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More details here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/code-speech-and-tornado-cash-mixer https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/code-speech-and-tornad... >

More details here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/code-speech-and-tornado-cash-mixer https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/code-speech-and-tornad... > In keeping with our longstanding defense of the right to publish code, we are representing Professor Matthew Green, who teaches computer science at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute, including applied cryptography and anonymous cryptocurrencies. Part of his work involves studying and improving privacy-enhancing technologies, and teaching his students about mixers like Tornado Cash. The disappearance of Tornado Cash’s repository from GitHub created a gap in the available information on mixer technology, so Professor Green made a fork of the code, and posted the replica so it would be available for study. The First Amendment protects both GitHub’s right to host that code, and Professor Green’s right to publish (here republish) it on GitHub so he and others can use it for teaching, for further study, and for development of the technology.

mmaunder 4y ago
Representing how? What action are they anticipating?
- guipsp 4y ago
  Well, they expect OFAC-based legal action by the government, of course.
  - mmaunder 4y ago
    Green wouldn’t have standing for EFF to participate if USA goes after MS. So I’m curious what they’d go after Green for.
    - mikeyouse 4y ago
      He's the maintainer on the repository - so presumably that. (https://github.com/tornado-repositories https://github.com/tornado-repositories)
  - altairprime 4y ago
    If he stands up and operates a for-profit instance of the service, then he will have committed the crime that led to the sanctions against the original operators of the service. If he does not, then he is not a participating entity in the sanctioned service, and is unlikely to attract serious attention from the Justice Department. It’s nice of the EFF to throw down a gauntlet about free speech, but I expect it will be ignored in favor of sanctioning others who operate cryptohash laundering services.
    - chrisco255 4y ago
      I don't think there's any for-profit argument by the Treasury against Tornado Cash. But for what it's worth, the smart contract is still live on the Ethereum mainnet. Given that it is immutable, it is not possible to take it down. It's also trivial to fork and I imagine several forks already exist on mainnet and across various EVM forks by now.
      - _ugfj 4y ago
        Potentially you are challenging one of the world's largest governments to find a way to stop it. I dunno what they can or what they will do but imagine this scenario: they sanction it in a way that you are guilty of money laundering if a copy is found on your computer -- now running the Ethereum mainnet or any fork that contains it is illegal in the United States. Do not think the DoJ won't. Refer https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ or James Mickens' https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf for some hilarious hard truth on what happens when cryptographic research meets a real world government agency. Also refer the old saying "never wake a sleeping lion".
        chrisco255 4y ago
        > you are guilty of money laundering if a copy is found on your computer -- now running the Ethereum mainnet or any fork that contains it is illegal in the United States This is well beyond the regulatory and legal powers of the U.S. Treasury and the DOJ. That is not the letter of the law with regards to money laundering, and the agency cannot invent new laws out of thin air. Nor can they blanket ban a technology or code just because they have to learn new stuff. Could Congress pass such a law? Sure, but even then, we'll go to the mats in the court and in state legislatures. Nevermind that criminalizing and demonizing a large portion of the population hurts your re-election chances. Even torrenting, as egregious as the copyright abuse was in Pirate Bay's heyday, was never banned in such a way. Email scams from Nigeria never necessitated the shutdown of email. VPNs continue to operate. Nevermind that similar cases with regards to cryptography have already gone to court, which ruled in favor of speech: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-established-code-speech https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-estab... The XKCD example is amusing, but fails even the most basic cross-examination. Surely officers with a court-issued warrant for probable cause of a crime should be able to inspect a person's home or things. Maybe they could find a private key written on a post-it note somewhere in the person's home. That's all fair and good, and no one is arguing against that. Clearly, it's not very scalable, nor should it be. We operate under the presumption of innocence in free societies. We all have a problem with illegal, abusive, mass surveillance. It is a violation of human liberty and a disturbing trend that has to be pushed against to prevent a full-on dystopian, authoritarian hellscape where you don't even have paper cash as an outlet from the panopticon. To avoid that future outcome, to preserve the freedom of your children, you have to fight for privacy and transactional liberty. My ancestors were willing to bleed and die for liberty. Some of us still are, today. Never wake a sleeping lion, indeed.
- dekhn 4y ago
