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

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

markets.businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 587 posts

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

#371

Post by WalterBright »

FrenchDevRemote wrote: post #366
ambrozk wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a dumb statement every time it's asserted. Sanctions are not an act of war in any sense. Not in theory nor in a pragmatic sense. The distinction between war and other modes of interstate hostility is an important one which we should not abandon. "Sanctions are war" is the same sort of statement as "speech is violence": it's sophistic, and it collapses nuance instead of encouraging it.

"Go beat/kill this guy" is violence, yet it's just words. Putin haven't killed people with his bare hands(at least for a few years...)But who wouldn't call him violent? If your sanctions cause people to die, of hunger, sickness or anything else, it's violence. I'm not against sanctions depending on the circumstances, but you're just wrong

If people don't follow Putin's orders, they get imprisoned or executed. His orders are not "just words".

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

#372

Post by awillen »

dahdum wrote: post #314
tomatowurst wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no lawyer but I can only dream that they might find more stuff to throw the book at him but somehow i doubt this. How you go and help a country that your own country is at war with, starves women and children, sends a prisoner's entire family to prison camps for three generations where do all sorts of horrible things and spend only 5 years in prison. People have been sent to prison far longer just because they ha…

The sanctions are intended to exacerbate the destitution and starvation in North Korea in order to provoke political upheaval. They are also just the current strategy, and have been ineffective from a humanitarian perspective. I wouldn’t undermine them personally, but I understand how a rational person could come to believe it was even a moral obligation to do so.

If he were smuggling in food, sure, but I struggle to see how helping the North Korean government use crypto is going to lead to the people eating better.

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

#373

Post by s1artibartfast »

tptacek wrote: post #236
vkou wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The invasion is one of the things that caused the CMC. Leaving that (as well as the CIA campaign of sabotage and terrorism against Cuba) out of the context is incredibly misleading. If the US simply sat around on its hands and sanctioned Cuba, and left things at that, nobody would be discussing this. It went way, way, way beyond sanctions.

What point are you trying to make? The invasion of Cuba was idiotic, I agree. It has nothing to do with our foreign policy afterwards, which is not subject to rules about fairness.

>which is not subject to rules about fairness.

I think this is the point everyone agrees on. You are right that "deserve's got nothing to with it"

IT is just obnoxious when most of rhetoric and discussion is about fairness, equality, and high minded ideals when directed outside the US.

Might makes right. Given that, coherent discussion on how and when to use that power is best served by dropping the rhetoric.

Once you accept the US can embargo Cuba to keep it impoverished for personal gain, Then, you can ask if the US should continue doing so.

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

#374

Post by Delitio »

dmitrygr wrote: post #358
babypuncher wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sabotaging your own military's weapons still sounds an awful lot like treason

Sanctions have never ever in human history worked, so more like sabotaging one's placebos...

Do you have any sources for this?

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

#375

Post by tradertef »

timmytokyo wrote: post #309
tradertef wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US has terrible human rights track record as well (Guantanamo, Abu Gharib), .. so as other countries.

I don't understand this response. Are you arguing that it's therefore justifiable to do what Griffith did? If not, please try to justify it without resorting to whataboutism.

No, it is not justifying what he did. According to US law, he is clearly at fault. However, pointing out NK atrocities to have him morally wrong is not appropriate. With that logic, we should be also approving Iran or NK punishment of their citizens when they work with US.

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

#376

Post by ipaddr »

tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote: post #348
ipaddr wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The santions are resposible for starving women/children. Should he be in prison for helping children eat?

That's like saying the judge is responsible when a man is experiencing a bad time in jail, instead of the man being responsible because he commited the crime which put him there.

A judge is responsible for decisions around sentencing and prision conditions. The choices they make have a big impact on whether prison will be successful in reforming a person. Sending 16 year olds to adult prison or decisions around solitary or conditions (no visitors) or type of prison can have a huge impact.

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

#377

Post by cf0ed2aa-bdf5 »

dmitrygr wrote: post #358
babypuncher wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sabotaging your own military's weapons still sounds an awful lot like treason

Sanctions have never ever in human history worked, so more like sabotaging one's placebos...

The sanctions imposed on South Africa in the 1980s absolutely crippled the country and are widely seen as a successful contribution in the efforts of bringing down Apartheid.

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

#378

Post by jacquesm »

babypuncher wrote: post #343
s1artibartfast wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting implications for the case of Cuba. If so, their primary crime is being a country in close proximity to the USA. So much for arguments of respecting national autonomy.

I do not think it is relevant today, but during the Cold War their crime was being all buddy-buddy with the USSR and offering to host some of their nuclear ICBMs. The USSR is long dead though, and nobody is asking Cuba to hold on to WMDs for safe keeping, so the continued sanctions make no real sense in 2022.

> The USSR is long dead though

Someone is attempting a revival just now.

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

#379

Post by [deleted] »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #302
formerly_proven wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since whataboutism is so hugely popular in threads involving Russia, let's talk about the nuclear SRBM dispenser formerly known as Kaliningrad Oblast located between Poland and Lithuania (that's in Central Europe). Kinda makes those American gravity nukes stationed in West Germany look old-fashioned.

The whataboutism is strong because the hypocrisy and double think is so pervasive. Many people believe in moral exceptionalism when it comes to USA foreign policy when the vast majority of the time it boils down to the same self-interested realpolitik as other countries.

[deleted]

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

#380

Post by postsantum »

freemint wrote: post #344
dahdum wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sanctions are intended to exacerbate the destitution and starvation in North Korea in order to provoke political upheaval. They are also just the current strategy, and have been ineffective from a humanitarian perspective. I wouldn’t undermine them personally, but I understand how a rational person could come to believe it was even a moral obligation to do so.

The sanctions are to slow the nuclear weapon program and that an ally (south korea) has to spend less on defense.

Two questions:

1) Why SK spending less on defense is a good thing for US?

2) Now that Russia is under even more sanctions, why not share some rocket tech with Kim and accelerate their program?

Post reply on HN