He’s an idiot for this fiasco. But it’s also sad to see him in jail; I don’t see how this benefits society in any way. Five years in prison seems like a disproportionate punishment for an arguably victimless crime. None of us is safer today because Virgil is in prison.
# Prisoners being beat to death
# Prisoners' shackled in restraint chairs being nasally force fed and tortured
# Solitary confinement for 40+ years
In authoritarian systems, those instances are in accordance with their system. And while people there do sometimes raise hell about it, sometimes they're ignored, sometimes they're placated, and sometimes they're disappeared, depending on the whim, temperament, and calculations of whoever is in power, with zero recourse.
The two really aren't comparable.
It doesn't change the fact that the US is very different from NK and not really at all comparable if we are being intellectually honest.
My dyslexia strikes again.
North korean prisons are described as hellholes whereas US prisons actually seem decent to me (eastern european) if we exclude that you likely won't have the best of company.
Plus that only a small amount of taxes go towards the prison system.
based on what? Places like Angola or San Quentin are as brutal as any gulag.
Crypto, Blockchain etc... is apolitical, it can be used for bad and good. Sanctions on N. Korea have starved people there to death.
North Korea is sanctioned because they won't let Amazon, McDonald's, Netflix, BlackRock, Google, and a myriad of other highly destructive and financially motivated corporate entities run amok in their country.
Edit: Downvote it all you want. Nobody will disprove what I've said here.
Saudi Arabia has death penalty by behading people in front of the masses... and they are invading Yemen. Where are the American "sanctions"?
So not only am I saying the US government doesn't care about civilian mistreatment, they actively encourage it by turning a blind eye to corporate greed. North Korea does bad things, but it doesn't matter because nobody talking about is actually willing to help those people. So they're just pawns for you to signal about. No policy is impacted it whatsoever.
I'm glad he's a nice guy based on your interactions, but he knowingly tried to enrich an totalitarian state that has successfully built offensive nuclear weapons and is actively testing ICBMs. That's insanely anti-social behavior which endangers the lives of millions of innocent people in the region. He deserves those 5 years. You can't hide behind the curtain of victimless crypto-evangelism while also admitting in text convos that you're likely helping them evade sanctions.
Cryptocurrencies being easy to move is old news. It would be much more interesting to discover that some cryptocurrency is actually immune to government sanctions.
Monero has shown hints of this. US treasury tried to sanction a wallet and ended up sanctioning a transaction hash.
https://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/sdnlist.txt
> Digital Currency Address - XMR 5be5543ff73456ab9f2d207887e2af87322c651ea1a873c5b25b7ffae456c320;
https://localmonero.co/blocks/search/5be5543ff73456ab9f2d207...
Lots of good and useful steps we could pursue to reduce tensions and make an accidental nuclear war on the Korean peninsula less likely, even with a regime as awful as the one in Pyongyang. But being a superpower means never needing to admit we've lost at something, I guess.
- Having a bomb
- having one that works consistently (NK has conducted tests that likely failed to produce the expected yield)
- having a device miniaturized to go on a missile
- having a missile capable of hitting targets at significant range (reliably)
- solid fuel rocketry (fueling can be a giveaway of an imminent strike on liquid fueled, allowing preemptive action)
- Evading missile defense systems
- MIRV
I'm not even sure it's oversimplified, though. Your list is a good set of things to worry about if you're going to fight a nuclear war. But from a strategic perspective, what matters is whether the capability is enough to deter, and I'd argue that even the lower end of likely North Korean capabilities is plenty, for most scenarios besides an outright North Korean invasion of South Korea. Yeah, the missiles might miss and maybe the bombs won't explode, but are you really willing to gamble with Seoul, Tokyo and Los Angeles?
Anyway --- sure, let's negotiate about missile technology. That'd be great. But those negotiations aren't going to go anywhere unless we recognize that full nuclear disarmament in the near-term is a big ask, and extremely unlikely.
Is the discussion on what is legal or on what is moral to legally enforce? I had read the parent discussion as being the latter.
Also, USA does not have jurisdiction over Germany. Nor should have.
Currently Russian regime is not that much different from NK regime. Both are under sanctions. In fact, Russia is more dangerous than NK in current situation. Germany needs fuel and it is essentially financing Russia. The only difference between NK and Russia is that nobody is dependent on NK for anything.
This guy helped NK and went to jail. Germany giving money to Russia (for fuel), it's all ok.
Did this guy need to help NK for anything remotely like that sort of responsibility?
