Judge orders SBF to stop using VPNs [pdf]
ia801508.us.archive.org
ia801508.us.archive.org
You can’t “well, technically” your way out of obvious breaches of clear court instructions.
By my reading, HTTPS would also violate the order, and there isn't anything you can do with an explicit VPN protocol that you can't do with a day or two of infra setup using another technology.
I am reminded of when weev set up services for himself so prison phone calls to a particular number would be automatically uploaded to soundcloud[0] and posted on twitter though prison e-mail[1]. IIRC tweets containing his name were also spooled, printed out, and mailed to him every week.
[0] https://soundcloud.com/weevlos/weev-live-from-prison-2013-04 [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3007961/convicted-hacker-troll-w...
>I am skeptical that the Judge understands what precisely they're talking about.
the judge knows s/he's not an expert in every domain but the law and plain English. You are required to understand plain English, or have your counsel explain it to you. If you don't have counsel, judges are actually very patient in explaining, but not in forgiving repeat offenses.
a better way to look at it is, what is the judge's goal, and how can you help him achieve that goal? otherwise, playing a game of cat and mouse risks angering the judge, and just like you can't help but hide your activity, he won't be able to help but deny your motions.
I also am reminded of weev. weev went to jail. SBF is out on bail, with conditions. If he can't meet the conditions, the alternative is choosing jail.
Weev is definitely an interesting case. He was released after conviction for being tried apparently in the wrong jurisdiction. It appears his prosecution was incompetent, or stupid. He somehow ended up with a Transnistria passport and resides in Ukraine, afraid they will re-prosecute the case in the correct court next time. He still appears here occasionally under the name 'rabite'.
Basically, he is not allowed to have secret communications with people.
For a specific example: Facebook messenger uses SSL, but law enforcement can easily request records of what he said. Being able to get the content of those messages is what’s important here.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/02/sam-bankman-fried-go...
On the other hand people who keep blatantly, knowingly breaking bail conditions should go to jail.
His previous conditions banned him from using encrypted communication apps except Whatsapp which he could use only with monitoring software.
To my techie brain, setting up a VPN seems like an obvious breach of that since a VPN will presumably encrypt anything that passes over it (all of which is reasonably communication even if it's just communicating with Uber to request a taxi).
Maybe the judge didn't understand (or fully accept) that.
Maybe there is some legalise question about how specific bail conditions have to be.
Either way, specifically banning vpns solves that.
But i don't think it's the courts job to play whack-a-mole while SBF plays the fool. I wouldn't expect that if I got very generous conditions then broke them twice...