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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

#181

Post by withinboredom »

sschueller wrote: post #116
withinboredom wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience in Afghanistan, it was other countries that performed more "war crimes" than the US (as in violating Geneva Conventions). Why do you think they make it such a big deal when the USA does it? Is it only because the US just prosecutes their own and doesn't recognize the international court? The international court does a much better job of keeping their decisions and the soldiers being punished, private…

But the US does not prosecute its own. Instead they go after the messenger e.g. Julian Assange. They also usually find the lowest scapegoat they can get instead of having the responsibility be at the command level. Edit: Spelling of scapegoat

In my personal experience, I've seen a captain go back to a 2nd lieutenant (and I think some other punishments) just for giving an illegal order trying to cover up a "small" oil spill, still cost several million dollars to repair the damage to the ecosystem.

I don't know about Julian Assange, personally. However, Julian isn't a US citizen or in a military, so a different set of laws and standards apply.

Before Abu Grab, interrogators were allowed to "do anything as long as it didn't cause 'permanent' damage to their body." It is pretty clear people took that to mean they were allowed to do some pretty fucked up shit. Now the laws are much more stringent. AFAIK, those whistleblowers weren't hunted down.

But in more general, if you murder someone in self-defense, you still murdered someone. A court probably won't prosecute you, but you still did the act, even if it was self-defense. The same applies to "government secrets." Even if the secret is disgusting and terrible, it was still a secret. Whether anyone will convict them for revealing those secrets is a gamble, and probably better to run away instead of taking that chance.

In my experience, there are some pretty fucked up people everywhere, it doesn't matter which country they are from.

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

#182

Post by baobob »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #114
baobob wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What did they do wrong? They wilfully contributed to the upkeep of a money laundering service. They should be thankful losing their GitHub account is the extent of the fallout, take it as a lesson that code can cause real harm, and act more judiciously in future when it comes to contributing labour to suspect projects.

There are so many other applications for Tornado Cash than “money laundering.” What if I don’t want my employer or friends to see what I do with my known wallet on a fully traceable public blockchain? Privacy is not illegal.

You should be able to achieve this without also enabling terrorism, child pornography and extortion. Because of this Tornado Cash was never the right solution - it requires you to permit these things just in order to have privacy. In other words it is a bullshit technology and deserves to be replaced with something better. If blockchain in turn requires a solution like Tornado Cash in order to offer any privacy, mandatorily fused with the aforementioned radioactive side effects, then blockchain itself is a bullshit technology.

Just because you find a use for a technology doesn't make the technology good. Nuclear weapons are a highly effective alternative to insect repellent, but that does not justify the general purpose use of nuclear weapons for repelling insects.

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

#183

Post by Bedon292 »

Hermel wrote: post #167
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…

If taken literally, this would mean that the founders could not even do their groceries any more, right?

I don't think so. The sanctions are against Tornado Cash the entity, as well as specific ETH addresses associated with it. No individuals are cited in the sanction that I am aware of.

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

#184

Post by hikingsimulator »

rurban wrote: post #121
hikingsimulator wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL; even in the USA not all speech is protected under the law. See libel laws. Here it is less about the code as speech, but code as an illegal business and product. It's not an either//or situation. Code is more than just one thing.

Code is never an illegal business. You have to run the code to do an illegal business. In this case running the mixer is apparently illegal (wonder if at all or with just some specific cases), but maintaining and improving the code to run such a mixer certainly not. crypto wars 2.0

Working for an illegal business (tornado cash isn't just some code repository, it's basically a SaaS business backed on a chain), on its product, usually makes you liable. That's why people working for cartels are prosecutable.

edit: I believe the term is "criminal facilitation."

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

#185

Post by syzygyhack »

bilekas wrote: post #96
syzygyhack wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sy…

> I do however have an issue with the incredibly high rate of money laundering etc that flows through crypto.

Incredibly high relative to what exactly? The total exchange volume of the cryptocurrency industry? Can you show some figures to back that assertion? OR are you talking relative to the global economy? In that case, it's not even a drop in the bucket.

Clearly the Tornado Cash team should have simply started a bank instead, then they would only need pay a fine and carry on.

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

#186

Post by kube-system »

whitepaint wrote: post #158
kube-system wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no moral obligation for someone to provide web services for free for any reason. There’s definitely no moral obligation for someone to do the same at risk of prison time. They do have a moral obligation to follow the laws of the country they operate in, though.

```Record or rewind any change to your code to keep you and your team in sync. Host it all for free with unlimited public and private repositories.``` - https://github.com/ Once again, just because they were legally obliged to do it it doesn't mean the action is not immoral. Oh god, will I do it... Okay, I think I must, because my point is not going through I see. Think of Nazi Germany. It was illegal to try to save…

Godwin’s Law strikes again. Free git repository hosting is not comparable to the holocaust.

If you want some quotes from their website, here’s another:

> GitHub has the right to suspend or terminate your access to all or any part of the Website at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately. GitHub reserves the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.

> This Agreement supersedes any proposal or prior agreement oral or written

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

#187

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dingleberry420 wrote: post #140
PeterisP wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What did they do wrong? The argument probably is that they assisted a sanctioned entity by providing a contribution i.e. service to it. Quoting US Treasury "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." However, th…

> The argument probably is that they assisted a sanctioned entity by providing a contribution i.e. service to it. And what if they did so before the sanctions? Is the US so happy to retroactively punish people who literally did nothing wrong?

> people who literally did nothing wrong?

What on earth did people think a tumbler like Tornado Cash was going to be used for and by?

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

#188

Post by ransom1538 »

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…

"GitHub had to do this. It was required of them by law. Tornado was sanctioned."

This makes no sense. They could have just blocked the Tornado project. Suspending individual accounts and contributors seems punitive. I was banned on github https://github.com/ransom1538 (unrelated) - it is pretty devastating. No recourse. Just gone. If something involves your lively hood (uber,grubhub,paypal,github, etc) you should be able to state your case.

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

#189

Post by dingleberry420 »

Spivak wrote: post #169
salawat wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, pretty much. This is why I'm surprised more people aren't way more terrified about OFAC than there are. It's probably one of the nastiest diplomatic tools the U.S. has in its arsenal.

I think this thread has a lot of today's 10,000 finding out what it's like to interact with the US gov't as non-citizens by way of this tiny tiny little taste.

No post body was provided.

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

#190

Post by dingleberry420 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #187
dingleberry420 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The argument probably is that they assisted a sanctioned entity by providing a contribution i.e. service to it. And what if they did so before the sanctions? Is the US so happy to retroactively punish people who literally did nothing wrong?

> people who literally did nothing wrong? What on earth did people think a tumbler like Tornado Cash was going to be used for and by?

Not sure, thoughtcrime is a thing now in modern America?
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