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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

#141

Post by cestith »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #81
s_dev wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But this should be a cautionary warning of what might also happen to anyone if you associate with things that are perceived as criminal in nature. This would come off lot more legit if the current elected US president wasn't a convicted rapist and constantly promoting crypto along with his acolytes like Elon Musk.

> current elected US president wasn't a convicted rapist Wow did this just happen today? I can't find anything about it online /s

Found civilly liable, not criminally convicted.

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

#142

Post by pjc50 »

unethical_ban wrote: post #18

3 years of pretrial detention for anything less than blowing up a building should be enough to enrage anyone. Even then, the legal system would be a failure. How is 3 years pretrial not blatantly unconstitutional and thrown out immediately?

https://www.crimlawpractitioner.org/post/some-things-cannot-...

New Yorkers spend an average of 10 months in pretrial detention. This kind of abuse is routine in the American system, and by and large Americans want it that way for their usual reasons about "crime".

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

#143

Post by pjc50 »

mrtksn wrote: post #73

Interesting, Trump administration pardoned Ross William Ulbricht who run drug dealing business specifically because it was done behind Tor using cryptocurrency. So this was a one off? This sounds awful lot like Middle Eastern mafia stuff, where it's technically illegal to do some things but you can do a lot of things if you are aligned with the people in power. I have no idea what this person was up to but this selec…

> This sounds awful lot like Middle Eastern mafia stuff, where it's technically illegal to do some things but you can do a lot of things if you are aligned with the people in power.

This didn't work out for SBF, but you can clearly see this process being set up for other people.

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

#145

Post by nerdponx »

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…

The funny thing about rights is that you have them even if you've done other bad things. The thinking on display here ("the guy was a criminal anyway") is the primary slippery slope to tyranny that we have seen in the past 100 years.

Seems like he was legally eligible to be arrested for a variety of reasons. The FBI is still not allowed to use fraudulent warrants to that end. The rule of law is no such thing unless it applies to everyone equally.

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

#146

Post by perihelions »

jMyles wrote: post #110
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…

This always happens though. Every time someone is thrown in a cage unjustly, the state tries to redirect us (yes, us, here in this forum and others like it) to look at other details of the situation, whether it's details of the person's political or personality or, in this case, details of this (also seemingly unjust) probation violation. Who cares if he smoked weed or installed a VM or evaded a government keylogger?…

I'll steelman the unpopular position: I think sobriety is a reasonable condition of freedom for someone with psychiatric self-control issues, that have lead them to commit felonies in the past.

Vandalizing your employer's infrastructure over a grudge is, I suggest, strong evidence of a major impulse control issue. It think it makes sense and is in the public interest, draconian as it is, that this person shouldn't be allowed to get high and have unmonitored internet access. The same place they've committed felonies before, on impulse.

Further context: his own defense lawyer filed a motion asking a court to find this guy mentally incompetent to stand trial,

https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCOURTS-txed-4_19-cr-00...

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

#147

Post by nerdponx »

petcat wrote: post #119
tptacek wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If all of that is true, then that is a very serious CFAA charge. It makes sense that they would want to downplay it as "minor" and "not relevant". It sounds like the parole violations came later? In any case, thank you for researching. There is always more to the story.

And yet fraudulent warrants, if they are indeed fraudulent, are still illegal and immoral and a violation of this criminal's rights.

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

#148

Post by cestith »

bgwalter wrote: post #108

So they got him on a minor CFFA charge. Was anyone from Anthropic jailed for torrenting millions of books?

I agree on the massive automated copyright infringement. This case isn’t as minor as the guy’s wife would have us believe.

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

#149

Post by ranger_danger »

jrecyclebin wrote: post #109
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…

Idk the punishment just doesn't match the crime. Can't they just confiscate the computer? Or pressure the ISP to cancel his account? Tbh I get that the Feds are going route around and through anything that stands in their way. Instead we're left up to state thuggery.

Conveniently left out from the wife's story is the husband's corporate sabotage, FBI monitoring circumvention, CSAM searches and many parole violations.

3 years sounds about right to me.

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

#150

Post by AlgebraFox »

To those who say TOR, VPN, Signal, GrapheneOS or is dead, we should use more of them not less. Today privacy became crime because the tech crowd (including many in HN community) ignored slow eradication of our fundamental freedom by evil companies like Apple (Yes, Apple. Don't forget they worked with NSA.) and Google. If crowd like HN is seduced by new AI enhanced, costly and locked phones, then how can a regular citizen understand freedom or privacy?

Freedom is being taken away by govt, because we are making choices that surrender it.

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