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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

#351

Post by tremon »

Bedon292 wrote: post #210
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 rela…

If the software is performing actions that are illegal

But no software is performing any action; A system running said software could, but the software by itself cannot.

And regarding a system performing actions: didn't the USPTO similarly declare that an AI (=software system) can never be qualified as an inventor, because it has no agency?

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

#352

Post by zaphar »

whatisweb3 wrote: post #335
zaphar wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, nei…

You seem to be arguing as if this is an all or nothing proposition. Instead there are definite degrees of intent and interaction here. In the E2EE case the degree of interaction and intent is quite low. In the mixer case the degree is quite high. The line I believe should be drawn somewhere in the middle. But the Mixer case definitely is on the wrong side for me.

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

#353

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

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.

EFF doesn't have >$100Bn of profits per year.

When you're a donation based non-profit, it's easy to "stand up for clear boundaries". In fact, it's literally your purpose.

When you've got >$100Bn of profits on the line, it's a little harder - and you have a different purpose (i.e. to make money).

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

#354

Post by kube-system »

LionTamer wrote: post #323
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.

> They do have a moral obligation to follow the laws of the country they operate in, though Why?

Without diving too deep into political philosophy, government power is derived from the consent of the governed. To respect the law of a willfully elected government is to respect the wishes of the people.

Of course morality is a complicated topic with many factors.

But for Pete’s sake, we’re talking about a free account on a website, not a war crime.

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

#355

Post by andsoitis »

peterbraden wrote: post #298
jakelazaroff wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an individual or a small business, ones does not have an alternative to - Microsoft Word — Google Docs? Apple Pages? Zoho Docs? OpenOffice? - GitHub — GitLab? sourcehut? Bitbucket? Gitea? - Facebook — Twitter? Instagram? TikTok? SnapChat? The thing about Git is that it's free software. Anyone can run their own server for very little money. If you get banned from the railroad, you can't just get your own train.

So what if the company you work for requires github?

Create a new GitHub account that you use for work.

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

#356

Post by throwaway290 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #322
throwaway290 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is not used to launder money? What separates pre-sanctions Tornado from any other tech that can feasibly be used for something evil (e.g. cash money, PayPal, any cryptocurrency, e2ee messengers)? Should we ask the government to publish a registry of approved technologies to ensure own safety?

> What separates pre-sanctions Tornado from any other tech that can feasibly be used for something evil (e.g. cash money, PayPal, any cryptocurrency, e2ee messengers)? I don’t have the technical answer. But from the instant tumblers became a thing everyone with AML experience saw the endgame. It’s providing, as a service, a function directly analogous to real-world layering. It does nothing else. And nobody involved…

I do not see a meaningful difference between e2ee messengers and mixers. Both aim to support anonymity. Both can (and do) enable bad things. If you (unlike me) believe that cryptocurrency should be legal, I don't see why you would think mixers should not.

Now it is moot after sanctions are in effect. What we are discussing is mental world model of software engineers before Tornado sanctions were announced and their accounts wiped. It might be hard to see in hindsight.

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

#357

Post by Taywee »

TruthIsHeresy wrote: post #343
revscat wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It’s amazing how well the media is able to reprogram the minds of the masses into mindlessly regurgitating its talking points. “Crypto bad” seems to be a big one for 2022.

There being next to nothing positive so far from cryptocurrencies for the past decade doesn't make it hard for the media to "reprogram" the minds of the masses. It's easy to convince somebody that something is bad when it's been overwhelmingly useless to negative on every single front except for speculative investment.

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

#358

Post by UncleEntity »

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…

Two things I see here, a copyright declaration doesn’t protect you from law enforcement actions and publishing source code is a clear example of free speech.

So you have to figure out for yourself if exercising your right to free speech is worth having the government blowup your life for the time it takes to “prove your innocence“. Because, I can assure you, they don’t care even a little bit about violating your constitutional rights if it gets in the way of whatever witch-hunt they are currently on. It’s the court’s job to sort those details out.

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

#359

Post by dwild »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #243
toolz wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> nothing sinister about privacy Totally agree. One damning aspect of Tornado is we know it was used to launder money. Criminals used it. This was publicly reported and certainly known to the Tornado team. If you know your product is being used by criminals to do crime and you respond by shrugging your shoulders, I’m not sure what the expected outcome is supposed to be other than getting dinged.

> If you know your product is being used by criminals to do crime and you respond by shrugging your shoulders, I’m not sure what the expected outcome is supposed to be other than getting dinged.

You are aware that criminals use all the same thing as you an me right? They use toothbrush too... should Coldgate not shrug their shoulders? Sure they don't commit crime with them, but they do use them. Want something they use to commit crime? Guns to kill, cars to evade, bags to carry the money, etc... what should all theses companies do? Let's go even closer, about privacy, what about balaclava manufacturer, it's the default thing considered for banks robbers, yet they still sell them!

I don't have all the details in this case, my guess is that Tornado Cash were aware that it was used by theses countries and could have stopped theses specific accounts (it would keep going for sure without their knowledge using alternative accounts obviously, just like many of theses countries still are able to get Windows illegally, but at least they would no longer be aware of theses accounts). In that case it does makes sense and I agree with the direct sanction of Tornado Cash. I would still disagree with the blanket sanction over the open source contributors, as they might have contributed without knowing it was used by sanctioned country.

Writing all that made me think of a question: do you believe contributor to Windows should be sanctioned too knowing that Windows is used in some of the sanctioned countries?

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