fwiw, it appears one of the named here is a YC Alum:
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=il
https://www.linkedin.com/in/unrealdutch/
I was doing an onsite with Ilya and the folks at MixRank (in 2012) and talking with the team, and I mentioned something about cryptography and some basic codes that I learned as a child in gifted class. They had no idea what I was talking about - not the codes but "gifted class". I was telling them it was pretty common in public school systems - once a week or a few hours a day where you took advanced topics in another classroom with other kids that had tested into the program. They had no idea.
I started asking the founders if they went to public school. They never had. And then they were curious and started asking the other employees. Not a single one had ever set foot in a public school for elementary, middle, or high school. Then one guy in the back piped up - "you know, I think $devname went to Berkeley."
I don't think he will be commenting anytime soon again if this really is him
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=il
like your neighbor being a serial killer or something
Sidenote: one of the reasons i don't touch crypto is possible laundering charge/suspicion if the tokens happens to had passed through unsavory hands/situation (which may be even unknown at the time) or God forbid 2-3 transactions after me the tokens get involved in terrorism/etc. - imagine as a minimum for example the "FBI background check" hell your GC/etc. will be stuck forever ...
A page recently posted here ([1], citing [2]) claimed that there's a market for freshly mined Bitcoin (i.e. with no history), with people paying as much as 20% markup for it to avoid such risks.
I didn't make any attempt to verify this claim.
[1] https://sethforprivacy.com/posts/fungibility-graveyard/
[2] https://news.bitcoin.com/industry-execs-freshly-minted-virgi...
>As the anarchists and idealists on HN will soon learn, the decentralized nature of Bitcoin won't make a difference if anyone transmitting it is in violation of federal law.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5714963
Did he change his mind?
Granted, their billions aren't in cash. However, once he fled the country he could immediately start converting his position to other assets that aren't so easily stolen. He'd also be able to afford to hide himself, pay taxes and bribes, and pay for some security.
When someone steals your bike, the cops could spend weeks investigating, interviewing witnesses, searching Craiglist, Facebook Marketplace, staking out the neighborhood for anyone riding the stolen bike, etc.
But they don't, because it's a bike. But steal $3.6 billion, you'll hold their attention for a bit!
They could have just bought a Vanuatu passport with bitcoin (~$150k), then travelled there for a holiday. Leave the US with the US passport and arrive in Van with the Van passport. CHange their name in Vanuatu, then move to a 3rd country to settle permanently with a new name. Maybe change it one more time and gain citizenship in that third country, and that'd be enough to disappear for regular people.
The spooks will still find you, but without extradition powers...
It s what they seem not to explain in movies: we protect our brothers in citizenship against exaggerated foreign conviction, but not foreigners.
https://idlewords.com/2010/05/an_annotated_letter_from_roman...
A link in there has expired. Archived here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100130223615/http://www.thesmo...
I dont care myself, just telling you why we ll never give him as a country. We simply feel different emotions (here doubt in France vs horror in the US). No need to ad hominem me in isolation as if I supported rape. I just know the media portray him as a victim of a 120 years-sentence justice system.
If he raped someone yday, like our ex-future-president DSK did in NYC, by all means, keep him, and we d give him back if he fled. But that also turned out a puritain whitch hunt in the end so it's hard to trust americans with our citizens.
Brokep moved to Cambodia for that reason. They still got him anyway. If the powers want you, they can find away to get you. The only options I can imagine are publicly embarrassing the US government to the delight of Vladimir Putin or making a very large donation to the Cuban government.
I wonder what the penalty is for accepting money to uproot your life because you have nothing to hide. Well, _had_ nothing to hide.
Goodbuy to the luxurious live you enjoy in SV. Part of being a financial criminal is to post about "hustle culture" on linkedin and doing LSD with VC buddies or something
"Like it or hate it, there is a sea change happening in how governments treat cryptocurrency. "
Wonder how he feels about that sea change now.