  This isn't the first time smart cryptographers have forced an issue like this. He wants the government to threaten GitHub and him with a lawsuit, and they have to sue him in court (which the government wants to avoid as they have a significant chance of losing). Like Clipper and Bernstein v. US, where EFF was involved.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - nimbius 4y ago
    exactly this. Microsoft will always heel to the short leash of US sanctions because the losses for them are tangible: billions in government contracts. gitlab isn't bought and paid for, so forcing the issue only stands to win them PR with hackers.
    - djbusby 4y ago
      Microsoft owns GitHUB and you're talking about GitLAB and those are different things.
      - nimbius 4y ago
        correct indeed, my bad. I've been in gitlab all weekend
    - nl 4y ago
      > Microsoft will always heel to the short leash of US sanctions because the losses for them are tangible: billions in government contracts. You seem to be under the impression that "the government" is a monolitic beast that all operates together. There are other parts of government that would like nothing more than to see OFAC get a bloody nose over this (eg, other agencies that believe they should be the ones regulating crypto). He republished it on GitHub: https://github.com/tornado-repositories https://github.com/tornado-repositories
      - IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
dang 4y ago
Also related is this FAQ (mentioned in the Twitter thread): https://github.com/tornado-repositories https://github.com/tornado-repositories
yarg 4y ago
The first may protect the right for Github to host the repo (though even that seems somewhat a stretch), but it certainly doesn't grant or protect any right to publish on Github servers.
- polynomial 4y ago
  Can you elaborate on this?
  - dtgriscom 4y ago
    Github doesn't have to publish or host anything they don't want to, and they may decide not to for many reasons (business, appearances, phase of the moon, etc).
    - encryptluks2 4y ago
      I mean if they don't want to because of someone's race then that is against the law. Same with religion. So start a religion that incorporates these ideals.
      - Dalewyn 4y ago
        IANAL, but I recall a religion needs to have existed before so-and-so date (I don't recall exactly) to qualify as a religious exception. Meaning your Swimming Lasagna Monster religion you created yesterday doesn't qualify.
        ipaddr 4y ago
        The scientology example tells us the opposite.
    - drak0n1c 4y ago
      Unless one of those reasons is persistent government requests/pressure on Microsoft/Github. Then it's a convenient way around first amendment protections.
chx 4y ago
Why github?? Didn't SFC quit github and urged other open source projects to do the same? This is so odd.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  Because it was hosted on GitHub initially, and they took it down. There's clearly a protest angle here, and it'll be interesting to watch this play out.
atoav 4y ago
> The First Amendment protects both GitHub’s right to host that code, and Professor Green’s right to publish (here republish) it on GitHub so he and others can use it for teaching, for further study, and for development of the technology. Yeah it proyects it against the government. Everybody else is still free to sue, take down, deny access, whatever.
- celticninja 4y ago
  But who wants to do that other than the government? And it was removed directly because of government sanctions. I understand that the first ammendment is poorly understood with regard to private companies and hosting content online, but in this case the first ammendment is applicable.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    Does the first amendment protect against treaties the US has signed with other countries requiring the government to take action or violate the treaty?
    - pelorat 4y ago
      Depends on who you ask. The general feeling in Europe is that treaties signed by the USA (or Russia, China and many more) are basically worthless. I mean, when does USA ever ratify treaties into (federal) law, or into the constitution for that matter? Republicans would say "hell no it's our sovereignty", Democrats "maybe", the American courts: "maybe but probably not"
      - chrisoverzero 4y ago
        > […] when does USA ever ratify treaties into (federal) law […] Never. Or immediately, depending on your perspective. Either way, there’s no need for further paperwork. > Treaties to which the United States is a party also have the force of federal legislation […] — https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/treaties.htm https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/treaties.htm
tgv 4y ago
As they say, why does someone pick that hill to die on? To study the code?
- nailer 4y ago
  Because privacy is important and the elimination of it has been a huge part of most totalitarian regimes. Why wouldn’t you die on the hill?
  - revnode 4y ago
    This isn't about privacy, it's about free speech as stated above. He wants to make the code public, not keep it in private.
    - rovr138 4y ago
      The technology is used for privacy.
    - rajamaka 4y ago
      It's about privacy, free speech is just the legal justification for being able to publish the content
- koheripbal 4y ago
  Because it's his choice. Why should we care why?
- trombone5000 4y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, but I don't expect this to be a a "hill to die on" at all. If this professor is unconnected to the sanctioned Tornado Cash service, then Github shouldn't have to worry about running afoul of the sanctions by hosting the code.

