SBF Caught Using VPN While Awaiting Criminal Trial [pdf]
ia801508.us.archive.org
ia801508.us.archive.org
The DEA has warrantless access to with no judicial oversight under "administrative subpoenas" originated by the DEA. The DEA pays AT&T to maintain employees throughout the country devoted to investigating call records through this database for the DEA. The database grows by 4 billion records per day, and presumably covers all traffic that crosses AT&T's network. Internal directives instructed participants never to reveal the project publicly.
Information that is legally collectible according to 2014 pen trap laws includes:
Phone
* Dialed numbers
* Received call numbers
* The time the call was made
* Whether the call was answered, or went to voice-mail
* The length of each call
* Content of SMS text messages
* The real-time location of a cell phone to within a few meters
Email * All email header information other than the subject line
* The email addresses of the people to whom an email was sent
* The email addresses of people whom received the email
* The time each email is sent or received
* The size of each email that is sent or received
Internet * IP address, port, and protocol used
* The IP address of other computers on the Internet that information was exchanged with
* Time-stamp and size information of Internet access
* Protocol traffic analysis to obtain URL web addresses surfed on the web, emails posted or read, instant messages exchanged, and information posted onto message boards
The last one is particularly damning. Interesting that no warrant is needed for any of this.[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/us/drug-agents-use-vast-p...
[2] https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013...
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Crucially, they said, the phone data is stored by AT&T, and not by the government as in the N.S.A. program. It is queried for phone numbers of interest mainly using what are called “administrative subpoenas,” those issued not by a grand jury or a judge but by a federal agency, in this case the D.E.A.
Administrative subpoena authorities allow executive branch agencies to issue a compulsory request for documents or testimony without prior approval from a grand jury, court, or other judicial entity.
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Planting AT&T employees and deeply embedding them within the government like that, utilizing "administrative subpoena's" that require no grand jury OR judge (just the DEA themselves) is, in my personal opinion, a breach of my 4th amendment right.
It's a lengthy, complicated page, and I'm not a lawyer... but I think the relevant section that describes their current use is this one, which suggests to me that you do need a warrant:
> For law enforcement agencies to get a pen register approved for surveillance, they must get a court order from a judge. According to 18 U.S.C. § 3123(a)(1), the "court shall enter an ex parte order authorizing the installation and use of a pen register or trap and trace device anywhere within the United States, if the court finds that the attorney for the Government has certified to the court that the information likely to be obtained by such installation and use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation".
1. Edited as per comment below.
I didn't know this until recently -- https://www.rwjbh.org/why-rwjbarnabas-health-/ending-racism/...
The term "peanut gallery" originated from vaudeville theater, and comes from the fact that unruly viewers who were not happy with the performance would throw their concessions at the performers, mostly roasted peanuts as these were the cheapest concessions. The attendees of early vaudeville were primarily immigrants, who would now be considered white, but were not at the time (scottish, irish, italian, and german immigrants).
There's nothing particularly racist about the term, never has been, and still isn't as it's used in modern parlance. Whether or not it's acceptable to use phrases with classist or class-based origins in your speech and writing is an exercise I leave up to you.
I did share a bad article I didn't read. I will do some more research on peanut gallery specifically. In either case, I probably still won't use it since it has this connotation to some people.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/picnic
Their entries on "long time no see" and "no can do" seem pretty spurious as well, which undermines the whole page's validity. It's a shame TBH, those are really strange unforced errors to have included.
Now, if SBF connected through a McDonalds wifi somewhere and they somehow found out it was him using a VPN, that would be concerning because there is no way they should know that its his laptop unless they knew he was on his way there ahead of time and somehow got permission to monitor their public wifi. That feels very unlikely
Is that in bail conditions?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_subpoena
I'm not defending SBF. The man needs to be charged and be put behind bars for the crimes committed. I'm just stating that this article was eye opening to me.
Pen register orders require court approval [1].
I didn't say a court wasn't needed; I implied that this is a Kangaroo Court
[2] Department of Justice (DOJ) - In United States v. Parris, the court allowed the DOJ to use an administrative subpoena to obtain information from a bank in connection with a criminal investigation. The court found that the DOJ had the authority to issue administrative subpoenas under the Bank Secrecy Act, and that the information requested was relevant to the criminal case.
