19 ms·

Tornado Cash and collateral damage

135 points by jwilk 4y ago

markisus 4y ago
> Mixers (or "tumblers") work by collecting up a bunch of deposits, which get coalesced into larger chunks over a random period of time, then doling out portions of that chunk as withdrawals at a later time. Naturally, a percentage of the deposits (1-3% normally) typically stay with the service as profit. Actually I think the v1 contracts did not require or accept a fee for usage. I'm not sure about their v2 contracts which incorporated some sort of governance token called TORN.
- carlosdp 4y ago
  They also don't take a fee for usage. The component that takes a fee is the Relay network, which simply forwards withdrawals to wallets that don't yet have any currency (and therefore cannot pay the transaction cost of withdrawal itself), and take small fee for the service. They're just gas forwarders, not anything really special to Tornado Cash's function. But you can use the Tornado Cash pools themselves without the relayers.
- ruuda 4y ago
  There is another omission: > Because the deposits and withdrawals are not synchronized in time, users can break the link between a particular chunk of cryptocurrency and their holdings. This is not false, but a bit misleading. Being decorrelated in time helps against analysis that tries to match inputs and outputs, but it's not what breaks the link. On withdraw, how does the service know that the user has a claim to the funds? A centralized service can store this in a database off-chain, but Tornado is permissionless, there is no third party database, only the smart contract. If you would store it naively on-chain, the link would be public, defeating the purpose. So instead, Tornado uses zero-knowledge proofs that allow users to prove that they have a claim to the funds, but nothing more than that. Crypto (in the original meaning of the word) is what breaks the link!
- killingtime74 4y ago
  Is this Relevant for whether they broke the law?
  - TAKEMYMONEY 4y ago
    For fun: were the developers making the software to knowingly profit off of criminal behavior, and to what degree? Can someone smarter than me talk about how we might judge the mens rea and criminal intent of the developers?
    - etchalon 4y ago
      We can't really judge it without evidence, which is likely what authorities are trying to gather.
      - TAKEMYMONEY 4y ago
        Couldn't we argue that the devs reasonably knew it was being used for money laundering? It got a light shined on it during the investigation of the crypto.com hack. If so, they knew they were profiting off of it, right? [1] Tornado Cash also did not comply with the OFAC list of known sanctioned wallets. However, it's clearly not that simple, from the article: > "If Tornado Cash knows who deposited the money and who took it out, that’s not money laundering." > "Smart contracts are not legal contracts." > "Every service provider has a certain amount of illicit activity." https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/01/21/is-tornado-cash-complicit-in-laundering-stolen-crypto-its-complicated-says-former-law-enforcement-agent/ https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/01/21/is-tornado-cash...
        notch656a 4y ago
        So what if they profited off money laundering, and knew it? The guy on the interstate road crew knows damn well the road is used for money laundering, and he builds it anyway and happily deposits his paycheck without taking the slightest effort to impede the launderers.
MintDice 4y ago
Shank 4y ago
This is just like the SEC "not enforcing" securities clauses until they have evidence. I think the writing is on the wall for not just Tornado Cash, but any system that functions like it: if you don't have an AML system that works, and your system is used for anything the government can prove would've been stopped by AML and should have been stopped by AML, it is incompatible, in principle, with the US dollar. Just because Tornado Cash and other mixers survived for this long doesn't mean that the law suddenly changed or anything. All it means is that there was enough evidence collected to justify OFAC/SDN sanctioning. Then, the dominoes fell. Tornado Cash was /never/ okay, but the government waited patiently for the evidence and acted when it had it. The same thing should be assumed to be true for /all/ systems in this sphere. The US dollar is the world reserve currency, and the SDN list is a death sentence for any project or system if that system has outputs to US dollars anywhere in the chain. All electronic cash transfer systems should be assumed to be incompatible unless there's a clear AML chain established that can reasonably defend against a blanket sanction. In the exact same way, the SEC will go after any cryptocurrency "securities" that they want to, as soon as those securities blow up. Filecoin had an ICO just like a lot of other securities, but seemingly because it hasn't blown up, the SEC hasn't come knocking yet. It's just an evidence collection game.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  ok - except it is a system-of-systems, not one system. The perfection of one and destruction of all others is specifically designed-OUT for lots of important reasons (see HISTORY). Perfect tax enforcement is not even possible, by their own defined rules. There is no perfect system and real evolution needs to deal with that -- all manner of despots and arch-bureaucrats be dammed.
