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Conviction of Tornado Cash programmer: Privacy is not a crime

patrick-breyer.de

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

#31

Post by [deleted] »

eropple wrote: post #29
zomglings wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stom…

[deleted]

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

#32

Post by Out_of_Characte »

commandlinefan wrote: post #22
zomglings wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Porn sites have questionable reputation. This is why your very legit hairdresser also has completely bald clients and why gangs ask for protection money especially in mom and pop shops.

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

#33

Post by orochimaaru »

tedajax wrote: post #2

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

Did he just create the code or also manage the infrastructure and services through which the transactions happen?

The former - I don’t think anyone could convict him. It’s just code in a git repo somewhere. The latter - he is responsible for kyc like all other financial applications.

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

#34

Post by eropple »

fallingsquirrel wrote: post #27
jsnell wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are legal uses of "the internet backbone" that greatly outweigh the illegal ones.

Non-KYC money transfer systems do not have such a raison d'etre.

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

#35

Post by jaggs »

rendaw wrote: post #9
zomglings wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Signal? Protonmail? Personal safes? Https? Car window tinting/privacy films? Government mints? What reason is there to use cash today except to engage in crime?

Hmm plenty of people on low incomes or in market trades stunt have been accounts. Plenty of lie income people can't get credit cards. Plenty of people simply object to being forced to use a system that can and had refused to hand over their own cash on a whim (see Lebanon recently). So yeah, there are lots of reasons.

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

#36

Post by BobaFloutist »

arunabha wrote: post #28
jsnell wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So your argument is "What if I'm not money laundering, but simply breaking the law in some other way?"

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

#37

Post by kayodelycaon »

orochimaaru wrote: post #33
tedajax wrote: post #2

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

Did he just create the code or also manage the infrastructure and services through which the transactions happen? The former - I don’t think anyone could convict him. It’s just code in a git repo somewhere. The latter - he is responsible for kyc like all other financial applications.

It sounds like he got convicted for designing, writing, distributing, and promoting a system whose primary usage facilitates money laundering.

For an extreme example of the same concept: creating an open-source terrain-following and target-tracking drone software that accepts plugins for “cameras”. People are using it to make hunter-killer weapons and you know about it. You’re going to have a very bad day when federal police come knocking.

Software isn’t created in a vacuum. How you react when the police come will often determine your outcome. If you immediately take it down upon being informed, then you have the defense you didn’t know it was illegal. You’re unlikely to be charged. Fighting for “your rights” is proof you intended to facilitate illegal use of the software and people will be wanting to make an example out of you.

(Note, this is in reference to criminal law, not civil law like copyright.)

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

#38

Post by bryceneal »

orochimaaru wrote: post #33
tedajax wrote: post #2

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

Did he just create the code or also manage the infrastructure and services through which the transactions happen? The former - I don’t think anyone could convict him. It’s just code in a git repo somewhere. The latter - he is responsible for kyc like all other financial applications.

My understanding is that he wrote the code for the smart contracts and open sourced it on GitHub. The contracts were compiled and deployed to the Ethereum network. There was no infrastructure/service controlled by him responsible for running the code or processing the transactions. The core contract, once deployed to Ethereum; could not be modified or deleted by anyone.

The only "infrastructure" in the traditional sense operated by him was a static website hosted somewhere online (which was eventually taken down at the request of law enforcement). The static website offered an optional interface to the Ethereum network for convenience in interacting with the deployed smart contract. The network requests from this website were made to a public Ethereum API provider specified by the end user through their own general-purpose Ethereum wallet browser extension.

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

#39

Post by aleph_minus_one »

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…

> I would pay someone to operate relayers using cash, gold, diamonds... something hard.

Side remark: diamonds are not hard, see

Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?

> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo...

> https://web.archive.org/web/20240510011736/https://www.theat...

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

#40

Post by lesuorac »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #36
arunabha wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So your argument is "What if I'm not money laundering, but simply breaking the law in some other way?"

Yeah, they probably should've stopped mid sentence where you can argue "I just want to watch pornography".

It's a bit weird how much scrutiny there is over obscuring the transaction history for cyrpto. Like you money launder via houses you get a slap on the wrist first [1] but if you aren't actually directly involved in the transactions you get 5 years. The guy's not running a server; he published a contract that other people's computers are paid (by also other people) to run. Afaik, there wasn't even an allegation that he profited per transaction.

[1]: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/anti-money-laundering-agency-imposes-5...

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