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If you want to get pedantic, the source code isn't the tool used for money laundering, it is a description of the tool. An idea. And github took it down becaus

If you want to get pedantic, the source code isn't the tool used for money laundering, it is a description of the tool. An idea. And github took it down because they fear government reprisals for publishing it. Getting nitpicky about whether you personally call that censorship or not seems like it's being deliberately obtuse, surely you understand the intent and accept it's a reasonable use of the word. (What's more censorship can even apply to purely private actions under common definitions, and can also be objectionable especially depending on the motive.) > Now, should the source code to that project be available from other, more trustworthy maintainers? Maybe. Should an idea be censored if one person publishes it, but allowed to be published by others? I can't follow the logic behind that. There are reasonable arguments for censorship, but they're almost all based on the content of what is published. The only exception I can think of are false or unfounded claims where the knowledge and intent and perception of the person publishing could be factors. That doesn't apply here though, so what's your reasoning? > But the idea that this is some kind of oppression of innocent open source hackers is... really not what's happening. And pretending otherwise seems unserious to me. Pretending censorship isn't censorship because it may not fall neatly under a clause in a country's constitution doesn't seem serious to me.

ajross 4y ago
> If you want to get pedantic, the source code isn't the tool used for money laundering, it is a description of the tool. An idea. No, that's not right. The Tornado Cash contracts, built specifically from that github project, were in active use on the blockchain. That's a machine, not an idea. You're right, that there's semantic space to talk about the distinction, but that github project was directly conflating the two. So it was killed. Now we have another project, run by a researcher interested in blockchain technologies and not someone trying to run a crypto tumbler. And now the argument seems to have some more reasonable weight. But please don't pretend that the Tornado github project existed for some kind of abstracted idea of discussion. It was a practical project designed to be used for crypto mixing, and as such deserved to be regulated that way.
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  I disagree, and I don't think you're being logically consistent when you say it could be available from a more trustworthy maintainer. It's not some autonomous money laundering machine that started committing crimes the instant it is published. Source code is an idea, you could describe the algorithm in a natural language in a book.

ajross 4y ago

> If you want to get pedantic, the source code isn't the tool used for money laundering, it is a description of the tool. An idea. No, that's not right. The Tornado Cash contracts, built specifically from that github project, were in active use on the blockchain. That's a machine, not an idea. You're right, that there's semantic space to talk about the distinction, but that github project was directly conflating the two. So it was killed. Now we have another project, run by a researcher interested in blockchain technologies and not someone trying to run a crypto tumbler. And now the argument seems to have some more reasonable weight. But please don't pretend that the Tornado github project existed for some kind of abstracted idea of discussion. It was a practical project designed to be used for crypto mixing, and as such deserved to be regulated that way.

throwawaylinux 4y ago
I disagree, and I don't think you're being logically consistent when you say it could be available from a more trustworthy maintainer. It's not some autonomous money laundering machine that started committing crimes the instant it is published. Source code is an idea, you could describe the algorithm in a natural language in a book.