  - nradov 4y ago
    That's just a complaint, not a realistic proposal for change. The reality is that in the US, there is a broad and stable political consensus in favor of ever stricter AML enforcement. This is perceived as reducing tax evasion, sanctions evasion, terrorism, and organized crime. It may not be 100% effective but it obviously has some effect. Only a small fraction of voters and campaign donors are negatively impacted so there is little political resistance.
deleted 4y ago
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hypersoar 4y ago
> Here at LWN, we generally do not pay much attention to the machinations of the cryptocurrency world—all of that tends to be far outside of our remit. There is a fair amount of distasteful hype, snake oil, and scams that go with that territory as well. But this event is not about any of that stuff, really; this comes down to a question of fundamental freedoms and human rights. There is a much deeper contradiction between cryptocurrency and the free software movement of which LWN is an outpost. The goal is to keep software free of the bonds of scarcity inherent in physical goods. Because digital goods are virtually free to copy, they can only be limited by typical systems of ownership when artificially forced to. Software spread openly is better able to help everyone rather than just a few capitalists. Private industry has fought against this in its drive to grind profit out of everything it can. Cryptocurrency is an effort to dig artificial scarcity deeper into digital goods than ever before. So it's strange to see FOSS advocates getting crypto's back. The people driving the spread of crypto are zealous advocates of a system inherently opposed to FOSS ideals. Like many before them, they will push software freedom to the extent that it helps them and then relentlessly pursue its enclosure when it doesn't.
- dgs_sgd 4y ago
  When you say "artificial digital scarcity" are you referring to bitcoin's supply limit, or are you making a general statement about cryptocurrencies?
  - Chabsff 4y ago
    The general idea is that for something to have monetary value, it has to be scarce. Why would you ever trade a loaf of bread for something that you have an infinite supply of in the first place? Cryptocurrencies are fundamentally a means of creating a decentralised digital scarce resource, and the Bitcoin blockchain is a rough proof of concept that it is theoretically achievable, albeit using a spectacularly inefficient method. Artificial digital scarcity is the whole point.
    - Semtexzv 4y ago
      Scarcity is a hard requirement for something to be money. Since we as a society require money to transfer and preserve value, the money being open-source, decentralized artificial scarcity(like Bitcoin) does not contradict with FOSS ideals. On the contrary, it widens them from a technological sphere to economics.
yuan43 4y ago
> Given that code has been found to be protected free speech, at least in the US, causing its removal from GitHub seems like a clear violation of the constitution. ... I doubt it very much. It is not a violation of the Constitution for the owner of a website to remove user-generated content. It happens all the time and has never been ruled to be unconstitutional. > ... Cryptographer Matthew Green noted that, but also pointed out the irony of removing code from a distributed, decentralized revision-control system like Git. ... GitHub != Git. And GitHub is not decentralized in anywhere close to the sense that Git is. I'm not sure where this author is getting their information from, but seems to be just repeating, uncritically, things said on the internet.
- gizmo686 4y ago
  The alledged unconstitutional behavior is not Github removing the code, but the policy (sanction) imposed by the US government that led Github to remove the code. The sanctions are unquestionably subject to constitutional review (although the details of how to apply that review in this case are not clear)
  - threeseed 4y ago
    Would be curious on what basis it would be subject to constitutional review. First amendment has always applied to government actors not also to companies who are enforcing sanctions.
    - ptudan 4y ago
      The implication is that the sanction, which caused the removal of the code, is violating free speech. Github doesn't have a choice in removing it if they want to avoid getting sued.
      - threeseed 4y ago
        So according to this premise I could dismantle the whole system: 1) I reach out to all possible sanctioned entities and offer to host dummy content. 2) At some point in the future they become sanctioned. 3) Under threat of sanction I then remove the content. 4) Sanctioned entity files a First Amendment claim to have the sanction invalidated.
threeseed 4y ago
> But this event is not about any of that stuff, really; this comes down to a question of fundamental freedoms and human rights It is not a fundamental freedom nor human right to be able to anonymously transfer money. Nor do you have a right for your code to be hosted at Github. I wish people would stop demeaning the real threat to human rights happening across the world.
- aftbit 4y ago
