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Man jailed for parole violations after refusing to decrypt his Tor node
- gryfft 1y agoYou can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride
- cranberryturkey 1y agoContact eff.org
- ransom1538 1y ago"CFAA offense" You can catch one of these by logging into your moms netflix account.
- mananaysiempre 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Buren_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Buren_v._United_States (2020): > [Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney] Barrett ruled that for the CFAA, a person violates the "exceeds authorized access" language when they access files or other information that is off-limits to them on a computer system that they otherwise have authorized access to. The majority opinion distinguished this from Van Buren's case, in that the information that he obtained was within the limits of what he could access with his authorization, but was done for improper reasons, and thus he could not be charged under CFAA for this crime. This still does criminalize logging into your mom’s Netflix account, probably (?), but at least browsing HN on your work computer not covered anymore.
- Aurornis 1y agoIf you steal your mom’s password without consent and she argues that you accessed information on the account that you were not authorized to see, maybe. However the quote on its own is not necessarily true without further qualifications as mentioned above.
- smallerize 1y agoNo, it's about logging in to someone else's account against the Netflix ToS. Netflix doesn't want you to access their computer systems that way.
- bilekas 1y ago> However the quote on its own is not necessarily true without further qualifications as mentioned above. It's absolutely true, you're accessing an unauthorized account. All law enforcement need to do is ask you, did you access an electronic account that was not yours ? Nuance will be ignored when it suits them.
- qingcharles 1y agoSome of the CFAA has been dialed back by the courts, but CFAA is a federal level offense. The scarier ones exist at the state level, e.g. Illinois specifically criminalizes violating the terms and conditions of a web site.
- potatototoo99 1y agoJust another day in the police state.
- blurbleblurble 1y agoIt's unsettling how quickly things are escalating.
- falcor84 1y agoIndeed, these past few years have really recontextualized The Handmaid's Tale for me from an alternative history fantasy to an almost run of the mill "20 minutes into the future" fiction.
- cestith 1y agoAtwood didn’t write it as a possible dystopian future. Every facet of the story takes place somewhere in the world right now. She has pointed this out herself on social media.
- potato3732842 1y agoQuickly? They've been doing this stuff to anyone that dares cross them for as long as I've been alive.
- y-curious 1y agoI'm not sure this has anything to do with the current president. This type of cowboy judge shit has been happening for decades, we just rarely hear about it.
- croes 1y agoHe is also a former President
- encrux 1y agoNothing about this was quick. 2015 was the first time we had an increase in authoritarianism in the public debate. Project 2025 was announced in 2023.
- ksynwa 1y agoIn my land of the free? No way.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoAnd home of the brave.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- podgorniy 1y agoSome are free. Some are not. __Like in good old times__
- NoImmatureAdHom 1y agoThe guy did bad things and got caught. The ridiculous wife's perspective doesn't include that he e.g. DDOS'd an employer.
- firesteelrain 1y agoYour comment and the highest voted one so far are sobering perspectives. I had a feeling there was more to the story
- pluc 1y agoThe stars are asterisks.
- eulgro 1y agoWe all commit three felonies a day.
- criddell 1y agoWhat are the most common felonies committed by average people going about their lives?
- eulgro 1y agoIt's just a reference to this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6611240-three-felonies-a-day https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6611240-three-felonies-a...
- kilroy123 1y agoThis is exactly right. At any given time, the feds or government could come after you and find _something_ to charge you with. I don't normally agree with this man, but he is dead right. There are too many fucking laws. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/america-has-too-many-laws-neil-gorsuch/679237/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/america-ha...
- yellowapple 1y agoGeorg Felonies with his 342,034,432 daily felonies is an outlier and should never have been counted.
- dvrj101 1y agothey are trying to set precedent. This can kill TOR or other privacy related services in USA easily in current environment.
- antonymoose 1y agoSeveral years prior I had a coworker get arrested on CSAM charges because, you guessed it, he ran an Tor exit node. Of course there was no reporting on the Tor aspect, just “local man arrested for CSAM” in the local papers. He eventually had the charges dropped after years of court battles, but his name is forever tarnished as a result. This particular job we had a lot of idealist folks, two of whom ran relays - they immediately ceased to do so in the aftermath of the coworker’s arrest.
