His “bumbling fool” persona doesn’t really match the cold-hearted calculation that’s necessary for the criminal moves he pulls off. But he has perfected this appearance to the point where even a significant portion of the otherwise so easily cynical HN crowd seems convinced that “someone this stupid can’t be all that evil”. It’s probably an incredible advantage for a conman to be underestimated to this extent.<p>Case in point: Media referring to him as a boy genius, him moving back in with his parents, and his apparent video game addiction all to the contrary, the guy turns 31 next month. If that surprises you at least a bit, and I have to admit it did surprise me, then his antics have exactly the effect he wants.
Meanwhile people across the US under indictment for small time crimes are being rearrested all the time for arbitrary violations of their bond conditions.
"On February 13, 2023, 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 has used a VPN or “Virtual Private Network” on at least two occasions to access the internet."<p>I hadn't heard of a pen register before. Apparently it's monitoring:<p>- All email header information other than the subject line<p>- The email addresses of the people to whom an email was sent<p>- The email addresses of people whom received the email<p>- The time each email is sent or received<p>- The size of each email that is sent or received<p>As an aside, would headers give away the fact he was using a VPN when using Gmail?<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_register" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_register</a>
<i>"On January 15, 2023, the defendant contacted a potential witness at trial, without the presence of either the defendant’s or the witness’s counsel. The defendant contacted the witness through the encrypted messaging application Signal, as well as by email, and wrote in relevant part that he would “really love ... for us to have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources when possible, or at least vet things with each other.”"</i><p>His use of Signal didn't hide much from the Government.<p>Expect to see a witness tampering charge added.
But is he that “technologically sophisticated “?<p>With his situation, he should know his internet activity and online accounts are being monitored.<p>VPN traffic is easily detectable. You don’t even need to track IPs, or subpoena Gmail.