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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

#271

Post by lallysingh »

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…

https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/acceptable-use-polici...

I think this is probably an AUP question. The sanctions are a big enough "hey these users broke the law" signal.

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

#272

Post by [deleted] »

nuclearnice1 wrote: post #109
oliwary wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree with your analysis. Ex post facto criminal laws are barred by the constitution for good reason. Retroactive punishment leaves people guessing what actions might or might not be punished.

[deleted]

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

#273

Post by rkachowski »

voakbasda wrote: post #225
baobob wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, mand…

The problem with this line of reasoning is that any general purpose technology can be used for all those evil things. Hell, should we sanction the Linux kernel project, because all of those nasty people use it?

I agree, I feel this is a bad line of argumentation. If we take it a little further it's clear that the human brain can be used for extortion, money laundering and cybercrime - and therefore it should also be placed in the same sanctionable category as all the nasty people use it.

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

#274

Post by tomjen3 »

prvit wrote: post #16
moron4hire wrote: post #14

Quoted post unavailable.

“Money laundering” is a fake crime designed to make it easier to prosecute people who may or may not also have committed real crimes.

There is absolutely no reason to downvote OP for stating an opinion. He didn't say it was the law.

I will equally say that being busted for smoking weed is a fake crime, and that doesn't mean you don't get arrested for it. It means that you _shouldn't_ get arrested for it.

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

#275

Post by lern_too_spel »

cobbal wrote: post #148
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When it comes to financial transactions, KYC laws mean that privacy is, in fact, illegal.

Third party doctrine is nothing new and was a direct result of money transfer becoming easier (not sending gold bars around that could be seized). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Miller_%28197....

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts like to think that just because their transactions are done inefficiently on a blockchain, banking laws don't apply to them. Of course they apply. The only difference is their transactions are more expensive.

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

#276

Post by vel0city »

blagie wrote: post #209
oliwary wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

An organization doesn't become a monopoly just because they are large. Otherwise you might as well claim McDonalds has a monopoly on food and Nike has a monopoly on shoes. There are tons of competitors to GitHub out there.

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

#277

Post by baobob »

rkachowski wrote: post #273
voakbasda wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that any general purpose technology can be used for all those evil things. Hell, should we sanction the Linux kernel project, because all of those nasty people use it?

I agree, I feel this is a bad line of argumentation. If we take it a little further it's clear that the human brain can be used for extortion, money laundering and cybercrime - and therefore it should also be placed in the same sanctionable category as all the nasty people use it.

I love how you blew through my reply from 15 minutes earlier clarifying the obvious concept of the balance of societal benefit to post a me too comment. Do better

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

#278

Post by throwaway0x7E6 »

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…

>and it is going to backfire

it isn't. the sheep have been bleating "corporations can do whatever they want" for 10 years now. the pigs will be fine.

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

#279

Post by tomjen3 »

wesleywt wrote: post #28
chrischattin wrote: post #17

Any constitutional law experts care to comment? If the US government put pressure on Github to remove the code and delete their accounts, it seems like a clear violation of the developer's first amendment rights – "code is speech" being precedent.

How is code speech? To me it is the equivalent to nuts and bolts of a machine.

The US has expansive view of what is speech. A theater play satirizing the US congress is definitely a political statement, yet it also just code for actors, right?

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

#280

Post by jakelazaroff »

mafuy wrote: post #270
chii wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an individual or a small business, ones does not have an alternative to Microsoft Word, github, or Facebook. Google Docs, gitlab or bitbucket, and as for social network there's plenty out there. None of those are real monopolies. They _might_ be best in class, but there's no rule that says you must be allowed to use the best in class service.

Disagreed. They are de-facto mandatory to use. A former university I was at, for instance, published some required information on facebook. Saying "well, they should not do that" is as correct as it is useless and futile in practice. I believe the information was visible to either all logged-in users or just all visitors, but that still requires facebook to serve the page to me.

You can say this about anything, though. "My university requires us to use Blackboard, therefore it's a de facto monopoly." "My work email account is through Gmail, therefore it's a de facto monopoly." They're still not. If another party requires you to use a service for some reason, that's between you and the other party.
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