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> Besides, the code or math isn't banned or illegal, the organisation is. Quite different things. Which shows the US government still don't understand cryptogr

> Besides, the code or math isn't banned or illegal, the organisation is. Quite different things. Which shows the US government still don't understand cryptography, cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, or Open Source. The Tornado Cash "organisation" is just a bunch of researchers and open source developers, now being sanctioned for having the gaul to write code that is privacy-preserving. The Tornado Cash smart contracts live on on every chain they are deployed to, and the IPFS-hosted UI is untouched. Amusingly, you can also prove transaction history with Tornado Cash if you want to, for example, to prove to law enforcement or a bank that your funds are legitimate. So these sanctions are only actually going to affect legitimate users who simply wanted on-chain privacy, such as "famous" people with `.ens` domains attached to their addressses.

ohgodplsno 4y ago
The Tornado Cash project was explicitly advertising itself as an organization and officially looking to pay developers, as well as having a copy that screamed "you can launder your money through us". Hell, the only reason half the crypto people I know mention using tornado is to obscure your money after you've stolen coins or scammed some NFTs. It was not "researchers" "banding together" for a higher privacy preserving purpose. From the very beginning it was made to launder cryptocurrency. Absolutely hilarious that cryptobros were the first ones to scream that blockchains allowed for a fully open history and that anyone could see where the funds of their banks were coming from, but the moment they can't hide that they have $200k in cryptocurrencies and that they bought $2000 worth of stuff on analbeadsandcocaine.eth, they cry foul. It's working exactly as designed.
- whatisweb3 4y ago
  The goal of Tornado Cash has always been privacy. I would tell you to look at the GitHub repo yourself, and you’d see a range of developers contributing to this open source project, and lots of side projects that are influenced by it. The code is one of the most popular and earliest production grade zk-SNARK circuits built with Circom that targets the EVM - the cryptography employed was very high quality and helping to push privacy forward in the blockchain space. But alas, the code and any research knowledge it provided has been removed to comply with this deeply unethical move by the US.
  - ohgodplsno 4y ago
    Yes, privacy to help hide your coins acquired through dubious means, we know that. That some researchers got suckered into it thinking that it serves a higher purpose is regrettable, but tornado has always been about laundering money. Despite what you're attempting to lie about, the tornadocash code is not illegal. Feel free to repost it on any host that does not work with the US (or that isn't as trigger happy as github). The Tornado Cash organization has been blacklisted. The cryptography that runs it hasn't been made illegal.
    - whatisweb3 4y ago
      > Feel free to repost it on any host that does not work with the US An obvious place to post this code and protocol would be on Ethereum, which is censorship resistant. This is what the original developers of TC have done, and the result is a contract that becomes immutable and accessible, and is now the target of the sanction. But I will not do that, as that would put me at risk of 30 years of jail time. I will also not post the code on Gitlab or another service, as the repercussions can be severe. Whether it is just my Gitlab account being deleted, or whether it is more significant like the US government investigating me, I do not want to put myself in that situation. However since you are the one saying there is no problem at all with it, I wonder if you would like to do that for us? > Yes, privacy to help hide your coins acquired through dubious means, we know that. It is sad that you default to assuming criminal behavior. The same argument is being made today by politicians and governments to try to add back doors to E2EE chat protocols and cryptographic signature schemes.
      - ohgodplsno 4y ago
        >However since you are the one saying there is no problem at all with it, I wonder if you would like to do that for us? Unfortunately, most of the services I use comply with US law and would therefore be likely to remove the repository immediately. As a second, very unfortunate point, I don't give a shit about reposting a service whose primary purpose is money laundering. Very sorry about that. Maybe researchers could have thought for a second before putting all their efforts on what is widely known as a mixer made for money laundering. >It is sad that you default to assuming criminal behavior. My dude. 20% of the transactions going through Tornado Cash were for money laundering. The 80 other percent literally only serve the purpose of hiding the trails. If TC was used 100% for money laundering, everyone would still know that everything coming out is still illegal money. Having "legitimate" transactions going through (whether from privacy conscious users, or people sending legal money though to blur tracks) is a feature of every money laundering service.

ohgodplsno 4y ago

The Tornado Cash project was explicitly advertising itself as an organization and officially looking to pay developers, as well as having a copy that screamed "you can launder your money through us". Hell, the only reason half the crypto people I know mention using tornado is to obscure your money after you've stolen coins or scammed some NFTs. It was not "researchers" "banding together" for a higher privacy preserving purpose. From the very beginning it was made to launder cryptocurrency. Absolutely hilarious that cryptobros were the first ones to scream that blockchains allowed for a fully open history and that anyone could see where the funds of their banks were coming from, but the moment they can't hide that they have $200k in cryptocurrencies and that they bought $2000 worth of stuff on analbeadsandcocaine.eth, they cry foul. It's working exactly as designed.

whatisweb3 4y ago
The goal of Tornado Cash has always been privacy. I would tell you to look at the GitHub repo yourself, and you’d see a range of developers contributing to this open source project, and lots of side projects that are influenced by it. The code is one of the most popular and earliest production grade zk-SNARK circuits built with Circom that targets the EVM - the cryptography employed was very high quality and helping to push privacy forward in the blockchain space. But alas, the code and any research knowledge it provided has been removed to comply with this deeply unethical move by the US.
- ohgodplsno 4y ago
  Yes, privacy to help hide your coins acquired through dubious means, we know that. That some researchers got suckered into it thinking that it serves a higher purpose is regrettable, but tornado has always been about laundering money. Despite what you're attempting to lie about, the tornadocash code is not illegal. Feel free to repost it on any host that does not work with the US (or that isn't as trigger happy as github). The Tornado Cash organization has been blacklisted. The cryptography that runs it hasn't been made illegal.
  - whatisweb3 4y ago
    > Feel free to repost it on any host that does not work with the US An obvious place to post this code and protocol would be on Ethereum, which is censorship resistant. This is what the original developers of TC have done, and the result is a contract that becomes immutable and accessible, and is now the target of the sanction. But I will not do that, as that would put me at risk of 30 years of jail time. I will also not post the code on Gitlab or another service, as the repercussions can be severe. Whether it is just my Gitlab account being deleted, or whether it is more significant like the US government investigating me, I do not want to put myself in that situation. However since you are the one saying there is no problem at all with it, I wonder if you would like to do that for us? > Yes, privacy to help hide your coins acquired through dubious means, we know that. It is sad that you default to assuming criminal behavior. The same argument is being made today by politicians and governments to try to add back doors to E2EE chat protocols and cryptographic signature schemes.
    - ohgodplsno 4y ago
      >However since you are the one saying there is no problem at all with it, I wonder if you would like to do that for us? Unfortunately, most of the services I use comply with US law and would therefore be likely to remove the repository immediately. As a second, very unfortunate point, I don't give a shit about reposting a service whose primary purpose is money laundering. Very sorry about that. Maybe researchers could have thought for a second before putting all their efforts on what is widely known as a mixer made for money laundering. >It is sad that you default to assuming criminal behavior. My dude. 20% of the transactions going through Tornado Cash were for money laundering. The 80 other percent literally only serve the purpose of hiding the trails. If TC was used 100% for money laundering, everyone would still know that everything coming out is still illegal money. Having "legitimate" transactions going through (whether from privacy conscious users, or people sending legal money though to blur tracks) is a feature of every money laundering service.