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Developer faces prison time for giving blockchain talk in North Korea
The prominent hacker and Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith was arrested by the US government Friday after he spoke at an April conference on blockchain technologies in North Korea. The US government considers his presentation to be a transfer of technology—and therefore a violation of US sanctions.
But Griffith's defenders, including Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, describe the arrest as a massive overreaction. Griffith worked for the Ethereum Foundation, and Buterin called him a friend.
"I don't think what Virgil did gave the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] any kind of real help in doing anything bad," Buterin tweeted on Sunday. "He delivered a presentation based on publicly available info about open source software."
But federal prosecutors argue that Griffith, a US citizen residing in Singapore, knew full well that his trip violated US sanction laws. They say he sought approval for the trip from the US State Department, and his request was denied. Griffith made the trip anyway, traveling through China to evade US travel restrictions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 04 2019, @02:03PM (2 children)
Definitely, the kid was dumb in a whole lot of directions.
But the FBI doesn't appear all that up to speed either.
The complaint contains a collection of facts strung together to seem evil, but doesn't say exactly how what the kid told NK would significantly help them.
The investigator should be interested in getting to a clear understanding of what happened, but he doesn't appear to have stopped to understand the technology.
If he understood what was out there, it would be interesting to see if a clear connection of the dots could be made as to how what the kid told the bad guys that was of value given an understanding of what is already out there.
This seems troubling that if Crypto currency is evil, then the FBI should be more knowledgable to protect against it.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 04 2019, @03:58PM (1 child)
The "kid" is 36 years old, wanted to renounce his citizenship yet got arrested visiting home for thanksgiving. This guy's actions weren't particularly rational, doesn't seem like he matured any since he left the nerd hive of Caltech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 05 2019, @07:21PM
Perhabs and perhabs we are exaggerating the consequences he will face for his little disobedience..