Can anyone explain why Tornado cash dev was arrested but Zcash has been operating for years?
North Korea didn't use them yet to layer stolen funds. Just a matter of time before ZCash and Monero developers are all arrested if this is the precedent.
Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash
491–500 of 827 posts
Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash
#492Earlier quoted context omitted.
Satoshi has demonstrated inhuman levels of restraint. The only explanation is that he is dead. The others are that he is not human, or that it's a committee defying Hanlon's razor: i.e. not governed by stupidity like most human affairs, but malice. Both are equally improbable.
Some people have alleged that Paul Leroux, who is sitting in prison right now, is Satoshi. That would explain why Satoshi hasn't moved any coins or sought fame.
For anyone interested, his bio is a fascinating read in itself. I will admit that for me he is likely the top contender.
Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash
#493Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that's not what they said. They said if you are using it to break laws, then you can't not expect to be arrested. A money laundering operation can hardly been seen as fundamentally a way to provide privacy but as a way to change dirty money into clean. It's like claiming that an illegal brothel provides employment services as well as anything dodgy that people might use it for!
> A money laundering operation Tornado Cash is not a money laundering operation. It is a privacy tool.
The local mob-owned laundromat is also a privacy tool. Both are meant to hide the provenance of money from others. What's the difference besides the implementation details?
Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash
#494Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people have alleged that Paul Leroux, who is sitting in prison right now, is Satoshi. That would explain why Satoshi hasn't moved any coins or sought fame.
That would be highly interesting. Not like you can get easy access to the internet inside a prison so he would have to either convince a guard to bring him a phone to access it or possible use his lawyer. Anyone who visits they would likely record his conversation with the exception of his lawyer. But what good will the money do him, he isn't set to be out until he is like 72 years old and looking at him he is not in…
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Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash
#495Earlier quoted context omitted.
A private key is a 256 bit integer. > If someone built something that said "Launder your [256 bit integers] here" and it took in a bunch of [256 bit integers], and then [encrypted] it sans fees to hide where it came from... they'd say it was [256 bit integer] laundering and arrest the person. When you compare this to encrypting 256 bit integers, text, or E2EE chat protocols, the shock is easier to understand. People…
Okay so you’re saying NFTs are absolutely meaningless, what the holder solely owns is a 256 bit integer and absolutely nothing else? Anyway, in this case unlike debatably with nfts, there is concrete value tied to possessing knowledge of the integer so acting like it’s just sharing random numbers is deceptive and rather easily detected deception. resorting to deceptive arguments generally makes people turn against th…
The point is: the protocol encrypts a private key, a private key is an integer, or text hash. Saying that it is OK to build tools that encrypt text, like Matrix protocol, but it is not OK to build tools that encrypt private-keys-as-text is a slippery slope.
Which one is it?
- privacy is a right, and people should be allowed to share knowledge privately
or,
- privacy is not a right, and people should only be allowed to share knowledge if that knowledge is not associated with "value"
Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash
#496Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my jurisdiction, if I operate a pawn shop, I am required by law to record transactions, collect ID, and make good faith attempts to prevent people from laundering stolen goods through my shop. Does "privacy is a human right" trump the law in my jurisdiction? Can we say it is improper for the government to require me to collect ID from people selling me goods? Can we say it is improper of the government to require…
> if I operate a pawn shop Tornado Cash is not a company and nobody operates it. It is a privacy protocol. Better to say “If I am a HTTPS”…
That has no bearing on the basic argument which consists of:
1. Claim: "Privacy is a human right, the government should not be allowed to know anything about financial transactions," and;
2. Counter-claim: "Privacy of financial transactions is not a thing now, and absolute ideological freedom is not actual freedom, it is the law of the jungle where the strong are free to prey upon the weak, and the weak have no freedom from the predatory strong."
Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash
#497My comment from 2 days ago: > The US sanctioning Tornado Cash and the resulting repercussions is deeply concerning. Whether or not you like crypto, you should not be supporting this if you are a researcher, academic, technologist, cryptographer, or privacy advocate. The code for Tornado Cash is a series of cryptographic and mathematical functions that can be repurposed for a variety of applications unrelated to priva…
> US sanctioning Tornado Cash Zero evidence this is connected to U.S. sanctions. Dutch law protects even cash transactions less than American law. When the investigation started, in June, the U.S. had already released evidence Tornado Cash was used to launder money. If a Dutch person kept working on it, it might be trivial to show they broke Dutch criminal statute.
This is the second comment of this type I am seeing on HN following this story. I find this line of defense odd. There is no direct evidence, but anyone even somewhat familiar with OFAC sanctions knows how far they can reach.
Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash
#498Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know I will get a hail of downvotes for this, but again you're comparing apples and oranges. The operators are using crypto for a wide range of applications. Using a mixer has probably 99.9% illegal reasons and 0.1% legitimate uses. Making money laundering harder is a good thing, no matter how many people here will try to convince you it isn't.
> Using a mixer has probably 99.9% illegal reasons and 0.1% legitimate uses Similar to people using paper money or end-to-end encryption really. Nobody needs military-grade encryption or anonymous currency unless they're trying to hide something.
That is the fun part, isn't it. Government is now ok with crypto, because it can easily track it. But you try to make it actually not being able to track, booy howdy, it will come down on you like a ton of brick.
Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash
#499Earlier quoted context omitted.
Satoshi has demonstrated inhuman levels of restraint. The only explanation is that he is dead. The others are that he is not human, or that it's a committee defying Hanlon's razor: i.e. not governed by stupidity like most human affairs, but malice. Both are equally improbable.
Some people have alleged that Paul Leroux, who is sitting in prison right now, is Satoshi. That would explain why Satoshi hasn't moved any coins or sought fame.
I invested a lot of time on his identity, not for anything just because I was bored and curious. I highly suspect it’s Adam Back and he currently sits in a tax haven, Malta.
Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash
#500Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It has no other purpose but to conceal the source of funds which only matters the funds were acquired illicitly. This doesn't feel sincere. Obviously money laundering is one reason why anonymity matters, but you can't think of any other reason? I'll give a prompt: Several threads ago, someone expressed their desire to pay for a VPN service in cryptocurrency.
Remind me why you need to launder your crypto to do that?
Because you don't want your crypto currency to be traced back to you... because then the VPN you paid for with it can be traced back to you... and sometimes the entire point of a VPN is so that connections cannot be traced back to you. The funds used to pay for the VPN were not acquired illicitly, but having it traced by to you _could_ be dangerous for you.