  Anonymously transferring money is key to exercising a bunch of fundamental freedoms (like freedom of speech), and the failure of the population as a whole to protect this right was a huge mistake. In this way it is similar to the right to private communications. (All my opinions of course)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- smabie 4y ago
  I mean human rights are pretty arbitrary and people disagree. Think saying transferring money is a human right is as valid as any other right you come up with.
- dannyw 4y ago
  Is it not a fundamental freedom to be able to anonymously speak? (The Supreme Court thinks so). Why not money?
- fleddr 4y ago
  Disagree. I'm old enough to have experienced a largely cash-based society that was also virtually without any tracking. The government would know you exist, your school/work, and pretty much nothing else. The default was freedom, and it being up to the government to prove you're malicious, not the other way around. What I do in my private life and whom I transact with is my business, and not that of the government or 5,000 companies. If you think I'm cheating, come with a well documented warrant based on evidence. That was the mentality. Now we're cheering as we're accelerating into a digitized, centralized super authority that can wipe you out, or even an entire category of people, with the push of a button. You can't do that with cash. You'd have to actually visit thousands of people, do research on all, obtain a warrant, arrest them, process them, etc. All of this is absolutely about fundamental rights. I have no need for any mixers, but the attitude "guilty until proven innocent" isn't very pro-freedom.
deleted 4y ago
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ARandumGuy 4y ago
There's been a lot of hand wringing about "how can the SEC sanction an open source software?" The fact of the matter is, code is not value neutral. Code may be protected under free speech, but that doesn't make it legal to actually execute that code. Just because it's on the blockchain, doesn't mean people aren't ultimately responsible. People chose to develop Tornado Cash, they chose to deploy it to the blockchain, and they chose to run the contracts. And now everyone involved in Etherium has to deal with this sanctioned code touching everything in that space.
- deleted 4y ago
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- seibelj 4y ago
  There's been a lot of hand wringing about "how can the SEC sanction an open source software?" The fact of the matter is, information is not value neutral. Information may be protected under free speech, but that doesn't make it legal to actually route that data. Just because it's on the internet, doesn't mean ISPs aren't ultimately responsible. People chose to route internet packets, they chose to build and manage data centers, and they chose to run the service. And now everyone involved in the internet has to deal with this sanctioned information flowing with everything in that space. Clearly, we need to require all IP packets to be transmitted only from people and entities who are registered with the government so we can censor any bad data from being transmitted. Otherwise, illegal information might flow.
  - ronsor 4y ago
    > Clearly, we need to require all IP packets to be transmitted only from people and entities who are registered with the government so we can censor any bad data from being transmitted. Otherwise, illegal information might flow. I heard the Chinese government has a great implementation of this.
- staringback 4y ago
  "words may be protected under free speech, but that doesn't make it legal to actually say those words"
ypeterholmes 4y ago
This has the potential to be a major problem for the upcoming merge. If OFAC regulations hit major public companies like Coinbase & LIDO etc., they may start censoring transaction at the base layer (not in a DAPP). And given that they represent the majority of stake currently, ETH would effectively no longer be a decentralized project.
- dgs_sgd 4y ago
  Complicating the problem is at least one large validator (Coinbase) has stated that they would shut down their staking business instead of sanctioning at the base layer [1] [1] https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1560016827253551104 https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/15600168272535511...
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
    We will see what really happens when it comes to that. It is easy to do one thing hypothetically, another to do it in real life.
fogof 4y ago
> In fact, someone would appear to be trolling the authorities by sending small amounts from prohibited Tornado Cash addresses to prominent people; those transactions cannot be declined, but receiving such a "gift" is technically in violation of the sanctions. How can I be violating sanctions as a result of someone else’s actions? I’m not a lawyer, but I imagine one could just argue that receiving an output from a transaction that touches Tornado is considered different from interacting with Tornado oneself.
- jxi 4y ago
  How would you distinguish? How would you know they didn’t send the tornado amount to themselves?
- gamblor956 4y ago
