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Just because information is publicly available does not mean they know how to best utilise that information. You can find guides online on how atomic bombs work

Just because information is publicly available does not mean they know how to best utilise that information. You can find guides online on how atomic bombs work, but if a physicist traveled to North Korea and gave a talk instructing them how to build an atomic bomb that person should absolutely be arrested. The Ethereum Foundation dev was arrested over a year ago after US authorities claimed then-36-year-old’s conference presentation contained info that North Korea could leverage to launder money and skirt sanctions. Griffith was denied permission to travel to North Korea by the State Department but decided to attend the DPRK Cryptocurrency Conference anyway. North Korea is reportedly keen to find ways to get around sanctions imposed by what it regards as a US-led financial system. He gave a talk that instructed NK how to use cryptocurrency to avoid sanctions imposed by the US government, after the US government explicitly forbade him from giving that talk. Very hard to feel sympathy for the guy.

h_anna_h 5y ago
The US government forbidding a citizen from giving a talk sounds quite totalitarian to me. Looks like the constitution of the US is not worth any more than the paper that it is written on.
- mytherin 5y ago
  Information is power. Sharing critical information with a hostile nation can be incredibly dangerous and can lead to many people being killed. Labeling that as "just giving a talk" is misleading. Any government on earth will arrest people that share critical information with a hostile nation. If doing so makes a government totalitarian then every government on earth is totalitarian, which simply means the totalitarian label is meaningless.
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    There is nothing critical about open source software. There's teens shilling how to use crypto on TikTok. We use it to breed virtual cats and buy expensive jpegs. You think Kim's hackers don't have access to YouTube? You think they didn't start mining Bitcoin 9 years ago? It's not that critical. This is over the top and unjustified.
  - dnautics 5y ago
    "hostile" is too vague. The us is not supposed to be just "any government on earth" In order to arbitrarily declare someone to have transgressed post facto, there had better be a declared state of war. Otherwise, the government should enumerate exactly what can and can't be said in the laws, and some fed tapping you on the shoulder and saying "don't do that" should not carry water unless that fed points to the specific provision of the law preventing it. Especially when the action is just presenting freely available information. Otherwise anyone who has made a freely available YouTube video on the Blockchain should ALSO have charges levied against them, starting with Grant Sanderson (who I love, btw).
    - mytherin 5y ago
      The sanctions imposed by the US government describe explicitly what is and isn’t allowed, and there is a very specific law mentioned in the article. 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. None of this is post facto - he was warned what he was doing violated a law, did it anyway, and is now facing charges for violating that law.

h_anna_h 5y ago

The US government forbidding a citizen from giving a talk sounds quite totalitarian to me. Looks like the constitution of the US is not worth any more than the paper that it is written on.

mytherin 5y ago
Information is power. Sharing critical information with a hostile nation can be incredibly dangerous and can lead to many people being killed. Labeling that as "just giving a talk" is misleading. Any government on earth will arrest people that share critical information with a hostile nation. If doing so makes a government totalitarian then every government on earth is totalitarian, which simply means the totalitarian label is meaningless.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  There is nothing critical about open source software. There's teens shilling how to use crypto on TikTok. We use it to breed virtual cats and buy expensive jpegs. You think Kim's hackers don't have access to YouTube? You think they didn't start mining Bitcoin 9 years ago? It's not that critical. This is over the top and unjustified.
- dnautics 5y ago
  "hostile" is too vague. The us is not supposed to be just "any government on earth" In order to arbitrarily declare someone to have transgressed post facto, there had better be a declared state of war. Otherwise, the government should enumerate exactly what can and can't be said in the laws, and some fed tapping you on the shoulder and saying "don't do that" should not carry water unless that fed points to the specific provision of the law preventing it. Especially when the action is just presenting freely available information. Otherwise anyone who has made a freely available YouTube video on the Blockchain should ALSO have charges levied against them, starting with Grant Sanderson (who I love, btw).
  - mytherin 5y ago
    The sanctions imposed by the US government describe explicitly what is and isn’t allowed, and there is a very specific law mentioned in the article. 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. None of this is post facto - he was warned what he was doing violated a law, did it anyway, and is now facing charges for violating that law.