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Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

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Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#321

Post by kube-system »

WFHRenaissance wrote: post #294
kube-system wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right to privacy ends at the moment that it is used as an excuse to evade the law. Every country recognizes warrants for this reason.

> The right to privacy ends at the moment that it is used as an excuse to evade the law. Sufficiently good use of sufficiently good privacy technology would make this judgement impossible. What happens then? Good luck not becoming a police state.

You might be able to encrypt some information associated with a crime, but you can't encrypt the real world manifestation of crime. https://xkcd.com/538/

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#322

Post by akimball »

npc54321 wrote: post #246
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the famed “Hacker” News users advocating for the Big State and against privacy.

Quoted post unavailable.

I think you may mistake the individuals for the whole. HN as a social center can be corrupted and coopted without any of the original individuals changing their behaviors, simply by adding more individuals with different behaviors. If by "they" you mean the individuals, your statement would then be incorrect, while if you mean the community gestalt, it would be correct.

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#323

Post by dcolkitt »

clucas wrote: post #161
clippablematt wrote: post #60

Ah yes, arrest developers of open source privacy code and blame them for North Korea money laundering rather than going after the people actually committing crimes. Sounds about right. Privacy is not a crime, it’s a human right! Sorry that it makes the polices job harder, but our rights are more important. And didn’t we go through all this already in the 90s? Are we now gonna start arresting all cryptographers? This…

If the international law enforcement community is really trying to go after "all cryptographers" why do you think we haven't seen more arrests? Why do you think they only arrested this guy? I get that you really want to defend crypto, but I think a simpler explanation is that they have good reasons to believe that this guy was doing more than just the stuff you're trying to defend (making privacy code). It would be l…

> If the international law enforcement community is really trying to go after "all cryptographers" why do you think we haven't seen more arrests? Why do you think they only arrested this guy?

Because the standard playbook for "cracking down" is to first win cases against the least sympathetic, most prosecutable targets. Once that's under your belt, you gradually expand outwards to increasingly ordinary people. It's why slippery slope is such a big deal in civil liberties and constitutional law.

When drug prohibition started, they started by arresting kingpin gangstas not students with dime bags. As abortion laws restart, states won't begin by arresting anyone who's ever donated to Planned Parenthood. But if left unchecked, some will eventually get there.

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#324

Post by dcolkitt »

kube-system wrote: post #259
clippablematt wrote: post #60

Ah yes, arrest developers of open source privacy code and blame them for North Korea money laundering rather than going after the people actually committing crimes. Sounds about right. Privacy is not a crime, it’s a human right! Sorry that it makes the polices job harder, but our rights are more important. And didn’t we go through all this already in the 90s? Are we now gonna start arresting all cryptographers? This…

The right to privacy ends at the moment that it is used as an excuse to evade the law. Every country recognizes warrants for this reason.

You've obviously never heard of the Fifth Amendment. It's actually quite the opposite, the Constitution enhances your right to privacy (by refusing to talk about something) when doing so could be used to prosecute you for a crime.

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#325

Post by sva_ »

whatisweb3 wrote: post #114
sva_ wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People getting arrested over crypto mixers is nothing new at all.

US sanctions on mixers in the past have been associated with an individual, not a piece of code. This is the first sanction to target an open source and non-custodial mixer.

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

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#326

Post by kube-system »

dcolkitt wrote: post #324
kube-system wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right to privacy ends at the moment that it is used as an excuse to evade the law. Every country recognizes warrants for this reason.

You've obviously never heard of the Fifth Amendment. It's actually quite the opposite, the Constitution enhances your right to privacy (by refusing to talk about something) when doing so could be used to prosecute you for a crime.

The 5th doesn't give you privacy to anything outside of your thoughts inside your head, which isn't related to anything being discussed here. Everything else in the US is covered by the 4th.

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#327

Post by pjc50 »

diogenes1 wrote: post #136
diogenes1 wrote: post #131

one of the most shameful moments in digital human rights after the arrest of pgp creator in 1993. Code is speech, it is not a weapon. Banning maths is fascist

even more shameful is the tone of conversation regarding this in internet forums now vs in 1993. How the hell can you be pro arrest of developers

I don't think the cryptobros realise quite how much they've made the general forum public hate them, which is why everyone's cheering this arrest.

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#329

Post by akimball »

epolanski wrote: post #82
clippablematt wrote: post #60

Ah yes, arrest developers of open source privacy code and blame them for North Korea money laundering rather than going after the people actually committing crimes. Sounds about right. Privacy is not a crime, it’s a human right! Sorry that it makes the polices job harder, but our rights are more important. And didn’t we go through all this already in the 90s? Are we now gonna start arresting all cryptographers? This…

Financial privacy is not a human right. Moreover the kind of financial privacy you think of is from other citizens to not know your financial movements, it doesn't apply to nation states for obvious tax reasons and money laundering purposes.

Financial privacy is definitely a right. The question is whether that right is respected by any given institution. Since it is against the interests of existing institutions to do so, they will not unless compelled by a greater force. Cryptography allows individuals to use the force of mathematical law, superior to all other law, to enforce their privacy rights .

(Tornado cash, like most mixers, leaves too many loopholes in its contract to be proof against a concerted attack in typical practical applications - they usually leak too much partial information.)

Re: Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash

#330

Post by chitowneats »

dcolkitt wrote: post #323
clucas wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the international law enforcement community is really trying to go after "all cryptographers" why do you think we haven't seen more arrests? Why do you think they only arrested this guy? I get that you really want to defend crypto, but I think a simpler explanation is that they have good reasons to believe that this guy was doing more than just the stuff you're trying to defend (making privacy code). It would be l…

> If the international law enforcement community is really trying to go after "all cryptographers" why do you think we haven't seen more arrests? Why do you think they only arrested this guy? Because the standard playbook for "cracking down" is to first win cases against the least sympathetic, most prosecutable targets. Once that's under your belt, you gradually expand outwards to increasingly ordinary people. It's w…

"Some will ... arrest anyone who's ever donated to Planned Parenthood"

This is a hysterical prediction.

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