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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 cri

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 is because they don’t like money that is independent from state control. They hate the idea of bitcoin and eth not being $ or €. The large majority of money laundering happens through banks, who just pay a fine and sweep it under the rug.

Sir_Liigmaz 4y ago
I work in AML/BSA, they want it under their control. Higher ups talk about how banks shouldn't necessarily cut off (derisk) customers they think are breaking the law because then they can't keep tabs on them. Banks and financial institutions are happily privatizing Big Brother.
desindol 4y ago
Privacy is a human right? citation needed.
- josu 4y ago
  Universal Declaration of Human Rights: >Article 12 >No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
  - jasonlotito 4y ago
    That allows for interference with someones privacy. Basically, interference of privacy based on reason or system is allowed. It does give you the right to not be subjected to interference of your privacy from random choice or personal whim is not. According to the article, that right has not been broken. Moreover, you do not have a right to privacy. Rather, you have a the right to not have your privacy arbitrarily interfered with. This is a pretty important distinction.
- implements 4y ago
  (From Wikipedia) The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States ensures that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." (Also) Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. It’s generally understood that without privacy people are effectively disenfranchised politically, because any expression of an contentious opinion or association with subversive or dissident thinkers becomes potentially so harmful that wise people would avoid both and keep almost entirely to themselves or family.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    > unreasonable > arbitrary There is no absolute right to privacy.
    - zaroth 4y ago
      There are no absolute rights. Even the right to life is not absolute.
    - implements 4y ago
      Of-course, but then there are no absolute rights that I can think off - property can be taxed, movement restricted by imprisonment / laws against trespass, labour can be forced by military draft or prison work, speech restricted by laws against defamation / abusive conduct, life can be taken in self-defence or during military service, etc.
- seanw444 4y ago
  Privacy not being a human right is acceptable?
- eric_cc 4y ago
  It certainly is an ideal if not a legally protected right. Before slaves were free, they could still say “freedom is a human right”.
threeseed 4y ago
> rather than going after the people actually committing crimes Actually they go after the people committing the crime AND those facilitating it. > Privacy is not a crime, it’s a human right (a) Not a human right, (b) not enshrined in any country's law, (c) does not absolve illegal behaviour.
- biglearner1day 4y ago
  > Actually they go after the people committing the crime AND those facilitating it. But only if it is in their interest. We don't see other services and platforms sanctioned for facilitating illegal activity. Furthermore, the Data Protection Directive does give users the (human!) right to privacy, considering that crypto isn't a currency, it's merely your private data which is also protected by GDPR.
  - jjulius 4y ago
    >We don't see other services and platforms sanctioned for facilitating illegal activity. ... yes we do, lol. You hear about people being arrested and platforms shut down for facilitating financial crimes in the crypto space all the time.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    > We don't see other services and platforms sanctioned for facilitating illegal activity. How about the various anti-money laundering regulations and agencies around the world, e.g. https://www.fincen.gov/history-anti-money-laundering-laws https://www.fincen.gov/history-anti-money-laundering-laws How about the US Dept. of the Treasury's program against Transnational Criminal Organizations, which includes sanctions: https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/sanctions-programs-and-country-information/transnational-criminal-organizations https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/...
- cjg 4y ago
  https://www.coe.int/en/web/impact-convention-human-rights/right-to-privacy https://www.coe.int/en/web/impact-convention-human-rights/ri...
biglearner1day 4y ago
And it is always under the guise of anti-money laundering, anti-terrorism or whatever other reason they can find to excuse their inexcusable actions. Take mass government surveillance for example.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  HN in its current avatar would probably cheer on if the Patriot Act was enacted today. Been on this site for a decade. Never seen it this filled with Big Gov and Big Tech apologists.
  - seanw444 4y ago
    Yeah when I first discovered this site in like 2017, it seemed to be a place of tech-literate counter-culture folks. Now the counter-culture seems to be non-existent, and actually looked down on. At this point, the majority of the comments I read sound like a CNN anchor script. Ha, maybe it's their web developers.
    - akimball 4y ago
      The greater the threat which a community represents to the vested control hierarchy, the more intensely it becomes infiltrated and coopted. This is an Iron Law.
      - akimball 4y ago
        As evidence, see the moderation immediately above.
    - _ktx2 4y ago
      One thing to recognize is that HN has had an influx of new users that are pretty right wing, at times using veiled far right speech. Years ago, it was filled with people who had stock very left wing (at times ridiculous) views that I wouldn't call "counter-culture" either. I only know this because I've had to report many of them. My hypothesis is that each of these groups come here after being kicked out or pushed out of wherever they usually hang out. The ones that remain on HN after a period of time are the ones that dang doesn't wear out via moderation or haven't been outright banned. They eventually learn to be good HN members and then stay.
epolanski 4y ago
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.
