Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

protos.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 116 posts

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#91

Post by treeman79 »

dnautics wrote: post #89
BobbyJo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, the US is technically still at war with North Korea. If there were to be one and only one country on the face of the planet that you should not be giving any kind of information or money to as a US citizen, it is North Korea. This isn't vague or arbitrary. The sanctions against NK are very specific, and lengthy.

> US is technically still at war with North Korea No we are not. The constitution specifically says that only congress can declare war, and congress has made no such declaration.

This is factually true and irrelevant. War is no longer declared; even when taking on actions that normally require war

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#92

Post by mytherin »

dnautics wrote: post #83
mytherin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 totalitaria…

"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 specif…

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.

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#93

Post by scotty79 »

legutierr wrote: post #57
chrisco255 wrote: post #3

"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.

North Korea is building nuclear weapons in order to threaten the United States and its allies with them. Tens of thousands of American soldiers are stationed in South Korea in order to defend it from North Korean aggression. The war between the US and North Korea—which began 70 years ago when the current dictator’s grandfather invaded the South and declared war on the United States—is technically not over, and the po…

What is the benefit from those sanctions? Don't they just keep North Korea insular?

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#94

Post by selfhoster11 »

antonzabirko wrote: post #55
mdoms wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not believe that you're asking "how is the NK regime different to the US one" in good faith.

I'm talking about what he said, not holistically.

I really don't see how that's am elaboration of the previous statement.

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#95

Post by selfhoster11 »

not1ofU wrote: post #73
hypervisorxxx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no... How do I tell you this? People in North Korea don't have access to YouTube and the internet. Are you aware of what life is like for the people of North Korea? Only a few select businessmen working for leaders of North Korea are ever allowed to leave and they usually travel to china for unknown business. Giving a talk like this in North Korea is like teaching businessmen how to engage in moving criminal/ terr…

"No normal citizen can run the internet/has access to the internet..." So, the ones that do have access to the internet, could in fact, as the parent suggests, just go on youtube and get that info. Am I missing something?

Except those are the privileged caste, so it would be immoral to do such a thing in any case.

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#96

Post by selfhoster11 »

arcturus17 wrote: post #32
darkhorse13 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realize that people in the Middle East could literally say the same thing about USA?

They can say that the US systematically silences, murders and imposes totalitarian dread on its own people?

IDK about the murder and totalitarian dread, but silencing is done via NSLs (aka gag orders).

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#97

Post by eloff »

legutierr wrote: post #57
chrisco255 wrote: post #3

"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.

North Korea is building nuclear weapons in order to threaten the United States and its allies with them. Tens of thousands of American soldiers are stationed in South Korea in order to defend it from North Korean aggression. The war between the US and North Korea—which began 70 years ago when the current dictator’s grandfather invaded the South and declared war on the United States—is technically not over, and the po…

You can't sanction publicly available information. By that logic every crypto or blockchain website or video on the internet not blocked in North Korea is guilty of violating the sanctions.

This doesn't make any sense, and I feel really bad for people like Griffith getting ground beneath the treads of the unthinking legal machine here.

And shame on the judges for not slapping this law down, because that's they're job to protect people from unthinking and unfair application of the law.

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#98

Post by nucleardog »

eloff wrote: post #97
legutierr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Korea is building nuclear weapons in order to threaten the United States and its allies with them. Tens of thousands of American soldiers are stationed in South Korea in order to defend it from North Korean aggression. The war between the US and North Korea—which began 70 years ago when the current dictator’s grandfather invaded the South and declared war on the United States—is technically not over, and the po…

You can't sanction publicly available information. By that logic every crypto or blockchain website or video on the internet not blocked in North Korea is guilty of violating the sanctions. This doesn't make any sense, and I feel really bad for people like Griffith getting ground beneath the treads of the unthinking legal machine here. And shame on the judges for not slapping this law down, because that's they're job…

> By that logic every crypto or blockchain website or video on the internet not blocked in North Korea is guilty of violating the sanctions.

Making something available on the internet has non-illegal purposes. Specifically flying somewhere that is sanctioned and presenting the information specifically to them has no non-illegal purpose.

If you drop a $20 bill on the street and a member of a terrorist organization picks it up, it's not really funding terrorism just because you didn't explicitly ensure whoever found it was allowed to have it.

If you go find a terrorist organization and give them $20, you've funded terrorism.

Intent matters.

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#99

Post by [deleted] »

vkou wrote: post #80
intev wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a philosophical slippery slope. The next question is "what are facts?", or "who decides what's immoral?". I'm not interested in going down this because it's pointless. Reading the original comment, what can construed as "too political" for HN? There wasn't any strong support or opposition.

"The United States invaded Iraq and killed 500,000 innocent people because of the fragile ego of the Bush-Cheney cabal' is an example of: 1. An utterly reprehensible crime against humanity. 2. An accurate fact that's oft-repeated on HN 3. A highly political fact. 4. Utterly pointless to introduce in any conversation that is not closely related to wars. 5. A necessary reminder that our shit stinks. Despite all that, i…

[deleted]

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#100

Post by antonzabirko »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #94
antonzabirko wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about what he said, not holistically.

I really don't see how that's am elaboration of the previous statement.

It's not an elaboration -- I never elaborated because the previous person was confused about what I was referring to.

Essentially the US does a lot of things well, like freedom of speech and private property. What it doesn't do well is genocide/murder/starvation, just like DPRK.

Post reply on HN