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US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea blockchain presentation

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Re: US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea blockchain presentation

#31

Post by simoncion »

chickenpotpie wrote: post #19
ceejayoz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s Time to Stop Using the ‘Fire in a Crowded Theater’ Quote: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim... Three Generations of a Hackneyed Apologia for Censorship Are Enough: https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

I read the Atlantic article, but I don't think they made a strong enough argument to justify retiring the quote. Regardless of the circumstances that it was first used, it's meaning is still very true. It is still illegal to yell fire in a crowded theater and there are many exceptions to the first amendment. An american citizen cannot verbally harass someone, they cannot share child pornography, and they cannot go ar…

You should read the Popehat essay. The guy is a former Federal prosecutor. He knows what he's talking about.

Moreover, you forgot to read this part of what you linked to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#Subse...

> A unanimous Court in a brief per curiam opinion in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), abandoned the disfavored language while seemingly applying the reasoning of Schenck to reverse the conviction of a Ku Klux Klan member prosecuted for giving an inflammatory speech. The Court said that speech could be prosecuted only when it posed a danger of "imminent lawless action," a formulation which is sometimes said to reflect Holmes reasoning as more fully explicated in his Abrams dissent, rather than the common law of attempts explained in Schenck.

> An american citizen cannot verbally harass someone...

They can, actually. See the quote from the wikipedia article above.

> ...they cannot go around telling everyone how to make a nuclear bomb.

_Pretty_ sure that they can. It's widely said that any physics graduate student can work out how to make a useful but basic nuke. The issue is _actually building one_, or sending the materials to construct one to a sanctioned nation.

First Amendment protections are _broad_ and exceptions to them have been (historically) carved out with _great_ reluctance. This is a feature, not a bug.

Re: US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea blockchain presentation

#32

Post by radicaldreamer »

tmpz22 wrote: post #25
pen2l wrote: post #20

Did his PhD at Caltech under Christof Koch in computation and neural systems, was a super talented mathematician... and then he gets involved in crypto. I remember conversations with friends only a few years ago in which we would lament how young brilliant minds were eventually going on to work on adtech, and we would sigh and hope that the tide would turn. Boy, we were not prepared for this tide. Anyway, the NYSD re…

All that education and they still didn’t have the common sense to maybe not go to North Korea

I think there's a kind of naïveté at work here.

He cooperated when questioned after returning from North Korea, only to have his own words used against him when he was charged.

He didn't take sanctions violations seriously enough and when he asked the State Dept for permission beforehand to go, they said no, and he went anyway.

Re: US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea blockchain presentation

#33

Post by happytoexplain »

ceejayoz wrote: post #14
chickenpotpie wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same reason you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. There are limits to freedom of speech, especially when it interferes with national defense. Schenck v. United States is an interesting case where the supreme court ruled that passing out fliers to encourage resistance to the draft is not protected by the first amendment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

It’s Time to Stop Using the ‘Fire in a Crowded Theater’ Quote: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim... Three Generations of a Hackneyed Apologia for Censorship Are Enough: https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

I feel like you're having a kind of knee-jerk reaction to the fire example - your criticism makes sense when it is being used to justify some censorship (because legal != moral), but the GP is asking why this case isn't covered by the federal concept of free speech, literally speaking, for which the fire quote is a totally valid example of speech having negative effects that outweigh the value of that specific example of speech (regardless of whether the legal origin of the example is apocryphal, since overturned, etc).

I.e. the GP didn't ask "how is this not a violation of the spirit of free speech", they asked, "why this wouldn't fall under freedom of speech" (so it's not really "a Hackneyed Apologia for Censorship" in this case).

Re: US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea blockchain presentation

#34

Post by radicaldreamer »

flerchin wrote: post #21
vmception wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder how the arrest went down At the airport upon return > Why he took a plea Because the prosecutor would ask for way more prison time otherwise, the US International Emergency Economic Powers Act charge was pretty solid > what the details of his presentation were Information the North Koreans could have found already, even with their limited internet

You have any links for those answers? I appreciate them.

He wasn't arrested at the airport when he returned, he was questioned and cooperated, then was arrested later with evidence partially being what he himself told investigators.

Re: US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea blockchain presentation

#35

Post by etherael »

beebmam wrote: post #24
ricochet11 wrote: post #18

This is so sad, how does locking him up for 5 years really helps anyone? or keep anyone safer? He did something stupid maybe, but his work was exploring how digital systems can help bring peace to the world, and he thought a good place for that to happen is NK, so who doesn't agree with that? None of the information he presented was secret, it was all publicly available. For comparison here is a company that actually…

North Korea actively threatens the use of nuclear weapons, offensively, against its neighbors and enemies. There should be no sympathy for this regime or anyone who collaborates with it.

Giving North Korean citizens access to an economy outside their locked down one where they can engage in trade may well be the exact opposite of collaborating with the North Korean regime. This could easily be the most practical and realistic way to destroy North Korean control over its economy.

If those citizens are no longer beholden to the regime for their economic livelihood and that encourages internal organisation as well as more people seeing they have other options, sooner or later that's going to have a corrosive effect on state control of the economic affairs of North Korean citizens.

Frankly the US should be all over encouraging this activity, but given how stupid they have been for all modern history I can't say I'm surprised they're not.

Re: US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea blockchain presentation

#37

Post by egberts1 »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #32
tmpz22 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that education and they still didn’t have the common sense to maybe not go to North Korea

I think there's a kind of naïveté at work here. He cooperated when questioned after returning from North Korea, only to have his own words used against him when he was charged. He didn't take sanctions violations seriously enough and when he asked the State Dept for permission beforehand to go, they said no, and he went anyway.

Ergo, not all brilliant mathematicians have common sense.

Re: US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea blockchain presentation

#39

Post by garbagetime »

beebmam wrote: post #24
ricochet11 wrote: post #18

This is so sad, how does locking him up for 5 years really helps anyone? or keep anyone safer? He did something stupid maybe, but his work was exploring how digital systems can help bring peace to the world, and he thought a good place for that to happen is NK, so who doesn't agree with that? None of the information he presented was secret, it was all publicly available. For comparison here is a company that actually…

North Korea actively threatens the use of nuclear weapons, offensively, against its neighbors and enemies. There should be no sympathy for this regime or anyone who collaborates with it.

Why do you think it is that the DPRK places such a priority on emphasizing its nuclear capabilities?

Re: US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea blockchain presentation

#40

Post by CyberRabbi »

ricochet11 wrote: post #18

This is so sad, how does locking him up for 5 years really helps anyone? or keep anyone safer? He did something stupid maybe, but his work was exploring how digital systems can help bring peace to the world, and he thought a good place for that to happen is NK, so who doesn't agree with that? None of the information he presented was secret, it was all publicly available. For comparison here is a company that actually…

Well it wasn’t like he did this by accident:

> "The most important feature of blockchains is that they are open. And the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] can't be kept out no matter what the USA or the UN says,"

He intentionally violated the law. Sure, one may consider the law stupid but one should expect to be punished if one blatantly violates it. That’s how laws work, he’s not imprisoned by the whim of a king.

It would be more stupid to violate the law and expect no negative repercussions. There are more constructive ways to reform laws than openly violating them.

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