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Man jailed for parole violations after refusing to decrypt his Tor node

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Re: Man jailed for parole violations after refusing to decrypt his Tor node

#131

Post by scoopertrooper »

tptacek wrote: post #89

For 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 coope…

Yeah, I read that transcript supplied in the Reddit thread and I was thinking to myself “why would you include this as evidence to support your case”?

The wife makes a big deal about how one of the agents testified that Spice was an operating system, then she went on to falsely claim that it was merely a “graphic driver”. However, later in the in the transcript another agent corrected the error of the first agent and explained to the court that Spice was a means of accessing remote VMs, which could be used to circumvent monitoring software.

This combined with the fact that there was no internet activity subsequent to the software being downloaded is pretty damning evidence.

Re: Man jailed for parole violations after refusing to decrypt his Tor node

#132

Post by tehwebguy »

tptacek wrote: post #105
tptacek wrote: post #89

For 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 coope…

OK, I think I found the original thing Rockenhaus was convicted of. Back in 2014, Rockenhaus worked for a travel booking company. He was fired. He used stale VPN access to connect back to the company's infrastructure, and then detached a SCSI LUN from the server cluster, crashing it. The company, not knowing he was involved, retained him to help diagnose and fix the problem. During the investigation, the company figu…

Oof. Any links to this one?

Re: Man jailed for parole violations after refusing to decrypt his Tor node

#133

Post by jansper39 »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #113
rich_sasha wrote: post #92

I 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…

In 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 i…

I just saw that president Trump is thinking about prescribing 'Antifa' as a terrorist organisation and saying that he's 'not sure' their 1st amendment rights should apply.

I'd be a little more concerned about the state of US at this point.

Re: Man jailed for parole violations after refusing to decrypt his Tor node

#136

Post by pjc50 »

antonymoose wrote: post #54
dvrj101 wrote: post #10

they are trying to set precedent. This can kill TOR or other privacy related services in USA easily in current environment.

Several 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…

If 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.

Re: Man jailed for parole violations after refusing to decrypt his Tor node

#137

Post by Aurornis »

tptacek wrote: post #105
tptacek wrote: post #89

For 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 coope…

OK, I think I found the original thing Rockenhaus was convicted of. Back in 2014, Rockenhaus worked for a travel booking company. He was fired. He used stale VPN access to connect back to the company's infrastructure, and then detached a SCSI LUN from the server cluster, crashing it. The company, not knowing he was involved, retained him to help diagnose and fix the problem. During the investigation, the company figu…

Thanks. The overly aggressive arrest was not warranted, obviously.

However, I suspected there was a lot more to this story when the original post buried the actual reason for the arrest several paragraphs down and tried to dismiss it as “minor”. Intentionally damaging a company’s infrastructure with an intent to disrupt their operations is a very serious charge. Not a “minor” disagreement with a former employer.

Re: Man jailed for parole violations after refusing to decrypt his Tor node

#138

Post by firesteelrain »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #116
ksynwa wrote: post #7

In my land of the free? No way.

The guy did bad things and got caught. The ridiculous wife's perspective doesn't include that he e.g. DDOS'd an employer.

Your comment and the highest voted one so far are sobering perspectives. I had a feeling there was more to the story

Re: Man jailed for parole violations after refusing to decrypt his Tor node

#139

Post by kstrauser »

tptacek wrote: post #105
tptacek wrote: post #89

For 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 coope…

OK, I think I found the original thing Rockenhaus was convicted of. Back in 2014, Rockenhaus worked for a travel booking company. He was fired. He used stale VPN access to connect back to the company's infrastructure, and then detached a SCSI LUN from the server cluster, crashing it. The company, not knowing he was involved, retained him to help diagnose and fix the problem. During the investigation, the company figu…

Good grief. This is also part of the reason why I have a pact with my coworkers: if I’m terminated, kill my access immediately and universally, and I’ll do the same for them. I don’t even want to have the ability to look at stuff anymore. Remove any shred of possibility that I could get into shenanigans later.

Re: Man jailed for parole violations after refusing to decrypt his Tor node

#140

Post by cestith »

Bjartr wrote: post #44
alberth wrote: post #25

[flagged]

Guilt by association is much more a social construct, than a legal one. The bar for legal consequences is expected to be much higher than mere association. It has never been perfect, nor uniformly applied in all circumstances, but it is and should remain a nominal goal of the justice system. For that to no longer be considered the case, even in a casual conversation like this, is a devastating shift of the Overton wi…

Limits on association and limits on technology use are standard fare when on probation for a felony CFAA conviction.
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