[3] Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) - In the case of SEC v. Jerry T. O'Brien, the court upheld the SEC's authority to issue administrative subpoenas in connection with a criminal investigation. The court ruled that the SEC could use administrative subpoenas to obtain information that was relevant to the criminal case.
[1] https://casetext.com/case/federal-trade-commission-v-innovat...
[2] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/...
[3] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/467/735.html
The FTC case is a civil case. The DOJ case does not even mention the word subpoena as far as I can see. The SEC case is a civil case.
It makes perfect sense that they'd be monitoring his communications to ensure he was in compliance with that order.
And bail terms for SBF seem too lenient. Restriction on all computers and phones would seem appropriate.
Also, there is a forensics package that can be hot loaded on just about every router out there for law enforcement purposes.
The pen register shown in that Wikipedia article is mine. To use it, you need physical access to a phone line, probably at the central office. You put in a blank spool of paper tape, add stamp pad ink to the ink roller, and wind it up with a big brass key. When it detects a dial pulse, the clockwork mechanism starts the tape moving, and each dial pulse produces a dash on the tape. There's a mechanical idle timer which stops tape movement after a few seconds of idle time. I built a box with a phone dial to run that brass device as a demo.
That's what law enforcement had to use in the days of electromagnetic central offices. Only long distance calls were logged. Local calls were, at most, counted. That's why the Supreme Court decision refers to a pen register as an "extremely limited" device.
I might should make a video and upload it to the Internet Archive, for historical reference. These seem to be rare devices.
Well, they do it most directly because it is a “pen register” as defined in law: …the term “pen register” means a device or process which records or decodes dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information transmitted by an instrument or facility from which a wire or electronic communication is transmitted, provided, however, that such information shall not include the contents of any communication, but such term does not include any device or process used by a provider or customer of a wire or electronic communication service for billing, or recording as an incident to billing, for communications services provided by such provider or any device or process used by a provider or customer of a wire communication service for cost accounting or other like purposes in the ordinary course of its business;… 18 U.S.C 3127.
You are correct that this statute was created to manage the process related to the exception identified in Smith v. Maryland, but I don’t think that there is a good-faith argument that it is either inconsistent with the scope of the exception or anything except a limitation on law enforcement compared to not having the statute.
[1] https://www.shoghicom.com/fixed-line-lawful-interception.php
Shouldn't the terms of bail be set before bail is granted?
Those defence lawyers then presumably consulted their client before agreeing to it...
So... SBF used a VPN, and was then asked "Heya, we're considering banning you from using VPN's because we can't track what you do on them, what do ya think??". And only later did a ban come into force... Giving plenty of time to use a VPN for whatever deeds he doesn't want the court to know about...
This is why SBF’s counsel “represented that the defendant will not use a VPN in the interim.” Absent that representation, the government would have petitioned the court to revoke bail.
Defendants often agree to changes like this to score some brownie points with the judge and prosecutor that they can cash in later on when they want to change bail terms, or want to fight some other change in bail terms. It carries a bit more weight when the defense says "we think X is unreasonable" if they haven't said that every time the prosecution brings something up.
> Giving plenty of time to use a VPN for whatever deeds he doesn't want the court to know about...
That's pretty much going to happen regardless. If the prosecution doesn't ask the defense, then they'd go straight to filing a motion. A copy of that motion would have to be served to the defense, and the defense would be afforded adequate time to prepare arguments against it. Practically nothing happens instantaneously in the legal world, barring egregious acts.
This is how wealthy defendants operate: argue every little thing to death, then plant stories in the media like 'prosecutors have spent amazing high $/% of budgeted taxpayer monies on trying to prosecute one guy'.
His parents used the house that he bought for them as collateral, and a few unnamed benefactors also contributed.
Looks like the court just named them today, though. Larry Kramer and Andreas Paepke, heavyweights from the Stanford clique who might be friends of his family:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/15/sam-bankman-frieds-two-bond-...
My understanding is his bail terms didn’t mention a VPN. The government is petitioning the court to alter the bail terms to now prohibit the use of a VPN.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/347e2d5c-b146-472d-bbd1-3793300dd...