- Aurornis 1y ago> This particular job we had a lot of idealist folks, two of whom ran relays - they immediately ceased to do so in the aftermath of the coworker’s arrest Even from the early days of Tor I remember all of the warnings to not run an exit node in a country where internet activity was likely to lead to prosecution. Running any sort of proxy (including Tor exit nodes) allows other people’s traffic to appear as your traffic. That’s the entire purpose of the software. You’d have to be willing and able to handle the consequences of any traffic any other person decides to send through the system.
- Anonyneko 1y agoReminds me of a similar case against Dmitry Bogatov in Russia in 2017, it was a big deal back in the day (though of course times have drastically changed and now something like this wouldn't even appear in the news over there).
- pjc50 1y agoIf you run a Tor exit node, it is quite possible that you will end up downloading things on behalf of other people. CSAM carries strict liability charges.
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- reaperducer 1y ago[flagged]
- a2tech 1y agoI don’t know if you watched those videos but even if he did commit a crime the marshals are way way over the line when they arrest him.
- pluc 1y agoThat's par for the course in America
- lokar 1y agoLaw enforcement is the US is trained to use (often rapidly) increasing force to compel compliance. They are trained that this is the only way to keep themselves and partners safe.
- int_19h 1y agoLook up "killology" for more on this.
- bmn__ 1y agoProportionality is law on the book. Throw enough LEO who violate this into prison, the problem solves itself over night.
- lokar 1y agoAny concept of proportion has in it a constant. Here the constant does not favor the public.
- pluc 1y agoI'd use "lobbied", "sponsored" or "encouraged" instead of "trained"
- iLoveOncall 1y ago[flagged]
- dvrj101 1y agoSome people are like Alex Jones...
- iLoveOncall 1y agoIs it being like Alex Jones to not immediately trust an outlandish one-sided story which hides extremely relevant points?
- morpheuskafka 1y agoFederal cases are generally at least partially unsealed once the defendant is arrested. Especially since the charge is supposedly workplace related not terrorism etc, then someone should be able to pull the case in PACER and at least find out the basic details.
- t-3 1y agoIt looks more like he got injured when tackled, but the one guy blocking the camera with his body really makes it hard to tell if they're putting work in or just holding him down. Knowing cops, probably a bit of both.
- romanovcode 1y ago> Months later, the government arrested him. Their official reason? A minor, non-violent CFAA charge from an old workplace dispute that had nothing to do with Tor. This is exactly the argument for privacy to people who say "I have nothing to hide". Authoritative governments will always find a reason to dig something up and the less privacy you have the easier it will be. As a side note it sickening to see USA government doing this arrest straight out of gestapo/kgb playbook.
- 77pt77 1y agoPrivacy is not a deterrent to that. The state does what it wants and in the end it doesn't even need an excuse. An excuse is a nice to have, but that's it.
- potato3732842 1y ago>The state does what it wants and in the end it doesn;t even need an excuse. It doesn't need an excuse because people let it not need an excuse. Every idiot, even on HN, heck, particularly on HN and other places where demographic factors result most never having been the target of government or think that they would be, is perfectly fine with it when the government behaves this way in pursuit of things they agree with. And so the only people complaining about any one government abuse are the small minority that care all the time plus whatever group care about the specific issue. If people would stop being two faced snakes and have some principals and stand by them the problem would decrease on its own. But that's like saying "just go as fast as light", it's not a tractable problem.
- 77pt77 1y agoThe state has more power and therefore does what it wants. Anything other than that is just wishful thinking.
- zelphirkalt 1y agoI think the idea of the GP is, that people stand up for what they think is right, meaning that they gather in the millions on the streets to protest when injustice happens, instead of staying mostly at home and doing nothing.
- afh1 1y agoBut the police/courts would never do something like this... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12073390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12073390
- I_Write_It 1y agoThis is unbelievable! How in the world! Why they do that ?! Because the police were frustrated????!