Assuming their guilt: "worst", or "most shameful" are the terms I would use. An embarassment to any community they were in.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/heather-morgan-rapping-tech-ce...
“The only other significant deposit to the account was an approximately $11,000 U.S. Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan advance provided in response to the COVID-19 crisis,” the complaint states.
well they caught him, so not that great, eh
I think you are tad exaggerating here. not the dumbest but not certainly anything close to being competent. leaving keys in a cloud storage and not using OTC crypto exchanges outside US.
It's unbelievable stupid to use mixers on a public ledger because its all traceable and immutable. The really smart "criminals" DO NOT live in the US, especially NEW YORK out of all places, they DO NOT leave stupid social media posts or spend time chasing the vapid social media fame, they DO NOT use mixers because they are all points of surveillance.
I won't detail how one could've gotten away with this loot but there is an obvious hint here, blockchain is simply a means of temporary storage to move dirty money. Tether is largely considered a pipeline for illicit funds from China to move out to the West. They absolutely do not do any of the transactions on the blockchain, it is all done through highly organized criminal networks involving banks, shells, casinos.
As the anarchists and idealists on HN will soon learn, the decentralized nature of Bitcoin won't make a difference if anyone transmitting it is in violation of federal law. --
This was inevitable. People can wax rhapsodic about the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, but once the feds freeze a few million dollars of a major exchange's assets, as they have done with every single anonymous digital currency since the beginning of time (e-gold,1mdc,Liberty Dollar) and launch a criminal investigation, the currency will be severely destabilized. Within the next year I expect to see a cottage industry emerge where the true believers cash out frozen bitcoin accounts for pennies on the dollar.
and a few other:
I don't know to whom this actually refers. I don't remember anything about enabling money laundering in Satoshi's white paper.
Should have just become a limited partner in one of the Silicon Valley PE funds, next to the Oligarchs
“your memes do have out-of-touch-dad-trying-to-be-cool energy tho”
In the US, it's "innocent until proven guilty".
Media is so quick to assume the person is guilty just because of an allegation.
You'd hope that before someone is arrested, the prosecutor has ample evidence to prove guilt.
I don't understand your point.
These individuals have not been proven guilty yet. Why are you editorializing their presumed guilt in this matter.
Note: I have no affiliation with these individuals nor case.
But you don't have to keep going for drinks with a person who's just been arrested and let out on bail, you can make up your own opinion as you feel. You can say bad things about him before the judge does, you can deny them business opportunities, your kids don't have to play with his kids.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Regardless of whether you "were not directly harmed" I don't see why someone should or shouldn't “say bad things about them."
Why shouldn't I express my opinion? Or are we in "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" territory?
I may be misunderstanding your point. If so, please do correct me. If not, I don't see why I (or anyone else) shouldn't express their opinion WRT anything.
What value that opinion may have can certainly be debated, but why should someone not express their opinion?
Yup, I don’t understand how people is not used yet to public trials at social networks
You can obviously do that, but it makes little sense to do so when the system has been built around not taking what the prosecution says at face value or as a source of truth. The job of the prosecution is not to show the facts, it's to prosecute. Yes you don't have to go by the standards of the judicial system & presume innocence here, but why then use the prosecution's case when it only makes sense in the context of how our judicial system works?
I haven't mentioned either the prosecution or the defense.
The defense makes noises too, and you are welcome to make your own mix of whatever you like.
But to repeat the point, you are under no obligation, it is the official system that is.
If someone is on video shooting someone, it is a bit silly to say "Why are you editorializing their presumed guilt in this matter."
He's not someone I'd hire for anything, he's not someone I'd want my friends and family around. He's not someone I'd want attending any protest I was attending. He's not a good person, and he's a clear and present danger to society. These are the decisions that I, as an individual, am free to make because I'm not the government, and I don't have to abide by "innocent until proven guilty" for how I personally judge people.
