I honestly don’t find this very surprising, and if the developer was unaware of this risk, they were very naive.
If you develop a tool with the explicit purpose of obfuscating cash flows, that is not a neutral tool as some people in the article claim. And that it would be used by criminals is hardly surprising.
What the crypto bros need to understand is that digital cash should be asymmetric in privacy: A buyer should be as much as possible anonymous, but a seller should not as it gives all the wrong incentives (incl. ransomware and other criminal behaviour).
getting your work used by criminals shouldnt make you a criminal though.
except sometimes its not used for purchasing and sometimes used for donations i.e. donations for Ukraine were done through eth and people (including vitalik buterin) used Tornado Cash to donate to people\organizations without it get traced to vitalik and the user\org
I find the argument that a donation to Ukraine needs to be anonymous to be very weak. You can donate without problem using normal crypto coins or regular money.
And yes, the guy is only being charged with “aiding” criminal activity, not the activity itself. Which is what he clearly did by developing this software.
Software is not a neutral tool. If you develop for example software for drones you share part of the responsibility for the deaths of the people killed with these drones.
So if someone works on software for cars and they’re used to run people over the responsibility is on them? Seems like a terrible way to go about it.
With that perspective tim berners lee has aided so much terrorism, money laundering, and blackmail by coding the world wide web. Or Protonmail coders or apple cosers for making end to end encryption simple to use
If the software is specifically designed to make it easier to run people over and get away with it, then yes. And that is what we are talking about here… this isn’t the Linux kernel or some general purpose software, but a software specifically designed to obfuscate money flows.
ok then does that apply to software that makes it easier to obfuscate communication? people can use it to plot terror attacks, or send grandmas secret recipe. people can use tornado cash for money laundering, or for hiding how much money you have and where your spending it from an abusive ex or authoritarian government who might target you for paying for an abortion
The vital difference here is that with near 100% certainty the vast majority of the users of Tornado Cash used it for illegal purposes, while most encrypted messengers are used for 99% legal use.
And as I said elsewhere, nearly all the good uses of a anonymous digital money can be achieved with a system that protects the anonymity of the individual buyer only. Making the seller anonymous as well is counter productive.
To be honest I am not a big fan of Tor either, but I can give it the benefit of doubt that it does have legitimate use-cases. For this tornado cash I have a really hard time imagining there to be real non-criminal use-cases that could not be done differently better.
So if someone works on software for cars and they’re used to run people over the responsibility is on them? Seems like a terrible way to go about it.
With that perspective tim berners lee has aided so much terrorism, money laundering, and blackmail by coding the world wide web. Or Protonmail coders or apple cosers for making end to end encryption simple to use
You can donate without problem using normal crypto coins or regular money.
A no ser que uses una criptomoneda como Monero todo el mundo puede saber a quién has donado. ¿Pero y si no quieres que nadie sepa que a quien has donado? Por ejemplo, me puede dar vergüenda donar dinero para ayudar a comprar armas a un país muy corrupto, como Ucrania. Si el otro país toma el poder pueden usar esa información en el futuro para acusarme de financiar el terrorismo o financiar a neonazis.
Maybe if you feel embarrassed about donating you should reconsider who you are donating too? And yes donating to buy weapons should not be hidden… there is no difference to you doing it, to say when the CIA does it. In both cases it should be transparent and people should be held accountable for what is later done with these weapons they financed.
Same argument to be used to lock up anyone who’s ever contributed to a torrenting app or to the protocol itself.
Whatever your opinion on crypto, taking it down might have some acceptable reasoning behind, but going as far as to arrest the developer is extremely concerning.
What are you even talking about? It’s 100 percent a question of perspective because as I hope you know, this argument is used constantly (copying files is or should be illegal).
The fact that you consider it to be a “real crime” should be more than enough for you to realise it’s a ridiculous position.
Personally, I don’t consider keeping your financial transactions secrets to be a real crime, regardless of what method you’re using. Now what?
No, but enabling the financial transactions of drug cartels and dictatorships like North Korea is what we are talking about here, not your petty play money in crypto cash.
Did you even read the original article? None of that is relevant and comparing it is ridiculous.
This is very explicitly about North Korea (and others) running their ransomware operations at a profit through tornado cash. Of course this isn’t going to fund their nuclear program, but it is still really shit and criminal and effects real people. And the guy you made tornado cash enabled that, and likely (indirectly) profited from it as well. That is not a poor innocent person that can play the victim card here.
This is very explicitly about North Korea (and others) running their ransomware operations at a profit through tornado cash.
I fail to understand how different that is from the examples cited by @SineNomineAnonymous . They are charged with "hav[ing] failed to address their use as illegal money laundering services. ". Did @torproject manage to address their use as a child porn sharing service?
There is a significant difference between enabling cash flows and enabling the exchange of jpgs (only). If Tor had a payment service included that was developed for and used 99% to enable paying for CP, it would be also justified to charge the developers of that payment gateway for aiding in the creation of CP.