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tamimio 1y agoYou clearly never seen police dashcam videos in the US. Besides the corruption and stops for "hunt missions", a lot of times it's simply because you shattered their ego, even with a simple laugh: https://youtube.com/watch?v=NqJdt9_1XSw https://youtube.com/watch?v=NqJdt9_1XSw
- resters 1y agoDashcam videos show cops abusing power and being on a power trip in various ways, some mildly annoying and some outrageous. This is also why mobile phone camera tech led to BLM as more and more people became aware of how police act when they think nobody is watching.
- righthand 1y agoMobile tech didn’t lead to Black Lives Matter. What even are you saying? People were recording the police way back during the Fergusson Mo protests.
- resters 1y agoI think you are being sarcastic, but in case you weren't, in 2014 60% of adults in the US owned a smartphone, so my point stands. Videos of police misconduct were already widespread before that. Someone took video of the killing of Eric Garner, etc.
- cestith 1y agoDo you think Michael Brown and the Ferguson protests didn’t contribute to the BLM movement?
- unethical_ban 1y ago3 years of pretrial detention for anything less than blowing up a building should be enough to enrage anyone. Even then, the legal system would be a failure. How is 3 years pretrial not blatantly unconstitutional and thrown out immediately?
- baggachipz 1y agoAh, you must be new here. All kidding aside, the "Global War on Terror" was the impetus for all of the surveillance and associated persecution of innocents without due process. Always disappointed, never surprised.
- praptak 1y agoAnd the Global War on Terror wasn't even the first American War on Due Process. Remember the War on Drugs? It is mostly forgotten but the civil forfeiture remains as its legacy.
- unethical_ban 1y agoI thought I knew many of the injustices of our system, but I thought that kind of extreme length is for people like KSM who crafted 9/11. Some BS CFAA charge for not helping decrypt a Tor session? Fucking evil.
- 77pt77 1y agoYou've had people in jail for over a decade at the judge's discretion because the judge didn't believe them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Beatty_Chadwick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Beatty_Chadwick And this in a civil matter!
- pjc50 1y agohttps://www.crimlawpractitioner.org/post/some-things-cannot-be-fixed-rikers-island-and-pretrial-detention https://www.crimlawpractitioner.org/post/some-things-cannot-... New Yorkers spend an average of 10 months in pretrial detention. This kind of abuse is routine in the American system, and by and large Americans want it that way for their usual reasons about "crime".
- xqcgrek2 1y agoIf anyone here has investments in US dollar denominated assets, move them out of the country. The US is entering a death spiral.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y agoAt least the troops will have short hair: https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/military/military-facial-hair-grooming-policy/ https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/military/military-faci...
- kilroy123 1y agoI left the US 10 years ago when Obama was still president. It's been obvious to me that we've been in decline for decades. The state of the US is not surprising to me. It is however still shocking and sad to see.
- tamimio 1y agoOh boy, wait until Palantir makes a unified database of everyone, they won't even need to have a previous offense, they can make one based on all the collected information or even based on your behaviors. Great times ahead!
- s5300 1y ago>> wait until Palantir makes a unified database of everyone, they won't even need to have a previous offense, they can make one based on all the collected information or even based on your behaviors. Well, I hear that if you make being gay a crime again, you cut off the head of palantir.
- resters 1y agoPrayer can do amazing things, including curing homosexuality. See Thiel's exploration of the "Antichrist". I remember when I used to think Thiel had libertarian values!
- bilekas 1y ago> Prayer can do amazing things, including curing homosexuality. Money can do a lot more things, including inducing hypocrisy, double standardism and blindness.
- alberth 1y ago[flagged]
- s5300 1y ago>> But this should be a cautionary warning of what might also happen anyone if you associate with things that are perceived as criminal in nature. Opioid painkillers are associated with “things that are criminal in nature” because a certain segment of every society does and will suck, nearly no matter what. Does this mean that everybody in pain should just suffer and let their education, career, and family be taken from them before their time?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- potato3732842 1y agoThe part that should really enrage you is the way people will selectively understand this based on whether they agree or disagree with the context. If some electronics repair guy repairing vehicle ECUs in bulk who doesn't ask questions but has an inkling that they're gonna get used for emissions laws violations got rolled up on by the feds for refusing to go out of his way to help them out HN would find all sorts of ways to cheer and justify it. But when they do it to a tor node it's bad.
