SBF Caught Using VPN While Awaiting Criminal Trial [pdf]

https://ia801508.us.archive.org/25/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.590940/gov.uscourts.nysd.590940.66.0.pdf

by 1vuio0pswjnm7 • 3 years ago

141 104 3 years ago

ia801508.us.archive.org

notch898a4• 3 years ago

The state is playing whack-a-mole on somebody who's allowed internet access. It's a losing proposition, he will always find another way to technically not break the rules.

anonkogudhyfhhf• 3 years ago

And his well connected family of high profile lawyers will get him out of any punishment

https://mobile.twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/16259299432...

ceejayoz• 3 years ago

We'll see. "His well connected family of high profile lawyers will get him out of any indictment" was a common opinion here leading up to his indictment.

hnthrowaway0315• 3 years ago

I think this is too big. Look who signed on that bail. Best case they made some deals under the table and let SBF eat all of the shit. Worst case SBF hang himself or something similar.

cmeacham984• 3 years ago

The problem is not that he's "breaking the rules" (technically or not), the problem is that the government is afraid SBF will use the VPN to cash out crypto he has through a no-KYC exchange and make a run for it.

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).

notch898a4• 3 years ago

You're talking about the reason for the rules. I'm saying as long as he has internet access they will be playing whack-a-mole to make rules that achieve the very goal you express. I don't see any reasons why both our statements cannot exist without opposing each other.

As an aside, I would squabble that breaking the rules, or not, is a relevant problem.

mywittyname• 3 years ago

Maybe he shouldn't be out on bail if he's so huge of a risk.

tombert• 3 years ago

I think you're right, but I have to think that if this is something they're genuinely concerned about, then maybe he should, you know, not be given bail?

IANAL, but isn't it pretty common for people who are flight risks to not be let out on bail?

elif3• 3 years ago

No, mostly they are concerned about him communicating with other defendants and/or victims and/or paid fall guys and pre-orchestrating his trial.

He wouldn't get very far if he tried to outsmart interpol.

inasio• 3 years ago

There's also the possibility that the state doesn't really want to stop SBF from incriminating himself, he seems to have been doing a pretty good job so far.

mblevin• 3 years ago

This dude just cannot tell the truth even for a second.

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.

elif3• 3 years ago

I might feel that entitled too if I just got to fly a stolen first class ticket to my stolen mansion when I was meant to be in jail.

Then again maybe he actually is entitled and I'm the dumb one for thinking rules apply to rich people.

eddsh19942• 3 years ago

Stolen mansion?

NotYourLawyer• 3 years ago

Keep digging, Sam.

eastbound• 3 years ago

You can’t dig a bigger hole when you’re already fully fried.

corbulo• 3 years ago

Sam is about to settle the debate of whether the earths core is spinning

pphysch• 3 years ago

Today, it came to the Government’s attention—based on data obtained through the use of a pen register on the defendant’s gmail account—that the defendant used a VPN or “Virtual Private Network” to access the internet on January 29, 2023, and February 12, 2023.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_register

gzer04• 3 years ago

I mean, I knew that there was mass surveillance occurring, but to this extent... perhaps I needed a refresher on just how much warrantless data is being collected on the citizens of the United States.

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

  * 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...

---

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.

---

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.

RhodesianHunter• 3 years ago

What makes you assume no warrant in this case?

munk-a3• 3 years ago

While I agree this level of surveillance is worrying since it's probably also being applied to normal people.... SBF has been charged and has been awaiting trial domestically since Dec 30, 2022. They are, from a spectator[1] point of view, quite clearly guilty of a lot of shady stuff and it would honestly be pretty bonkers if they had access to private communication for non-privileged conversations at this point.

1. Edited as per comment below.

popilewiz• 3 years ago

The dude is under several investigations, including a criminal one. I'm pretty certain one of them mandates the monitoring of his internet use. Not that the info you provided is not disconcerting.

mlindner• 3 years ago

Warrants that mandate a monitor of a specific email address are not "mass surveillance".

salawat• 3 years ago

Keep in mind, any 3rd party record is not covered by the 4th Amendment. There is no expectation of privacy nased on 3rd Party Doctrine.

Also, there is a forensics package that can be hot loaded on just about every router out there for law enforcement purposes.

sschueller• 3 years ago

So in this case it's basically a BCC on his Gmail?

Tostino• 3 years ago

More than that it seems, pretty much Google sharing all activity logs on the account in question when told to by a court. So, no matter what you do to try and hide your trail, if you try and interact with your existing account at all LE will be informed.

alwayslikethis2• 3 years ago

Should have gone with Mullvad (not affiliated). They don't require or send emails.

shaugen• 3 years ago

I think you misunderstood what they are tracking. Google would still see him login into his gmail account from a know VPN provider IP address. And Google is the entity logging and sharing logs, not the VPN provider.

Animats3• 3 years ago

It's amusing that the Government calls what they're doing with Google a "pen register". They usually do that to squeeze through the small exception in the Fourth Amendment created by Smith v. Maryland.

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.

cloudripper• 3 years ago

Fascinating.. Thank you for the history lesson. Do you happen to have video of your demo functioning that you'd be willing to share?

dragonwriter• 3 years ago

It’s amusing that the Government calls what they’re doing with Google a “pen register”. They usually do that to squeeze through the small exception in the Fourth Amendment created by Smith v. Maryland.

