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Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

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Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#641

Post by jobs_throwaway »

joe_the_user wrote: post #631
dcolkitt wrote: post #260

A lot of the apologists for this are making arguments along the lines of "being decentralized doesn't make you exempt from the rules" or "imagine if a bank laundered this much money". The problem is it doesn't make sense to treat protocols like companies. And it definitely doesn't make sense to treat protocol devs as if they were the executives of those companies. The CEO of a bank and the lead dev of a protocol have…

The problem is it doesn't make sense to treat protocols like companies. And it definitely doesn't make sense to treat protocol devs as if they were the executives of those companies. If the state can arrest people and cause activity to stop, it makes sense in the way states think. The approach of bitcoin and crypto process in general hasn't been to ask permission but aim for a protocol that states can't stop. Neither…

>If the state can arrest people and cause activity to stop

We shall see if that's the case here. My guess is the state can't stop it

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#642

Post by sangnoir »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #593
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we're all suppose to become techno-anarchists? HN has a great balance of both, it's just mostly the crypto-obsessed that decry government encroachment because they're still struggling to find a useful purpose for the technology before they get regulated.

Escaping government encroachment is literally the purpose of the technology. It needs no other purpose. The thing is, most people here don’t think that escaping government encroachment is a worthwhile endeavor. Which is pretty much the antithesis of the word “hacker”

> Escaping government encroachment is literally the purpose of the technology.

You are assuming that the government is tech-illiterate/tech avoidant. As it stands, several US government agencies are way ahead of civilians on tech, and not for the purposes of escaping the government. Technology is just a tool, it can be used to further any end the wielder chooses

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#643

Post by leppr »

acdha wrote: post #564
zmgsabst wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I don’t want my employer knowing I spent my BTC/ETH/etc on a porn website — so I want a way to disassociate the payment address they know from my spending account? …or guns, alcohol, abortions, etc. People have a need for privacy and disassociating spending from receiving for perfectly normal and legal reasons.

This seems like a better argument for using a system which is correctly designed. A public ledger is a bad fit for currency and layering kludges on top isn’t as good as a better design, especially when that exposes you to being an accessory to criminal activity.

Given how arbitrary the Tornado enforcement seems, fully private ledger cryptocurrencies will probably be declared criminal too. While this won't deter criminals from using them, it will deter normal people, as publicly offering goods or services in that currency would be illegal.

It's not hard to imagine that the end goal is CBDCs having a monopoly on legal privacy. (Privacy from your neighbor, not your government.)

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#644

Post by mulmen »

notch656a wrote: post #638
mulmen wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always, correlation doesn't imply causation. It's not clear that gun laws themselves even enabled the rise of fascism or that they had any negative impact on quality of life. With widespread gun ownership early 20th century Europe could have been even worse. This argument is so tired it has it's own Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_gun_control_argument > "The Jews of Germany constituted less tha…

Events such as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising showed some Jews really were willing to defend themselves with arms. The Jews were not cowards and the characterization as people who won't "mount resistance" is woefully wrong. It may be true they may have not been able to successfully overthrow the Nazis, but it is possible some of the oppressed may have survived another 10 or 15 minutes (in the Warsaw Ghetto, days) after i…

> The Jews were not cowards and your characterization as people who won't "mount resistance" is woefully wrong.

Careful. I pasted a quote. Those are not my words. I didn't accuse anyone of being cowardly.

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#645

Post by dlubarov »

codyb wrote: post #228

If someone built something that said "Launder your money here" and it took in a bunch of money, and then disbursed it sans fees to hide where it came from... they'd say it was money laundering and arrest the person. Can anyone explain the difference here? Or why anyone is "shocked" that this is happening cause it's crypto? Just seems kinda childish to think crypto's somehow special and not just a tool for moving mone…

> Launder your money here

This is like framing Signal as a "insert terrorist plan here" app. The tool can be used for that purpose, but it was never designed or marketed for it.

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#646

Post by jobs_throwaway »

darkcha0s wrote: post #199
rvnx wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems reasonable to expect that Ethereum operators share responsibility in case of usage of their network for malicious or criminal activity. They have the technical means to control what goes on there or not. Otherwise it's like if you run P2P nodes and claim pedo pictures aren't your problem.

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.

> Making money laundering harder is a good thing, no matter how many people here will try to convince you it isn't.

What a useless, puerile argument

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#647

Post by sangnoir »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #355
sva_ wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A piece of code that has been actively maintained by a group of people.

Maintaining code is, in the US, likely a 1st Amendment-protected activity. Operating live services like a mixer (including any RPCs needed for Tornado) is not. (And yes I know this arrest was not made in the US, so that might be the distinction.)

> Maintaining code is, in the US, likely a 1st Amendment-protected activity.

How did the 1A defense work out for sharing "Ghost gun" CAD files?

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#648

Post by clay-dreidels »

111111101101 wrote: post #135
sph wrote: post #36

Earlier 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.

> The only explanation is that he is dead. He might be dead but someone has control of his keys & logins as they used his accounts to defend Dorian Nakamoto. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/03/06/bitcoin-...

I donated to Dorian's BTC address back in 2014 when he was falsely accused.

https://blockchain.info/address/1Dorian4RoXcnBv9hnQ4Y2C1an6N...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1ztjmg/andreas_im_...

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#649

Post by [deleted] »

LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #633
mulmen wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always, correlation doesn't imply causation. It's not clear that gun laws themselves even enabled the rise of fascism or that they had any negative impact on quality of life. With widespread gun ownership early 20th century Europe could have been even worse. This argument is so tired it has it's own Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_gun_control_argument > "The Jews of Germany constituted less tha…

That argument is a bit of a straw-man though. Nobody is realistically claiming the Jews, or East Germans, or Soviet citizens, or Syrian citizens, could defeat their government with personal weapons. The more reasonable version of the argument is that the unofficial purges, before the evil becomes fully embraced by the government (the Nazis), or where hidden and unofficial (the KGB), can be deterred by armed civilians…

[deleted]

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#650

Post by sangnoir »

phyalow wrote: post #600
colechristensen wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting a money laundrymat and expecting not to get charged with a crime is a bit absurd. Pretending that it's totally fine because it's "privacy" not money laundering because crypto is special... is likewise absurd.

Starting a gun manufacturing company and expecting not to get charged with a crime is a bit absurd. Pretending that it's totally fine because it's "for hunting" not "murder" because guns are special... is likewise absurd.

You're unironically correct. I suspect you were aiming for sarcasm, but gun manufacturers being sued is an actual thing now.
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