mmaunder 4y ago

Representing how? What action are they anticipating?

guipsp 4y ago
Well, they expect OFAC-based legal action by the government, of course.
- mmaunder 4y ago
  Green wouldn’t have standing for EFF to participate if USA goes after MS. So I’m curious what they’d go after Green for.
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    He's the maintainer on the repository - so presumably that. (https://github.com/tornado-repositories https://github.com/tornado-repositories)
- altairprime 4y ago
  If he stands up and operates a for-profit instance of the service, then he will have committed the crime that led to the sanctions against the original operators of the service. If he does not, then he is not a participating entity in the sanctioned service, and is unlikely to attract serious attention from the Justice Department. It’s nice of the EFF to throw down a gauntlet about free speech, but I expect it will be ignored in favor of sanctioning others who operate cryptohash laundering services.
  - chrisco255 4y ago
    I don't think there's any for-profit argument by the Treasury against Tornado Cash. But for what it's worth, the smart contract is still live on the Ethereum mainnet. Given that it is immutable, it is not possible to take it down. It's also trivial to fork and I imagine several forks already exist on mainnet and across various EVM forks by now.
    - _ugfj 4y ago
      Potentially you are challenging one of the world's largest governments to find a way to stop it. I dunno what they can or what they will do but imagine this scenario: they sanction it in a way that you are guilty of money laundering if a copy is found on your computer -- now running the Ethereum mainnet or any fork that contains it is illegal in the United States. Do not think the DoJ won't. Refer https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ or James Mickens' https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf for some hilarious hard truth on what happens when cryptographic research meets a real world government agency. Also refer the old saying "never wake a sleeping lion".
      - chrisco255 4y ago
        > you are guilty of money laundering if a copy is found on your computer -- now running the Ethereum mainnet or any fork that contains it is illegal in the United States This is well beyond the regulatory and legal powers of the U.S. Treasury and the DOJ. That is not the letter of the law with regards to money laundering, and the agency cannot invent new laws out of thin air. Nor can they blanket ban a technology or code just because they have to learn new stuff. Could Congress pass such a law? Sure, but even then, we'll go to the mats in the court and in state legislatures. Nevermind that criminalizing and demonizing a large portion of the population hurts your re-election chances. Even torrenting, as egregious as the copyright abuse was in Pirate Bay's heyday, was never banned in such a way. Email scams from Nigeria never necessitated the shutdown of email. VPNs continue to operate. Nevermind that similar cases with regards to cryptography have already gone to court, which ruled in favor of speech: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-established-code-speech https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-estab... The XKCD example is amusing, but fails even the most basic cross-examination. Surely officers with a court-issued warrant for probable cause of a crime should be able to inspect a person's home or things. Maybe they could find a private key written on a post-it note somewhere in the person's home. That's all fair and good, and no one is arguing against that. Clearly, it's not very scalable, nor should it be. We operate under the presumption of innocence in free societies. We all have a problem with illegal, abusive, mass surveillance. It is a violation of human liberty and a disturbing trend that has to be pushed against to prevent a full-on dystopian, authoritarian hellscape where you don't even have paper cash as an outlet from the panopticon. To avoid that future outcome, to preserve the freedom of your children, you have to fight for privacy and transactional liberty. My ancestors were willing to bleed and die for liberty. Some of us still are, today. Never wake a sleeping lion, indeed.
dekhn 4y ago
This isn't the first time smart cryptographers have forced an issue like this. He wants the government to threaten GitHub and him with a lawsuit, and they have to sue him in court (which the government wants to avoid as they have a significant chance of losing). Like Clipper and Bernstein v. US, where EFF was involved.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nimbius 4y ago
  exactly this. Microsoft will always heel to the short leash of US sanctions because the losses for them are tangible: billions in government contracts. gitlab isn't bought and paid for, so forcing the issue only stands to win them PR with hackers.
  - djbusby 4y ago
    Microsoft owns GitHUB and you're talking about GitLAB and those are different things.
    - nimbius 4y ago
      correct indeed, my bad. I've been in gitlab all weekend
  - nl 4y ago
    > Microsoft will always heel to the short leash of US sanctions because the losses for them are tangible: billions in government contracts. You seem to be under the impression that "the government" is a monolitic beast that all operates together. There are other parts of government that would like nothing more than to see OFAC get a bloody nose over this (eg, other agencies that believe they should be the ones regulating crypto). He republished it on GitHub: https://github.com/tornado-repositories https://github.com/tornado-repositories
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago

