[HN Gopher] US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Ko... ___________________________________________________________________ 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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-13 23:01 UTC)