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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

#201

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dingleberry420 wrote: post #190
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> thoughtcrime is a thing now in modern America?

Nothing wrong with writing code. Code is speech, that's settled law. But the Tornado Cash team wasn't just publishing. They were building a tool. Semenov styled himself as a co-founder and the group advertised open positions on its website.

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

#202

Post by Rackedup »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #26

It's ironic, Tornado cash is something closer to the true spirit of "crypto" currency. guess only rich insiders are allowed to launder money.

You have to go through the big banks so that they can get their fees (but you have to launder huge amounts, too).

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

#204

Post by toolz »

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?

You ask this as if there are only non-legitimate uses. Do you think businesses often give away their revenue data to their competitors for free? Of course not, so if you want to do business on an open ledger then you have to have a way to obscure transactions so that your competition doesn't get to know exactly what your revenue stream looks like.

There's nothing sinister about privacy. It would be a logical fallacy to assume that just because sinister things happen in private that privacy itself is sinister.

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

#205

Post by tromp »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #193
tromp wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GitHub had to do this. They only had to block accounts that contributed after establishing the sanction. It's not clear that they limited themselves to those. It would in fact seem to be hard to contribute in the limited time range between establishing the sanction and removing the project. There is also the collateral damage of removing unrelated projects that happened to be owned by these people. Couldn't github…

> only had to block accounts that contributed after establishing the sanction The people who built Tornado Cash are already in trouble. The crime--facilitating money laundering--has already been committed. OFAC is an enforcement office. Its lists are more like wanted posters than rules. GitHub is cutting ties with people likely to be charged with federal crimes. If some of them are going to continue contributing to t…

> The crime--facilitating money laundering

Did the people who built blockchains with built-in mandatory mixing (Monero) or optional completely obscured transaction inputs (ZCash) also facilitate money laundering? If not, what is the crucial difference? Am I myself in trouble for having (co-)designed a mixing service [1]?

[1] https://forum.grin.mw/t/mimblewimble-coinswap-proposal

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

#206

Post by dentemple »

ellisv wrote: post #113
exikyut wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was like "what's a tornado repo? a reference I don't know about to a whirlwind of activity? maybe a bot attack of some kind." +1 disambiguation needed

Some of my repos look like they were hit by a tornado and frankly deserve to be deleted

When your code is so bad that the US Government sanctions you, specifically

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

#207

Post by kranke155 »

outsidetheparty wrote: post #107
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…

> People on Twitter are either wilfully dumb or simply ignorant. You'd think after 16 years I'd be used to it, but it still kinda blows my mind that the social network designed for context- and detail-free hot takes is the one people use for political discussion.

Most political discussion fits your description perfectly, so of course it does.

Having to explain yourself long form leads to people attacking you and often being correct.

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

#208

Post by capableweb »

robin_reala wrote: post #12
sschueller wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are going to open a huge can of worms if you are going to start prosecuting people for software pull requests. Are we going to prosecute people who manufacture phosphor bombs for the US military as well now?

Honestly, that sounds like a good idea. White phosphorous munitions are generally illegal under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

Here is where the missunderstanding seems to keep happening (regarding White Phosphorous and Tornado Cash). The mere existence of tools like Tornado Cash or White Phosphorous is not illegal (at least wasn't until yesterday), but illegal use of those always was.

The distinction is important, but seems to have been lost somewhere along the way.

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

#209

Post by blagie »

oliwary wrote: post #161
PeterisP wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Github blocking an account is not considered "punishment" according to criminal law or constitution, only standard contract law would apply and I believe Github has the right to terminate such contracts if they wish. This consideration would apply if and only if the government would actually pursue criminal charges against someone who contributed to TornadoCash - which they possibly would if someone would do st…

I agree - GitHub can block whoever they want. But doing so despite not being required to by law is a valid reason to criticize them.

No. I disagree. Github should not be able to block anyone they want. We went through this about a century ago with railways, antitrust, and Standard Oil. I won't step through the details, but can provide more background if anyone cares.

We landed with the concept of a "common carrier."

Railways, as well as telecommunications companies, ISPs, public airlines, bus lines, taxicab companies, phone companies, cruise ships, motor carriers, freight companies, and others CANNOT discriminate.

As an individual or a small business, ones does not have an alternative to Microsoft Word, github, or Facebook.

If these companies are allowed to discriminate, we'd be in a position where, again, monied entities can shut down individual small businesses, or ostracize individuals, as they see fit.

Once you provide a sufficiently central service, you should not be allowed to discriminate.

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

#210

Post by Bedon292 »

meltyness wrote: post #15

This is an overreach, and it is going to backfire. The target here is a software package, essentially speech so, one step down That hill. At least congress isn't deluded, corrupt, and senile enough to try this. Edit: further, it seems they're going to have to shut down Ethereum too, because Tornado Cash's contract is a person, and subgroup of Ethereum under the definition of entity which falls under the definition of…

If the software is performing actions that are illegal, such as money laundering, for an entity that is a threat to national security, that is no longer covered by free speech. Right? Having or writing the code may be covered by free speech but actually using it to do something is not the same thing.

I don't believe that EO is related to this case. These are OFAC sanctions against the entity Tornado Cash and its related ETH addresses. A US person or Entity cannot interact with them any more. But that does not sanction the entire ETH network. That would be like shutting down an entire bank, or the entire banking network, because a couple accounts were sanctioned. That's not what happens.

Or are you more concerned with additional sanctions against the entire ETH network coming in the future?

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