Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 397 posts

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

#371

Post by deanteegarden »

thrownawayfbi wrote: post #68

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…

You have no obligation to provide it, and every reason not to so as to remain anonymous online, but I don’t think that anyone should consider your testimony without supporting evidence (i.e. court documents.) The original post is part and parcel of the disconnect between the reality of our judicial system and the subjective experiences of those who naively interact with it.

I hope you’re doing well.

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

#372

Post by lokar »

bmn__ wrote: post #254
lokar wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law enforcement is the US is trained to use (often rapidly) increasing force to compel compliance. They are trained that this is the only way to keep themselves and partners safe.

Proportionality is law on the book. Throw enough LEO who violate this into prison, the problem solves itself over night.

Any concept of proportion has in it a constant. Here the constant does not favor the public.

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

#373

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

tptacek wrote: post #339
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are not allowed unauthorized access regardless of how the key works. You and I seem to both speak/write English, but there is a language barrier. For me, "authorization" means that they have given me credentials, and any content locked down under those credentials is off-limits. For you, "authorization" is a magical term that has no real meaning. It means that they want me to have the content. But I am no telep…

You're both veering out of CFAA jurisprudence in different ways. But you know you're in trouble when you start saying things like "I am no telepath", because in fact a big part of an ambiguous CFAA case will be determining what a reasonable person (ie: the jury) would think confronted with the computer system under discussion. There will in fact be mind reading involved; your intent would in fact be tried. There's no…

>But you know you're in trouble when you start saying things like "I am no telepath",

I'm not in trouble. There is virtually zero chance of this ever being noticed by law enforcement, and even less chance than that of them giving a shit.

Also note, I am not arguing what the worst possible interpretation might falsely convict someone of, but how the law should be viewed, or, if someone can demonstrate to my satisfaction that the law disagreed with, then how it should be altered.

If I have to guess what retards (read: juries) might think is reasonable, then there can be no public internet. We're just a few years after journalists were arrested for looking at html source with "view source", aren't we?

>The terms you're both dancing around are mens rea

I'm only mildly ignorant. Has CFAA ever been considered to describe strict liability crimes?

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

#374

Post by tptacek »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #373
tptacek wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're both veering out of CFAA jurisprudence in different ways. But you know you're in trouble when you start saying things like "I am no telepath", because in fact a big part of an ambiguous CFAA case will be determining what a reasonable person (ie: the jury) would think confronted with the computer system under discussion. There will in fact be mind reading involved; your intent would in fact be tried. There's no…

>But you know you're in trouble when you start saying things like "I am no telepath", I'm not in trouble. There is virtually zero chance of this ever being noticed by law enforcement, and even less chance than that of them giving a shit. Also note, I am not arguing what the worst possible interpretation might falsely convict someone of, but how the law should be viewed, or, if someone can demonstrate to my satisfacti…

You're in trouble rhetorically, is what I mean, because your argument is completely alien to criminal law.

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

#375

Post by Dylan16807 »

ecb_penguin wrote: post #286
rirze wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, that makes sense but why is this so serious? Is this a grave crime in some context?

Because people think they are clever and are trying to separate the act from the intent. Unlocked doors, open windows, any lack of security doesn't give you permission to enter. Just as "incrementing a GET request" doesn't mean anything outside of the intent. The intent was to do damage.

He did have permission to "enter". He was authorized to use the server.

His intent of releasing the data was bad (assuming he started with that intent!) but he wasn't committing any fraud when collecting it. He didn't bypass any authentication or damage the server. CFAA is the wrong law to use.

If a restaurant puts a bunch of proprietary documents in a dusty corner of the public lobby, you shouldn't browse through them but you're not breaking and entering if you do so. No matter what your intent is.

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

#376

Post by Dylan16807 »

petcat wrote: post #297
account42 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think walking through an unlocked door should result in federal charges?

So now the door is unlocked ?? Where are the goal posts? Don't mess with people's stuff if they don't want you to. This seems very simple to me. But I'm aware that you're trying to find some fringy gray area where you think it will be OK to mess with people's stuff even though they don't want you to.

If we're making an analogy to the Weev case then yes the door was unlocked, with the explicit intent that the general public could come through that door and access some of the documents.

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

#377

Post by Dylan16807 »

JambalayaJimbo wrote: post #291
ethbr1 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a crime! But CFAA charges should, and this is the issue a lot of people have with them afaict, have a sliding scale for premeditation though. If I knock on a door, it swings open, and I walk inside and steal something, then imho there should be a lesser maximum charge for possessing burglary tools than if I show up with a lock gun, crowbar, and concrete saw. A lot of the CFAA excesses are maximum penalties from…

>If I knock on a door, it swings open, and I walk inside and steal something, then imho there should be a lesser maximum charge for possessing burglary tools than if I show up with a lock gun, crowbar, and concrete saw. Why? (I'm not a lawyer...) - shouldn't intent and harm (i.e. the value of the stolen item) be the only relevant details? Now of course its much easier to demonstrate intent if there's a crowbar involv…

If you're saying there should only be theft charges either way, that's fine.

But if there are burglary tool charges, they should depend on whether you used burglary tools to burgle, not how much theft you did.

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

#378

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #277
shagie wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The setup of Tor has some specific dates in the transcript. Page 10 3 Q. So, Ms. Routh, having been acknowledged of his 4 obligations to monitor and pay for the service on 5 August 29th, can you please tell the Court how 6 Mr. Rockenhaus complied or didn't comply with the terms 7 of his release? 8 A. Yes. On September 22nd the defendant did 9 successfully download the monitoring software program 10 on his computer. O…

It would have been extraordinarily dumb for someone on parole electronic monitoring to install Tor, but my understanding of Tor's role in the bigger story is that it's about stuff that was happening many years ago. There's nothing about Tor in the parole violation warrant; just that he had an unauthorized iPhone, and when they did a forensic inspection of it, there were no further violations discovered on that phone.

[deleted]

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

#379

Post by aw1621107 »

DannyBee wrote: post #324
aw1621107 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reference! For the convenience of anyone else reading, the appeals docket is at https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67566242/united-states-... . Note that there are two appeals briefs; it seems the defendant replaced their attorney at some point during the appeals process. For what it's worth, I think this is the government's response to the argument you raise (on page 22 of the response brief, PDF pa…

The appeals court did not seem very impressed. The oral argument is here: https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/OAarchive/mp3/23-4451-20250912.... The first question they asked is "why didn't you ask for a bill of particulars?". Overall, they seemed very confused as to the argument made here - why is the indictment actually insufficient, and what words did you want them to use instead. I don't think this will be a successful…

Thanks for the additional info! That does seem like a bit of a sticky situation for the defense.

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

#380

Post by cancerman »

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 remember when I landed in UK for the first time.

Instead of "welcome, hope you had a great flight/have a nice stay" or something, it was

"SELLING CIGARETTES FROM ABROAD IS A CRIME!"

Post reply on HN