This is the part that was unproven and goes against sworn testimony in the court. Supposedly, the gun was stored at his friend's house in Kenosha. There was no evidence he took the gun across state lines.
So, you're proving the above poster's point because you're assuming he took the gun across state lines even though there was no evidence shown to show that was the case.
> 2OEH8eoCRo0:
> My experience was that people did not look at the evidence- they jumped to a conclusion.
You didn't look at the evidence, you jumped to a conclusion which is not based in fact, and broadcasted that you did this in your message. Thus proving 2OHEH8eoCRo0's point: people assume things about the case without looking at the facts.
> I didn't say I think he's guilty of transporting a weapon
You 100% did claim this when you said "the fact is that he took a gun across state lines".
I've been indicted twice and both times the grand jury transcripts were just lies.
In fact, I got someone released after 16 months in jail on a burglary charge because their grand jury was lies. The story the cop told was a complete fabrication.
Unless you already knew the people involved or we have some third party sources, we are basically just believing the side that only has 1 goal; showing how guilty the people they prosecute are. How could that mean anything else but assuming guilt?
(And honestly I think that personal feelings towards a person are very often good enough to make a personal judgment on guilt, but we don't even have that here! I'd bet most of us never heard of them before today)
What is wrong is for media organizations (which can be as small as independent reporters) to break expected traditions w/o acknowledging it. It suggests that this case is different (and again, it might be different) implicitly, which isn't ethical. You should either work within the prevailing assumptions of the system, or explicitly defy them in a principled maner.
I don't think this is in practice true, as a matter of fact rather than an ideal. People don't, in general, behave the same with other people who are currently being prosecuted for a crime.
This certainly doesn't mean (most) people support vigilantism or witch hunts, or even that you assume guilt. However it seems clear the vast majority of people are fine with the idea that you might be "careful" with someone who is suspected of a crime, especially one being actively prosecuted. To the degree that many will claim they have a right to know this is happening, i.e. they will argue that news should be carried on this (although perhaps no editorializing). This absolutely is not the same as presumption of innocence.
Sometimes this is very unfair, obviously. But "the social contract" as it is practised seems to be pretty ok with that.
The question is where do you draw the line as an individual.
That's all it means. Obviously judges are not supposed to come into a case assuming you are guilty, but you can say that about any type of case. The phrase certainly doesn't mean we have to pretend that you are perfectly innocent up until the point of verdict.
yes, they're legally presumed innocent but they have a LOT of 'splaining to do.
1. https://www.bhlawfirm.com/blog/2021/05/the-federal-convictio....
This article says 97%: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/prisons-are-packed-bec...
Why are people so eager to confess their guilt instead of challenging the government to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of a unanimous jury?
The answer is simple and stark: They’re being coerced.
I was replying to a claim that a high conviction rate somehow suggests we should dispense with the idea that, as a society, we should not presume guilt.
grumple, who I replied to, seemed to me to be suggesting that because the federal government has a high conviction rate, we should assume the accused are guilty.
I'm suggesting that because there is compelling evidence that many guilty verdicts are obtained through coercion, we should not make that assumption.
You'd be crazy not to take the deal, even if you're innocent. Thus, the conviction rate doesn't actually tell us much about how strong the federal cases actually are.
Another good reason not to take a case to trial is potentially spending years in pre-trial detention, destroying your life -- losing your house, your kids, your job and anything else that requires your presence outside of a detention facility.
Which is why so many cases end up as plea bargains -- get sentenced to "time served" for a lesser offense and then try to pick up the pieces of your shattered life, or fight (assuming you have the money/resources to do so) and potentially never get the chance to pick up those pieces.
So yes, the system is quite coercive.
Let's say for the sake of argument that the DoJ (or state prosecutors) determine (by whatever means) that tptacek has committed criminal acts.
You are arrested, arraigned and bail is either denied or set high enough that you can't afford to pay.
How long could you sit in jail before you lose your job, your house, possibly your spouse and your kids and anything else important to you?