Would it change your opinion if he was paid for working on the software by the criminals? It is currently unknown and given the nature of the software involved might never be known…
Would it change your opinion if he was paid for working on the software by the criminals?
Yes, it would change my armchair not-a-lawyer-but-i-play-one-online legal opinion. If there is evidence that he was (knowingly) hired to write the software by people who were planning to violate laws using the software, then it is not as much of an open-and-shut first amendment case (assuming they’re planning to extradite him to the US…).
It is currently unknown and given the nature of the software involved might never be known
Indeed. Which is why your assessment of his arrest should not be based on the assumption that that is what happened.
Feel free to disagree, but I think he certainly benefitted financially from the criminal transactions done on the platform he created. At best he turned a blind eye to it, but just as likely he was fully aware.
Basically all crypto currencies are kept alive by the liquidity that the criminal money laundry brings. Everything else is either peanuts or just holding it for speculation, so if there were not these illicit movements the exchange market would quickly dry up and the value would crash.
So if you are using crypto currencies and especially if you are developing tools to enable hidden illicit money flows through it, you are IMHO complicit in these crimes and very likely also benefit financially from them.
The politicians may be expending a big chunk of our tax money on sex and hard drugs, but how do you think that public services (education, health, literally a ton more) get founded?
Our politics suck, our system suck. But that discourse is shit.
Our politics suck, our system suck. But that discourse is shit.
Señor Estegosaurio, si es mi dinero, debería poder decidir en qué se emplea, pero no puedo hacerlo, pues una considerable parte me la quita el estado para financiar cosas que no quiero financiar.
Disculpa el tono en el anterior mensaje, mucho estres.
Está claro que con nuestros impuestos se hacen infinidad de cosas en contra del beneficio del pueblo (políticos yendose de putas, comisiones, favores…) y que al final tan sólo una mínima parte se acaba invirtiendo en servicios públicos.
El sistema, como idea y sobre el papel, no me parece una mala idea. Ahora, habríamos de limpiar las instituciones de toda corrupción, implantar transparencia absoluta y someter esos presupuestos a referndum.
Yo también estoy harto de financiar a tanto payaso, pero la alternativa no es mejor. Es preferible tener el circo que tenemos ahora a morir por no poder costearse una ambulancia. (veasé EEUU)
Claro que esto no es en defensa de la corrupción actual ni nada por el estilo, no es conformismo. Lo que quiero decir es que no tener nada es horrible, lo que tenemos es malo y que podemos aspirar a algo bueno.
I honestly don’t find this very surprising, and if the developer was unaware of this risk, they were very naive.
If you develop a tool with the explicit purpose of obfuscating cash flows, that is not a neutral tool as some people in the article claim. And that it would be used by criminals is hardly surprising.
What the crypto bros need to understand is that digital cash should be asymmetric in privacy: A buyer should be as much as possible anonymous, but a seller should not as it gives all the wrong incentives (incl. ransomware and other criminal behaviour).
GNU Taler is a payment system built on this philosophy
deleted by creator
getting your work used by criminals shouldnt make you a criminal though.
except sometimes its not used for purchasing and sometimes used for donations i.e. donations for Ukraine were done through eth and people (including vitalik buterin) used Tornado Cash to donate to people\organizations without it get traced to vitalik and the user\org
I find the argument that a donation to Ukraine needs to be anonymous to be very weak. You can donate without problem using normal crypto coins or regular money.
And yes, the guy is only being charged with “aiding” criminal activity, not the activity itself. Which is what he clearly did by developing this software.
Software is not a neutral tool. If you develop for example software for drones you share part of the responsibility for the deaths of the people killed with these drones.
So if someone works on software for cars and they’re used to run people over the responsibility is on them? Seems like a terrible way to go about it.
With that perspective tim berners lee has aided so much terrorism, money laundering, and blackmail by coding the world wide web. Or Protonmail coders or apple cosers for making end to end encryption simple to use
If the software is specifically designed to make it easier to run people over and get away with it, then yes. And that is what we are talking about here… this isn’t the Linux kernel or some general purpose software, but a software specifically designed to obfuscate money flows.
ok then does that apply to software that makes it easier to obfuscate communication? people can use it to plot terror attacks, or send grandmas secret recipe. people can use tornado cash for money laundering, or for hiding how much money you have and where your spending it from an abusive ex or authoritarian government who might target you for paying for an abortion
As usual it depends :)
The vital difference here is that with near 100% certainty the vast majority of the users of Tornado Cash used it for illegal purposes, while most encrypted messengers are used for 99% legal use.
And as I said elsewhere, nearly all the good uses of a anonymous digital money can be achieved with a system that protects the anonymity of the individual buyer only. Making the seller anonymous as well is counter productive.
deleted by creator
To be honest I am not a big fan of Tor either, but I can give it the benefit of doubt that it does have legitimate use-cases. For this tornado cash I have a really hard time imagining there to be real non-criminal use-cases that could not be done differently better.
So if someone works on software for cars and they’re used to run people over the responsibility is on them? Seems like a terrible way to go about it.
