I met Virgil at an academic workshop back in 2014. We went out in Amsterdam. He was a weird guy, to say the least (he’d probably be the first to agree). He was generally quite affable and obviously highly intelligent.
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.
Victimless? North korea is not a victimless country. There's a reason why they are sactioned. He clearly broke a big and important law and knew he was doing it. idk what else one would expect
Yeah I don't see how anyone could consider it victimless. By helping North Korea circumvent sanctions he indirectly has blood on his hands. This is a country that sentences multiple generations of a family to work camps.
Man oh man. You're right for a lot of cases, but in the USA if you're uneducated, poor, and in the wrong place at the wrong time, you can get railroaded by some crooked cops and a plea deal with a crooked DA, and it's going to be small comfort that things aren't usually as bad as in North Korea
True unfortunately, but those instances are generally considered to be violations of the spirit of our system, institutions, and rights, at the least, if not also the letter, or exploitation of legal loopholes and technicalities, depending on jurisdiction. And we can publicly raise hell about it, protest, lobby, and elect reps who will work to fix it and close the loopholes.
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.
Nobody is arguing that the system is perfect. Yes we know bad things happen and there are bad people in the system who prey on others. That's true everywhere and it should go without saying.
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.
sure, Im not saying that they do make it right. I am pointing out the conspicuous hypocrisy that people don't feel that they have blood on their hands for paying US taxes, but aiding NK in any way is a mortal sin.
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.
Just look at how the US treats Assange and Chelsea Manning. Starts wars on false pretences that killed hundreds of thousands (Irak).
So you could argue that helping the US is in some form also having blood on your hands.
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 isn't sanctioned because of human rights violations. The US doesn't even care for its own citizenry sufficiently. Why would American politicians care about the plight of hungry people half the world over?
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.
So your saying being actively at war with close ally South Korea, with enormous amounts of artillery aimed at Seoul, and killing people who commit Lese Majeste, are not credible reasons for being a target of US ire?
North Korea is the enemy because they fought Americans off and held their ground. If you don't understand this, you are incapable of understanding global politics and should direct your energy and attention somewhere else.
Saudi Arabia has death penalty by behading people in front of the masses... and they are invading Yemen. Where are the American "sanctions"?
The US suffered around 58k casualties during the Vietnam war. Nearly as many people domestically are dying each year from opioid overdoses. In 2017, that number was 47k. Now compare and contrast this with 9/11, which killed roughly 3k. If you believe the government's bald faced lies, that should be a great enough loss of life to spur them into action. Yet there's nothing substantial being done to fix this. Keep in mind here that 9/11 is supposedly what got us the Patriot Act and legalized sexual assault in airports.
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.
If you helped smuggle $1M in cash across the NK border you'd also be arrested and convicted for helping to evade sanctions. If anything crypto-enthusiasts should be happy to hear that the US government treats crypto as a legitimate means of moving money between nations, and punishes actors accordingly.
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.
> If anything crypto-enthusiasts should be happy to hear that the US government treats crypto as a legitimate means of moving money between nations, and punishes actors accordingly.
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.
Leaving aside the questions of whether this is a victimless crime, amply addressed by sibling comments, I'd like to point out that people like Virgil Griffith benefit from these sympathetic assessments, in large part for being part of our in-group, but most defendants do not. You wouldn't want to live in a system where these kinds of sentiments actually controlled even more than they already do.
People engaging in acts like this should automatically be no longer considered to be part of the 'in group' but part of another group called 'criminals'. And in this case a very special kind of criminal: one that knowingly aids a regime that is beyond despicable.
No issue with your main point, but "pursuing nuclear weapons" is such a strange and revealing phrase. North Korea has nuclear weapons. They've had nuclear weapons for at least 16 years (probably over 20). The last best chance to roll back their nuclear program was in the mid-aughts, and it didn't work.
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.
You can argue that it's oversimplified, but it's definitely not inaccurate.
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.
May be a bit extreme comment but not completely nonsensical. It is raising somewhat valid point.
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.
Let's put emotions aside and look at the situation. This man is an expert in his field and possesses a lot of knowledge. He doesn't have to share this information with anyone, but he does so for the advancement and progression of society. Sharing information in this scenario was evidently a crime.
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.
What? North Korean government is the most totalitarian, brutal, ruthless state in the world today. You can't just play "there is no victim" card when you illegally help out an enemy government like that. Even if you're ideologically or for some other reason inclined to support NK, you need to understand that being a US citizen makes your actions extremely impactful on world stage. It seems like Virgil was truly in a position to help NK, which makes him responsible.
I think the punishment is not nearly enough. I believe the same thing should be done to people helping Russia evade sanctions too.
This argument would be more convincing if he provided material support to NK and didn’t simply relay publicly available information. It seems he’s been sanctioned primarily for his speech, not selling weapons or purchasing contraband. And it’s not like he was divulging state secrets.
Anyway, the conviction mostly makes sense to me. The sentencing seems disproportionate.
> Five years in prison seems like a disproportionate punishment for an arguably victimless crime
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).
How in the world do you see this victimless? North Korea has been violating human rights in it's own borders and South Korea. It has nukes pointed at Seoul holding it and US troops hostage.
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?
If someone is nice but dangerous through lack of judgement, then the nice doesn't matter because the dangerous is still dangerous and has to be dealt with.
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.
I think it's more about just being a high profile victim to send a public a message.
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.
So, people shouldn't face consequences for criminal actions because they are nerdy and good with computers? That's not how the real world works. Aiding a dictatorship in evading sanctions is very far from "victimless".
It benefits society because Virgil will now likely think a lot harder before attempting to do something so foolish. He thought he was flying under the radar and possibly teaching North Korea how to avoid sanctions.
Our entire legal system is built on the exercise of line drawing. Where those lines are drawn is the result of debate and compromise. It's never perfect, but it's better than not having any lines at all.
This is about sending a message, especially to brilliant minds. No prosecution was involved when Rodman was visiting NK and definitely helped NK with having a highly visible star being personal friend with Kim, but hey Rodman is not a brainiac.
Dennis Rodman didn't break the law by the mere act of visiting North Korea and being friendly with Kim. As far as I can tell, the only time he may have acted questionably was a suspicion of bringing in some luxury goods (https://www.si.com/si-wire/2014/01/24/dennis-rodman-sanction...), but it doesn't seem like that case was pursued.
To an extent, I wonder if this is the fear of the unknown. Here is a guy, who actually seems to understand the 'magic' of crypto. God only knows what he could do with dangerous knowledge like that.
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.
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)
His mind behind bars is a total waste but I don't see anything magical about what he did. Replace "unit of cryptocurrency" above with "duffel bag of diamonds" or any other store of value and it's transparently illegal.
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.