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.

joshspankit• 3 years ago

Sounds like for transparency there should be another photo added to the article: the (probably ominous) currently-used “internet pen register”.

rogers184452• 3 years ago

They apparently caught him because he logged into a wiretapped gmail with a VPN. It's not difficult to segment your network such that some software does not use a VPN tunnel. On Linux, it can even be made fool-proof with network namespaces.

You can even render the default network namespace barren such that any accidentally launched software has no network of any kind.

cmeacham984• 3 years ago

I interpreted it differently - I'm assuming what "pen register" means in relation to GMail is that they get the metadata (i.e. who he is sending/receiving email from) and saw that he used his email to sign up for a VPN.

Thorentis• 3 years ago

If true, is that actually a breach of bail conditions? How did they prove that he actually used the VPN rather than just, for the sake of argument, signing up to NordVPN to support his favourite YouTube creator?

panki27• 3 years ago

Using an anonymization software to access a service which directly identifies you... yeah, who would have guessed this is not a good idea.

notch898a4• 3 years ago

"Your honor I shared my gmail password with someone else before the bail conditions were set."

kube-system• 3 years ago

The classic "I didn't do it" defense.

throw10920• 3 years ago

You can even render the default network namespace barren such that any accidentally launched software has no network of any kind.

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?

rogers184452• 3 years ago

It's just a few commands using the ip tool. You can read about it here: https://www.wireguard.com/netns/

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.

londons_explore2• 3 years ago

So... let me get this straight... SBF is currently on bail... and the state and his lawyers are arguing about the exact bail terms that should apply...

Shouldn't the terms of bail be set before bail is granted?

londons_explore2• 3 years ago

And worse, they then asked the defence lawyers if it would be acceptable to add a 'no VPN' term...

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...

JumpCrisscross4• 3 years ago

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.

louloulou• 3 years ago

and then can just switch to tor next anyway

everforward• 3 years ago

My understanding is that that's pretty normal, even for normal people. The prosecution asks the defense if they'll acquiesce to a particular term, and if the defense says no, the prosecution decides whether it's really worth it to push the issue.

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.

anigbrowl• 3 years ago

His lawyers are trying to create an issue where none exists, with the implicit threat of bringing up civil rights claims in motion work and at appeal, jacking up the cost to the prosecution.

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'.

notch898a4• 3 years ago

SBF says he only has at most $100k. At this point that's probably all gone especially considering hiring daily private security squads. How can he afford all this litigation?

JumpCrisscross4• 3 years ago

the state and his lawyers are arguing about the exact bail terms that should apply

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.

Laaas• 3 years ago

Are they going to disallow HTTPS, DNS over HTTPS, and encrypted SNI too?

hesdeadjim• 3 years ago

Maybe his strategy is to be such a fucking idiot that he can pretend there is no way he could mastermind such a big scam.

mikestew• 3 years ago

That hypothesis comes up repeatedly, but I imagine it would hinge on whether or not judges would say to themselves, "he's too stupid to jail". IANAL, but I believe judgement is based on whether or not you did "it", whatever "it" might be. Then at sentencing a judge could use "stupid" as a mitigating factor. For example, "normally you'd get 20 years, but because you're stupid..."

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.

munk-a3• 3 years ago

I believe the above post was mostly in jest but just to clarify - to qualify for any sort of lighter sentencing you'd need to demonstrate a far more impactful intellectual disability.

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.

time_to_smile• 3 years ago

It's remarkable to me the consequences of people telling you you're a mega-genius without you realizing they're telling you for their own benefit.

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.

toyg• 3 years ago

[SBF] is operating as though he were smarter and more special than everyone around him

I mean, let's be honest among ourselves: in IT this sort of psychological profile is table stakes.

TacticalCoder• 3 years ago

Maybe his strategy is to be such a fucking idiot that he can pretend there is no way he could mastermind such a big scam.

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.

dang• 3 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34810681 has a different document. Which is the more interesting/informative? and what should the title be?

(I'm running out the door but will try to check this later)

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF• 3 years ago

Looks like [0] is the judge's order that SBF stop using VPN services until after Feb 24 and [1] seems to be some kind of appeal from SBF's counsel for a time extension "to make additional submissions to the Court" until Feb. 17 (apologies as I'm not familiar with what such a document would technically be called).

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...

davidcbc• 3 years ago

At this point I'm convinced the only reason he's allowed out on bail is so that the prosecutors can run up the score on how many crimes he'll ultimately be charged with

jdkee• 3 years ago

He needs to be locked up.

yieldcrv• 3 years ago

Fifth, a VPN is a more secure and covert method of accessing the dark web.

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.

dbuder• 3 years ago

Revoke his bail! He has always been a major flight risk due to the possibility that he has squirreled away many millions via crypto. 250m of surety has not been provided and now due to the use of a VPN we cannot be assured he has not already made arrangements to flee and or tampered with witnesses.

philippejara• 3 years ago

I don't get what the issue is, do the bail terms prohibit one from using a VPN? if so it's a done deal but if it doesn't there's absolutely nothing wrong with him using it.

breck2• 3 years ago

Agreed. Using a VPN is often the most ethical behavior (SciHub, for instance).

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.

99112000• 3 years ago

Let the man watch porn.

breck2• 3 years ago

Using a VPN is not a crime. Not only that, it's not unethical. In fact, to do many ethical things in this country, such as download scientific papers, one must often use a VPN.

SBF Caught Using VPN While Awaiting Criminal Trial [pdf]

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