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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

#91

Post by kube-system »

plq wrote: post #75
bad416f1f5a2 wrote: post #56

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…

Software licenses are a civil agreement between a developer and anyone who uses the code. So for instance, if someone uses code with that disclaimer, and it deletes their files, you cannot sue them for that damage.

But, you can’t just put anything in one of these agreements; the law overrides anything you might state in a contract.

Furthermore, software licenses govern the use of your code by other people. It doesn’t govern your use of the GitHub service.

Your use of GitHub is governed by the GitHub ToS. Under that agreement, they can terminate service for any reason they want. They can cancel your account if they wake up grumpy on a Tuesday and just feel like it. Or, they can terminate service because they don’t want to touch anything that might be sanctioned with a 10 foot pole.

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

#92

Post by krono »

seydor wrote: post #84
paulgb wrote: 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?

Git is not GitHub

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

#93

Post by orangeoxidation »

subjectsigma wrote: post #40
junon wrote: 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…

The amount of people replying "Code is free speech! You can't do this!" shows you about how much Twitter understands laws.

Well... that's an old argument (the PGP book) and there's even support from the courts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junger_v._Daley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States

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

#94

Post by withinboredom »

oliwary wrote: post #79
paulgb wrote: 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.

This is the crux of the issue in my opinion. It seems ridiculous that the sanctions should apply retroactively to anyone who has dealt with a sanctioned entity at any time in the past - if the people contributed before the sanctions, they were not contributing to a “blocked person”, as the project was not blocked at the time. Imagine if, say, A foreign electronics company is sanctioned by the government - does this m…

A government can pretty much do whatever it wants in the realm of foreign relations, things it can't usually do to it's citizens (such as retroactively applying sanctions). If you have a problem with it, take it up with the government.

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

#95

Post by seydor »

subjectsigma wrote: post #40
junon wrote: 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…

The amount of people replying "Code is free speech! You can't do this!" shows you about how much Twitter understands laws.

The law says that people are allowed to have opinions about the laws. Twitter is not some kind of law school test

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

#96

Post by bilekas »

syzygyhack wrote: post #82
bilekas wrote: 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.

I don't have particular vitriol against Tornado itself, they do offer compliance tool and seem to have just been an eventual outcome in crypto.

I do however have an issue with the incredibly high rate of money laundering etc that flows through crypto. Particularly so with Tornado cash. It's the 'go-to' for easy money laundering.

And no that's not a 'general ignorance' it's just a bi-product of having decentralized systems, it's not for me. That doesn't mean people are ignorant of it.

Edit: It really irks me this "oh you just don't get it" from some people. It's unproductive and from my own experience, incorrect. They give crypto supporters a bad name.

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

#97

Post by bad416f1f5a2 »

plq wrote: post #75
bad416f1f5a2 wrote: post #56

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…

That license binds people who use the code you wrote & protects you from their legal claims. OFAC isn’t using your code. No open source license is going to protect you from US sanctions.

From the Twitter thread it appears that the devs whose accounts were nuked were core contributors to a sanctioned entity. That feels fairly sensible & what a company who wants to comply with sanctions would do.

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

#99

Post by withinboredom »

treesprite82 wrote: post #89
nojito wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's quite possible these contributors had forks, which is why they were blocked.

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

#100

Post by whatisweb3 »

zaphar wrote: post #87
whatisweb3 wrote: post #57

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.

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

Tornado Cash is a protocol. It targets EVM, and has been deployed on Ethereum, Optimism, Avalanche, Polygon and other networks. It happens to be open source, the code was mirrored on GitHub for research and contributions.

They are setting a precedent that any forks or similar implementations of this protocol will also be sanctioned.

A comparison would be sanctioning the Matrix protocol because it facilitates end-to-end encrypted communication for terrorists.

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