  You wouldn't be, if you were an unwitting recipient, precisely because as a recipient you can't actually control who sends tainted crypto to you. In this hypothetical, just report it to the feds and they'll provide an address for you to send the "gift" to. You'd only get into trouble if the feds see a large, ultimately untraceable transaction from your crypto accounts prior to the "gift," in which case you'd have to explain to their satisfaction why you had a large untraceable transaction followed shortly by the recipient of tumbled crypto. (It's doable, you just have to be able to explain it.)
  - int_19h 4y ago
    What if it gets sent to an account that you don't closely track, and thus fail to report it to the feds?
    - vageli 4y ago
      What happens if you receive dividends on a trading account you don't closely track, and fail to report it to the IRS?
      - int_19h 4y ago
jrm4 4y ago
For me, nothing more clearly signifies "the death of the hacker in the classic sense" than discussions about removing "dangerous" code from Github. I'm from an older era, and it's continually bizarre to me that, apparently, nearly the entire collective hive mind of "tech" has forgotten that the point of Free and/or Open Source code is that you can spread it around everywhere and get it from different places.
- derac 4y ago
  Outside of this specific case, private platforms are free to moderate themselves as they wish. There are many other places to host code, including your own server. Edit: I did a bit of googling and didn't find evidence that the government told GitHub to do this. Please link if you have evidence ty.
  - dopamean 4y ago
    You're right. And in this case "as they wish" is actually "as the US government wishes." I'm not sure they have a choice here.
    - derac 4y ago
      Source? Per the register: "The Register has asked GitHub to clarify its actions or cite the US government order naming these developers as SDNs. We've not heard back." This implies that they weren't told to do so by the government, but it's all speculation.
      - vageli 4y ago
        Their silence doesn't imply anything. Github may be under a gag order for all we know.
        derac 4y ago
        That's why I said it's all speculation.
aftbit 4y ago
I appreciate the general take of: >It seems clear that mixers are used for money laundering, but many tools, perhaps all, can be used for both good and ill. Typically, however, tools are not prosecuted (or sanctioned), people are. Just because humans have figured out how to cause harm with something does not mean it should be prohibited. Other examples that come to mind include: Tor, encrypted messengers, knives, guns, automobiles, explosives, cleaning chemicals, recreational drugs, cash, and masks.
- highwaylights 4y ago
  None of those examples exist primarily to aid criminals though, even if they can be used in that way.
  - aftbit 4y ago
    IMO the same is true of Tornado Cash and digital currency in general, even though it is often overused by criminals. I have heard strong arguments for each of the following being used primarily or only by criminals: * Tor & encrypted messengers: the whole "going dark" paranoia from mid-2010s * Knives, guns, explosives: mass shootings and domestic terrorists; "nobody needs military style weapons" * recreational drugs: see the War on Drugs which is really a war on poor non-White people * cash: see the death of the €500 note * masks: see the anti-mask laws intended to target the KKK Note that I'm not claiming that society should never be able to regulate tools. Certainly I don't want the disturbed guy down the street making Ricin in his garage. We should keep in mind though that the tools themselves are value-neutral; it is the people who use them that give them a value.
    - highwaylights 4y ago
      Just to reiterate, the primary reason for those items to exist is not criminality, even if they are useful to criminals. This is not true of something like Tornado which exists primarily to launder dirty money, even if it has fringe legitimate use cases.
      - 4y ago
JohnHaugeland 4y ago
I'm really confused how we're still taking the position that if something is free speech that means it can't be controlled, because the constitution. Like, lol, what? You can't publish someone else's book, or nuclear weapon plans, or a credible murder threat "But code is free speech?" One, it's speech, not free speech. They're not the same thing and the linked decision doesn't say what everyone's claiming it does. Two, freedom of speech doesn't mean you can't be punished for what you say. Go try yelling fire in a crowded theater, and try to plead freedom of speech. Watch what happens. Three, they're not being punished for the speech, they're being punished for defying monetary controls. Just because there was speech adjacent doesn't mean anything. We should be able to see through things like this.
xyzal 4y ago
Would someone kindly tell me (or direct me somewhere) how to extract funds from Tornado Cash given the web frontend being down? As far as I understand, the web must be just an interface to ethereum contract. Thanks. (Given the sanctions concern US citizens only, I really can't understand just why there did not any alternative web interface for the rest of us pop up)
- capableweb 4y ago
  The reason for people not hosting a alternative interface is because they are scared. The US has made it clear time and time again (via extraditions) that country borders matter less than we think when the US government wants to enforce its laws worldwide.

