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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

#201

Post by tptacek »

zoeysmithe wrote: post #176
tptacek wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. He wasn't convicted of a cannabis offense. He was convicted of a fairly grave computer fraud/abuse claim, and part of the contract of his early release from federal custody was a set of terms that included monitoring and sobriety. He allegedly violated those terms, and you stipulate those violations here. Like any parolee, he's being put back into custody.

Why is that added, there's an agenda there. Why does "sobriety" matter in a computer crime? This is oppression and this (plus the other conditions) simple set up people like this for a fall.

Sobriety is a boilerplate parole term. Everybody gets it. If you don't want to comply, you don't accept parole, and you serve your sentence.

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

#202

Post by tptacek »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #158
mothballed wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weev 'violated' the CFAA for incrementing a GET request, with his overturned conviction only for wrong jurisdiction. So the government has put us in a position where it's hard to take the CFAA seriously. We also know from prosecutions in other statutes that the government will often prosecute a a broad crime with many separate sub-definitions of the various way you can break it, then refuse to tell you under which su…

The CFAA isn't super complicated. It basically boils down to: Don't fuck with other people's shit if they don't want you to.

The CFAA is in fact pretty complicated. The text of the law isn't, but the implications of that text are, and so is the jurisprudence. Rockenhaus's CFAA case does not appear to have been at all complicated, though.

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

#203

Post by whimsicalism »

crazypyro wrote: post #98
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…

He was also placed under electronic monitoring program and immediately went about installing a VM to allegedly circumvent the monitoring software along with searching for a very controversial website relating to pedophilia... He also lied about using his computer, his wife told on him to his parole officer, according to the court documents. He was on parole for DDOSing* a former employer... *Ah, I see your update, gu…

“very controversial website related to pedophilia” -> you are referring to NAMBLA? if so, i think that is not uncommon search for people interested in history/wikipedia deep dives, i don’t think you would search this if you were actually a pedophile as it is a historical thing.

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

#204

Post by tptacek »

nerdponx wrote: post #145
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 i…

Help me understand where you're seeing the "fraud" here? The warrant I'm reading is off PACER. It was very definitely approved by a judge.

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

#205

Post by nobody9999 »

therealpygon wrote: post #72
potato3732842 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part that should really enrage you is the way people will selectively understand this based on whether they agree or disagree with the context. If some electronics repair guy repairing vehicle ECUs in bulk who doesn't ask questions but has an inkling that they're gonna get used for emissions laws violations got rolled up on by the feds for refusing to go out of his way to help them out HN would find all sorts of…

Pretty sure the questions start and end with “was it illegal”.

>Pretty sure the questions start and end with “was it illegal”.

Disclaimer: I don't have any skin in this game or association with any government, any law enforcement agency, nor do I know the person discussed or (at least as far as I know) anyone who knows that person. And IANAL.

IIUC (and I may not), the guy was on probation[0], which is release from or in lieu of prison.

If someone is on probation, they are still under the authority of the (in this case Federal) judicial/prison authority which sentenced them.

It is (whether you think it's right or not) normal for restrictions to be placed upon those on probation, including random drug tests, restrictions on certain types of behavior (this is often related to the crime(s) for which they've been convicted).

Often, this also provides for warrantless searches and other privacy-invading stuff as part of the probation agreement. I'd note that (again, IIUC) that the convicted person must agree to the terms of probation or they will have to go to (or not be released from) prison to serve their (remaining) sentence.

Violation of the terms of probation (as is clearly defined in probation agreements) may result in imprisonment to complete the sentence imposed by the court after trial or (as it was in this case) a plea bargain.

I am unfamiliar with the case at hand, but sending someone to (or back to) prison for violating probation is the stick which (presumably) keeps people from re-offending and/or violating the terms of their probation, at least until they complete the term of probation.

[0] https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/probation-and-...

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

#206

Post by cure_42 »

yellowapple wrote: post #168
iLoveOncall wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot to mention that in the hearing linked on the Reddit post it is shown that he made a search about a pedophile association as well right before downloading Spice. Page 28, lines 3 to 8 on https://rockenhaus.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/U.S.-v.-Ro...

Okay, and? That ain't illegal, and in fact has many benign explanations (like “I just watched South Park and was curious about whether there really is a North American Man/Boy Love Association like in that one episode”).

Or "I just saw it in a reddit comment, have never heard of it, and want to know what it is before I dismiss this person as a pedo"

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

#207

Post by arevno »

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…

The pardon was specifically a campaign promise to libertarians, and likely little more than that.

Even if this Administration is friendly to Tor (which I doubt), the FBI is a very large organization and installing a new head doesn't magically make current caseload at the agent level go away. There are still Biden-era and even Trump v1 era investigations likely still open and active there.

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

#208

Post by Molitor5901 »

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…

So the post is really click bait and does not tell the whole story?

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

#209

Post by OutOfHere »

Running a Tor exit node in the US is very risky for obvious reasons, and if doing so, it's just a matter of time before the operator gets to see the unfriendly side of the feds. Heck, even running a torrent node serving copyrighted movies/shows/music is too risky in the US. If you want to do these things while having a sane life, at least host them abroad, and anonymously.
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