- highwaylights 4y ago
  or the purposes of funding terrorism, narcotics, human trafficking, weapons, uranium, endangered wildlife and/or biohazardous material. There's a point at which if you undermine law enforcement enough there's no point in continuing to try to enforce laws, which means there's no point in having laws at all. The hype mob either doesn't see this or doesn't care, which is incredibly naive either way.
  - suoduandao2 4y ago
    In my capacity of unofficial spokesperson for the hype mob, I would say that if a tool can be created that has legitimate and nonlegitimate purposes, criminalizing its creation or possession is the worst possible action to take, because it ensures that all talented people who are interested in developing it for legitimate purposes become disaffected at worst or aligned with your enemies at best. Setting aside the moral argument, the NSA's treatment of Snowden, Manning, et al. makes it much more difficult for the NSA to attract the best talent in its field.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > criminalizing its creation or possession is the worst possible action to take Sure. That’s not what’s happening. Tornado was used illegally. Its leadership kept developing it, kept getting paid, and made no apparent course corrections. This wasn’t simply a GitHub repo; it was a remunerated enterprise. When I’ve brought up the legal issues around mixers, a common response involves the impossibility of governments to enforce their Will on blockchains. If these guys messaged similarly they’re justifiably boned.
      - 4y ago
ABeeSea 4y ago
Helping criminals launder money is not a human right.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Guess that makes every government money printer complicit in money laundering, seeing how the majority of it happens through cash.
  - ABeeSea 4y ago
    It’s weird the crypto people think this is a valid argument. If someone did what tornando is doing with physical cash, they would also be committing money laundering.
    - spaceman_2020 4y ago
      Tornado Cash is an anonymizer. Same as every cash drawer in every business. All kinds of money goes in - legitimate as well as illegitimate - and is mixed up together. Does shuffling a bunch of currency notes together - some of which might be from a drug dealer - make you a criminal?
      - ABeeSea 4y ago
        If your business only exists to shuffle money, then yes.
- biglearner1day 4y ago
  I would challenge you to prove that they actively advertised their service as such. Stop spreading misinformation.
  - ABeeSea 4y ago
    You don’t have to actively advertise your criminal conspiracies for them to be criminal conspiracies. They knowingly facilitated illegal activities.
clucas 4y ago
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 like... if two dozen people were picketing outside of a big corporation, and the police came and arrested one dude. You would be the guy saying "they're coming for the protesters!" and I'm the guy saying "Well, if they're really after protesters why didn't they arrest all of them? And isn't that the guy they were investigating for a bank robbery?" Defending literally every crypto guy is short-sighted if you're a true proponent of the tech. It's possible that there are bad people involved in crypto, and you'll be a lot more credible as an advocate if you acknowledge that possibility and wait for the facts.
- bufferoverflow 4y ago
  That's a straw man argument. They don't have to arrest all to scare most into doing what they want them to do.
- game-of-throws 4y ago
  If that were true, it would be so easy for them to swing public opinion in their favor by saying so. Headline: Arrest of developer with suspected ties to North Korean money laundering Body: He has also previously contributed to Tornado Cash. But all we know is what they decided to tell us... he's a developer of privacy tech. If the facts change, I'll change my mind.
  - afavour 4y ago
    Usually when there’s an ongoing investigation the default is for police to not release too much information to avoid jeopardising the investigation, then release all the info when the investigation is complete. It’s frustrating and often a principle that’s applied too broadly, but I do understand the reasoning behind it.
    - 4y ago
JohnHaugeland 4y ago
This isn't open source privacy code. Whether or not someone else does something bad with it isn't relevant. Until you can face what it really is, you aren't going to come to terms with what's happening. This is like making unlicensed guns that don't follow safety or tracking regulations, then complaining "but I'm not the burglar, I didn't kill anyone" when you get shut down. This is and always has been the obvious explicit purpose of this code. This has nothing to do with "privacy" and you don't actually legally have the right to hide your financial transactions besides.
- sneed-oil 4y ago
  > you don't actually legally have the right to hide your financial transactions besides Maybe you don't, but that's what happens by default when using cash
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    If you're exchanging cash, you still theoretically have the legal obligation to declare it. Businesses accepting cash have the obligation of issuing a receipt, and you may have some obligations of keeping that receipt. Now, it's true that these things are hard to enforce, or even impossible for small enough sums. But people systematically flaunting the rules for large sums of money will get arrested, even with cash.
    - sneed-oil 4y ago
      > If you're exchanging cash, you still theoretically have the legal obligation to declare it. Businesses accepting cash have the obligation of issuing a receipt, and you may have some obligations of keeping that receipt. I'm pretty sure that's legally required even when buying with crypto
  - giaour 4y ago
    Cash is unwieldy in large amounts, which is why most authorities don't care about cash transactions. When cash is used at scale for anonymous transactions (e.g., when the US airlifted cargo planes full of cash to Iraq in 2004 to pay government workers without an Iraqi paper trail), it is international news. If tornado cash were just obscuring transactions that could have conceivably been finalized with cash by private parties (~<$10K USD), I guarantee that no one in authority would give a shit.