- ToucanLoucan 1y agoAs someone who works in this industry: we do ECU modification and repair and as such, have regular contact with the EPA. Our products all align with all required emissions regulation and testing, which is why we're allowed to continue selling them. If the EPA says jump, we ask how high. I say this because this cultural vibe of government agencies kicking in your door for doing innocuous shit needs to die already, that is simply not how this happens. We get letters, we get calls, VERY occasionally we get visits and said visits are scheduled weeks, sometimes months in advance. We always cooperate and the relationship, therefore, is not adversarial. Honestly we have way more fucking problems with huckster vendors trying to fuck us out of a few extra dollars on parts than anything to do with the big scary government. While we're at it, fuck coal rollers with a cactus.
- flanked-evergl 1y ago[flagged]
- yellow_lead 1y agoI've seen this other cases like this. 1. The fbi asks you to be an informant or "cooperate" with an investigation in some way. 2. If you refuse, they investigate you, and basically throw the book at you.
- potato3732842 1y agoEvery government agency works this way to the extent that they are able to. Your local building commissioner or whatever just has a lot less money and muscle on tap and much more circuitous access to court judgements in their favor than the FBI does. Differences in their strategic and tactical approach is a reflection of this.
- juujian 1y agoWell, it's punching down. If you are a big corporation or otherwise have the means to fight back, you don't have much to fear.
- bryanrasmussen 1y agopeople talk a lot about how much they're against punching down, but I don't actually see that many people itching to take on Dwayne Johnson. The fact is for humans and organizations who are punching, punching down is generally their preferred method.
- incone123 1y agoThe man who is the subject of the original post did indeed take on the FBI, who have then given him a figurative and possibly literal good kicking.
- bryanrasmussen 1y agoI didn't say there are no people who ever punch up, but nowhere near as many people who talk about it, most people punch down when they're in a punching mood.
- rfoo 1y ago[flagged]
- throwaway234798 1y agoTaking OP at her word, this is a horrific tale of extra-judicial abuse of an individual for refusing to cooperate with the DoJ on a matter of digital privacy. The OP wants story amplification, but to what end? The DoJ, controlled by Trump and Pam Bondi, probably think this person is getting away lightly with only a severe head wound and a comfy 3-year stay in county jail. A trial isn't necessary cops know who's bad, after all. There is already so much outrage directed at them about many other, larger scale issues, that they not only don't bend to but seem to actively feed off of it. I'm sorry to sound so hopeless, but no, there is no hope that someone elected specifically for his lack of empathy, lack of respect for rule-of-law and lack of self-restraint would ever be swayed by this story, no matter how much it is amplified. Your best bet is to fabricate a story that your husband is a fervent Trump supporter being unfairly targeted by rogue, Biden-loving elements of the FBI and an Obama appointed district judge. We voted for this, the time to fix the problem was last November, and now we have to live with the results. It's also why I, and anyone else who values their freedom, their career, their family, needs to post such sentiment anonymously. It is NOT safe to criticize this administration.
- IlikeKitties 1y ago> needs to post such sentiment anonymously This will become practically impossible very soon if it isn't already.
- oliver-rock 1y agoI understand where you are coming from but I think that it is not always helpful to place everything on one administration. Calls for unity and a strengthening of the rule of law are what matter. Trump will be in for 4 years whether you like it or not, the long term protection of the rule of law should be highest priority and this case shows how it has been eroded over the last few years.
- somerandomdude2 1y agoBoth sides do this: the last administration had tech giants censor anyone that that promoted the lab leak theory, or any alternative to treatment other that the new vaccines. Parents interested in managing their child's exposure to sexually related material were put on watch lists. It's not one side or the other - any group with authority has to be watched closely and rebuked when they try to expand their power.
- no_time 1y agoExtremely worrying precedent if true. I'm frankly surprised there aren't any documented cases of this happening to Tor,I2P,Wireguard etc developers.
- nashashmi 1y agoSince when did private monitoring on private property become de facto right for government to surveil? That is like saying if you have a car or computer the govt has a right to use it when they want to.
