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Laws bind people, and people should comply with laws. Technology is not a person. People who make technology should not be expected to add measures to it to ma

Laws bind people, and people should comply with laws. Technology is not a person. People who make technology should not be expected to add measures to it to make sure that nobody is ever able to use it to commit a crime. This kind of thinking would have resulted in guns being banned until technology exists for the gun itself to detect who was firing it and what it was being fired at, to prevent any crimes from occurring.

lern_too_spel 4y ago
If the people writing the laws wish it, then yes, technologies should be expected to do so. In practice, your gun detector wouldn't solve all gun crimes, just like crypto regulations don't stop all crypto crimes and littering regulations don't stop all littering crimes. They just reduce those crimes to the point that society seems reasonable.
waste_monk 4y ago
>People who make technology should not be expected to add measures to it to make sure that nobody is ever able to use it to commit a crime Why not? It's quite common, e.g. a lot of photocopiers have safeguards to prevent currency counterfeiting and will refuse to copy bank notes containing the EURion constellation and other common bank note markers. Pretty much any decent financial software will have sane defaults for audit trails, separation of duties, and so on to try and prevent fraud. Etc. If you deliberately build something that can facilitate money laundering and ignore finance laws about KYC and mandatory reporting and and so on, you only have yourself to blame if you run into legal trouble. It doesn't matter if you don't like the law or think it shouldn't apply. >This kind of thinking would have resulted in guns being banned until technology exists for the gun itself to detect who was firing it and what it was being fired at, to prevent any crimes from occurring You'd have to ban all blades, any kind of explosives (mining), any kind of vehicle, etc. ... a creative person can misuse just about any technology to commit a crime. At some point it is simply not possible to build safeguards. How would you put access controls on a sharp rock? I don't want to open the whole gun control can of worms, but down here in Australia we have strict firearm control and our firearm-related death rate is very low (0.92/100k population, vs. 10.95/100k for the USA [1]). It still happens of course, but the rate is low enough that strict technological controls wouldn't add much value. And I believe, though can't find the source I remember seeing a while ago, that a pretty big chunk of those are suicides / accidents and there is very low violent crime. [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-death...
- everfree 4y ago
  > If you deliberately build something that can facilitate money laundering and ignore finance laws about KYC and mandatory reporting and and so on, you only have yourself to blame if you run into legal trouble. It doesn't matter if you don't like the law or think it should apply. Do you believe that code is protected speech? Do you believe that people should be prosecuted for publishing source code that has the potential to be used maliciously if compiled and run?
  - waste_monk 4y ago
    I'm not sure, to be honest. We have a right to freedom of expression and opinion (Australia is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights), but there are a number of areas where this can be restricted e.g. using a telecommunications network with intent to commit or facilitate a crime is forbidden. I think probably writing/hosting the code might be ok (although Github et. al are certainly not obliged to host it), but deploying it to a cryptocurrency network would be where it becomes a problem. I don't think any reasonable person would believe that Tornado Cash wouldn't be used to commit money laundering offences, and intent does matter when it regards facilitating crime. I would also think that participating in a DAO (exercising voting rights or what have you) that controls a cryptocurrency tumbler would count as facilitating crime assuming you didn't immediately try to shut the thing down once it became clear it was being used for money laundering. But, I am not a lawyer (and this is not legal advice). That's just my surface-level understanding.

lern_too_spel 4y ago

If the people writing the laws wish it, then yes, technologies should be expected to do so. In practice, your gun detector wouldn't solve all gun crimes, just like crypto regulations don't stop all crypto crimes and littering regulations don't stop all littering crimes. They just reduce those crimes to the point that society seems reasonable.

waste_monk 4y ago

>People who make technology should not be expected to add measures to it to make sure that nobody is ever able to use it to commit a crime Why not? It's quite common, e.g. a lot of photocopiers have safeguards to prevent currency counterfeiting and will refuse to copy bank notes containing the EURion constellation and other common bank note markers. Pretty much any decent financial software will have sane defaults for audit trails, separation of duties, and so on to try and prevent fraud. Etc. If you deliberately build something that can facilitate money laundering and ignore finance laws about KYC and mandatory reporting and and so on, you only have yourself to blame if you run into legal trouble. It doesn't matter if you don't like the law or think it shouldn't apply. >This kind of thinking would have resulted in guns being banned until technology exists for the gun itself to detect who was firing it and what it was being fired at, to prevent any crimes from occurring You'd have to ban all blades, any kind of explosives (mining), any kind of vehicle, etc. ... a creative person can misuse just about any technology to commit a crime. At some point it is simply not possible to build safeguards. How would you put access controls on a sharp rock? I don't want to open the whole gun control can of worms, but down here in Australia we have strict firearm control and our firearm-related death rate is very low (0.92/100k population, vs. 10.95/100k for the USA [1]). It still happens of course, but the rate is low enough that strict technological controls wouldn't add much value. And I believe, though can't find the source I remember seeing a while ago, that a pretty big chunk of those are suicides / accidents and there is very low violent crime. [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-death...

everfree 4y ago
> If you deliberately build something that can facilitate money laundering and ignore finance laws about KYC and mandatory reporting and and so on, you only have yourself to blame if you run into legal trouble. It doesn't matter if you don't like the law or think it should apply. Do you believe that code is protected speech? Do you believe that people should be prosecuted for publishing source code that has the potential to be used maliciously if compiled and run?
- waste_monk 4y ago
  I'm not sure, to be honest. We have a right to freedom of expression and opinion (Australia is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights), but there are a number of areas where this can be restricted e.g. using a telecommunications network with intent to commit or facilitate a crime is forbidden. I think probably writing/hosting the code might be ok (although Github et. al are certainly not obliged to host it), but deploying it to a cryptocurrency network would be where it becomes a problem. I don't think any reasonable person would believe that Tornado Cash wouldn't be used to commit money laundering offences, and intent does matter when it regards facilitating crime. I would also think that participating in a DAO (exercising voting rights or what have you) that controls a cryptocurrency tumbler would count as facilitating crime assuming you didn't immediately try to shut the thing down once it became clear it was being used for money laundering. But, I am not a lawyer (and this is not legal advice). That's just my surface-level understanding.