With that perspective tim berners lee has aided so much terrorism, money laundering, and blackmail by coding the world wide web. Or Protonmail coders or apple cosers for making end to end encryption simple to use
A no ser que uses una criptomoneda como Monero todo el mundo puede saber a quién has donado. ¿Pero y si no quieres que nadie sepa que a quien has donado? Por ejemplo, me puede dar vergüenda donar dinero para ayudar a comprar armas a un país muy corrupto, como Ucrania. Si el otro país toma el poder pueden usar esa información en el futuro para acusarme de financiar el terrorismo o financiar a neonazis.
Maybe if you feel embarrassed about donating you should reconsider who you are donating too? And yes donating to buy weapons should not be hidden… there is no difference to you doing it, to say when the CIA does it. In both cases it should be transparent and people should be held accountable for what is later done with these weapons they financed.
Same argument to be used to lock up anyone who’s ever contributed to a torrenting app or to the protocol itself.
Whatever your opinion on crypto, taking it down might have some acceptable reasoning behind, but going as far as to arrest the developer is extremely concerning.
No because copying a file is not a real crime. Don’t mix apples with oranges.
What are you even talking about? It’s 100 percent a question of perspective because as I hope you know, this argument is used constantly (copying files is or should be illegal).
The fact that you consider it to be a “real crime” should be more than enough for you to realise it’s a ridiculous position.
Personally, I don’t consider keeping your financial transactions secrets to be a real crime, regardless of what method you’re using. Now what?
No, but enabling the financial transactions of drug cartels and dictatorships like North Korea is what we are talking about here, not your petty play money in crypto cash.
deleted by creator
Did you even read the original article? None of that is relevant and comparing it is ridiculous.
This is very explicitly about North Korea (and others) running their ransomware operations at a profit through tornado cash. Of course this isn’t going to fund their nuclear program, but it is still really shit and criminal and effects real people. And the guy you made tornado cash enabled that, and likely (indirectly) profited from it as well. That is not a poor innocent person that can play the victim card here.
@poVoq
I fail to understand how different that is from the examples cited by @SineNomineAnonymous . They are charged with "hav[ing] failed to address their use as illegal money laundering services. ". Did @torproject manage to address their use as a child porn sharing service?
There is a significant difference between enabling cash flows and enabling the exchange of jpgs (only). If Tor had a payment service included that was developed for and used 99% to enable paying for CP, it would be also justified to charge the developers of that payment gateway for aiding in the creation of CP.
Well, their security audit didn’t seem spot the risk…
Seriously, though, are you condoning someone being arrested for publishing software?
Would it change your opinion if he was paid for working on the software by the criminals? It is currently unknown and given the nature of the software involved might never be known…
Yes, it would change my armchair not-a-lawyer-but-i-play-one-online legal opinion. If there is evidence that he was (knowingly) hired to write the software by people who were planning to violate laws using the software, then it is not as much of an open-and-shut first amendment case (assuming they’re planning to extradite him to the US…).
Indeed. Which is why your assessment of his arrest should not be based on the assumption that that is what happened.
Feel free to disagree, but I think he certainly benefitted financially from the criminal transactions done on the platform he created. At best he turned a blind eye to it, but just as likely he was fully aware.
Basically all crypto currencies are kept alive by the liquidity that the criminal money laundry brings. Everything else is either peanuts or just holding it for speculation, so if there were not these illicit movements the exchange market would quickly dry up and the value would crash.
So if you are using crypto currencies and especially if you are developing tools to enable hidden illicit money flows through it, you are IMHO complicit in these crimes and very likely also benefit financially from them.
Seller should be anonymous to avoid state stealing their money through taxes.
The politicians may be expending a big chunk of our tax money on sex and hard drugs, but how do you think that public services (education, health, literally a ton more) get founded?
Our politics suck, our system suck. But that discourse is shit.
Señor Estegosaurio, si es mi dinero, debería poder decidir en qué se emplea, pero no puedo hacerlo, pues una considerable parte me la quita el estado para financiar cosas que no quiero financiar.
Disculpa el tono en el anterior mensaje, mucho estres.
Está claro que con nuestros impuestos se hacen infinidad de cosas en contra del beneficio del pueblo (políticos yendose de putas, comisiones, favores…) y que al final tan sólo una mínima parte se acaba invirtiendo en servicios públicos.
El sistema, como idea y sobre el papel, no me parece una mala idea. Ahora, habríamos de limpiar las instituciones de toda corrupción, implantar transparencia absoluta y someter esos presupuestos a referndum.
Yo también estoy harto de financiar a tanto payaso, pero la alternativa no es mejor. Es preferible tener el circo que tenemos ahora a morir por no poder costearse una ambulancia. (veasé EEUU) Claro que esto no es en defensa de la corrupción actual ni nada por el estilo, no es conformismo. Lo que quiero decir es que no tener nada es horrible, lo que tenemos es malo y que podemos aspirar a algo bueno.