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> GitHub had to do this. They only had to block accounts that contributed after establishing the sanction. It's not clear that they limited themselves to those

by tromp 4y ago

> GitHub had to do this. They only had to block accounts that contributed after establishing the sanction. It's not clear that they limited themselves to those. It would in fact seem to be hard to contribute in the limited time range between establishing the sanction and removing the project. There is also the collateral damage of removing unrelated projects that happened to be owned by these people. Couldn't github preserve such projects while putting them in some ownerless state?

eropple 4y ago
Any chance the blocked accounts had forks of the repository? That'd be an unsurprising heuristic.
- Bedon292 4y ago
  I would expect they all did. Typically I have my fork and PR from the fork in anything I contribute to. Edit: Unless it was members of the organization who had direct write access to the repos? Which I saw mentions of in other comments.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> only had to block accounts that contributed after establishing the sanction The people who built Tornado Cash are already in trouble. The crime--facilitating money laundering--has already been committed. OFAC is an enforcement office. Its lists are more like wanted posters than rules. GitHub is cutting ties with people likely to be charged with federal crimes. If some of them are going to continue contributing to the project, GitHub doesn't want to be the conduit through which it is done. This is all standard sanctions compliance.
- tromp 4y ago
  > The crime--facilitating money laundering Did the people who built blockchains with built-in mandatory mixing (Monero) or optional completely obscured transaction inputs (ZCash) also facilitate money laundering? If not, what is the crucial difference? Am I myself in trouble for having (co-)designed a mixing service [1]? [1] https://forum.grin.mw/t/mimblewimble-coinswap-proposal https://forum.grin.mw/t/mimblewimble-coinswap-proposal
  - tromp 4y ago
    According to the company developing it, there is no evidence of "substantive use of Zcash for money laundering, terrorism financing or trade in illicit goods and services." So I guess what made Tornado Cash criminal, is that there was evidence of such...
  - WoahNoun 4y ago
    >Did the people who built blockchains with built-in mandatory mixing (Monero) or optional completely obscured transaction inputs (ZCash) also facilitate money laundering? Yes >Am I myself in trouble for having (co-)designed a mixing service [1]? Possibly? Depends on the details.
    - jacooper 4y ago
      > Yes Then american banks should be sanctioned, they are also involved in money laundering too.
      - WoahNoun 4y ago
        Banks make good faith efforts to prevent money laundering. (KYC and SARs in particular). If tornado had KYC, this wouldn't be an issue. :)
        bad416f1f5a2 4y ago
        "I'm the compliance officer for a crypto mixer" sounds like a job you do in purgatory.
      - skywhopper 4y ago
        When they fail to take steps to prevent it, they are often punished. Here’s a few big ones from 2021 alone: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/03/24/lessons-from-the-seven-largest-aml-bank-fines-in-2021/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/03/24/le... Why aren’t these banks put on the sanction list where it’s a crime to do business with them? Because the vast majority of what they do is not money laundering and when they are discovered money laundering, they generally stop. And when they don’t, they are added to this list: https://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/sdnlist.txt https://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/sdnlist.txt Whereas Tornado Cash is a service that is known to enable huge amounts of money laundering, and nothing was done to stop it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > GitHub is cutting ties with people likely to be charged with federal crimes. This is a far different standard. If we're talking about banning people because they seem like they might get charged with something, that's just a blacklist. > If some of them are going to continue contributing to the project, GitHub doesn't want to be the conduit through which it is done. That's why you delete the repositories. These are not sanctioned persons, this is a sanctioned project.

by tromp 4y ago

eropple 4y ago

Any chance the blocked accounts had forks of the repository? That'd be an unsurprising heuristic.

Bedon292 4y ago
I would expect they all did. Typically I have my fork and PR from the fork in anything I contribute to. Edit: Unless it was members of the organization who had direct write access to the repos? Which I saw mentions of in other comments.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> only had to block accounts that contributed after establishing the sanction The people who built Tornado Cash are already in trouble. The crime--facilitating money laundering--has already been committed. OFAC is an enforcement office. Its lists are more like wanted posters than rules. GitHub is cutting ties with people likely to be charged with federal crimes. If some of them are going to continue contributing to the project, GitHub doesn't want to be the conduit through which it is done. This is all standard sanctions compliance.

tromp 4y ago
> The crime--facilitating money laundering Did the people who built blockchains with built-in mandatory mixing (Monero) or optional completely obscured transaction inputs (ZCash) also facilitate money laundering? If not, what is the crucial difference? Am I myself in trouble for having (co-)designed a mixing service [1]? [1] https://forum.grin.mw/t/mimblewimble-coinswap-proposal https://forum.grin.mw/t/mimblewimble-coinswap-proposal
- tromp 4y ago
  According to the company developing it, there is no evidence of "substantive use of Zcash for money laundering, terrorism financing or trade in illicit goods and services." So I guess what made Tornado Cash criminal, is that there was evidence of such...
- WoahNoun 4y ago
  >Did the people who built blockchains with built-in mandatory mixing (Monero) or optional completely obscured transaction inputs (ZCash) also facilitate money laundering? Yes >Am I myself in trouble for having (co-)designed a mixing service [1]? Possibly? Depends on the details.
  - jacooper 4y ago
    > Yes Then american banks should be sanctioned, they are also involved in money laundering too.
    - WoahNoun 4y ago
      Banks make good faith efforts to prevent money laundering. (KYC and SARs in particular). If tornado had KYC, this wouldn't be an issue. :)
      - bad416f1f5a2 4y ago
        "I'm the compliance officer for a crypto mixer" sounds like a job you do in purgatory.
    - skywhopper 4y ago
      When they fail to take steps to prevent it, they are often punished. Here’s a few big ones from 2021 alone: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/03/24/lessons-from-the-seven-largest-aml-bank-fines-in-2021/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/03/24/le... Why aren’t these banks put on the sanction list where it’s a crime to do business with them? Because the vast majority of what they do is not money laundering and when they are discovered money laundering, they generally stop. And when they don’t, they are added to this list: https://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/sdnlist.txt https://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/sdnlist.txt Whereas Tornado Cash is a service that is known to enable huge amounts of money laundering, and nothing was done to stop it.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pessimizer 4y ago
> GitHub is cutting ties with people likely to be charged with federal crimes. This is a far different standard. If we're talking about banning people because they seem like they might get charged with something, that's just a blacklist. > If some of them are going to continue contributing to the project, GitHub doesn't want to be the conduit through which it is done. That's why you delete the repositories. These are not sanctioned persons, this is a sanctioned project.