This is what keeps me wondering. I guess that a guy with a doctorate from Caltech and in the current technological context could be making a lot of money legally.
From outside it looks like he is some kind of crypto idealist.
How did we get to the point where knowledge sharing lands you in prison? It's because we have mindless shells of human beings in society, the type of people that would call this man a traitor. Let me set something straight: if you are a citizen of a country, it doesn't imply that you love and support your country. You are likely a citizen simply because you were born and trapped there. If you have an urge to defend and protect an imperialistic, globally-dominating sack of shit like the United States Government, you're part of the problem.
Nationalism is a disease.
Otherwise, those who still operate with that mind set exploit you.
It's a nice thought, but unrealistic.
I think the punishment is not nearly enough. I believe the same thing should be done to people helping Russia evade sanctions too.
Anyway, the conviction mostly makes sense to me. The sentencing seems disproportionate.
It's not victimless: the United States (government) is the victim, albeit one that's not particularly sympathetic.
Just because the victim is diffuse/a collective doesn't mean the wrongs against it are victimless - this is about as victimless as handing over nuclear secrets to another country (in quality, not severity).
I can't believe he only got 5 years in jail for this. It should've been life imprisonment for aiding and abetting terrorist organizations like North Korea.
Can you say the same for someone caught laundering money for Hamas or ISIS? That it's a victimless crime?
Just because NK has victims does not mean that his actions have victims as well.
"It has nukes pointed at Seoul"
Every nuclear country has their nukes pointed at somewhere. US included.
"holding ... US troops hostage"
I really do not get what you mean by this.
"It should've been life imprisonment"
It is easy to call for absurd amounts of vengeful punishment towards someone that poses no danger.
"for aiding and abetting terrorist organizations like North Korea"
I think that your definition of "terrorist organization" is too wide. Might as well call the US a terrorist organization at that point.
"Can you say the same for someone caught laundering money for Hamas or ISIS? That it's a victimless crime?"
He did not launder money. He just did a cryptocurrency presentation.
He's in prison because he was willing to help hurt the world. It benefits society and we are all safer today because that person was relieved of his ability to act, and because of the warning the example sends to others.
I say that because of the specific factors in this case being about NK, not just because the US (my) government decreed something. IE, I care that he violated everyone else's trust, not that he violated a rule.
He openly defied the US government after they denied his travel. In a big F YOU, he still went anyway and did his thing. US government cant allow people to do such things so they had to throw him in prison. He should have just 'anonymously' video conferenced in if he really wanted to give the talk. It sucks but thats why he's in prison. Cant make the US government look foolish. He also should never have agreed to be interviewed by FBI agents without a lawyer.
NK has very talented hacking teams that have stolen $400M+ in crypto (in 2021 alone) as a way to fund themselves and evade financial sanctions. Virgil def got put on the US gov radar at which point he certainly became a causality of this cyber war.
It sends a message to those would otherwise help North Korea (or Russia or Iran) of "don't violate sanctions."
Why not imprison every cryptocurrency developer?, they are all enabling a new way to avoid sanctions, some much better than others
Where do you draw the line so that it's not arbitrary?
Making it easy for someone to bludgeon you over the head with a legal charge is your own fault. But the net impact of the charge can also be useless.
Is Wikipedia liable?
I am not foreign policy, NK, crypto, or national security expert, but it is not about safety. It is about sending a message at a time when US engages in very heavy sanctions effort ( currently against Russia ).
From that perspective, as sad as it sounds even as I type it, Virgil is a sacrifice government makes to send a message.
I too feel his mind locked behind bars is a terrible waste.
Besides, cryptography as a munition is a known meme in the right circles. This is textbook what not to do.
Well, there's magical thinking, does that count? ;)
(Also, perhaps it's just me, but I really dislike the term 'crypto'. Cryptography is a genuinely valuable field. Maybe we can call them 'waste-backed internet tokens' or something. When they actually implement Moxie Marlinspike's suggestion[0] of using cryptography rather than distributed consensus as proof of validity, then maybe they can call themselves cryptocurrencies.)
[0] "We should accept the premise that people will not run their own servers by designing systems that can distribute trust without having to distribute infrastructure. This means architecture that anticipates and accepts the inevitable outcome of relatively centralized client/server relationships, but uses cryptography (rather than infrastructure) to distribute trust." (https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html)
If he didn't want his mind locked behind bars, he probably shouldn't have done what he did. I'm sure he's a smart guy, but this was not a smart move.