antiverse 4y ago
>Are we now gonna start arresting all cryptographers? There are more cryptogrifters than there are cryptographers.
kube-system 4y ago
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.
- WFHRenaissance 4y ago
  > 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.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    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/ https://xkcd.com/538/
    - programmarchy 4y ago
      The comic proves the parent's point. Drugging and hitting people with a wrench (i.e. torturing) to extract information is exactly what police states do.
      - kube-system 4y ago
        The comic has a non-literal meaning as well. (i.e. see the alt-text) The wrench can be a warrant, a confidential informant, or it can be a security camera, etc. Obviously, the world consists of more sources of information than encrypted data on your laptop and the information inside of your head. Crimes happen in the real world, not behind a cipher. Some element of any crime is unencrypted and unencryptable.
        programmarchy 4y ago
        I have to disagree with the alt-text. (For me it says, "In actual reality, nobody cares about his secrets.") It's flippant and out of touch. Because somebody does care about his secrets, otherwise mass surveillance wouldn't have reached totalitarian levels along with privacy becoming increasingly criminalized. So the more resource-intensive using the "wrench" is, the more privacy is protected.
puszczyk 4y ago
> This is because they don’t like money that is independent from state control. Who is “they”?
naet 4y ago
I'm in favor of privacy, but if you're profiting off designing and operating a system that you know is being used to facilitate large amounts of criminal money laundering (some going to known foreign government agents), you're more or less asking to be arrested. You can pose an argument that your service has some positive impact in certain cases, but you can't flat deny any negative impact or responsibility for consequences of your service. This is true of any and all services, whether they relate to privacy or not.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
sangnoir 4y ago
> Ah yes, arrest developers of open source privacy code and blame them for North Korea money laundering I have questions: did money laundering happen on the platform? Did the developer financially benefit from the money laundering? If the answer to both is "yes", then it sounds like the developer could be in a world of trouble, which is not related to crypto. If I build a picture-sharing board with no moderation, and I profit from illegal pictures being shared, I would be in trouble for facilitating crime, that doesn't go away because I implement the picture-sharing on a blockchain. Using crypto to implement any system doesn't make it kosher: as far as the law is concerned,a system is what it does, not how it does it.
- ABeeSea 4y ago
  They were also asked to implement some basic money laundering preventions. They did nothing.
  - eric_cc 4y ago
    Didn’t they throw away the keys to the smart contract a long time ago?
    - arlcode 4y ago
      If they did that probably doesn't matter. "I built a bomb I can't disarm" is not a credible defense. It'll be especially nasty if they profited from the service after throwing away the keys and "learning" of the money laundering going on there. Walking away a year or two ago would argueably have helped them.
  - jjulius 4y ago
    Exactly. I understand the sentiment that people are sharing around, "They're just being arrested for writing code!", but intent matters. And it seems like, in this case, there may have actually been intent to develop this to assist with illegal activities.
a4isms 4y ago
In my jurisdiction, if I operate a pawn shop, I am required by law to record transactions, collect ID, and make good faith attempts to prevent people from laundering stolen goods through my shop. Does "privacy is a human right" trump the law in my jurisdiction? Can we say it is improper for the government to require me to collect ID from people selling me goods? Can we say it is improper of the government to require me to keep records of who sold me what? I take the proceeds from my pawn shop to the bank. They are required by law to collect my ID. If I deposit large amounts of cash, they have additional reporting requirements. Does "privacy is a human right" trump these laws that exist to prevent the laundering of criminal proceeds through banks? I also have discomfort over how much data the government collects in the name of preventing the laundering of stolen goods and criminal proceeds. But in the large, I accept that freedom is not an absolute, it is a set of careful tradeoffs between: 1. The freedom for citizens to do as they please without society limiting what we're allowed to do, versus; 2. The freedom for criminal cartels to do as they please, preying upon citizens. The latter is important, because when criminals prey upon citizens, they reduce our freedom as well. I want the freedom to own nice things. The easier it is for criminals to steal and fence my things, the less freedom I actually have to enjoy them I also want the freedom to run a business. When criminals can prey upon businesses with ransomware and launder the proceeds through TornadoCash, the less freedom I actually have. A "Libertarian Paradise" where criminals are free to do as they please because we don't want to impinge upon any citizen's freedom whatsoever, is free in name only. We may not like all of the current set of tradeoffs, but we must accept that if we don't make some tradeoffs, we will not be free in any real sense.
- eric_cc 4y ago
  > if I operate a pawn shop Tornado Cash is not a company and nobody operates it. It is a privacy protocol. Better to say “If I am a HTTPS”…
  - a4isms 4y ago
    That has no bearing on the basic argument which consists of: 1. Claim: "Privacy is a human right, the government should not be allowed to know anything about financial transactions," and; 2. Counter-claim: "Privacy of financial transactions is not a thing now, and absolute ideological freedom is not actual freedom, it is the law of the jungle where the strong are free to prey upon the weak, and the weak have no freedom from the predatory strong."