You can even render the default network namespace barren such that any accidentally launched software has no network of any kind.
checking your email earlier on in history meant more as a signal than it does now when 20 devices check an account 200 times a day automatically.
(not to defend SBF, but I think a fair amount of us are checking our email a lot more often than when we actually touch a device.)
This sounds extremely appealing. Do you have any quick-start resources for this, or do we just have to read the complete documentation for Linux namespaces?
Wireguard is special in that after creating a wg0 interface you can move it to another namespace and its [encrypted] packets would be teleported into the namespace it started in. The link above has the wg0 being moved into the default/init namespace but you can move it anywhere.
(I'm running out the door but will try to check this later)
I'd personally argue, considering the title, that the judge's order is more relevant since I figure it would probably not exist unless SBF actually used a VPN.
[0] https://ia801508.us.archive.org/25/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.5...
[1] https://ia801508.us.archive.org/25/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.5...
But I can not emphasize enough that IANAL, and this is just (as with most folks, I would guess) something I pulled out of my butt. Based on what little interaction I've had with the U. S. justice system, man, I sure wouldn't let the outcome rest on the judge's view of my intelligence, though.
Idiots are everywhere in society - there are idiot billionaires, idiot crypto bros and idiots that you pass on the street everyday. Normal idiocy is not a defense - otherwise it probably would've been significantly easier for Elon Musk to back out of the acquisition of Twitter.
I don't think he's actually trying to bolster his defense though, I think he's largely an idiot and used to getting away with almost anything with few/no consequences.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/prosecution-of-sam-bankman-frie...
It makes perfect sense why everyone, sincere and fraudster alike, would want to promote SBF as a boy genius. It's a great marketing tool, it helps convince people who don't understand crypto to have faith in the product, and you also get someone who believes the spotlight should be on them, which is particularly useful for any fraudsters who would prefer to remain in the shadows.
Clearly SBF never questioned that praise (who would at the time?), and still is operating as though he were smarter and more special than everyone around him. The sad irony is it reveals that he's markedly less clever than most of the people he associates with. Caroline Ellison, at least from what I've seen, seems to have realized quite quickly that the smartest choice was to quickly realize she wasn't a brilliant as she had been told.
I mean, let's be honest among ourselves: in IT this sort of psychological profile is table stakes.
It's the strategy SBF's father is using too. The current FTX CEO, the one in charge of the bankruptcy, said in front of congress that one house worth $16m was bought in the Bahamas in SBF's parents' name.
SBF's father is specialized in tax laws. And he's on video record saying: "I'm helping FTX with legal matters".
And what does SBF's father have to say about the real estate bought in its name in the Bahamas?
"We weren't aware we had real estate in our names in the Bahamas" (paraphrasing, I don't remember the exact sentence their spokeperson used)
I mean... Once it's recorded, in front of congress, that there's real estate bought with stolen money in your name in the Bahamas, there's not that much you can do...
Besides playing the complete, total and utter idiot.
This is not accurate, unless they are considering Tor a VPN too?
I guess using a VPN before accessing Tor could make it so your local router and ISP not know but its super insecure to give a VPN all your Tor traffic, and Tor Bridges also do that.
It seems to me that using customer deposits that should have been safe guarded was wrong and a crime, but it's not clear that's what happened, and there's an obvious smear campaign against him just throwing mud against the wall to see what sticks.
I'm still undecided on this one.
https://mobile.twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/16259299432...
It's about bail - if you know somebody could easily obtain money without the government knowing (and is doing the thing that would enable them to do that), then they become much more of a flight risk (at least in the prosecution's eyes, and they hope the court agrees).
As an aside, I would squabble that breaking the rules, or not, is a relevant problem.
IANAL, but isn't it pretty common for people who are flight risks to not be let out on bail?
He wouldn't get very far if he tried to outsmart interpol.
Obviously nobody needs a VPN to watch something on a national broadcast and he's clearly up to SOMETHING that he shouldn't be under the guise of accessing his NFL game pass account.
This is continual sociopath behavior from someone who can't possibly believe that they could ever do anything wrong, and they are simply misunderstood.
It's utterly maddening.
Then again maybe he actually is entitled and I'm the dumb one for thinking rules apply to rich people.
Though the allegation could probably be made that they've all been living off stolen proceeds for a while.