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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

#521

Post by mercutio2 »

Epiphany21 wrote: post #515
mtoner23 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Victimless? North korea is not a victimless country. There's a reason why they are sactioned. He clearly broke a big and important law and knew he was doing it. idk what else one would expect

North Korea isn't sanctioned because of human rights violations. The US doesn't even care for its own citizenry sufficiently. Why would American politicians care about the plight of hungry people half the world over? North Korea is sanctioned because they won't let Amazon, McDonald's, Netflix, BlackRock, Google, and a myriad of other highly destructive and financially motivated corporate entities run amok in their co…

So your saying being actively at war with close ally South Korea, with enormous amounts of artillery aimed at Seoul, and killing people who commit Lese Majeste, are not credible reasons for being a target of US ire?

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

#522

Post by tobiasSoftware »

drc500free wrote: post #268
starwind wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if he did the exact same presentation in youtube, and in NK they saw that presentation? If it was general information about how Blockchain can be used to evade sanctions, it would probably be fine as long as he was reporting how it could be done and not encouraging it. > What if someone in NK downloaded the open source implementation of that blockchain, participated on it, or even mined quite a few coins? Almo…

> In law, intentions matter. This is almost always the sticking point when people from tech misunderstand law. The fact that computers do not understand intent is fundamental to learning code. I think that leads to a lot of tech folks not groking that one of the primary functions of the legal system is to systematically determine intent.

There's an excellent article that I've read multiple times about this exact idea called "What Colour are your bits". It's written in response to a company that tried to get around the legal system by pretending that intentions don't matter.

https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

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

#523

Post by mulmen »

bell-cot wrote: post #206
danielvf wrote: post #71

According to the original complaint, a few months after being interviewed by an FBI agent on returning from his trip to North Korea, Griffith had the following conversation over text messages: Griffith: I need to send 1 [REDACTED UNIT OF CRYPTOCURRENCY] between North and South Korea. Other Guy: "Isn't that in violations of sanctions?" Griffith: It is. A few day later, also in text messages to someone else: Someone: W…

How far down the "flew 8,000 miles to get there, climbed over the barbed wire fence, licked both his thumbs, and pressed them against the shiny parts labeled 'DANGER! 25,000 VOLTS!'..." rabbit-hole-of-stupid should one have to go, before it's 100% okay for me to stop caring whether or not his sentence was just?

The bottom. We should all care about justice.

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

#524

Post by s1artibartfast »

Lanolderen wrote: post #274
s1artibartfast wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure, Im not saying that they do make it right. I am pointing out the conspicuous hypocrisy that people don't feel that they have blood on their hands for paying US taxes, but aiding NK in any way is a mortal sin.

I find this comparison extremely weird. North korean prisons are described as hellholes whereas US prisons actually seem decent to me (eastern european) if we exclude that you likely won't have the best of company. Plus that only a small amount of taxes go towards the prison system.

Should we compare the %of taxes that go to gulags and military in NK to that in the US? I honestly wonder if they would be favorable

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

#525

Post by thwayunion »

ambrozk wrote: post #327
polski-g wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sanctions are war.

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.

It really depends on the particularities of the sanctions, the target of the sanctions, the degree of willingness of other states in the sanctioning process, and how the sanctions are enforced. A blockade that leads to starvation and enforced by the threat of overwhelming force against blockade runners is -- and always has been -- an act of war.

None of that nuance is necessary in this case. To be clear, kids: helping a despotic regime with ICBM ambitions evade currency controls so its ruling class can enjoy luxury and fund WMD weapons programs while its citizens literally starve is A Bad Thing.

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

#526

Post by [deleted] »

afarrell wrote: post #329
javajosh wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sucks but the world seems to punish people who are honest (like this guy) and help people who lie (like everyone who did what this guy did and lied about it). In the same vein, police get away with brutal abuse because they know what lies to tell to justify it ("I felt afraid for my life", etc). But the police would not get away with it if they told the truth, ("They showed me disrespect and I knew I wasn't going…

It similarly sucks that our justice system punishes the clumsy criminals and lets the really skillfully sneaky ones go unpunished. Nobody has yet faced charges for robbing the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

[deleted]

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

#527

Post by Firmwarrior »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #452
s1artibartfast wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA has a similar incarceration rate to North Korea, albeit with better conditions.

Better conditions and due process. Whataboutitists love to conveniently the latter.

Man oh man. You're right for a lot of cases, but in the USA if you're uneducated, poor, and in the wrong place at the wrong time, you can get railroaded by some crooked cops and a plea deal with a crooked DA, and it's going to be small comfort that things aren't usually as bad as in North Korea

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

#528

Post by SllX »

adfhdfhdryheryh wrote: post #334
bell-cot wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How far down the "flew 8,000 miles to get there, climbed over the barbed wire fence, licked both his thumbs, and pressed them against the shiny parts labeled 'DANGER! 25,000 VOLTS!'..." rabbit-hole-of-stupid should one have to go, before it's 100% okay for me to stop caring whether or not his sentence was just?

This might qualify as high treason, as defined in the Constitution rather as used as an insult. The U.S. and North Korea are still technically at war, and this act was definitely aiding the North Korean government.

I’m not sure we really are. The perpetual warfare in the absence of a treaty doesn’t really seem to hold water in a world where South Korea has opened factories in North Korea or the PRC and ROC openly trade.

That said, even if it does qualify, that doesn’t seem to be the charge pursued by the Prosecutors so moot.

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

#529

Post by SllX »

sneak wrote: post #484
homonculus1 wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say it like he was teaching the gospel of Christ. Teaching a hostile foreign power how to evade sanctions is a crime for a reason, and if he wants to be a martyr against that principle then let him be one.

Free peaceful expression should never be a crime, as there is no victim and no one is harmed. Teaching itself is never inherently harmful. Sanctions are authoritarian nonsense.

By your logic, Osama bin Laden and/or rather the instructors under him were only engaging in free peaceful expression when they were training men how to be engage in war and acts of terrorism against the United States and the West.

There has to be a limiting principle, and we have one in the law: giving comfort and aid to enemies of the United States and exporting controlled technology to sanctioned countries are prosecutable offenses. Sounds scary, but even those laws are limited.

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

#530

Post by alephnan »

nyolfen wrote: post #427
some_random wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, a victimless crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_North_Kor... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_North_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwalliso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mas...

interesting. let's see the CCP's human rights record

interesting. let's see the United States' human rights record
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