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Conviction of Tornado Cash programmer: Privacy is not a crime

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Re: Conviction of Tornado Cash programmer: Privacy is not a crime

#21

Post by eropple »

zomglings wrote: post #16
jncfhnb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m guessing the payment processors of Spotify are at least routing through KYC and basic control. Tornado is flagrantly mixing with known offenders, and even indicated them as such in the UI.

Tornado Cash doesn't maintain accounts for those users. They are using Ethereum accounts created completely independently of Tornado Cash. The contracts are permissionless. Any Ethereum account can call the "deposit" function. That same account can generate a zk-proof of the deposit. Any Ethereum account can withdraw, provided they have a proof of deposit. The proof of deposit could be communicated in any number of w…

> The whole system is private and permissionless. I don't know what Tornado Cash could do other than simply indicating that a known bad actor made a deposit.

Not exist.

Like, this is the fundamental disjoint between this complaint and reality. "Your system behaves enough like a pattern that is core to how society works" is the filter here, not "have I cleverly designed it to not perfectly fit the pattern". The law isn't applied via robot.

Re: Conviction of Tornado Cash programmer: Privacy is not a crime

#22

Post by commandlinefan »

zomglings wrote: post #3
tedajax wrote: post #2

No, privacy is not a crime... But money laundering is.

Was he, specifically, laundering money? People launder money through Spotify, why aren't the creators of Spotify being raked across the coals like this?

It occurred to me once, years ago, that drug dealers could take credit card payments by setting up a porn site and accepting subscription payments through it. Then it occurred to me that a drug dealer probably already thought of that…

Re: Conviction of Tornado Cash programmer: Privacy is not a crime

#23

Post by jsnell »

zomglings wrote: post #20
jsnell wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you make a system that by design can't meet the legal requirements for preventing money laundering, that's not actually a good defense. It's the opposite.

How can conceiving of such a system and building it be a crime? It's like labelling thought a crime. I would accept that operating such a system is indefensible. But it's not as if the creator of Tornado Cash was solely maintaining servers that made this possible. Everyone running an Ethereum node (even if they aren't mining) is running the infrastructure that Tornado Cash runs on. So why is the guy who quite brillia…

That's a great idea! I'd be totally up for prosecuting anyone running a Ethereum node used for laundering money too. At this point they really have no excuse; they know what they're doing is illegal, and are still continuing to execute the smart contracts.

> So why is the guy who quite brilliantly conceived and executed this idea being punished like this?

I mean, you say it yourself. They're the ones who actually executed on the idea. They didn't write a paper on this being theoretically possible. They wrote the code. They deployed the code. They marketed it. They continued operating the system for years, and profited monetarily from it.

That there are other people who are also culpable for other things related to the mixers doesn't remove the culpability of the original creators.

And again: if you implement a system that's doing something illegal, and by design you make it impossible to turn that system off, that's not a defense.

Re: Conviction of Tornado Cash programmer: Privacy is not a crime

#24

Post by zomglings »

eropple wrote: post #21
zomglings wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tornado Cash doesn't maintain accounts for those users. They are using Ethereum accounts created completely independently of Tornado Cash. The contracts are permissionless. Any Ethereum account can call the "deposit" function. That same account can generate a zk-proof of the deposit. Any Ethereum account can withdraw, provided they have a proof of deposit. The proof of deposit could be communicated in any number of w…

> The whole system is private and permissionless. I don't know what Tornado Cash could do other than simply indicating that a known bad actor made a deposit. Not exist. Like, this is the fundamental disjoint between this complaint and reality. "Your system behaves enough like a pattern that is core to how society works" is the filter here, not "have I cleverly designed it to not perfectly fit the pattern". The law is…

If I were a money launderer, I would take the libre Tornado Cash smart contracts, the libre Tornado Cash zk circuits, and the source-available Tornado Cash relayer, and run the whole thing myself. I would pay someone to operate relayers using cash, gold, diamonds... something hard.

Does that mean the creator of the mathematical concept and the code should be punished?

I understand what you are saying, though. My complaint is really that the authorities are willing to stifle such radical innovation to continue to maintain control. Even that shouldn't be a surprise, but I continue to feel outrage when I see this kind of thing.

Re: Conviction of Tornado Cash programmer: Privacy is not a crime

#26

Post by zomglings »

jsnell wrote: post #23
zomglings wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can conceiving of such a system and building it be a crime? It's like labelling thought a crime. I would accept that operating such a system is indefensible. But it's not as if the creator of Tornado Cash was solely maintaining servers that made this possible. Everyone running an Ethereum node (even if they aren't mining) is running the infrastructure that Tornado Cash runs on. So why is the guy who quite brillia…

That's a great idea! I'd be totally up for prosecuting anyone running a Ethereum node used for laundering money too. At this point they really have no excuse; they know what they're doing is illegal, and are still continuing to execute the smart contracts. > So why is the guy who quite brilliantly conceived and executed this idea being punished like this? I mean, you say it yourself. They're the ones who actually exe…

There is no difference between mathematics and code.

