Live data from Hacker News

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

reddit.com

361–370 of 397 posts

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

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weed for normal people isn't a big deal, but weed for people on the cusp of mental illness or even just mental unwellness can exacerbate whatever issue they are facing. Alcohol on the other hand mostly just knocks you out from doing anything too cerebral after you pass the ballmer peak. I say this as a person who prefers weed to alcohol 100x.

> Alcohol on the other hand mostly just knocks you out from doing anything too cerebral after you pass the ballmer peak. That's pretty minimizing of alcohol's contribution to violent acts (bar fights, escalating disagreements at supermarkets/etc, domestic violence) as well as vehicle collisions.

Those aren't exactly what I would call cerebral activities.

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

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is just one man and he won't last much longer. Also, declaring "Antifa" a terrorist organization might make sense. The U.K. is waaaaaaay further along in this direction. Wrongthink on a social media post? Jail. They arrest 30 people a day for this: https://www.economist.com/britain/2025/05/15/britains-police... ( https://archive.is/vaCkJ )

Declaring "Antifa" a terrorist organization makes as much sense as declaring "MAGA" a terrorist organization

I don't actually know what "Antifa" is, if it is in fact anything specific (rather than, e.g., a banner used by many and disparate groups--maybe that was your concern?).

What I did mean is that declaring certain organizations to be terrorist organizations (HAMAS, Al-Qaeda, etc.) seems to be well within the remit of the executive branch.

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

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, he was also forbidden from opening up lines of credit (he was in the middle of negotiations with DOJ on making restitution to his victims), something that is perfectly legal and benign --- nonetheless, he was not allowed to do so as a condition of parole.

Opening lines of credit is an attempt to avoid paying restitution. You pay it off with the credit, declare bankruptcy, then stick someone else with the bill. Courts traditionally despise any attempt to cheat the punishments they hand down.

Yes. I'm just saying, the terms of someone's parole are not conceptually limited to behavior that is illegal; really, "not committing further crimes" is already implied.

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

#364
post #8

We all commit three felonies a day.

What are the most common felonies committed by average people going about their lives?

It's just a reference to this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6611240-three-felonies-a...

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

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the overall point. (And WTH would you ever have things you need to download in your work email?) But there's not an employer I have ever left that I couldn't have done extensive damage to without any permissions at all. Not that I would ever add a felony charge to even the most bitter firing, but I could.

> And WTH would you ever have things you need to download in your work email? Because you got a university email as a student 20-30 years ago back when .edu emails were "for life". Then you started working at the university as a staff-person under the same email. Then 20-30 years later you're leaving, and much of your digital identity is inextricably linked to that old "personal" email.

There was a time when I could be sympathetic to that, but it's long past.

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

#366
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kiwifarms is a forum for harassing people. Famously Near (the developer behind BSNES/Higan emulator) committed suicide in part due to the abuse he received from that forum. And people on kiwifarms celebrated his death. Only reason I know of it is from the thread at the time on HN.

Near admitted to being severely depressed and disillusioned about life years before the KF thread and harassment started. Near was also involved in several internet dramas long before the KF thread. It didn't help that they participated in these threads and admitted to things like self-gratification to shotacon content, etc. KF is a horrible place, but saying that they bullied this person into suicide is an easy scap…

>KF is a horrible place, but saying that they bullied this person into suicide is an easy scapegoat and a long stretch >You only get a thread on KF by behaving like a lolcow.

The problem with communities like that is that they leave little to no room for redemption and recovery. Once a group of obsessive nutjobs sets their sights on someone mentally vulnerable pretty much the only way is down.

Any chance to improve your life is just going to be met with an increased levels of harassment to get back the entertainment they so desperately crave. I fully believe that a lot of the more famous "lolcows" that committed suicide or spiraled down to really ugly depths weren't actually lost causes until groups like kf got involved. Just people who were a little bit weird or different who if they got off the net and touched grass for better lack of a term and not been discovered by organized gang stalkers could've lived much different lives.

Nobody deserves that level of harassment even if they are a "lolcow"

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

#367
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…

I mean this is how the law enforcement part of the federal government uses its weight, Aaron Swartz's prosecutor-style to bully people. Cannabis is harmless and a lot of people use it as medicine, even if they think of it as recreational. "Oh I need it to relax." Then its an anti-anxiety drug, not a 'party' drug. Limiting this is just cruelty and an easy 'win' for LE. Same with justifying the slaying of Philando Cast…

>Yes, he's a criminal but he doesn't deserve to be treated like this.

Yes he does deserve to be treated like this. He violated his parole terms. That is what happens when you do that.

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

#368

I can attest as a personal experience in the past that this kind of behavior is not uncommon with feds, and has happened even before the current administration. I've had a five years probation in the past for what the FBI argued that I "hacked" some company from changing the URL in specific ways, not to mention the "clear hacking tools" I had installed in my computer, e.g CCleaner. You know something is wrong when yo…

The FBI generally already has enough evidence against you when it comes to raiding and then charging you. You most certainly were not innocent, especially if all you got was probation.

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

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Near admitted to being severely depressed and disillusioned about life years before the KF thread and harassment started. Near was also involved in several internet dramas long before the KF thread. It didn't help that they participated in these threads and admitted to things like self-gratification to shotacon content, etc. KF is a horrible place, but saying that they bullied this person into suicide is an easy scap…

>KF is a horrible place, but saying that they bullied this person into suicide is an easy scapegoat and a long stretch >You only get a thread on KF by behaving like a lolcow. The problem with communities like that is that they leave little to no room for redemption and recovery. Once a group of obsessive nutjobs sets their sights on someone mentally vulnerable pretty much the only way is down. Any chance to improve y…

[dead]

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

#370
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Would the evidence in the Auernheimer case support a CFAA conviction today, after Van Buren (USSC) and HiQ (9th Circuit)

The CFAA claim was never decided in HiQ. The chances of success on that claim did not look good and Microsoft settled

Even in 2014, 3rd Cir. COA seemed doubtful there was a valid CFAA claim

"5 We also note that in order to be guilty of accessing without authorization, or in excess of authorization under New Jersey law, the Government needed to prove that Auernheimer or Spitler circumvented a code- or password-based barrier to access. See State v. Riley, 988 A.2d 1252, 1267 (N.J. Super. Ct. Law Div. 2009). Although we need not resolve whether Auernheimers conduct involved such a breach, no evidence was advanced at trial that the account slurper ever breached any password gate or other code-based barrier. The account slurper simply accessed the publicly facing portion of the login screen and scraped information that AT&T unintentionally published."

https://web.archive.org/web/20140513205343if_/http://cdn.ars...

Post reply on HN