135 points by jwilk 4y ago

> Mixers (or "tumblers") work by collecting up a bunch of deposits, which get coalesced into larger chunks over a random period of time, then doling out portions of that chunk as withdrawals at a later time. Naturally, a percentage of the deposits (1-3% normally) typically stay with the service as profit. Actually I think the v1 contracts did not require or accept a fee for usage. I'm not sure about their v2 contracts which incorporated some sort of governance token called TORN.

carlosdp 4y ago
They also don't take a fee for usage. The component that takes a fee is the Relay network, which simply forwards withdrawals to wallets that don't yet have any currency (and therefore cannot pay the transaction cost of withdrawal itself), and take small fee for the service. They're just gas forwarders, not anything really special to Tornado Cash's function. But you can use the Tornado Cash pools themselves without the relayers.
ruuda 4y ago
There is another omission: > Because the deposits and withdrawals are not synchronized in time, users can break the link between a particular chunk of cryptocurrency and their holdings. This is not false, but a bit misleading. Being decorrelated in time helps against analysis that tries to match inputs and outputs, but it's not what breaks the link. On withdraw, how does the service know that the user has a claim to the funds? A centralized service can store this in a database off-chain, but Tornado is permissionless, there is no third party database, only the smart contract. If you would store it naively on-chain, the link would be public, defeating the purpose. So instead, Tornado uses zero-knowledge proofs that allow users to prove that they have a claim to the funds, but nothing more than that. Crypto (in the original meaning of the word) is what breaks the link!
killingtime74 4y ago
Is this Relevant for whether they broke the law?
- TAKEMYMONEY 4y ago
  For fun: were the developers making the software to knowingly profit off of criminal behavior, and to what degree? Can someone smarter than me talk about how we might judge the mens rea and criminal intent of the developers?
  - etchalon 4y ago
    We can't really judge it without evidence, which is likely what authorities are trying to gather.
    - TAKEMYMONEY 4y ago
      Couldn't we argue that the devs reasonably knew it was being used for money laundering? It got a light shined on it during the investigation of the crypto.com hack. If so, they knew they were profiting off of it, right? [1] Tornado Cash also did not comply with the OFAC list of known sanctioned wallets. However, it's clearly not that simple, from the article: > "If Tornado Cash knows who deposited the money and who took it out, that’s not money laundering." > "Smart contracts are not legal contracts." > "Every service provider has a certain amount of illicit activity." https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/01/21/is-tornado-cash-complicit-in-laundering-stolen-crypto-its-complicated-says-former-law-enforcement-agent/ https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/01/21/is-tornado-cash...
      - notch656a 4y ago
        So what if they profited off money laundering, and knew it? The guy on the interstate road crew knows damn well the road is used for money laundering, and he builds it anyway and happily deposits his paycheck without taking the slightest effort to impede the launderers.

MintDice 4y ago

Shank 4y ago

This is just like the SEC "not enforcing" securities clauses until they have evidence. I think the writing is on the wall for not just Tornado Cash, but any system that functions like it: if you don't have an AML system that works, and your system is used for anything the government can prove would've been stopped by AML and should have been stopped by AML, it is incompatible, in principle, with the US dollar. Just because Tornado Cash and other mixers survived for this long doesn't mean that the law suddenly changed or anything. All it means is that there was enough evidence collected to justify OFAC/SDN sanctioning. Then, the dominoes fell. Tornado Cash was /never/ okay, but the government waited patiently for the evidence and acted when it had it. The same thing should be assumed to be true for /all/ systems in this sphere. The US dollar is the world reserve currency, and the SDN list is a death sentence for any project or system if that system has outputs to US dollars anywhere in the chain. All electronic cash transfer systems should be assumed to be incompatible unless there's a clear AML chain established that can reasonably defend against a blanket sanction. In the exact same way, the SEC will go after any cryptocurrency "securities" that they want to, as soon as those securities blow up. Filecoin had an ICO just like a lot of other securities, but seemingly because it hasn't blown up, the SEC hasn't come knocking yet. It's just an evidence collection game.

