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Privacy of communication is fine. Anonymously sending funds globally is different, the criminal uses vastly outweigh any legitimate use. If privacy is really n

Privacy of communication is fine. Anonymously sending funds globally is different, the criminal uses vastly outweigh any legitimate use. If privacy is really needed use cash, the difficulty of having to move large quantities of cash around physically is a good limiting factor. If you are worried about banks knowing your transaction history most shops still accept cash.

rglullis 4y ago
> If privacy is really needed Privacy is a right, and you don't get to be the judge of when privacy is "needed" or how I exercise it.
- Nursie 4y ago
  I mean, it's not though, as things stand right now, is it? Absolute/mathematical financial privacy in particular we're talking about. Maybe you'd like it to be, but right now it's not the case, basically anywhere, no matter how righteously you assert it. And you're a bit of an outlier if you think it should be. TBH, AFAICT, most folks think things like dark money, tax evasion, terrorist funding, proceeds of crime, proceeds of dictatorship and oligarchy, political bribes etc etc should be tracked and intercepted, so you're going to have an uphill battle trying to establish it as any sort of right. And as we've seen with tornado-cash - if you deliberately build systems that enforce it, working around the law by making transfers that can't be traced, you don't magically solve the 'problem' of the law applying to you. In fact you probably create more.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    > it's not though Yes, yes it is. It might be that you are okay with that being violated, but it does not mean that it stops being a right, and it does not mean that people should accept losing it away. > Absolute/mathematical financial privacy in particular we're talking about. If you believe that, feel free to stop using WhatsApp or whatever e2e encrypted system you are using right now. > dark money, tax evasion, terrorist funding, proceeds of crime should be tracked Can governments make their best effort to track all of that? Sure. Does that mean that law-abiding citizens should lose their rights over it? Absolutely not! Honestly, citizens like you that want to normalize State Surveillance concern me more than any "darknet hacker" ever will. Didn't you learn anything with the Patriot Act? > working around the law by making transfers that can't be traced No. No one making a transaction using tornado cash is "working around the law". Using tornado cash (by itself) is not a crime. Making payments online without being worried that people can access your whole transaction history is crucial for it to be a viable alternative. Please stop with this absurd FUD and stop associating privacy with "something only for the interest of malicious actors".
    - Nursie 4y ago
      > It might be that you are okay with that being violated, but it does not mean that it stops being a right But it's not a right. If something is not a right in any jurisdiction on earth, the idea that you have this right is a philosophical exercise, not something based on any sort of reality. You can’t really even claim it’s being violated if this absolute right to financial privacy is not enumerated anywhere and never has been. > it does not mean that people should accept losing it away. They've never had such a right to lose. > If you believe that, feel free to stop using WhatsApp or whatever e2e encrypted system you are using right now. Speech and money are not equivalent. > Does that mean that law-abiding citizens should lose their rights over it? Rights they don't have? > Honestly, citizens like you that want to normalize State Surveillance concern me more than any "darknet hacker" ever will. Didn't you learn anything with the Patriot Act? Citizens like me who think that, with appropriate warrants and appropriate circumstances, the state ought to be able to access financial information relating to serious crimes? Citizens like ... basically everyone? > Using tornado cash (by itself) is not a crime. Except it pretty much is now, as a sanctioned service. So there's that. > Making payments online without being worried that people can access your whole transaction history is crucial for it to be a viable alternative. The fact that your blockchain solution can either give total transparency to everyone, or absolute, mathematical privacy that can't be broken even under warrant, is a problem for your blockchain system not the rest of us and not the legal system. > Please stop with this absurd FUD and stop associating privacy with "something only for the interest of malicious actors". How about you please stop this FUD? How about you stop throwing around accusations about normalising state surveillance at people who don't agree that absolute, unbreakable financial privacy under all circumstances is a good plan? How about you engage with arguments about what your needs are and why you consider them reasonable, with a backdrop of acknowledging the harm done, instead of engaging in the usual, boring, facile, black-and-white thinking that if I don't agree that a service that North Korea can use to hide a billion dollars is a good thing, I must be for total state surveillance? How about some fucking subtelty of thought?
    - phatfish 4y ago
      No, not it's not. Being able to use Tornado Cash is not a human right. You are the type of person that harms the fight to enforce the core rights described by something like the ECHR by calling any action you don't like by a government "against my human rights". It's reductive and harmful. The privacy rights enshrined in the ECHR (sorry I'm not familiar with what rights are granted to US citizens, i guess they are those in the US Constitution) are those of correspondence (WhatsApp etc.) and to have a private family/private life (no Stasi listening devices in the plant pot). Both of these have an exception for targeted use as a part of a criminal investigation. You may not agree with the definition, and Tornado Cash is a core human right as far as you are concerned, which is fair enough. But there is no legal authority to enforce this, as there is with something like the ECHR where there are a large number of countries who have placed the convention into their domestic laws.

rglullis 4y ago

> If privacy is really needed Privacy is a right, and you don't get to be the judge of when privacy is "needed" or how I exercise it.

