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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

#331

Post by thisisanotherte »

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.

You just gave the best 3-sentence argument for not using GitHub.

Given how capricious US government has become, it's unreasonable to host your code in Github.

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

#332

Post by syzygyhack »

bilekas wrote: post #317
syzygyhack wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You simply can't argue that money laundering isn't rampant on cypto currencies. Actually, I can quite easily argue that. Neither of your sources give evidence or numbers that justify your assertion. In fact, less than 1% of transactions are shown to be illicit activity, and the majority of that is scams, not money laundering. Here's a report from your 2018 source, CipherTrace, only using more recent data: https://c…

I'm not going to be argumentative here, but the last article you referenced. Clearly coinbase would have a bias to promote userbase. That said : > Of that small portion, scams make up the overwhelming majority of cryptocurrency related crime. How do you think those scams will cash out ? Next step - Places like Tornado. > From 2017 to 2020, criminal economic activity was overwhelmingly conducted through traditional fi…

> I'm not going to be argumentative here

It does help when you check the numbers before making your assertions.

> Clearly coinbase would have a bias to promote userbase

You discount the post because it is from Coinbase, yet every point made is backed up with up-to-date sources from firms you have already deemed appropriate, such as CipherTrace and Chainalysis. That's an... interesting perspective to hold. A bit of cognitive dissonance going on there, methinks?

> How do you think those scams will cash out ? Next step - Places like Tornado.

From your own sources, usually exchanges which implement KYC/AML policies equivalent to traditional banks. Did you actually read them or do you just plop a few keywords in Google and hope for the best?

> And the 'Facts' given ignore services like Tornado.cash. Conveniently wouldn't you agree ?

You think so, do you? Yet in your other source (https://www.unive.it/pag/fileadmin/user_upload/dipartimenti/...), we get this nugget:

> However, in spite of the money laundering risk associated with cryptocurrency mixing services, tumblers are used for lawful activities more often than for illegal ones.

You don't seem interested in a rational or data-driven discussion so there's little fruit to harvest here, I'll leave you to your imaginings.

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

#333

Post by revscat »

dogman144 wrote: post #330
Bedon292 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its important to make a distinction between GitHub attempting to ensure they are in legal compliance with a sanction and approving of the sanction happening at all. You can disagree with the sanction while still being understanding of GitHub trying to cut ties with the sanctioned entity. Or be critical of them being heavy handed in their compliance but agree with the sanction in general.

You’d be on the “be reasonable” side of this I suppose. Plenty of organizations in the past have chosen what side of this conceptual line to stand on. One can end up looking like the EFF with a long term, very strong reputation of standing up for clear boundaries of what’s right in the legal code context and go to court over it, or you can end up looking like GitHub.

Honestly, I don’t care what happens to crypto bros. They put profit before environment. Fuck em.

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

#334

Post by kmeisthax »

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.

There's a solution for that: use a regular bank account denominated in a fiat currency. Your payments will clear in a reasonable amount of time, with minimal fees, and will be private to all but the spooks[0], who don't really give a fuck about you.

[0] FBI/CIA/etc

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

#335

Post by whatisweb3 »

zaphar wrote: post #261
zaphar wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are mixing your money with known criminals so that they can hide their money then you are money laundering even if you have other legitimate reasons for hiding your own money. The creative fiction that you can't know you are mixing it with known criminals is just that. A fiction. It has been known for a long time now that these mixers are used by known criminals. Continuing to use and contribute to that means…

When I and a friend use E2EE between us neither of us are helping to hide a criminal's conversation regarding their criminal activity. The same can not be said about a mixer. They are not at all equivalent.

Sure you are, in two ways:

1. You are using and supporting the same protocol that they are also using. As the application grows and improves because more people are using and supporting it, the criminals are also being helped.

2. You are creating cover. The more people that use Tor and Matrix, the more secure it becomes for all users within the network.

If you and a criminal are both using the same Matrix server, neither you nor the host would know. Your plain text messages are going into the protocol, getting mixed and encrypted, and then spit out the other end.

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

#336

Post by CitizenKane »

yosito wrote: post #55

Honest question: was GitHub legally obligated to delete the accounts of anyone who had contributed to the repos? I get that contributing to the repos would be a violation of the sanctions, but it's not clear to me when the project was sanctioned and whether all the contributors were aware that they were contributing to a sanctioned project. Would it have been enough for GitHub just to remove the projects? I ask as so…

It's hard to say, but sanctions violations are often heavily penalized. I don't think I go as far as saying it's simply CYA, but it is playing it on the safe side. Banning a few developer accounts is way less costly then the potential hit from violating sanctions.

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

#337

Post by dogman144 »

revscat wrote: post #333
dogman144 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d be on the “be reasonable” side of this I suppose. Plenty of organizations in the past have chosen what side of this conceptual line to stand on. One can end up looking like the EFF with a long term, very strong reputation of standing up for clear boundaries of what’s right in the legal code context and go to court over it, or you can end up looking like GitHub.

Honestly, I don’t care what happens to crypto bros. They put profit before environment. Fuck em.

PoW uses less energy than global dishwasher usage. Do you feel similar sentiments against Home Depot and dishwasher users? Facebook data centers aren’t pretty either in this regard.

Edit - additionally, tornado runs on eth, which is soon to be env-friendly PoS.

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

#338

Post by tromp »

tromp wrote: post #205
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

According to the company developing it, there is no evidence of "substantive use of Zcash for money laundering, terrorism financing or trade in illicit goods and services."

So I guess what made Tornado Cash criminal, is that there was evidence of such...

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

#339

Post by px43 »

zaphar wrote: post #129
whatisweb3 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-e…

If the matrix project was run by terrorists then your comparison would be accurate. It is not however. Tornado Cash however is run by a group with the express purpose of money laundering which is a crime. This difference is important and is why they are now sanctioned and Matrix is not.

WTF are you talking about? I know them personally and have made my own various contributions to Tornado over the years. They're a group of people who think public blockchains put people at risk of privacy violations, so they built tools to help people transact on blockchains in a way more similar to cash.

It's basically an HTTPS layer. You roll up some set denomination of ETH or whatever into a zero knowledge note, which can then be treated like cash. Anyone who has the private key can generate a request to send the note somewhere else, and there's nothing linking the creator of the note to the spender of the note.

Never once has it been marketed towards criminals, or have any of the team made any indication that it was build for criminal purposes. It appears it was actually in heavy use for three years or so before Lazarus apparently used it for the first time, which is why the sanctions were slapped on it. Fuck Lazarus, but also the idea that anything tech they use becomes illegal is insanity.

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

#340

Post by capableweb »

revscat wrote: post #333
dogman144 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d be on the “be reasonable” side of this I suppose. Plenty of organizations in the past have chosen what side of this conceptual line to stand on. One can end up looking like the EFF with a long term, very strong reputation of standing up for clear boundaries of what’s right in the legal code context and go to court over it, or you can end up looking like GitHub.

Honestly, I don’t care what happens to crypto bros. They put profit before environment. Fuck em.

This type of opinion is so sad to see, especially here on HN that tends to be relatively level-headed.

I don't agree with a lot of things in the world, but the only thing I wish for them is for things to get better, not worse.

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