mistrial9 4y ago
ok - except it is a system-of-systems, not one system. The perfection of one and destruction of all others is specifically designed-OUT for lots of important reasons (see HISTORY). Perfect tax enforcement is not even possible, by their own defined rules. There is no perfect system and real evolution needs to deal with that -- all manner of despots and arch-bureaucrats be dammed.
- nradov 4y ago
  That's just a complaint, not a realistic proposal for change. The reality is that in the US, there is a broad and stable political consensus in favor of ever stricter AML enforcement. This is perceived as reducing tax evasion, sanctions evasion, terrorism, and organized crime. It may not be 100% effective but it obviously has some effect. Only a small fraction of voters and campaign donors are negatively impacted so there is little political resistance.

deleted 4y ago

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hypersoar 4y ago

> Here at LWN, we generally do not pay much attention to the machinations of the cryptocurrency world—all of that tends to be far outside of our remit. There is a fair amount of distasteful hype, snake oil, and scams that go with that territory as well. But this event is not about any of that stuff, really; this comes down to a question of fundamental freedoms and human rights. There is a much deeper contradiction between cryptocurrency and the free software movement of which LWN is an outpost. The goal is to keep software free of the bonds of scarcity inherent in physical goods. Because digital goods are virtually free to copy, they can only be limited by typical systems of ownership when artificially forced to. Software spread openly is better able to help everyone rather than just a few capitalists. Private industry has fought against this in its drive to grind profit out of everything it can. Cryptocurrency is an effort to dig artificial scarcity deeper into digital goods than ever before. So it's strange to see FOSS advocates getting crypto's back. The people driving the spread of crypto are zealous advocates of a system inherently opposed to FOSS ideals. Like many before them, they will push software freedom to the extent that it helps them and then relentlessly pursue its enclosure when it doesn't.

dgs_sgd 4y ago
When you say "artificial digital scarcity" are you referring to bitcoin's supply limit, or are you making a general statement about cryptocurrencies?
- Chabsff 4y ago
  The general idea is that for something to have monetary value, it has to be scarce. Why would you ever trade a loaf of bread for something that you have an infinite supply of in the first place? Cryptocurrencies are fundamentally a means of creating a decentralised digital scarce resource, and the Bitcoin blockchain is a rough proof of concept that it is theoretically achievable, albeit using a spectacularly inefficient method. Artificial digital scarcity is the whole point.
  - Semtexzv 4y ago
    Scarcity is a hard requirement for something to be money. Since we as a society require money to transfer and preserve value, the money being open-source, decentralized artificial scarcity(like Bitcoin) does not contradict with FOSS ideals. On the contrary, it widens them from a technological sphere to economics.

yuan43 4y ago

> Given that code has been found to be protected free speech, at least in the US, causing its removal from GitHub seems like a clear violation of the constitution. ... I doubt it very much. It is not a violation of the Constitution for the owner of a website to remove user-generated content. It happens all the time and has never been ruled to be unconstitutional. > ... Cryptographer Matthew Green noted that, but also pointed out the irony of removing code from a distributed, decentralized revision-control system like Git. ... GitHub != Git. And GitHub is not decentralized in anywhere close to the sense that Git is. I'm not sure where this author is getting their information from, but seems to be just repeating, uncritically, things said on the internet.

gizmo686 4y ago
The alledged unconstitutional behavior is not Github removing the code, but the policy (sanction) imposed by the US government that led Github to remove the code. The sanctions are unquestionably subject to constitutional review (although the details of how to apply that review in this case are not clear)
- threeseed 4y ago
  Would be curious on what basis it would be subject to constitutional review. First amendment has always applied to government actors not also to companies who are enforcing sanctions.
  - ptudan 4y ago
    The implication is that the sanction, which caused the removal of the code, is violating free speech. Github doesn't have a choice in removing it if they want to avoid getting sued.
    - threeseed 4y ago
      So according to this premise I could dismantle the whole system: 1) I reach out to all possible sanctioned entities and offer to host dummy content. 2) At some point in the future they become sanctioned. 3) Under threat of sanction I then remove the content. 4) Sanctioned entity files a First Amendment claim to have the sanction invalidated.

threeseed 4y ago

> But this event is not about any of that stuff, really; this comes down to a question of fundamental freedoms and human rights It is not a fundamental freedom nor human right to be able to anonymously transfer money. Nor do you have a right for your code to be hosted at Github. I wish people would stop demeaning the real threat to human rights happening across the world.