Sir_Liigmaz 4y ago

I work in AML/BSA, they want it under their control. Higher ups talk about how banks shouldn't necessarily cut off (derisk) customers they think are breaking the law because then they can't keep tabs on them. Banks and financial institutions are happily privatizing Big Brother.

desindol 4y ago

Privacy is a human right? citation needed.

josu 4y ago
Universal Declaration of Human Rights: >Article 12 >No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
- jasonlotito 4y ago
  That allows for interference with someones privacy. Basically, interference of privacy based on reason or system is allowed. It does give you the right to not be subjected to interference of your privacy from random choice or personal whim is not. According to the article, that right has not been broken. Moreover, you do not have a right to privacy. Rather, you have a the right to not have your privacy arbitrarily interfered with. This is a pretty important distinction.
implements 4y ago
(From Wikipedia) The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States ensures that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." (Also) Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. It’s generally understood that without privacy people are effectively disenfranchised politically, because any expression of an contentious opinion or association with subversive or dissident thinkers becomes potentially so harmful that wise people would avoid both and keep almost entirely to themselves or family.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  > unreasonable > arbitrary There is no absolute right to privacy.
  - zaroth 4y ago
    There are no absolute rights. Even the right to life is not absolute.
  - implements 4y ago
    Of-course, but then there are no absolute rights that I can think off - property can be taxed, movement restricted by imprisonment / laws against trespass, labour can be forced by military draft or prison work, speech restricted by laws against defamation / abusive conduct, life can be taken in self-defence or during military service, etc.
seanw444 4y ago
Privacy not being a human right is acceptable?
eric_cc 4y ago
It certainly is an ideal if not a legally protected right. Before slaves were free, they could still say “freedom is a human right”.

threeseed 4y ago

> rather than going after the people actually committing crimes Actually they go after the people committing the crime AND those facilitating it. > Privacy is not a crime, it’s a human right (a) Not a human right, (b) not enshrined in any country's law, (c) does not absolve illegal behaviour.