It could be years before a trial. And given that most folks can't afford an unexpected $500 expense, sitting in jail waiting to be tried isn't all that unusual.
Given those circumstances, how long could you sit in jail awaiting trial before your life is a complete shambles? Given the make up of folks here on HN, I'd expect that you may well be able to last longer than most.
High bail and pre-trial detention are absolutely used as cudgels that attempt to force even the innocent to accept plea agreements. Especially when indictments tend to include a lot of overcharging -- another cudgel to force a plea agreement.
Which is why I don't believe that plea agreements should be used at all. But that's a much larger discussion and beyond the scope of this comment.
To boot, mounting a good defence against the state doesn't cheap. Competent defence attorneys charge quite some money.
In this instance however, it's safe to assume the accused can afford a good legal team/firm.
Most people take it, and now they have a record. Any future fuck ups (guilty or not) and you're looking at real jail time.
Of course innocent until proven guilty applies but the justice department knows that and still brought charges. At the very least, they believe they've proven beyond a reasonable doubt his guilt.
High profile cases with public pressure change the equation a bit and can cause charges to be brought on people who normally would not. I suspect this is a way to pass the buck to the courts when the person eventually gets off due to lack of evidence.
It's a bit of a nitpick, but the Justice Department (DoJ) hasn't proven anything.
The defendants in question have been charged (and arrested?), but no trial (or plea bargain) has been held. As such, presumably the DoJ has what they believe is sufficient evidence to convict the defendants on the charges brought against them.
However, until a trial (or a plea agreement) is concluded, the DoJ hasn't "proven" anything. Rather, they brought charges against some folks. That's not "proven beyond a reasonable doubt," that's making accusations and bringing the case into the court system.
What the DoJ believes (and/or believes it can prove) is not proof in and of itself.
A fair point. And it's likely you're correct.
Although using the term 'prove' has specific legal meaning that many (myself included) folks would associate with the use of that term.
As I said, there's what you believe and what you can prove. Believing you can prove something may be well founded, but at least in the US nothing is actually "proven" until it has been adjudicated -- and even then contrary decisions (e.g., in an appeal) can "un-prove" stuff.
Perhaps a better phrasing would be "believe they can prove".
No, if following general DoJ policy, they believe that the evidence is sufficient that they will be able to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt, but that's not the same as them already having proven that.
> High profile cases with public pressure change the equation a bit and can cause charges to be brought on people who normally would not.
Usually, I think the opposite is the case: generally, the DoJ is more careful in high-profile cases, not more cavalier.
I'm not sure Rittenhouse would have been charged at all and, based on how the trial went and how weak the evidence was, he should have, at best, been charged with something much more minor. But that's just one example.
I somewhat agree with you, they are more careful but I think they are more careful in their own process. To make sure their ducks are all in a row. But, when it comes to actually pressing charges or agreeing to plea deals, I think they are much more likely to overcharge or not negotiate so that the case is no longer on their desk and they can say "I did my part".
To use the Rittenhouse example, I think the public expectations of charges impacted the charges because the ones bringing charges are often elected officials (or appointed by them) so there's an incentive to not look at what can be proven with the evidence and instead charge with what the public thinks is "right". The incentive for an elected official is to appease the public with charges, convictions be damned because that's someone else's problem. That's how Rittenhouse's case played out too. Outside of conservative media, there was a lot of attention paid to the judge and the lawyers not being able to prove their case rather than floating the idea that maybe a lesser charge and a conviction was the right thing to do.
On the other hand, I think you saw the same course of events with the George Floyd case but with a different result. The investigation was drawn out and meticulous and charges were brought. That resulted in a conviction but the implication I'm making is that those charges would have been brought regardless of evidence because of the public nature of the case.