- exikyut 1y agoThis was posted only a month ago: https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-secret-history-of-tor-how-a-military-project-became-a-lifeline-for-privacy/ https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-secret-history-of-tor... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44838378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44838378) The article provides a good foundation for opposing arguments. Excerpting: > The researchers wanted to find a way to do the seemingly impossible — to give the military the benefits of a global, high-speed communications network without exposing them to the vulnerabilities of the metadata that the network relied on to operate. > ... > There are other implications, as well. For a CIA agent to use Tor without suspicion in non-U.S. nations, for example, there would need to be plenty of citizens in these nations using Tor for everyday internet browsing. Similarly, if the only users in a particular country are whistleblowers, civil rights activists and protesters, the government may well simply arrest anyone connecting to your anonymity network. As a result, an onion routing system had to be open to as wide a range of users and maintainers as possible, so that the mere fact that someone was using the system wouldn’t reveal anything about their identity or their affiliations. > ... > Anonymity loves company — so Tor needed to be sold to the general public. That necessity led to an unlikely alliance between cypherpunks and the U.S. Navy. > The NRL researchers behind Onion routing knew it wouldn’t work unless everyday people used it, so they reached out to the cypherpunks and invited them into conversations about design and strategy to reach the masses.
- thrownawayfbi 1y agoI can attest as a personal experience in the past that this kind of behavior is not uncommon with feds, and has happened even before the current administration. I've had a five years probation in the past for what the FBI argued that I "hacked" some company from changing the URL in specific ways, not to mention the "clear hacking tools" I had installed in my computer, e.g CCleaner. You know something is wrong when you literally have 98% chance of losing in court against the FBI. They are corrupt and incompetent.
- rdtsc 1y ago> I can attest as a personal experience in the past that this kind of behavior is not uncommon with feds, and has happened even before the current administration One the first comments on reddit was actually: > … in trump's america lmao Someone had to awkwardly point out it was biden’s america. Which makes it easier and saves keystrokes: it’s just “america, lmao”. Then other countries can be even worse so it’s “lmao”. And soon enough they are just laughing their asses off while the person is stuck in jail. > "clear hacking tools" I had installed in my computer, e.g CCleaner I have always wondered if they are primarily that stupid or just evil and pretending to be stupid. I am leaning towards evil.
- Aurornis 1y agoThe wife’s description of the charges is not honest. See all of the other comments which revealed a much longer list of offenses he committed. The Reddit post is an attempt to garner sympathy by leaving out all of the actual crimes committed.
- rdtsc 1y ago> The wife’s description of the charges is not honest. See all of the other comments which revealed a much longer list of offenses he committed. Yeah, good point. That happens sometimes. It's sad, people just see reddit as sort of a platform of gullible people. I was just pointing out reddit's reaction, mainly. Then my other reply was in reply to GP's own story ("clear hacking tools" = CCleaner).
- mrtksn 1y agoInteresting, Trump administration pardoned Ross William Ulbricht who run drug dealing business specifically because it was done behind Tor using cryptocurrency. So this was a one off? This sounds awful lot like Middle Eastern mafia stuff, where it's technically illegal to do some things but you can do a lot of things if you are aligned with the people in power. I have no idea what this person was up to but this selective treatment(if true) smells very bad. IIRC behind the release of Ross there was some libertarian NGO or something, maybe contact them?
- palmotea 1y ago> Interesting, Trump administration pardoned Ross William Ulbricht who run drug dealing business specifically because it was done behind Tor using cryptocurrency. So this was a one off? Didn't Ulbricht get pardoned for being a hero of the cryptocurrency-bros, as kind of a deal to get support from the Libertarians in the election? I think he was a one-off, or at least part of a small category that doesn't extend to cryptography and privacy idealists.
- 34679 1y ago>there was some libertarian NGO That was the National Libertarian Party and the party chair was forced to resign in disgrace shortly after, due to accusations of kickbacks and embezzlement. https://thirdpartywatch.com/2025/01/25/mcardle-resigns/ https://thirdpartywatch.com/2025/01/25/mcardle-resigns/
- pjc50 1y ago> This sounds awful lot like Middle Eastern mafia stuff, where it's technically illegal to do some things but you can do a lot of things if you are aligned with the people in power. This didn't work out for SBF, but you can clearly see this process being set up for other people.