biglearner1day 4y ago
> Actually they go after the people committing the crime AND those facilitating it. But only if it is in their interest. We don't see other services and platforms sanctioned for facilitating illegal activity. Furthermore, the Data Protection Directive does give users the (human!) right to privacy, considering that crypto isn't a currency, it's merely your private data which is also protected by GDPR.
- jjulius 4y ago
  >We don't see other services and platforms sanctioned for facilitating illegal activity. ... yes we do, lol. You hear about people being arrested and platforms shut down for facilitating financial crimes in the crypto space all the time.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > We don't see other services and platforms sanctioned for facilitating illegal activity. How about the various anti-money laundering regulations and agencies around the world, e.g. https://www.fincen.gov/history-anti-money-laundering-laws https://www.fincen.gov/history-anti-money-laundering-laws How about the US Dept. of the Treasury's program against Transnational Criminal Organizations, which includes sanctions: https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/sanctions-programs-and-country-information/transnational-criminal-organizations https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/...
cjg 4y ago
https://www.coe.int/en/web/impact-convention-human-rights/right-to-privacy https://www.coe.int/en/web/impact-convention-human-rights/ri...

biglearner1day 4y ago

And it is always under the guise of anti-money laundering, anti-terrorism or whatever other reason they can find to excuse their inexcusable actions. Take mass government surveillance for example.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
HN in its current avatar would probably cheer on if the Patriot Act was enacted today. Been on this site for a decade. Never seen it this filled with Big Gov and Big Tech apologists.
- seanw444 4y ago
  Yeah when I first discovered this site in like 2017, it seemed to be a place of tech-literate counter-culture folks. Now the counter-culture seems to be non-existent, and actually looked down on. At this point, the majority of the comments I read sound like a CNN anchor script. Ha, maybe it's their web developers.
  - akimball 4y ago
    The greater the threat which a community represents to the vested control hierarchy, the more intensely it becomes infiltrated and coopted. This is an Iron Law.
    - akimball 4y ago
      As evidence, see the moderation immediately above.
  - _ktx2 4y ago
    One thing to recognize is that HN has had an influx of new users that are pretty right wing, at times using veiled far right speech. Years ago, it was filled with people who had stock very left wing (at times ridiculous) views that I wouldn't call "counter-culture" either. I only know this because I've had to report many of them. My hypothesis is that each of these groups come here after being kicked out or pushed out of wherever they usually hang out. The ones that remain on HN after a period of time are the ones that dang doesn't wear out via moderation or haven't been outright banned. They eventually learn to be good HN members and then stay.

epolanski 4y ago

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.

highwaylights 4y ago
or the purposes of funding terrorism, narcotics, human trafficking, weapons, uranium, endangered wildlife and/or biohazardous material. There's a point at which if you undermine law enforcement enough there's no point in continuing to try to enforce laws, which means there's no point in having laws at all. The hype mob either doesn't see this or doesn't care, which is incredibly naive either way.
- suoduandao2 4y ago
  In my capacity of unofficial spokesperson for the hype mob, I would say that if a tool can be created that has legitimate and nonlegitimate purposes, criminalizing its creation or possession is the worst possible action to take, because it ensures that all talented people who are interested in developing it for legitimate purposes become disaffected at worst or aligned with your enemies at best. Setting aside the moral argument, the NSA's treatment of Snowden, Manning, et al. makes it much more difficult for the NSA to attract the best talent in its field.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > criminalizing its creation or possession is the worst possible action to take Sure. That’s not what’s happening. Tornado was used illegally. Its leadership kept developing it, kept getting paid, and made no apparent course corrections. This wasn’t simply a GitHub repo; it was a remunerated enterprise. When I’ve brought up the legal issues around mixers, a common response involves the impossibility of governments to enforce their Will on blockchains. If these guys messaged similarly they’re justifiably boned.
    - 4y ago

