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GitHub deleted accounts of people who contributed to Tornado Cash repos

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Re: GitHub deleted accounts of people who contributed to Tornado Cash repos

#81
post #51

I am by no means a fan of Tornado and what it represents in the crypto community - I think crypto has enough cretins already. But this is definitely a bit of a stretch to go after the creator(s) in this way. Reminds me of the US Gov trying to ban/limit all encryption. Didn't seem okay then and this doesn't seem okay now.

Not after the creators. The contributors. People who were submitting code changes to an absolutely legal piece of software.

Re: GitHub deleted accounts of people who contributed to Tornado Cash repos

#82
post #51

I am by no means a fan of Tornado and what it represents in the crypto community - I think crypto has enough cretins already. But this is definitely a bit of a stretch to go after the creator(s) in this way. Reminds me of the US Gov trying to ban/limit all encryption. Didn't seem okay then and this doesn't seem okay now.

Your vitriol against Tornado is misplaced, though not surprising given the general ignorance regarding the blockchain industry on HN.

Re: GitHub deleted accounts of people who contributed to Tornado Cash repos

#83
post #7

People on Twitter are either wilfully dumb or simply ignorant. GitHub had to do this. It was required of them by law. Tornado was sanctioned . > These prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any blocked person and the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. This is, unambiguously, di…

To be clear, they did it proactively, not because they were ordered to. For example, many organizations and conferences make exceptions for students from Iran

Re: GitHub deleted accounts of people who contributed to Tornado Cash repos

#84
post #11
post #7

People on Twitter are either wilfully dumb or simply ignorant. GitHub had to do this. It was required of them by law. Tornado was sanctioned . > These prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any blocked person and the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. This is, unambiguously, di…

Does Tornado being sanctioned mean that everyone who has contributed in the past also needs to be blocked? (It’s not clear from the thread whether the people blocked contributed after, or only before, the sanction.) For what it’s worth, I don’t see much evidence of people being upset at GitHub in the thread. There’s talk about decentralized alternatives, but not much actual pinning the blame on them.

isn't git decentralized already?

Re: GitHub deleted accounts of people who contributed to Tornado Cash repos

#85
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because others are answering you in much more detail, I’ll give them more generalized answer – This is quite simply not how a sanctions regime works. The US government does not make a list of all the sanctioned persons’ assets, then start going after those in court. Instead, it goes the other way: any company with a US nexus watches those sanction lists carefully. When someone is listed they look at their internal re…

Be that as it may, isn't this still an unacceptable collateral damage? So when you contribute code to an open source project, you generally do so under an open source license. All of them generally contain something akin to the following: IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (this particular excerpt is from the BSD li…

Why is it unacceptable?

Re: GitHub deleted accounts of people who contributed to Tornado Cash repos

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the first time the US has sanctioned a cryptographic protocol? The quote you pulled specifically refers to "blocked person" but in this case they are not sanctioning a person - they are sanctioning a mathematical protocol that happens to have a popular open source implementation.

I'm not familiar with the industry history but a look at the Treasury website suggests there's been similar past precedents: https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/... https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/virtual_currency_...

I don't see a past precedent that targets an open protocol. Imagine the US sanctioning the open Matrix protocol.

Re: GitHub deleted accounts of people who contributed to Tornado Cash repos

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's written in the definition of the sanction given by the Department of the Treasury [0], i.e. at the level of US federal law, of which Microsoft must follow as a US company. > Sanctions Implications > These prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any blocked person and the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, o…

Is this the first time the US has sanctioned a cryptographic protocol? The quote you pulled specifically refers to "blocked person" but in this case they are not sanctioning a person - they are sanctioning a mathematical protocol that happens to have a popular open source implementation.

No they aren't. They are sanctioning a software project and service that runs on Blockchains not a protocol.

Re: GitHub deleted accounts of people who contributed to Tornado Cash repos

#88
post #51

I am by no means a fan of Tornado and what it represents in the crypto community - I think crypto has enough cretins already. But this is definitely a bit of a stretch to go after the creator(s) in this way. Reminds me of the US Gov trying to ban/limit all encryption. Didn't seem okay then and this doesn't seem okay now.

Not after the creators. The contributors. People who were submitting code changes to an absolutely legal piece of software.

...that enabled nefarious people to go about their deeds unpunished.

Re: GitHub deleted accounts of people who contributed to Tornado Cash repos

#89
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no sympathy for crypto whatever and I really don't care about who sanctioned whom and for what reason, but... Sanctioned project's contributors must be deleted from the server - where is that written in the list of things Microsoft has to do since you went out of your way calling everyone on the reply train ignorant?

> These prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any blocked person and the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. It's pretty cut and dry.

Cut and dry if the open-source contributors are "blocked persons", but are they?

They'd no longer be allowed to contribute to the project, but does someone having contributed in the past mean the sanction on the project extends to their person? Github themselves provided hosting to the project.

Re: GitHub deleted accounts of people who contributed to Tornado Cash repos

#90
post #84
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Tornado being sanctioned mean that everyone who has contributed in the past also needs to be blocked? (It’s not clear from the thread whether the people blocked contributed after, or only before, the sanction.) For what it’s worth, I don’t see much evidence of people being upset at GitHub in the thread. There’s talk about decentralized alternatives, but not much actual pinning the blame on them.

isn't git decentralized already?

Issues not, unless you use git-bug
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