[EthanHeilman]

We don't know the facts of the case yet and the government has released no evidence. This could all just be a massive FBI whoops as the FBI does from time to time. Or he could be completely innocent and the FBI is just using the threat of criminal prosecution to exert pressure to get him to inform on friends or contacts. We can't judge until more evidence is made available.

A general question not directly related to the case: Where exactly is the line between criminal conspiracy and writing software tools?

Certainly TOR is used by people to do bad things (and also good things), but almost everyone agrees that no criminal act has been committed by the creation of TOR. Plenty of legitimate businesses sell Remote Access Trojans (RATs) and go unarrested. On the other hand some developers that sell RATs have been arrested.

If someone pays you 2,000 grand to find an exploit have you committed a crime? What if then they use that exploit you sold them to commit a crime? What if you knew beyond all doubt that was their purpose but then the exploit isn't used? Does it matter if they bought an exploit from you or if you are a salaried employee of their company? What if instead of selling them an exploit you configured an email server for them?