aftbit 4y ago
Anonymously transferring money is key to exercising a bunch of fundamental freedoms (like freedom of speech), and the failure of the population as a whole to protect this right was a huge mistake. In this way it is similar to the right to private communications. (All my opinions of course)
- deleted 4y ago
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smabie 4y ago
I mean human rights are pretty arbitrary and people disagree. Think saying transferring money is a human right is as valid as any other right you come up with.
dannyw 4y ago
Is it not a fundamental freedom to be able to anonymously speak? (The Supreme Court thinks so). Why not money?
fleddr 4y ago
Disagree. I'm old enough to have experienced a largely cash-based society that was also virtually without any tracking. The government would know you exist, your school/work, and pretty much nothing else. The default was freedom, and it being up to the government to prove you're malicious, not the other way around. What I do in my private life and whom I transact with is my business, and not that of the government or 5,000 companies. If you think I'm cheating, come with a well documented warrant based on evidence. That was the mentality. Now we're cheering as we're accelerating into a digitized, centralized super authority that can wipe you out, or even an entire category of people, with the push of a button. You can't do that with cash. You'd have to actually visit thousands of people, do research on all, obtain a warrant, arrest them, process them, etc. All of this is absolutely about fundamental rights. I have no need for any mixers, but the attitude "guilty until proven innocent" isn't very pro-freedom.

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ARandumGuy 4y ago

There's been a lot of hand wringing about "how can the SEC sanction an open source software?" The fact of the matter is, code is not value neutral. Code may be protected under free speech, but that doesn't make it legal to actually execute that code. Just because it's on the blockchain, doesn't mean people aren't ultimately responsible. People chose to develop Tornado Cash, they chose to deploy it to the blockchain, and they chose to run the contracts. And now everyone involved in Etherium has to deal with this sanctioned code touching everything in that space.

deleted 4y ago
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seibelj 4y ago
There's been a lot of hand wringing about "how can the SEC sanction an open source software?" The fact of the matter is, information is not value neutral. Information may be protected under free speech, but that doesn't make it legal to actually route that data. Just because it's on the internet, doesn't mean ISPs aren't ultimately responsible. People chose to route internet packets, they chose to build and manage data centers, and they chose to run the service. And now everyone involved in the internet has to deal with this sanctioned information flowing with everything in that space. Clearly, we need to require all IP packets to be transmitted only from people and entities who are registered with the government so we can censor any bad data from being transmitted. Otherwise, illegal information might flow.
- ronsor 4y ago
  > Clearly, we need to require all IP packets to be transmitted only from people and entities who are registered with the government so we can censor any bad data from being transmitted. Otherwise, illegal information might flow. I heard the Chinese government has a great implementation of this.
staringback 4y ago
"words may be protected under free speech, but that doesn't make it legal to actually say those words"

ypeterholmes 4y ago

This has the potential to be a major problem for the upcoming merge. If OFAC regulations hit major public companies like Coinbase & LIDO etc., they may start censoring transaction at the base layer (not in a DAPP). And given that they represent the majority of stake currently, ETH would effectively no longer be a decentralized project.

dgs_sgd 4y ago
Complicating the problem is at least one large validator (Coinbase) has stated that they would shut down their staking business instead of sanctioning at the base layer [1] [1] https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1560016827253551104 https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/15600168272535511...
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
  We will see what really happens when it comes to that. It is easy to do one thing hypothetically, another to do it in real life.

fogof 4y ago

> In fact, someone would appear to be trolling the authorities by sending small amounts from prohibited Tornado Cash addresses to prominent people; those transactions cannot be declined, but receiving such a "gift" is technically in violation of the sanctions. How can I be violating sanctions as a result of someone else’s actions? I’m not a lawyer, but I imagine one could just argue that receiving an output from a transaction that touches Tornado is considered different from interacting with Tornado oneself.