Nursie 4y ago
I mean, it's not though, as things stand right now, is it? Absolute/mathematical financial privacy in particular we're talking about. Maybe you'd like it to be, but right now it's not the case, basically anywhere, no matter how righteously you assert it. And you're a bit of an outlier if you think it should be. TBH, AFAICT, most folks think things like dark money, tax evasion, terrorist funding, proceeds of crime, proceeds of dictatorship and oligarchy, political bribes etc etc should be tracked and intercepted, so you're going to have an uphill battle trying to establish it as any sort of right. And as we've seen with tornado-cash - if you deliberately build systems that enforce it, working around the law by making transfers that can't be traced, you don't magically solve the 'problem' of the law applying to you. In fact you probably create more.
- rglullis 4y ago
  > it's not though Yes, yes it is. It might be that you are okay with that being violated, but it does not mean that it stops being a right, and it does not mean that people should accept losing it away. > Absolute/mathematical financial privacy in particular we're talking about. If you believe that, feel free to stop using WhatsApp or whatever e2e encrypted system you are using right now. > dark money, tax evasion, terrorist funding, proceeds of crime should be tracked Can governments make their best effort to track all of that? Sure. Does that mean that law-abiding citizens should lose their rights over it? Absolutely not! Honestly, citizens like you that want to normalize State Surveillance concern me more than any "darknet hacker" ever will. Didn't you learn anything with the Patriot Act? > working around the law by making transfers that can't be traced No. No one making a transaction using tornado cash is "working around the law". Using tornado cash (by itself) is not a crime. Making payments online without being worried that people can access your whole transaction history is crucial for it to be a viable alternative. Please stop with this absurd FUD and stop associating privacy with "something only for the interest of malicious actors".
  - Nursie 4y ago
    > It might be that you are okay with that being violated, but it does not mean that it stops being a right But it's not a right. If something is not a right in any jurisdiction on earth, the idea that you have this right is a philosophical exercise, not something based on any sort of reality. You can’t really even claim it’s being violated if this absolute right to financial privacy is not enumerated anywhere and never has been. > it does not mean that people should accept losing it away. They've never had such a right to lose. > If you believe that, feel free to stop using WhatsApp or whatever e2e encrypted system you are using right now. Speech and money are not equivalent. > Does that mean that law-abiding citizens should lose their rights over it? Rights they don't have? > Honestly, citizens like you that want to normalize State Surveillance concern me more than any "darknet hacker" ever will. Didn't you learn anything with the Patriot Act? Citizens like me who think that, with appropriate warrants and appropriate circumstances, the state ought to be able to access financial information relating to serious crimes? Citizens like ... basically everyone? > Using tornado cash (by itself) is not a crime. Except it pretty much is now, as a sanctioned service. So there's that. > Making payments online without being worried that people can access your whole transaction history is crucial for it to be a viable alternative. The fact that your blockchain solution can either give total transparency to everyone, or absolute, mathematical privacy that can't be broken even under warrant, is a problem for your blockchain system not the rest of us and not the legal system. > Please stop with this absurd FUD and stop associating privacy with "something only for the interest of malicious actors". How about you please stop this FUD? How about you stop throwing around accusations about normalising state surveillance at people who don't agree that absolute, unbreakable financial privacy under all circumstances is a good plan? How about you engage with arguments about what your needs are and why you consider them reasonable, with a backdrop of acknowledging the harm done, instead of engaging in the usual, boring, facile, black-and-white thinking that if I don't agree that a service that North Korea can use to hide a billion dollars is a good thing, I must be for total state surveillance? How about some fucking subtelty of thought?
  - phatfish 4y ago
    No, not it's not. Being able to use Tornado Cash is not a human right. You are the type of person that harms the fight to enforce the core rights described by something like the ECHR by calling any action you don't like by a government "against my human rights". It's reductive and harmful. The privacy rights enshrined in the ECHR (sorry I'm not familiar with what rights are granted to US citizens, i guess they are those in the US Constitution) are those of correspondence (WhatsApp etc.) and to have a private family/private life (no Stasi listening devices in the plant pot). Both of these have an exception for targeted use as a part of a criminal investigation. You may not agree with the definition, and Tornado Cash is a core human right as far as you are concerned, which is fair enough. But there is no legal authority to enforce this, as there is with something like the ECHR where there are a large number of countries who have placed the convention into their domestic laws.