Certainly via a slippery slope argument there is no difference between mathematics and code.

I think we are at a point where we just have such different world views that we are unable to communicate meaningfully about this. Any society that decides to adopt your view is a society that would imprison me for simply operating a node.

Anyway, I enjoyed Linjat.

Re: Conviction of Tornado Cash programmer: Privacy is not a crime

#27

Post by fallingsquirrel »

jsnell wrote: post #23
zomglings wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can conceiving of such a system and building it be a crime? It's like labelling thought a crime. I would accept that operating such a system is indefensible. But it's not as if the creator of Tornado Cash was solely maintaining servers that made this possible. Everyone running an Ethereum node (even if they aren't mining) is running the infrastructure that Tornado Cash runs on. So why is the guy who quite brillia…

That's a great idea! I'd be totally up for prosecuting anyone running a Ethereum node used for laundering money too. At this point they really have no excuse; they know what they're doing is illegal, and are still continuing to execute the smart contracts. > So why is the guy who quite brilliantly conceived and executed this idea being punished like this? I mean, you say it yourself. They're the ones who actually exe…

Should we also shut down the internet backbone because people are committing crimes with it? At this point they really have no excuse, we know the internet is used for illegal activity, yet they still continue to route packets.

Should we jail Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman because their work is used to encrypt illegal data? They wrote the paper. They published it. It's impossible to turn that system off, and as you said, that's not a defense.

Re: Conviction of Tornado Cash programmer: Privacy is not a crime

#28

Post by arunabha »

jsnell wrote: post #19
lesuorac wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do notice in your example Spotify doesn't shut down? Afaik, nobody is allegeding that Tornado Cash maintained user accounts for money launderers. It'd be more akin to if you had say McDonalds and people used your parking lot for Craigslist transactions (some of which were fradualent). Should you be required to close that McDonalds?

Spotify doesn't shut down because they're primarily providing a legitimate service to legitimate people. The money laundering traffic there has to be absolutely miniscule compared to the legitimate traffic. It makes basically no sense as a money laundering avenue, and the only source for this (that I could find with quick Googling) is an "anonymous police officer" who just clainms that it's happening, but can't even…

> The crypto mixer, on the other hand, has no real use case except money laundering

Is that true though? What if I am in a country which disapproves of $activity that is legal in most of the world but not in my country. I might simply want anonymity in my Bitcoin transactions.

Re: Conviction of Tornado Cash programmer: Privacy is not a crime

#29

Post by eropple »

zomglings wrote: post #24
eropple wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole system is private and permissionless. I don't know what Tornado Cash could do other than simply indicating that a known bad actor made a deposit. Not exist. Like, this is the fundamental disjoint between this complaint and reality. "Your system behaves enough like a pattern that is core to how society works" is the filter here, not "have I cleverly designed it to not perfectly fit the pattern". The law is…

If I were a money launderer, I would take the libre Tornado Cash smart contracts, the libre Tornado Cash zk circuits, and the source-available Tornado Cash relayer, and run the whole thing myself. I would pay someone to operate relayers using cash, gold, diamonds... something hard. Does that mean the creator of the mathematical concept and the code should be punished? I understand what you are saying, though. My comp…

> Does that mean the creator of the mathematical concept and the code should be punished?

Code isn't an idea, code's a thing you make. There are entire classes of thing that are illegal for a citizen of many countries to make or possess or both. While I don't particularly care about this case except in the general "cryptocurrencies appear to exist for grift and need to actually prove their value to society or be stomped" sort of way I view all of it, it isn't legally outlandish.

> My complaint is really that the authorities are willing to stifle such radical innovation to continue to maintain control.

I don't think a system of blind drops but, in fine patent-office-esque fashion, With A Computer are particularly innovative at all, so this is begging the question.

Re: Conviction of Tornado Cash programmer: Privacy is not a crime

#30

Post by jncfhnb »

zomglings wrote: post #24
eropple wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole system is private and permissionless. I don't know what Tornado Cash could do other than simply indicating that a known bad actor made a deposit. Not exist. Like, this is the fundamental disjoint between this complaint and reality. "Your system behaves enough like a pattern that is core to how society works" is the filter here, not "have I cleverly designed it to not perfectly fit the pattern". The law is…

If I were a money launderer, I would take the libre Tornado Cash smart contracts, the libre Tornado Cash zk circuits, and the source-available Tornado Cash relayer, and run the whole thing myself. I would pay someone to operate relayers using cash, gold, diamonds... something hard. Does that mean the creator of the mathematical concept and the code should be punished? I understand what you are saying, though. My comp…

> Does that mean the creator of the mathematical concept and the code should be punished?

You mean the guy that launched the service? Yeah.

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