jxi 4y ago
How would you distinguish? How would you know they didn’t send the tornado amount to themselves?
gamblor956 4y ago
You wouldn't be, if you were an unwitting recipient, precisely because as a recipient you can't actually control who sends tainted crypto to you. In this hypothetical, just report it to the feds and they'll provide an address for you to send the "gift" to. You'd only get into trouble if the feds see a large, ultimately untraceable transaction from your crypto accounts prior to the "gift," in which case you'd have to explain to their satisfaction why you had a large untraceable transaction followed shortly by the recipient of tumbled crypto. (It's doable, you just have to be able to explain it.)
- int_19h 4y ago
  What if it gets sent to an account that you don't closely track, and thus fail to report it to the feds?
  - vageli 4y ago
    What happens if you receive dividends on a trading account you don't closely track, and fail to report it to the IRS?
    - int_19h 4y ago

jrm4 4y ago

For me, nothing more clearly signifies "the death of the hacker in the classic sense" than discussions about removing "dangerous" code from Github. I'm from an older era, and it's continually bizarre to me that, apparently, nearly the entire collective hive mind of "tech" has forgotten that the point of Free and/or Open Source code is that you can spread it around everywhere and get it from different places.

derac 4y ago
Outside of this specific case, private platforms are free to moderate themselves as they wish. There are many other places to host code, including your own server. Edit: I did a bit of googling and didn't find evidence that the government told GitHub to do this. Please link if you have evidence ty.
- dopamean 4y ago
  You're right. And in this case "as they wish" is actually "as the US government wishes." I'm not sure they have a choice here.
  - derac 4y ago
    Source? Per the register: "The Register has asked GitHub to clarify its actions or cite the US government order naming these developers as SDNs. We've not heard back." This implies that they weren't told to do so by the government, but it's all speculation.
    - vageli 4y ago
      Their silence doesn't imply anything. Github may be under a gag order for all we know.
      - derac 4y ago
        That's why I said it's all speculation.

aftbit 4y ago

I appreciate the general take of: >It seems clear that mixers are used for money laundering, but many tools, perhaps all, can be used for both good and ill. Typically, however, tools are not prosecuted (or sanctioned), people are. Just because humans have figured out how to cause harm with something does not mean it should be prohibited. Other examples that come to mind include: Tor, encrypted messengers, knives, guns, automobiles, explosives, cleaning chemicals, recreational drugs, cash, and masks.

highwaylights 4y ago
None of those examples exist primarily to aid criminals though, even if they can be used in that way.
- aftbit 4y ago
  IMO the same is true of Tornado Cash and digital currency in general, even though it is often overused by criminals. I have heard strong arguments for each of the following being used primarily or only by criminals: * Tor & encrypted messengers: the whole "going dark" paranoia from mid-2010s * Knives, guns, explosives: mass shootings and domestic terrorists; "nobody needs military style weapons" * recreational drugs: see the War on Drugs which is really a war on poor non-White people * cash: see the death of the €500 note * masks: see the anti-mask laws intended to target the KKK Note that I'm not claiming that society should never be able to regulate tools. Certainly I don't want the disturbed guy down the street making Ricin in his garage. We should keep in mind though that the tools themselves are value-neutral; it is the people who use them that give them a value.
  - highwaylights 4y ago
    Just to reiterate, the primary reason for those items to exist is not criminality, even if they are useful to criminals. This is not true of something like Tornado which exists primarily to launder dirty money, even if it has fringe legitimate use cases.
    - 4y ago

JohnHaugeland 4y ago

I'm really confused how we're still taking the position that if something is free speech that means it can't be controlled, because the constitution. Like, lol, what? You can't publish someone else's book, or nuclear weapon plans, or a credible murder threat "But code is free speech?" One, it's speech, not free speech. They're not the same thing and the linked decision doesn't say what everyone's claiming it does. Two, freedom of speech doesn't mean you can't be punished for what you say. Go try yelling fire in a crowded theater, and try to plead freedom of speech. Watch what happens. Three, they're not being punished for the speech, they're being punished for defying monetary controls. Just because there was speech adjacent doesn't mean anything. We should be able to see through things like this.

xyzal 4y ago

Would someone kindly tell me (or direct me somewhere) how to extract funds from Tornado Cash given the web frontend being down? As far as I understand, the web must be just an interface to ethereum contract. Thanks. (Given the sanctions concern US citizens only, I really can't understand just why there did not any alternative web interface for the rest of us pop up)

capableweb 4y ago
The reason for people not hosting a alternative interface is because they are scared. The US has made it clear time and time again (via extraditions) that country borders matter less than we think when the US government wants to enforce its laws worldwide.