- ien24sdq 1y ago[dead]
- tptacek 1y agoFor whatever it's worth, the Reddit story here says that the federal courts used "fraudulent warrants to jail my husband again". Maybe! The other side of that story, via PACER, is a detailed parole violation warrant (you can hear the marshal refer to it in the video); the violations in that warrant: 1. Admitting to using cannabis during supervised release 2. Failing to make scheduled restitution payments and to cooperate with the financial investigation that sets restitution payment amounts. 3. Falling out of contact with his probation officer, who attempted home visits to find him. 4. Opening several new lines of credit. 5. Using an unauthorized iPhone (all his Internet devices apparently have keyloggers as a condition of his release). These read like kind of standard parole terms? I don't know what the hell happened to get him into this situation in the first place, though.
- ivape 1y agoWe have to consider that crime on the internet is as real as crime in real life. Funny to say it out loud. Criminals move a certain way and just because you are a nerdy tech dude doesn’t also mean you’re not a gangster. Edit: Reminds me a lot of the lives of people in this saga: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01L8C4WBG/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01L8C4WBG/ The poor wife, “can you stop being a criminal for like, one month, please?”.
- Aurornis 1y ago> We have to consider that crime on the internet is as real as crime in real life. Funny to say it out loud. According to the court documents his crimes extended into “real life” as well, with intentional damage to his former employer to shut down their operations.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- crazypyro 1y agoHe was also placed under electronic monitoring program and immediately went about installing a VM to allegedly circumvent the monitoring software along with searching for a very controversial website relating to pedophilia... He also lied about using his computer, his wife told on him to his parole officer, according to the court documents. He was on parole for DDOSing* a former employer... *Ah, I see your update, guess it was less distributed and more direct denial of service with the physical destruction and all.
- rich_sasha 1y agoI certainly sympathise, but actually don't find it at all surprising. Tor is totally used for criminal activity. That doesn't mean it is inherently a bad thing, or that it is this guy's fault, but he can't completely wash his hands off it. If bad guys use the postal service, it's not the postman's fault, but he has to cooperate with law enforcement if they demand that. I don't know about the US, but contempt of court is a thing in the UK at least. You can't refuse to submit evidence to court, including things like encryption keys or things only stored in your head - or face penalties including unlimited jail time. Now, I get that this is the US so the arrest was dialled up to 11 and it seems all of this is extra-judicial - no court warrant etc. This is all very disappointing. But, to my non-expert eye running a Tor exit node is in the legal grey zone, and I guess you can't be too surprised when things like this happen.
- jrecyclebin 1y agoIdk the punishment just doesn't match the crime. Can't they just confiscate the computer? Or pressure the ISP to cancel his account? Tbh I get that the Feds are going route around and through anything that stands in their way. Instead we're left up to state thuggery.
- ranger_danger 1y agoConveniently left out from the wife's story is the husband's corporate sabotage, FBI monitoring circumvention, CSAM searches and many parole violations. 3 years sounds about right to me.
- jrecyclebin 1y agoOk well - appreciate the further details.
- NoImmatureAdHom 1y agoIn the U.S. and much of the rest of the civilized world, you have rights. This includes the right to not self-incriminate (in the U.S. that's the 5th amendment). In general, except for very specific and limited circumstances, U.S. state and federal government actors cannot compel speech (telling your encryption keys is compelled speech). The U.K. is fast sliding down the slope to being a dystopian police state. The idea that you can be jailed for refusing to provide encryption keys (except for really specific, narrowly-defined circumstances) is something that should induce nausea. I feel for you and your country, you accomplished such great things.
- axus 1y agoA good example of why people support smaller government.
- altacc 1y agoAs evidenced by recent developments, smaller government these days seems to mean less controls for businesses and the government but many more controls on citizens.
- lenwood 1y agoI know very little about cybersecurity, but my understand of TOR is that a node host wouldn't be able to offer much about the traffic coming across their server(s). The packages are encrypted and there is no entry or destination info, so he may be able to say how much traffic was coming across, but what else could he possibly know? Info on other nodes?
