Note that the topic of surveillance of the cryptocurrency industry is not just about Sam Bankman-Fried. Last night it became known that a Dutch court will release under house arrest one of the developers of cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash Alexey Pertsev, who was arrested in the Netherlands in August 2022.

It is at home that he will await his trial. And while he is away, Pertsev will be forced to wear special electronic devices that will ensure he is at a certain location.

Tornado Cash cryptocurrency mixer

What’s going on with Sam Bankman-Fried?

According to Decrypt’s sources, it’s about installing software that would take a snapshot of the user every five minutes. This would keep track of who is using the device.


Apparently, this is to prevent Sam Bankman-Fried from trying to use his parents' smartphones to solve his own problems. Yet he has done such a thing before, which has caused the court to be outraged. In particular, the FTX founder has contacted former and current employees of the cryptocurrency exchange, and has also offered to meet the platform's newly appointed head, John Rae III, among others. Some participants in the trial saw this as an attempt to influence witnesses in the case.

At the same time, Sam himself is now restricted in his ability to communicate with the outside world. At the beginning of April, it became known that Bankman-Fried was obliged to hand over his smartphone and laptop to the authorities. Instead, the former businessman has been given a regular phone without internet access and a laptop with a limited monitoring function. On top of this, Sam has been banned from playing online games with voice or text chat support.

The problem seems to be purely technical – a fact also confirmed by lawyers Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell. Here is the relevant rejoinder, in which the experts share details of what is going on.

We have recently learned that the monitoring software on the new mobile phones we purchased for Mr Bunkman-Fried’s parents cannot actually automatically take a picture of the device’s user every five minutes, as required by a court order.

Sam’s parents Jzef Bankman and Barbara Fried

The models of phones purchased for Bankman-Fried’s parents have not been disclosed. However, the difficulty in installing the aforementioned monitoring software may be on all mobile platforms popular today. Still, iOS and Android implement a “secure environment” feature for each third-party app.

This is a specific list of permissions that prevents the app from accessing critical nodes on the device. Security updates to the Android and iOS mobile operating systems are precisely designed to combat spyware apps like the one that Sam’s parents are trying to install on their devices.

For example, in October Apple released a new lock mode for iOS 16, iPadOS 16 and macOS Ventura. The optional feature is aimed at those facing modern digital threats. It restricts device functionality, including limits on web browsing and blocking incoming FaceTime calls, to reduce the threat of data theft by spyware apps.

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Halborn cybersecurity co-founder and CTO Stephen Walbroel has revealed his method of solving the problem.

They could either use an Android device with a rootkit to install a third-party app, or develop a new app that complies with Apple’s App Store terms and conditions. Alternatively, they could jailbreak the device and bypass the restrictions of the operating system.

Judge in the Sam Bankman-Frieda case Lewis Kaplan

To recap, a jailbreak is an operation that allows access to extensive permissions in the system of an Apple OS-based device. The procedure is not illegal, but it is against the terms of Apple’s device agreement. At the same time, lawyers from Bankman-Friede’s team said they were exploring “alternative options” to resolve the problem for the time being.

In a letter to presiding judge Lewis Kaplan, Sam’s lawyers asked for an extension of the court’s execution until Friday 21 April 2023. This is the third request for an extension made by the defence since the original order of March 28, 2023. The previous extensions were granted on 4 April and 11 April respectively.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried before the court hearing

Judge Kaplan approved the request. Which means until a workable solution is found, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers have asked that his parents be allowed to continue using their existing mobile phones without any restrictions.


We find this approach to restrictions on Sam Bankman-Fried's activities rather strange. After all, he has been under house arrest for almost four months and the smartphones of Sam's parents living with him have not been monitored in any way. This means that the FTX founder could very well be using other people's devices to communicate with witnesses in the case or other prohibited activities. And as the events of 2023 show, he does engage in such activities.

It is to be hoped that the surveillance problem will be solved. Well, the current communications capabilities will not allow Sam Bunkman-Fried to evade or diminish his responsibility.

Look for even more interesting things in our crypto-chat of former rich people. There we remember how easy life was during the bullrun.