ABeeSea 4y ago

Helping criminals launder money is not a human right.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
Guess that makes every government money printer complicit in money laundering, seeing how the majority of it happens through cash.
- ABeeSea 4y ago
  It’s weird the crypto people think this is a valid argument. If someone did what tornando is doing with physical cash, they would also be committing money laundering.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    Tornado Cash is an anonymizer. Same as every cash drawer in every business. All kinds of money goes in - legitimate as well as illegitimate - and is mixed up together. Does shuffling a bunch of currency notes together - some of which might be from a drug dealer - make you a criminal?
    - ABeeSea 4y ago
      If your business only exists to shuffle money, then yes.
biglearner1day 4y ago
I would challenge you to prove that they actively advertised their service as such. Stop spreading misinformation.
- ABeeSea 4y ago
  You don’t have to actively advertise your criminal conspiracies for them to be criminal conspiracies. They knowingly facilitated illegal activities.

clucas 4y ago

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 like... if two dozen people were picketing outside of a big corporation, and the police came and arrested one dude. You would be the guy saying "they're coming for the protesters!" and I'm the guy saying "Well, if they're really after protesters why didn't they arrest all of them? And isn't that the guy they were investigating for a bank robbery?" Defending literally every crypto guy is short-sighted if you're a true proponent of the tech. It's possible that there are bad people involved in crypto, and you'll be a lot more credible as an advocate if you acknowledge that possibility and wait for the facts.

bufferoverflow 4y ago
That's a straw man argument. They don't have to arrest all to scare most into doing what they want them to do.
game-of-throws 4y ago
If that were true, it would be so easy for them to swing public opinion in their favor by saying so. Headline: Arrest of developer with suspected ties to North Korean money laundering Body: He has also previously contributed to Tornado Cash. But all we know is what they decided to tell us... he's a developer of privacy tech. If the facts change, I'll change my mind.
- afavour 4y ago
  Usually when there’s an ongoing investigation the default is for police to not release too much information to avoid jeopardising the investigation, then release all the info when the investigation is complete. It’s frustrating and often a principle that’s applied too broadly, but I do understand the reasoning behind it.
  - 4y ago

JohnHaugeland 4y ago

This isn't open source privacy code. Whether or not someone else does something bad with it isn't relevant. Until you can face what it really is, you aren't going to come to terms with what's happening. This is like making unlicensed guns that don't follow safety or tracking regulations, then complaining "but I'm not the burglar, I didn't kill anyone" when you get shut down. This is and always has been the obvious explicit purpose of this code. This has nothing to do with "privacy" and you don't actually legally have the right to hide your financial transactions besides.

sneed-oil 4y ago
> you don't actually legally have the right to hide your financial transactions besides Maybe you don't, but that's what happens by default when using cash
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  If you're exchanging cash, you still theoretically have the legal obligation to declare it. Businesses accepting cash have the obligation of issuing a receipt, and you may have some obligations of keeping that receipt. Now, it's true that these things are hard to enforce, or even impossible for small enough sums. But people systematically flaunting the rules for large sums of money will get arrested, even with cash.
  - sneed-oil 4y ago
    > If you're exchanging cash, you still theoretically have the legal obligation to declare it. Businesses accepting cash have the obligation of issuing a receipt, and you may have some obligations of keeping that receipt. I'm pretty sure that's legally required even when buying with crypto
- giaour 4y ago
  Cash is unwieldy in large amounts, which is why most authorities don't care about cash transactions. When cash is used at scale for anonymous transactions (e.g., when the US airlifted cargo planes full of cash to Iraq in 2004 to pay government workers without an Iraqi paper trail), it is international news. If tornado cash were just obscuring transactions that could have conceivably been finalized with cash by private parties (~<$10K USD), I guarantee that no one in authority would give a shit.

antiverse 4y ago

>Are we now gonna start arresting all cryptographers? There are more cryptogrifters than there are cryptographers.

kube-system 4y ago

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.