- red-iron-pine 1y agothe Bureau can't see the traffic but they have keyloggers on all of his systems. He tried bypassing them with Spice but failed and otherwise got logged getting onto Tor and searching for dubious things
- 1970-01-01 1y agoIt's very important to get the official source on this one. Husband was legally restricted and being monitored by the FBI, so he decided to go install a VM to bypass the monitoring. It's not so much bravery against authority as it is hubris that got him 3 years. https://rockenhaus.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/U.S.-v.-Rockenhaus-2-20-20-2.pdf https://rockenhaus.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/U.S.-v.-Ro...
- NotMichaelBay 1y agoSince it seems to have been glossed over in the court transcript, can anyone explain how exactly a VM or client for remote VM could be used to bypass the monitoring? Wouldn't the monitoring software capture any application's network activities, including a client for a Remote VM? I'm imagining something like Wireshark?
- nusl 1y agoA VM would bypass monitoring software installed on devices the person uses. A VPN would obscure their traffic such that it is encrypted and not easily monitored. Even something like SSH is encrypted and not straight-forward to monitor, so a VPN isn't required to do this anyway. A remote VM would combine both of these things, where the device/computer is in a location that isn't monitored and accessed by means aimed at bypassing controls in place. Activities carried out from the remote VM are then not monitored. User + Devices -> VPN/other -> Remote VM -> Unmonitored Activities / Network Access ^ Monitoring is here, but may not capture the rest of the chain Law enforcement would need to monitor the VM itself to monitor those activities, or I guess request logs from the provider if at all possible. There's a limit to how much you can monitor someone and I assume there's a degree of good faith in cooperation with these controls. Failure to comply, seemingly, has severe consequences.
- NotMichaelBay 1y agoOkay, that makes sense. But the monitoring software should capture the connection request to the VPN or Remote VM?
- bgwalter 1y agoSo they got him on a minor CFFA charge. Was anyone from Anthropic jailed for torrenting millions of books?
- StopDisinfo910 1y agoBased on the 2019 court transcript linked in the post, the reason for keeping him in jail during the pretrial are a lot more reasonable than how this is framed in his wife's post. The FBI said he downloaded a client, here Spice, which can be used to access a VM and visited the tor project website to look into how he could download a Tor client. That happened in the 24h which followed him agreeing to electronic monitoring and voluntarily installing a spyware. They argue that he has the knowledge and mean to circumvent the monitoring he agreed to and his pattern of actions indicate he is likely to do so if left free. A huge part of the argument lies on him having agreed to voluntarily participate in his own monitoring. The CFAA charge seems to be sealed but I'm far from convinced it's a minor work related issue. If you read the website, they keep firing their attorneys and pretending they are colluding with the government to keep him in jail. Parts of the description are frankly bizarre. It seems they are actually suffering for paranoia. I would read the post with a huge grain of salt.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- AlgebraFox 1y agoTo those who say TOR, VPN, Signal, GrapheneOS or <replace with any privacy tool> is dead, we should use more of them not less. Today privacy became crime because the tech crowd (including many in HN community) ignored slow eradication of our fundamental freedom by evil companies like Apple (Yes, Apple. Don't forget they worked with NSA.) and Google. If crowd like HN is seduced by new AI enhanced, costly and locked phones, then how can a regular citizen understand freedom or privacy? Freedom is being taken away by govt, because we are making choices that surrender it.
- pkilgore 1y agoThe problem with the CFAA is that it is so (IMO unconstitutionally) broad it is feasible that _every American_ has arguably violated it in some way, completely accidentally. Thus, every time we see a CFAA charge we have to ask ourselves: "Is this an abuse of power?". We should have better, clearer laws.
- rtkwe 1y agoThere are a lot of bogus CFAA cases but it seems like this one is within the boundaries of reasonable law enforcement if the description posted above [0] is accurate. The quick summary is (reddit) OP's husband was fired from a job and used old unrevoked access to crash their servers, was briefly contracted to fix it before the company found out they were the source of the crash and terminated them again, then after all that he then gained access to their DR facilities and physically damaged a number of servers. If that's true it seems like a pretty cut and dry CFAA case (with some extra normal crime on top to boot) and the main issue to take with it is the FBI using it as leverage to get him to compromise his TOR node. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45262053 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45262053
- major505 1y agoInsert joke about federal agents shooting dogs...
