5 ms·

Edited to reply to other comments: Good points. But yeah US AG would allege more severe violations if they had occurred so we can presume they didn’t. Ie they

by tmsh 7y ago

Edited to reply to other comments: Good points. But yeah US AG would allege more severe violations if they had occurred so we can presume they didn’t. Ie they insinuate he was ‘warned’ about going to NK. But what was the nature of the warning? It’s wrong to charge someone for up to 20 years if the warning you made wasn’t clear on the penalties and we can presume that was the case because they would have stated if that were the case (ie we warned him he would face up to 20 years in prison). It sounds like he has been nothing but cooperative with authorities. And again Occam’s razor says they’re taking their frustrations with controlling him out via this complaint (meant to also deter others from doing similar things). But yeah my problem is the rush to judgement. There is no reason to believe he was aware of the laws he was violating and the consequences and that’s scary to me as us citizen.

tptacek 7y ago
In this case it seems like you're the one on the wrong side of the razor here, unless one of the relatively straightforward factual assertions in the DOJ's complaint is simply false.
- tmsh 7y ago
  Perhaps yeah. I just sense a lot of genuine ignorance on his part (otherwise why wouldn’t he lawyer up or why tweet his visa). He strikes me as an engineer who believes in crypto and didn’t even realize the severity of what he was violating. When you also consider he re-tweeted Trump’s endorsement of NK etc. I could see how he might’ve been genuinely confused. But yeah I guess the court might discover more of what’s going on.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    This is the kind of stuff people used to say about Hans Reiser. We have a powerful rooting interest for computer software nerds.
    - tmsh 7y ago
      Good point.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - confeit 7y ago
      Two things I find plausible: He was under public and private surveillance, if not for his work, then for his first-degree contacts and targeting by other countries. Imagine the US state coming to you for a friendly chat: "Sir, we are aware you want to go to North-Korea to present on this 'blockchain' and 'smart contracts' thingamabob. This is a very bad idea. We only allow certain journalists and those futhering our national interest to go, you should have googled that.". "Hey, that's unfair! You really mean I am not allowed to go present public data on a conference, just because I happen to have a U.S. passport and hacker knowledge?". "Well, national interest wink-wink?" "No, thanks.". It would be fair to describe that as "sought permission and was denied." Also of note that the complaint does not seem to have the actual presentation the guy did. The FBI must have been really nervous and interested in a certain line of questioning and topic. According to statement the audience left with a better understanding of blockchain and smart contracts then they had before. I don't think the guy held a presentation about "How to use Cryptocurrency-1 to launder money and evade sanctions". The 1 unit of Cryptocurrency-1 transfer from NK to SK could have been a hacker asking themselves: "Is this possible? Can I actually do this? What happens?". Well in this case you get the FBI-equivalent of blowing out the power in the neighborhood. Of course, after the conference, some shady NK government employees came up to him and asked him more pointed questions (almost like an agent at the early defcons singling out Asian participants). It states they discussed "proof of work", not that the suspect was given a free (or paid) consultancy gig. I think they had nothing about the conference, so they had to wriggle all this out of him during an interview. FBI damn good at this. They got all the facts they needed to make this a convincing complaint. But reality is not straightforward. I think you can think of plenty of other computer software nerds who got fucked by the law for doing what they do, and not murdering their wives.
      - 7y ago

by tmsh 7y ago

tptacek 7y ago

In this case it seems like you're the one on the wrong side of the razor here, unless one of the relatively straightforward factual assertions in the DOJ's complaint is simply false.

tmsh 7y ago
Perhaps yeah. I just sense a lot of genuine ignorance on his part (otherwise why wouldn’t he lawyer up or why tweet his visa). He strikes me as an engineer who believes in crypto and didn’t even realize the severity of what he was violating. When you also consider he re-tweeted Trump’s endorsement of NK etc. I could see how he might’ve been genuinely confused. But yeah I guess the court might discover more of what’s going on.
- tptacek 7y ago
  This is the kind of stuff people used to say about Hans Reiser. We have a powerful rooting interest for computer software nerds.
  - tmsh 7y ago
    Good point.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - confeit 7y ago
    Two things I find plausible: He was under public and private surveillance, if not for his work, then for his first-degree contacts and targeting by other countries. Imagine the US state coming to you for a friendly chat: "Sir, we are aware you want to go to North-Korea to present on this 'blockchain' and 'smart contracts' thingamabob. This is a very bad idea. We only allow certain journalists and those futhering our national interest to go, you should have googled that.". "Hey, that's unfair! You really mean I am not allowed to go present public data on a conference, just because I happen to have a U.S. passport and hacker knowledge?". "Well, national interest wink-wink?" "No, thanks.". It would be fair to describe that as "sought permission and was denied." Also of note that the complaint does not seem to have the actual presentation the guy did. The FBI must have been really nervous and interested in a certain line of questioning and topic. According to statement the audience left with a better understanding of blockchain and smart contracts then they had before. I don't think the guy held a presentation about "How to use Cryptocurrency-1 to launder money and evade sanctions". The 1 unit of Cryptocurrency-1 transfer from NK to SK could have been a hacker asking themselves: "Is this possible? Can I actually do this? What happens?". Well in this case you get the FBI-equivalent of blowing out the power in the neighborhood. Of course, after the conference, some shady NK government employees came up to him and asked him more pointed questions (almost like an agent at the early defcons singling out Asian participants). It states they discussed "proof of work", not that the suspect was given a free (or paid) consultancy gig. I think they had nothing about the conference, so they had to wriggle all this out of him during an interview. FBI damn good at this. They got all the facts they needed to make this a convincing complaint. But reality is not straightforward. I think you can think of plenty of other computer software nerds who got fucked by the law for doing what they do, and not murdering their wives.
    - 7y ago