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Most crimes have what's called a 'Mens Rea' element, which means you had to have criminal intent. So before they knew the Taliban uses it, not a crime. Now that
by ROTMetro 4y ago
Most crimes have what's called a 'Mens Rea' element, which means you had to have criminal intent. So before they knew the Taliban uses it, not a crime. Now that they know? Well, kind of a grey area. I bet you could construct an argument that they commited a crime if any NEW feature/code commit somehow benefits the Taliban after they knew the Taliban uses it. It's legal for me to sell someone a car. It's no longer legal for me to sell someone a car if I know they are paying in drug money or they need it to have a new 'anonymous' car while on the run from the police.
Funny story. Drug dealers try to do this with analogs. They will go to a lawyer and get the lawyer's opinion that whatever benzo/fentanyl derivative they are ordering from Alibaba does not fall under the Analogs rules. They then try to argue if arrested that this shows that they didn't have criminal intent and went to great lengths to make sure that what they imported was not illegal drugs and hence no Mens Rea. Don't try this. It doesn't work. You have not found that 'one secret the Feds hate'.
- carlosdp 4y agoThat makes no sense and I don't think that lines up with liability. Every hammer maker knows some people use hammers as murder weapons. Their continued manufacturing of hammers obviously does not constitute a criminal act. This argument makes no sense, and while I'm not a lawyer, I doubt it actually has legal basis (at least in the US).
- cantSpellSober 4y agoMens rea isn't some radical idea. If hitting specific sales targets on Bushmaster AR-style hammers is tied to your bonus you might end up settling for $73 million when you get caught pushing them too hard and they're used in a bunch of massacres.
- carlosdp 4y agoThe developers of Tornado Cash don't directly profit from its use (the article claims that erroneously), it's a fully permissionless immutable smart contract without a fee component. So this argument, while potentially valid, doesn't apply here.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cantSpellSober 4y agoWhether or not the developers acted with criminal intent is of great importance, if not philosophically at least legally
- mrkramer 4y ago>Most crimes have what's called a 'Mens Rea' element, which means you had to have criminal intent. That's what Ross Ulbricht was arguing; the creator and the operator of the biggest Dark Web drug marketplace called Silk Road but it didn't work out for him. Because you as an operator of a platform have liability of what your users do or in another words you need to take action in order to prevent illicit activities. Ross argued that he created neoliberal free for all marketplace but that the bad guys invaded it and ruined it. Ofc that was BS argument just like not regulating who is mixing funds and what kind of funds at your crypto mixer is also BS.
- caeril 4y agoAnd just like Ulbricht set a great example for future darknet market operators to take OPSEC far, far more seriously, so too will this overreach of authorities drive authors and operators of tumbler/mixer software/services to do the same. The authorities are stepping on their own dicks, here, in a manner of speaking. Most of the biggest darknet markets operate far better, and far more clandestinely, precisely because Judge Forrest threw the book at Ross. And they're doing the same thing here. This really sucks for Pertsev, but going hard on him like this will set the standard for a brighter future in the fight against State-enforced financial tyranny.
- mrkramer 4y agoYou can get away one hundred times but it only takes one time to get caught.