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SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

sourcehut.org

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Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#121

Post by rvz »

vladharbuz wrote: post #73

There are people here who seem to take the view that businesses hosting the content of others ought to absolutely protect their "freedom of speech", no matter the content. I disagree. Some things are harmful to the lives of those around us, and just as the private individual can cast a social/cultural vote against this harmful thing by refusing to engage with it and support it, a business can cast a vote in the same…

> Put yourself in the maintainers' shoes — would you be happy to idly stand by when you know your service is being used to actively harm others' lives? [^1] Perhaps you would, and if so, I would be interested in hearing your view.

Yeah, just like Tor, which is also heavily associated and almost exclusively used for illicit and illegal activities; especially by fraudsters, criminals, scammers, tax / sanctions evasion and illegal drug dealers.

If Tornado Cash is not welcome on SourceHut due to the same association of illicit activity, then I should see no exception to the Tor Project hence it's extremely negative enablement of illegal activity going on there should it attempt to get its source code hosted on SourceHut.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#122

Post by ddevault »

AlexAltea wrote: post #109
ddevault wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People use SourceHut for a wide variety of reasons. One of them is confidence in our strong moral compass and our willingness to make the right choices even if it could impact our profit, as contrasted with typical VC-funded operations in the market. I've never really heard anyone talk about SourceHut offering particularly more or less "freedom" than anyone else.

With all due respect, I do not care about your moral compass. I want the predictability that as long as I am not breaking the law, my data can be safely hosted. Am I supposed to now pay attention to law and the countless individual moral compasses of people/vendors I interact with? Moral compasses are tricky, some people let them run amok, and end up infecting computers with revenge-ransomware just for having their s…

All companies operate according to the moral compass (or lack thereof) of their founders. Some of them simply choose not to state their morals.

I don't think that the slippery slope argument which is being made here and throughout the thread holds much water. We've made no indications that we're planning to address any other use-cases in this manner and we've made the reasoning behind our decisions pretty clear; it's my hope that you can infer our future behavior from these details. If you want any clarifications on SourceHut's position on any other topics, I would be happy to share my thoughts.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#123

Post by exo762 »

tossl568 wrote: post #119
exo762 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, Bitcoin was a thing. But it is an intellectually dead. And without the network the asset itself is barely a thing.

The best engineering talent works on Bitcoin. Altcoins were intellectually DOA.

Working on what? Smart-contracts? Privacy? The only thing Bitcoin has going is LN, but even than, it will not succeed - simply because a better alternatives exist.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#124

Post by tossl568 »

woodruffw wrote: post #106
tossl568 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes securing hundreds of billions of people's money a less valid use of fossil fuels than playing Call of Duty?

For one, quantity: video games don’t use as much electricity, and those that do aren’t incentivizing reactivation of old fossil fuel plants. For another, necessity: we have a preexisting financial system that secures orders of magnitude more value than cryptocurrencies do, with actual legal guarantees and recourses. For a final, civic harm: whatever limited negative social ills can be explained by video games are dwa…

Energy isn't fungible.

That financial system uses many more magnitudes of energy.

This is like blaming dollars for the existence of bank robbers.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#125

Post by noxer »

ddevault wrote: post #3
throwaway71271 wrote: post #2

Any technology that we built is used for both good and evil. For example, assembly was used to get people on the moon, but also to navigate missiles to kill millions of people. Perl was used to sequence the genome, but also it was the main language that script kiddies used in the 2000s to deface millions of websites. Almost any library written is dual use, from openssl to left-pad. The web itself is used to enable wo…

It's subjective. For us, it's a question of social impact. Sure, torrenting copyrighted material is illegal, but what's the actual social consequence of it? Little to none. Bittorrent also has a wealth of legitimate use-cases. For cryptocurrency, this is not the case: the social impact is grave, and there are few to no legitimate use-cases for it.

>The social impact is grave

It also has a positive impact.

To make just one example, millions of people make use of cryptocurrencies for remittances to send money back home. By using cryptocurrencies they can circumvent the obnoxious fees and delays they would get if they use traditional payment services.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#126

Post by tossl568 »

exo762 wrote: post #123
tossl568 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best engineering talent works on Bitcoin. Altcoins were intellectually DOA.

Working on what? Smart-contracts? Privacy? The only thing Bitcoin has going is LN, but even than, it will not succeed - simply because a better alternatives exist.

Bitcoin is money, digital scarcity only needed to be invented once. Shitcoins are scams. LN is growing fast on a solid hard money layer 1 foundation.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#128

Post by zeroclip »

ddevault wrote: post #68
bitwize wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what are the odds of getting an automatic "computer says no" response?

None. All support requests are handled by a real person, who will hear you out and can be reasoned with.

Is this real person also named Drew?

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#129

Post by [deleted] »

ddevault wrote: post #116
junofan wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a political statement. I don’t think declaring “inaction is political” makes it so. Sounds like sloganeering.

Inaction is a political position in support of the status quo. It is the equivalent of saying "I am fine with this".

[deleted]

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#130

Post by envolt »

Never read a better summary before -

> These domains are strongly associated with fraudulent activities and high-risk investments which take advantage of people who are suffering from economic hardship and growing global wealth inequality. Few to no legitimate use-cases for this technology have been found; instead it is mostly used for fraudulent “get rich quick” schemes and to facilitate criminal activity, such as ransomware, illicit trade, and sanctions evasion. These projects often encourage large-scale energy waste and electronics waste, which contributes to the declining health of Earth’s environment. The presence of these projects on SourceHut exposes new victims to these scams and is harmful to the reputation of SourceHut and its community.

I'm going to send this to everyone who I know is involved in crypto/blockchain.

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