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Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account
- chovybizzass 5y ago> Griffith was arrested and charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) in November 2019 after he travelled to North Korea to give a talk on blockchain and crypto. wow. that's all huh? just a talk
- dnh44 5y agoYeah it seems ridiculous doesn't it. Getting thrown in jail for giving a talk doesn't seem like something that should happen anywhere that considers itself as free. It's outrageous really.
- bequanna 5y agoThe line has to be drawn somewhere and I don’t believe anyone is so naive as to believe this was “just a talk”. Would you allow a “talk” instructing North Koreans on how to better leverage ransomware to extort money from municipalities? Save the fake outrage for a real injustice, because there are plenty of those.
- adflux 5y agoDo include the next part aswell: "Griffith was denied permission to travel to North Korea by the State Department but decided to attend the DPRK Cryptocurrency Conference anyway."
- dnh44 5y agoIt's not okay that he should need permission for such a thing I don't think.
- kvgr 5y agoYeah, Dennis Rodman had no problem to travel there... but he probably doesn't know much that can help NK agents to break into crypto infrastructure.
- satori99 5y agoSanctions would be pretty pointless if anyone could just go and offer goods and services to a sanctioned country regardless. It may have just been a talk, but a talk is a service, and he knew it was a serious federal crime. If he planned to rely on the "It was all public information anyway" argument, he is a fool.
- invalidusernam3 5y agoSure, but up to 20 years in prison for that seems absolutely insane
- ethanbond 5y agoCollaborating with a rival state that threatens our allies with nuclear weapons on a monthly basis and brutalizes its own citizens on a daily one?
- tgv 5y agoNK is known to obtain foreign currency via cryptocoins. And they need it to pay for developing rockets and atomic weapons. If they ever hit a city in Japan or the US, 20 years would be absolutely mild.
- cheaprentalyeti 5y ago>NK is known to obtain foreign currency via cryptocoins. And they need it to pay for developing rockets and atomic weapons. If they ever hit a city in Japan or the US, 20 years would be absolutely mild. Interesting. Now do everyone in the last thirty years who helped create the situation where North Korea has nuclear weapons. Starting with Jimmy Carter.
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoHe willingly violated international sanctions against NK. Just traveling there already takes a huge amount of preparation and intent - to the point where he was likely interrogated before leaving the US as to why he's traveling to NK. If you sold weapons to terrorists you'd be facing similar charges.
- not1ofU 5y agoNSO group has left the chat
- tdrgabi 5y ago> "During and after the conference, Griffith was alleged to have discussed means through which North Korea could use cryptocurrency to evade economic sanctions."
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoOn finances, in a country that is financially sanctioned by half the world.
- lionhead 5y agoAs a Korean citizen, I am not even allowed to cross the border to the north, yet alone give a talk.
- chrisco255 5y ago"Griffith was arrested and charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) in November 2019 after he travelled to North Korea to give a talk on blockchain and crypto." This is pretty wild to me. The guy gave a talk in North Korea and gave them non-classified information they could easily find on YouTube or any other public website. And now he's facing 20 years.
- antocv 5y agoHilarious, land of freedom, justice muh democrazy. Hilarious.
- arcturus17 5y agoYou think people should be free to collaborate with a degenerate regime that has killed millions?
- moksly 5y agoI’m not going to defend the craziness of the American Government, but why would you go and do something that their treasury has specifically told you that you were not allowed to do? Hell, if you’re still dead set on doing what you think is right, why wouldn’t you obtain a different citizenship and abandon your American one first? America is the world “police” when it wants to be, and as wrong as that is, it’s also something you ignore at your own peril.
- mtrycz2 5y agoWhy fight authoritarianism?
- Bootvis 5y agoFighting authoritarianism by working with the North Korean government. How does that work?
- moksly 5y agoHow is going to jail for 20 years because a better way of fighting authoritarianism than escaping it? Yes, it can work, but in order for it to do that, it sort of requires the world to remember you next week. I’m not sure the world even cared this week.
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoIt's not just America though; many countries have set and are enforcing sanctions about NK and other countries like Russia and Iran, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_North_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_North_Korea for an overview. TL;DR you should not try and do business or share certain information with certain countries or you violate international sanctions.
- moksly 5y agoWe recently had a guy who spend 10 years infiltrating North Korea as part of making a documentary. He did things that were a lot more in violations of our sanctions against North Korea than giving a speech about things that are freely available on YouTube. He isn’t facing 20 years in jail. Not because we don’t uphold our sanctions, but because our justice system isn’t insane.
- I_am_tiberius 5y agoHonestly I'm too scared of the US to post criticism now. It seems to become very random whether to be arrested there or not. I don't want to take that risk.
- staticassertion 5y agoYeah, same, what if I accidentally end up in North Korea giving a talk on money laundering? It could happen to anyone. I'm petrified.
- I_am_tiberius 5y agoI'm talking about my relatives logging in to one of my online accounts.
- senectus1 5y agoI added 20 hours of flying to one of my work trips to ensure i DIDN'T enter US airspace. I'm sure that there are plenty of nice people in the US, but that country as a whole is bug F#$% crazy in my mind. I felt safer in Argentina and Ecuador than the thought of going into the US.
- Traster 5y agoI can't actually beleive people in this thread are downplaying someone travelling to North Korea to explain to them how to evade economic sancations. This is literally confirming all the worst things people say about crypto-currencies. What's happening in North Korea isn't a joke, we have sanctions for a reason.
- hypervisorxxx 5y agoIt appears some people are still so uneducated about life in north Korea they believe they believe the people can fire up a browser extension and overthrow the government or something. Alot of people don't WANT to leave either and have been so brainwashed they are terrified of the outside world and believe it is a lawless land filled with gang warfare and burning trashcans, according to one of my friends who got to tour there which is a very rare privilege and outsiders are supervised every moment on a state sponsored tour after being forced to leave flowers at the dictators picture upon landing in North Korea and anyone who refuses to do so before following their sanctioned state sponsored tour (no unsupervised interactions with any citizens is allowed the entire time) is sent back on the plane immediately. The tour guide asked him how he had survived the outside world so long and if he was so relieved to finally be in a safe place when he got on.... I'm not sure the dictator is suddenly going to allow them to download Google chrome and install metamask and pretend he doesn't know what's going on and watch his country be overthrown he would more likely nuke his own people first.
- donclark 5y agoAnyone know if there is a link to the presentation/documentation he shared with North Korea?
- coolspot 5y agoIt’s just three slides: 1) mine Ethereum 2) buy nuclear materials/secrets with ETH abroad circumventing sanctions 3) nuke US
- arthurcolle 5y agoNot exactly a sympathetic character... From Wikipedia: "In 2016, he was fired from the Tor team for attempting to sell de-anonymized Tor2web traffic."
- pennaMan 5y agoWhy did he have $1M of crypto on Coinbase? I want to hear how that came to be because from the outside it looks like plain stupidity.