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Comment by confeit | Hacker News Reader

- What was the title of your talk?

- "Blockchain and Peace", I've given it before.

- Does any of the talk mention (looks down at paper) "smart contracts".

- Probably yes. There is a slide on trusted lending circles in India.

- Can you explain to me, when someone sets up one of these (looks down at paper) "smart contracts", can they benefit from this?

- Well, yes. Or they can lose. You see --

- Thanks.

> GRIFFITHS presentation was called "Blockchain and Peace", and he discussed, among other things how a blockchain technology, including a "smart contract" could be used to benefit the DPKR.

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I don't know what you're trying to say here, but according to the complaint, Griffith asked the State Department if he could present at this conference without breaking the law, and they told him he could not. He then went and presented anyways. He probably could have presented nothing but slides of cute baby otters and still been charged.

It is a truly weird set of circumstances. If he could plausibly have claimed not to know about the sanctions, this would be a harder case for the DOJ, because the statute requires willful violation. But if the complaint is accurate, Griffith did essentially everything he could to wreck his defense. We'll see, though.

He probably could have presented nothing but slides of cute baby otters and still been charged.

The complaint does spend quite a bit of time trying to establish what took place was an actual 'technology transfer' and his intent to violate sanctions in some way beyond merely traveling and ottering there. And the charge itself is conspiracy, with all of the extra bits they have to show for that attached.

I have zero expertise in this beyond nerdgooglery but the fact this dude's previous adventures seem to have included bananas shit like 'running a web-to-tor gateway and trying to sell the logs to governments' makes me wonder if there isn't more to this that's even dumber and worse for him.

Equally bewildering are the motivations and intent of the North Koreans. Surely if you actually want someone's actionable insights on violating sanctions, you're not going to do it in public at a conference. "American expert declares cryptocurrency use to circumvent imperialist oppression promotes peace" might be all they really needed from him. It's a cliché but 'useful idiot' seems kind of plausible, with quadruple emphasis on 'idiot'.

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