)(b) ."
|
| https://codes.findlaw.com/co/title-18-criminal-code/co-
| rev-s...
| drc500free wrote:
| I think most people believe that the "yelling fire in a
| crowded theater" precedent came from an actual case about
| someone yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater.
|
| As opposed to being a hypothetical situation invented to
| justify the use of state violence to silence anti-war
| protestors. No one goes around saying "you can't be
| against a war!" when that is the actual precedent that
| was set in that case.
| [deleted]
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| freedom of speech is not absolute. it's as simple as that. the
| guy violated a federal sanction.
| egberts1 wrote:
| except the charges is not on about freedom of speech, not at
| all, not even close.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| The first sentence in the article is "The US sentenced a
| blockchain researcher to more than five years in prison
| after he pleaded guilty to conspiring to help North Korea
| evade sanctions using cryptocurrency."
|
| Asked why what he did wouldn't be protected by freedom of
| speech, the parent replied "freedom of speech is not
| absolute ... the guy violated a federal sanction."
|
| I don't understand what you're implying about this thread
| of conversation - it seems fairly reasonable. The _GP_
| asked about freedom of speech - the parent didn 't imply
| this is a freedom of speech issue. They explained why it
| _isn 't_.
| erdos4d wrote:
| I was under he impression that NK already had a rather
| sophisticated cryptocurrency capability and was already using it
| to evade sanctions, as well as for criminal operations. I mean,
| anyone who can install software can send/receive cryptocurrency,
| it's trivial. This seems more like a political prosecution than
| about any material harm the guy did.
| kache_ wrote:
| why people mess with the government, I do not know
|
| pay your damn taxes! And don't defect sanctioned research to
| unfriendly enemy states!
| tofuahdude wrote:
| It seems like such a low bar! "Don't break federal law by
| expressly teaching sanctioned nations how to bypass YOUR OWN
| COUNTRY'S rules" seems like table stakes on passable
| intelligence.
|
| I cannot believe how many people in these comments are
| defending this guy.
| imchillyb wrote:
| The warrior sliced off yet another head. The Hydra wailed and
| spat its venom, taking scarce notice of the loss. Another head
| was already growing in its place.
|
| Punishment avails only when the lucrative prospect of crime is
| diminished by said punishment.
|
| The US government is attempting to slay Hydras with a spoon.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| i wonder if he thought he had a 1st amendment defense
| outworlder wrote:
| He would have been better served by the 5th amendment.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Probably the kind of thing you should go over with your lawyer
| first.
| flerchin wrote:
| I would love to hear from Mr Griffith's perspective on this. 5
| years in prison is a BFD. I wonder how the arrest went down, why
| he took a plea, what the details of his presentation were, so
| many things.
| vmception wrote:
| > I wonder how the arrest went down
|
| At the airport upon return
|
| > Why he took a plea
|
| Because the prosecutor would ask for way more prison time
| otherwise, the US International Emergency Economic Powers Act
| charge was pretty solid
|
| > what the details of his presentation were
|
| Information the North Koreans could have found already, even
| with their limited internet
| flerchin wrote:
| You have any links for those answers? I appreciate them.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| He wasn't arrested at the airport when he returned, he was
| questioned and cooperated, then was arrested later with
| evidence partially being what he himself told
| investigators.
| vmception wrote:
| Thanks. I think they want links because they hadn't seen
| this case before even though the rest of us have been
| watching this slow motion trainwreck for some time.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Pretty good rundown here:
| https://www.thedailybeast.com/crypto-enthusiast-virgil-
| griff... ---
|
| According to his lawyers, after his North Korean speaking
| engagement, Griffith actually went straight to the U.S.
| embassy in Singapore, where he was residing at the time,
| to tell them all about the experience. He also chose to
| meet with the FBI in Puerto Rico and San Francisco.
|
| But after extensive talks, the feds instead surprised the
| technologist by arresting him at Los Angeles
| International Airport on Thanksgiving Day 2019, while
| Griffith was boarding a flight to Baltimore to spend the
| holiday with his parents and sister.
|
| He was indicted months later on a single count of
| violating presidential executive orders aimed at blocking
| North Korea from the international banking system as
| punishment for its repeated threats to nuke the United
| States.
|
| The arrest immediately generated criticism, as the
| exceedingly eccentric and devoted community of
| cryptocurrency enthusiasts cast the prosecution as a
| crackdown on free speech.
|
| Meanwhile, the federal government played right into that
| by shrouding the case in secrecy. So many court files
| were kept sealed that journalist Matthew Russell Lee, who
| runs the publication Inner City Press, asked the judge to
| reconsider in a letter that noted, "The sealings and
| withholding here are unacceptable, and go beyond those
| requested even in the Central Intelligence Agency trial"
| of accused Wikileaks leaker Joshua Adam Schulte.
|
| As the case proceeded, Griffith's attorneys maintained
| that his travel was "a goodwill speaking trip."
|
| During his chats with FBI agents, Griffith came clean and
| offered to help the feds explore his North Korean
| contacts and activities, according to a source close to
| Griffith. This source described at length Griffith's
| willingness to cooperate with the American intelligence
| agencies and the potential to become something of a spy
| asset. Those hopes were dashed when the Justice
| Department came down hard on him.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Crypto guy who dreams to become a spy get turned down by
| FBI and gets arrested for 5 years on top?
|
| Interesting story
| erickj wrote:
| It's time for everyone's yearly reminder, "Don't talk to
| the police"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
| tofuahdude wrote:
| Literally from the article:
|
| > "I've learned my lesson," Griffith said. "I am still
| profoundly embarrassed that I am here, and of what I have
| done."
| jl2718 wrote:
| An interview with a DPRK defector about this:
| https://unchainedpodcast.com/yeonmi-park-on-why-doing-busine...
| starwind wrote:
| From Coindesk:
|
| > Judge Castel read a series of text messages and emails from
| Griffith in which the defendant admits to sharing information
| with North Korea for the express purpose of helping the
| repressive Kim regime evade sanctions.
|
| https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/04/12/former-ethereum...
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Not that I'm particularly fond of one mafia gang or the other
| (yes, the USA government is less damaging to its citizens
| compared to North Korea - but they are both evil aggressors), but
| this is a weird hill to die on for Griffith.
|
| Why do something so blatantly illegal? I understand disrespecting
| the made up laws some idiot bureaucrats come up with, but I don't
| understand allowing their hired guns to lock you up for 5 years.
| aaomidi wrote:
| If the national security of the country is going to be in trouble
| because of a presentation then uh, lol.
| lizardactivist wrote:
| This is wrong on so many levels. The U.S. doesn't get to decide
| who gets to use blockchain, or whatever technology.
| tofuahdude wrote:
| The U.S. did not decide who gets to use it. The U.S. punished a
| U.S. citizen for violating national law. That's very different
| from deciding who gets to use a technology.
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