dang 4y ago

Also related is this FAQ (mentioned in the Twitter thread): https://github.com/tornado-repositories https://github.com/tornado-repositories

yarg 4y ago

The first may protect the right for Github to host the repo (though even that seems somewhat a stretch), but it certainly doesn't grant or protect any right to publish on Github servers.

polynomial 4y ago
Can you elaborate on this?
- dtgriscom 4y ago
  Github doesn't have to publish or host anything they don't want to, and they may decide not to for many reasons (business, appearances, phase of the moon, etc).
  - encryptluks2 4y ago
    I mean if they don't want to because of someone's race then that is against the law. Same with religion. So start a religion that incorporates these ideals.
    - Dalewyn 4y ago
      IANAL, but I recall a religion needs to have existed before so-and-so date (I don't recall exactly) to qualify as a religious exception. Meaning your Swimming Lasagna Monster religion you created yesterday doesn't qualify.
      - ipaddr 4y ago
        The scientology example tells us the opposite.
  - drak0n1c 4y ago
    Unless one of those reasons is persistent government requests/pressure on Microsoft/Github. Then it's a convenient way around first amendment protections.

chx 4y ago

Why github?? Didn't SFC quit github and urged other open source projects to do the same? This is so odd.

jaywalk 4y ago
Because it was hosted on GitHub initially, and they took it down. There's clearly a protest angle here, and it'll be interesting to watch this play out.

atoav 4y ago

> The First Amendment protects both GitHub’s right to host that code, and Professor Green’s right to publish (here republish) it on GitHub so he and others can use it for teaching, for further study, and for development of the technology. Yeah it proyects it against the government. Everybody else is still free to sue, take down, deny access, whatever.

celticninja 4y ago
But who wants to do that other than the government? And it was removed directly because of government sanctions. I understand that the first ammendment is poorly understood with regard to private companies and hosting content online, but in this case the first ammendment is applicable.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
- londons_explore 4y ago
  Does the first amendment protect against treaties the US has signed with other countries requiring the government to take action or violate the treaty?
  - pelorat 4y ago
    Depends on who you ask. The general feeling in Europe is that treaties signed by the USA (or Russia, China and many more) are basically worthless. I mean, when does USA ever ratify treaties into (federal) law, or into the constitution for that matter? Republicans would say "hell no it's our sovereignty", Democrats "maybe", the American courts: "maybe but probably not"
    - chrisoverzero 4y ago
      > […] when does USA ever ratify treaties into (federal) law […] Never. Or immediately, depending on your perspective. Either way, there’s no need for further paperwork. > Treaties to which the United States is a party also have the force of federal legislation […] — https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/treaties.htm https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/treaties.htm

tgv 4y ago

As they say, why does someone pick that hill to die on? To study the code?

nailer 4y ago
Because privacy is important and the elimination of it has been a huge part of most totalitarian regimes. Why wouldn’t you die on the hill?
- revnode 4y ago
  This isn't about privacy, it's about free speech as stated above. He wants to make the code public, not keep it in private.
  - rovr138 4y ago
    The technology is used for privacy.
  - rajamaka 4y ago
    It's about privacy, free speech is just the legal justification for being able to publish the content
koheripbal 4y ago
Because it's his choice. Why should we care why?
trombone5000 4y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but I don't expect this to be a a "hill to die on" at all. If this professor is unconnected to the sanctioned Tornado Cash service, then Github shouldn't have to worry about running afoul of the sanctions by hosting the code.