- OutOfHere 1y agoRunning a Tor exit node in the US is very risky for obvious reasons, and if doing so, it's just a matter of time before the operator gets to see the unfriendly side of the feds. Heck, even running a torrent node serving copyrighted movies/shows/music is too risky in the US. If you want to do these things while having a sane life, at least host them abroad, and anonymously.
- k__ 1y agoCould Tails saved him?
- ltbarcly3 1y agoThis is just extremely one sided. He intentionally sabotaged his ex employers computer systems, was hired to fix them, was caught as the original cause of the problem, fired again, then used a back door to take down their systems again. He plead guilty to this in 2014. He was on probation and required to use monitoring software as a condition of being let out of jail early, he had a secret iphone he used to access the internet that was not monitored, so his probation was revoked. He wasn't arrested again, his probation was revoked. The wife's account focuses on a ton of irrelevant details, the above is sufficient to explain the entire situation.
- edm0nd 1y agoThe husband was also caught Googling NAMBLA related keywords at 2am in the morning... This guy didnt get arrested due to anything about running a Tor node. He's likely a pedo who also violated his parole.
- damienrodgers 1y ago[dead]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- adezero 1y agoHello everyone. This is Adrienne Rockenhaus (the "OP" from the Reddit post). I've been reading this discussion, and I want to provide some clarity and address the main points being raised, with links to the public record. The discussion here has focused heavily on the original 2014 CFAA charge. But the current, life-threatening crisis is happening in Michigan, and it's based on a series of supervised release violations that were provably manufactured. The warrant lists five violations. Here is the truth for each: "Lost Contact/Absconder": This is a lie. My husband was hospitalized in a VA facility for a mental health crisis, and we have text messages proving the probation office knew his exact whereabouts. "New Credit": This was identity theft, for which we filed a formal police report. The probation office tried to punish him for being the victim of a crime. "Unauthorized iPhone": The phone was his authorized work device, issued by me, his formally approved employer (approved by his former PO in writing). "Failed Restitution": He was paying the amount agreed upon with his first PO. We have the government's own receipts to prove it. "Cannabis Use": A misleading omission. He has a legal prescription for Marinol for his combat-related PTSD, which the probation office knew would cause a positive test. Regarding the Texas case, the real issue is not the details of the decade-old charge; it's the corrupt process the government used: Pretext: The charge was revived just before the statute of limitations expired, and only after my husband refused to help the FBI decrypt traffic from his Tor exit node. Perjury: His 3-year pretrial detention was secured by the perjured testimony of a U.S. Probation Officer who lied about what a "SPICE graphics driver" is. The FBI agent never corrected this lie on the record. Collusion: The entire hearing was tainted. We have documented proof that his own defense attorney at the time was actively colluding with his ex-wife to sabotage the case. This is not about whether you approve of his past actions. This is about whether the government should be allowed to use pretext, perjury, and conspiracy to jail a citizen. The core principle is that everyone is entitled to due process. He did not receive it. Please do not take my word for it, and do not take the word of anonymous commenters. Read the primary source documents for yourself. The fraudulent warrants, the court transcript proving the perjury, and the evidence of the conspiracy are all on the public record at rockenhaus.com.
- adezero 1y agoI'm seeing the topic of a deeply offensive “search term” from the 2020 court hearing being discussed, and I want to address it directly to provide the full context. The search was for an article my husband was writing for Encyclopedia Dramatica, a well-known (and very controversial) satirical wiki that parodies offensive topics. He was researching the topic to make fun of it, similar to how shows like South Park handle such subjects. The prosecution knew this search was irrelevant to the actual alleged violation, but they included it in the evidence they gave the judge anyway. This is a classic "poison the well" tactic, using something shocking and out-of-context to prejudice a judge against a defendant. While the opposition wants to distract everyone with this, the real issues are the ones they cannot defend: the documented perjury by a federal officer, the fraudulent warrants in Michigan, the collusion by his former attorney, and the ongoing medical neglect.
- coretx 1y agoSolution; kill all FBI officers involved. When in court you plead not guilty to murder because you where merely executing a future death sentence. That should teach them. Use your second amendment, this is what it is meant for.
- elas-fronter 1y ago[dead]
- elas-fronter 1y ago[dead]