US cryptocurrency expert jailed for helping North Korea evade sanctions | Hacker News Reader

US cryptocurrency expert jailed for helping North Korea evade sanctions

bbc.com

58 pointsbelter22 comments

To ask permission from the State Department to go to North Korea and then to go anyway is pretty foolish. Agree or disagree with US policy towards NK, he shouldn’t be entirely surprised that there were consequences, given that he asked in advance whether he could go and they said no.

He is the creator of WikiScanner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiScanner https://www.reuters.com/article/us-security-wikipedia-idUSN1...

He also created Tor2web with Aaron Swartz and used to work for the tor team.

Seems like an interesting guy. It's a shame that this happened.

The situation is kinda similar to the one with Bobby Fischer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer

"In 1992, he reemerged to win an unofficial rematch against Spassky. It was held in Yugoslavia, which was under a United Nations embargo at the time. His participation led to a conflict with the US government, which warned Fischer that his participation in the match would violate an executive order imposing US sanctions on Yugoslavia. The US government ultimately issued a warrant for his arrest. After that, Fischer lived as an émigré. In 2004, he was arrested in Japan and held for several months for using a passport that the US government had revoked. Eventually, he was granted an Icelandic passport and citizenship by a special act of the Icelandic Althing, allowing him to live there until his death in 2008."

Sanctions wouldn’t be sanctions if you didn’t get in trouble for breaking them.

I find it bizarre that you can live in one country, travel to a second country, do something that is perfectly legal in both countries, then be arrested months later in a third country.

Is this possible because he is a US citizen, or is anyone who travels to US after having visited North Korea at risk of being incarcerated?

> I find it bizarre that you can live in one country, travel to a second country, do something that is perfectly legal in both countries, then be arrested months later in a third country.

It's only bizarre when using your framing. It's kind of like saying "I find it bizarre that certain arrangements of electrons is illegal", while referring to CSAM. Suppose it's legal to hack Americans from russia (officially it isn't but practically it is). You hack some americans while in russia. Do you think the DoJ isn't going to have their sights on you because what you did in while in russia was legal in russia?

> It's kind of like saying "I find it bizarre that certain arrangements of electrons is illegal"

I find that bizarre, as well. I don't mean to imply the laws are unjustified in either case. Just really weird when looking at it from a certain perspective.

Certainly, it is possible to see many situations where jurisdictional boundaries become very muddy when trying to enforce sanctions.

> Is this possible because he is a US citizen, or is anyone who travels to US after having visited North Korea at risk of being incarcerated?

Nope. It's even worse than that. A chinese executive was kidnapped by canada on US orders for trading with iran not too long ago.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/huawei-executive-arr...

Imagine if vietnam kidnapped tim cook for trading with taiwan because china didn't like that. That's how silly things are.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31011527

What has he done? Explained of how to buy some cryptocurrencies? Wasn't it more wisely to get jailed Satoshi Nakamoto for letting some sanctions to be evaded?

> What has he done?

He directly helped North Korea (considered to be a rogue state by the US, also a nuclear power) evade sanctions.

Did he present anything non-public or develop some kind of cryptocurrency client or novel way to launder/hide money that wasn't already public/known at the time?

Why would that matter?

Because how can they prove how much he helped them and that NK didn't just find the majority of that stuff on their own without his help?

He pleaded guilty.

For a US citizen, it is illegal to attempt to help NK avoid sanctions which is why the article says "conspired to help". Going and making a presentation on why moving gold bars is the way to go would be just as illegal.

It is almost a thoughtcrime!

The governments can not find a real bad boy who has running Bitcoin, so a boy for beating like a cryptocurrency expert is enough welcome. It must be so disgusting to live in an empire who has to be kind of cocky like making some sanctions on export.

How it is a thoughtcrime if he literally traveled to North Korea to help them?

It's not required that this help is useful. Plenty of spies transferred information that was already known by the recipient country, fake information, or even information that was deliberately passed to them by counterintelligence - it's still espionage.

You're focused entirely too much on the crypto aspect of this. He conspired to aid a country in invading sanctions of the United States. He asked the US State Department for permission before going, meaning he knew there could be potential legal consequences ahead of time. The State Department denied his request. He went anyway, provided information that the United States could prove he knew could be used to evade sanctions, and then returned to the United States after committing the crime.

The crime has very little to do with the actual content of the presentation or the information he provided, or crypto whatsoever.

I too think he handled this in the worst possible way, but here is a good counterpoint about the 1st Amendment implications of the charges. https://www.justsecurity.org/67711/recent-north-korea-sancti...

> almost a thoughtcrime

We’re free to discuss how Pyongyang can evade sanctions. In public, right here. We’re not free to travel to North Korea and say “here you go.”

It’s not a subtle difference.

North Korea knows how to create a nuclear bomb, yet if he went and disclosed how to make a nuclear bomb that would be problematic.

>> He directly helped North Korea (considered to be a rogue state by the US, also a nuclear power) evade sanctions.

> Did he present anything non-public or develop some kind of cryptocurrency client or novel way to launder/hide money that wasn't already public/known at the time?

None of those things are required to help.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com