WFHRenaissance 4y ago
> 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.
- kube-system 4y ago
  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/ https://xkcd.com/538/
  - programmarchy 4y ago
    The comic proves the parent's point. Drugging and hitting people with a wrench (i.e. torturing) to extract information is exactly what police states do.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      The comic has a non-literal meaning as well. (i.e. see the alt-text) The wrench can be a warrant, a confidential informant, or it can be a security camera, etc. Obviously, the world consists of more sources of information than encrypted data on your laptop and the information inside of your head. Crimes happen in the real world, not behind a cipher. Some element of any crime is unencrypted and unencryptable.
      - programmarchy 4y ago
        I have to disagree with the alt-text. (For me it says, "In actual reality, nobody cares about his secrets.") It's flippant and out of touch. Because somebody does care about his secrets, otherwise mass surveillance wouldn't have reached totalitarian levels along with privacy becoming increasingly criminalized. So the more resource-intensive using the "wrench" is, the more privacy is protected.

puszczyk 4y ago

> This is because they don’t like money that is independent from state control. Who is “they”?

naet 4y ago

I'm in favor of privacy, but if you're profiting off designing and operating a system that you know is being used to facilitate large amounts of criminal money laundering (some going to known foreign government agents), you're more or less asking to be arrested. You can pose an argument that your service has some positive impact in certain cases, but you can't flat deny any negative impact or responsibility for consequences of your service. This is true of any and all services, whether they relate to privacy or not.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

sangnoir 4y ago

> Ah yes, arrest developers of open source privacy code and blame them for North Korea money laundering I have questions: did money laundering happen on the platform? Did the developer financially benefit from the money laundering? If the answer to both is "yes", then it sounds like the developer could be in a world of trouble, which is not related to crypto. If I build a picture-sharing board with no moderation, and I profit from illegal pictures being shared, I would be in trouble for facilitating crime, that doesn't go away because I implement the picture-sharing on a blockchain. Using crypto to implement any system doesn't make it kosher: as far as the law is concerned,a system is what it does, not how it does it.

ABeeSea 4y ago
They were also asked to implement some basic money laundering preventions. They did nothing.
- eric_cc 4y ago
  Didn’t they throw away the keys to the smart contract a long time ago?
  - arlcode 4y ago
    If they did that probably doesn't matter. "I built a bomb I can't disarm" is not a credible defense. It'll be especially nasty if they profited from the service after throwing away the keys and "learning" of the money laundering going on there. Walking away a year or two ago would argueably have helped them.
- jjulius 4y ago
  Exactly. I understand the sentiment that people are sharing around, "They're just being arrested for writing code!", but intent matters. And it seems like, in this case, there may have actually been intent to develop this to assist with illegal activities.

a4isms 4y ago

In my jurisdiction, if I operate a pawn shop, I am required by law to record transactions, collect ID, and make good faith attempts to prevent people from laundering stolen goods through my shop. Does "privacy is a human right" trump the law in my jurisdiction? Can we say it is improper for the government to require me to collect ID from people selling me goods? Can we say it is improper of the government to require me to keep records of who sold me what? I take the proceeds from my pawn shop to the bank. They are required by law to collect my ID. If I deposit large amounts of cash, they have additional reporting requirements. Does "privacy is a human right" trump these laws that exist to prevent the laundering of criminal proceeds through banks? I also have discomfort over how much data the government collects in the name of preventing the laundering of stolen goods and criminal proceeds. But in the large, I accept that freedom is not an absolute, it is a set of careful tradeoffs between: 1. The freedom for citizens to do as they please without society limiting what we're allowed to do, versus; 2. The freedom for criminal cartels to do as they please, preying upon citizens. The latter is important, because when criminals prey upon citizens, they reduce our freedom as well. I want the freedom to own nice things. The easier it is for criminals to steal and fence my things, the less freedom I actually have to enjoy them I also want the freedom to run a business. When criminals can prey upon businesses with ransomware and launder the proceeds through TornadoCash, the less freedom I actually have. A "Libertarian Paradise" where criminals are free to do as they please because we don't want to impinge upon any citizen's freedom whatsoever, is free in name only. We may not like all of the current set of tradeoffs, but we must accept that if we don't make some tradeoffs, we will not be free in any real sense.

eric_cc 4y ago
> if I operate a pawn shop Tornado Cash is not a company and nobody operates it. It is a privacy protocol. Better to say “If I am a HTTPS”…
- a4isms 4y ago
  That has no bearing on the basic argument which consists of: 1. Claim: "Privacy is a human right, the government should not be allowed to know anything about financial transactions," and; 2. Counter-claim: "Privacy of financial transactions is not a thing now, and absolute ideological freedom is not actual freedom, it is the law of the jungle where the strong are free to prey upon the weak, and the weak have no freedom from the predatory strong."