In the Rittenhouse case, both prosecution and defence agree that Rittenhouse was a person who had a gun in his arms and fired it, resulting in death. The thing the prosecution needed to prove is that in doing so, he committed a crime. Prior to the trial, it was not necessary to express agnosticism about whether he had a firearm, fired it, or firing it resulted in anyone's death, even if there was some sense in which he was "innocent until proven guilty" of the conduct being criminal.
In this case, there is essentially no room for dispute that stealing $71 million, engaging in a vast money laundering conspiracy is in fact illegal. If these people actually had these accounts and actually used this money in this manner, there is no chance they will not be found guilty. The affidavit is not compatible with a set of the same basic facts leading to a different legal conclusion.
So the question is whether or not you think there's any possibility that the feds cavalierly misidentified the people in possession of these accounts. That seems pretty unlikely, given the affidavit suggests withdrawing small amounts of the stolen money to use Uber under their actual names, buy stuff on PlayStation under their actual names, etc; and that the private keys were taken from a cloud storage account actually belonging to the guy; and that the woman contacted various exchanges and talked about the actual company she actually owns, and the guy actually has a documented record of talking extensively about cryptocurrency including on this site using his actual name.
It is, of course, possible that the entire affidavit is a lie, made up whole cloth and all of this evidence is totally fake and the accused were minding their own business working on their gourmet cupcake business in Kansas City, and they don't understand anything about no crypto-whatsit. But I don't think that's a scenario that really requires much investigation, and it instead is a level of solipsism on par with "we can't actually know if gravity will cause us to fall" or "what if this is a simulation".
What I'm saying is that not all uncertainty is equal, either in kind or in probability, and so it makes more sense to be honest about that than equivocate across very dissimilar cases.
...of a case the US DoJ wasn't involved in prosecuting, because it was prosecuted by a completely separate sovereignty.
Not sure how that's an example of DoJ prosecutorial decision-making.
(And that's even before considering if comparison of actual events in one case to the speakers own stated opinion of how a counterfactual hypothetical would turn out, rather than contrasting real events, is really good evidence of a comparative behavior difference.)
“The arrests today show that we will take a firm stand against those who allegedly try to use virtual currencies for criminal purposes.” - Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. [My emphasis.]
There's no reason for the Justice Dept. not to take a firm stand against those who try to use virtual currencies for criminal purposes, or say that they are doing so - and, in fact, that would be rather better than taking a firm stand against those who have merely been accused of doing so. I guess that 'allegedly' was inserted here in order to forestall a claim that this statement deprived the defendants in this case of due process, if or when it comes to trial.
Actually, the 'allegedly' bit was inserted because the defendants in this case are alleged to have committed some criminal act(s). They have not been proven (whether via a trial or a plea agreement) to have done so.
The defendants may well be "guilty," or they may not. That's what the legal process (as flawed as it may be) is constituted to determine.
Forming an opinion at to whether or not anyone has committed an illegal act(s) is perfectly normal and reasonable. However, unless you're a member of a jury in a trial, your opinion generally won't affect the outcome.
All that said, defendants are "alleged" to have committed criminal act(s) until the case has been adjudicated, whether that be by trial or plea agreement.
N.B.: IANAL.
When a crime has been committed, it was not allegedly done by a person or persons unknown, it was actually done by whoever they were. One of the jobs of the justice department is to catch criminals, not alleged criminals.
https://twitter.com/BillSPACman/status/1491131214014869505
Edit: whoops. That video is fake. It's from
https://www.tiktok.com/@realrazzlekhan/video/690851478968159...
People can disagree even if you're found innocent at trial... just look at OJ's case. The government isn't going to prosecute him again, but "OJ did it" is gonna dog him for the rest of his life.
> Like it or hate it, there is a sea change happening in how governments treat cryptocurrency.
> Cuban told BuzzFeed News his last email exchange with Lichtenstein was in 2012. “I also found an email saying he left MixRank 6 years ago. That’s the extent of what I know about the guy,” Cuban said.
> Y Combinator did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment.
— https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/sarahemerson/crypto-lau...