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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

#11

Post by paulgb »

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…

Does Tornado being sanctioned mean that everyone who has contributed in the past also needs to be blocked? (It’s not clear from the thread whether the people blocked contributed after, or only before, the sanction.)

For what it’s worth, I don’t see much evidence of people being upset at GitHub in the thread. There’s talk about decentralized alternatives, but not much actual pinning the blame on them.

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

#12

Post by robin_reala »

sschueller wrote: post #8
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #5

This probably protects those users. Contributing to the project at this point opens one up to the international reach of U.S. law enforcement.

You are going to open a huge can of worms if you are going to start prosecuting people for software pull requests. Are we going to prosecute people who manufacture phosphor bombs for the US military as well now?

Honestly, that sounds like a good idea. White phosphorous munitions are generally illegal under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

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

#13

Post by nurettin »

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…

I have no sympathy for crypto whatever and I really don't care about who sanctioned whom and for what reason, but...

Sanctioned project's contributors must be deleted from the server - where is that written in the list of things Microsoft has to do since you went out of your way calling everyone on the reply train ignorant?

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

#15

Post by meltyness »

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 person. [1]

Apparently Treasury is also accusing this tiny piece of code of being engaged in activities that form "... a significant threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economic health or financial stability ..."

[1]: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/0...

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

#17

Post by chrischattin »

Any constitutional law experts care to comment?

If the US government put pressure on Github to remove the code and delete their accounts, it seems like a clear violation of the developer's first amendment rights – "code is speech" being precedent.

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

#18

Post by exikyut »

uranusjr wrote: post #10
Freak_NL wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oof. The confusing title could do with some editing then (capitalize 'Tornado' for one).

I thought they were contributing to the Python web framework called Tornado (quite popular especially before asyncio caught on, but still well-known nowadays).

I was like "what's a tornado repo? a reference I don't know about to a whirlwind of activity? maybe a bot attack of some kind."

+1 disambiguation needed

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

#19

Post by cdiddy2 »

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…

The people were not sanctioned only the onchain addresses of Tornado were. Github was not providing any service to the onchain addresses.

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

#20

Post by moron4hire »

prvit wrote: post #16
moron4hire wrote: post #14

Quoted post unavailable.

“Money laundering” is a fake crime designed to make it easier to prosecute people who may or may not also have committed real crimes.

Yeah, sure, and taxation is theft. Got it.
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