3 ms·

KYC should not be legal to begin with.

sofixa 27d ago
KYC is necessary because you do not want for money laundering to be easy. Nor sanctions avoiding, nor terrorist sponsoring.
- zmgsabst 27d ago
  In practice, KYC does little to stop any of that — but does do a lot to enable mass surveillance and oppression.
  - HighGoldstein 27d ago
    > In practice, KYC does little to stop any of that Source? The fact that it's not infallible doesn't mean that it's ineffective.
    - zmgsabst 27d ago
      They route through all kinds of intermediaries that handle the banking by proxy — eg, as we saw in the Panama Papers and similar leaks. Reporting $600 in CashApp isn’t about stopping cartels, terrorists, etc; it’s about harassing sex workers and street dealers, profiling side businesses, etc.
    - miohtama 27d ago
      Here is a good book on the topic of ineffectiveness of anti-money laundering: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DVLLL1X3?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DVLLL1X3?lv=shuf&channelId=500&p... Podcast if you do not want to buy the book: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-09-08/odd-lots-why-money-launderers-love-100-bills-video https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-09-08/odd-lots-wh...
- mistrial9 27d ago
  I just tried to pay my elderly neighbors cell phone bill here in California. I will spare you the details. Is all of this really required? It reminds me of a time when credit and credit cards were flying fast. Large losses started appearing on consumer credit accounts by the tens of thousands. A casual look into it indicated that it was the employees and leaders of the sector, who read and understood the credit agreement that put liability ultimately on the company. The actual credit card employees, adjacent accountants, quick witted cons, all siphoning money from credit cards in very large numbers. Why say this? Actual customers with increasing security requirements were largely not at all involved with the growing fraud. It was the participants in the credit industry seizing the opportunity to steal, with relative impunity. Things have changed and changed again since then with scale, local rules, fraud detection systems etc. The point of the rant is that ordinary people's rights are squeezed, privacy vanishes, routine humiliating document production and security, required because the people in the industry that created those is cheating. Yes of course there is cheating on taxes over tip money, or no-show jobs for relatives.. but what kind of society is being built with constant oversight into ordinary people's activity ? cash indeed
- newspaper1 27d ago
  Who decides who we're sanctioning and who is a "terrorist"? Not me, that's for sure! My money is my business and I don't need the state nanny watching who I send it to.
  - miohtama 27d ago
    Southern Poverty Law Center decides: > Government should require regular, mandatory reporting by technology service providers to document abuse of their systems including financial support of violence, harassment, and terrorism.This includes implementation of mandatory financial abuse reporting requirements for internet services operating in the United States, including social media services, infrastructure providers, banking institutions, cryptocurrency exchanges, crowdfunding sites, video streaming platforms, and the like. > [These companies] should be required to investigate and report the details of harms and abuse of their service. There should be … penalties applied to services that refuse these tracking and reporting responsibilities. https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/nonprofit-indicted-bank-fraud/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/nonprofit-indicted-ba...
- miohtama 27d ago
  The criminal money and money laundering has been researched since 19th century. It has stayed at constant 2-5% of world GDP. However the cost of compliance has gone up exponentially. Today banks use $250B/year on KYC checks. You could fix the world hunger and still have $50B leftover money with this amount.
  - rapatel0 27d ago
    It's not a fair comparison. Money laundering controls likely have also been implemented since the 19th century in some way shape or form. Therefore, that 2-5% figure also includes the effect of those controls. This might just the natural equilibrium below which the juice is no longer worth the squeeze. Access to information and interconnectedness have also increased exponentially so it might make sense that the costs have increased proportionately. Finally 200B/year would not solve world hunger if nefarious actors grift away most of that money (especially because you wouldn't be able to track them with out some form of KYC)
    - ryandrake 27d ago
      You also have to ask if money laundering is bad enough of a crime to warrant all of the overkill responses to it. At some point the medicine becomes worse than the disease. Lawmakers tend to get into these inescapable loops: Crime X exists -> Try solution Y -> Crime X still exists -> Try harsher solution Y0 -> Crime X still exists -> Try harsher solution Y1 -> Crime X still exists -> Try harsher solution Y2...
      - bdangubic 27d ago
        > Crime X exists -> Try solution Y ... I think the problem here might be that while Crime by its definition might be the same, the way that it is executed changes drastically so Solution Y/Y0/Y1/Y2 are not required to exist in terms of severity (very likely solution Y was severe enough if you were tried and convicted of the crime) but they are needed because the way Crime X is executed changes (especially this Crime X)
      - rapatel0 27d ago
- ratelimitsteve 27d ago
  when terrorism can be defined as "having a book" and can result in indefinite detention without charge or access to an attorney maybe i'm not 100% gung-ho by default on everything labelled anti-terrorism
  - MSFT_Edging 27d ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49481385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49481385
- charlieyu1 27d ago
  Why should our rights be restricted when law enforcement is impotent?
- AngryData 27d ago
  Hard disagree, low level crimes should not be so heavily enforced. A bit of blackmarket activity is not only beneficial but neccessary for any stable economy. It can't be allowed at mass scale, but you can't effectively micromanage every transaction and account for every situation for every single good or dollar.
- d5lt5 27d ago
  It's rich coming from a person affected by ukrainian propaganda that is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe. Maybe you should back your opinion with facts. Citation is desperately needed.
  - sofixa 27d ago
    How am I affected by Ukranian propaganda? And how does Ukranian corruption relate to.. money laundering? > Maybe you should back your opinion with facts. Citation is desperately needed That you don't want to make money laundering too easy? What exactly are you looking for as a citation here? "Crime bad"?
    - d5lt5 21d ago
      How about you provide citations first? We've seen so many charities in Ukraine stealing money. And Ukraine itself is a haven of corruption. If you don't see how you are affected by propaganda, maybe zoom out. You clearly become emotional when someone online challenges your viewpoint.
- pocksuppet 26d ago
  Money laundering isn't even a real thing. It's an excuse for the government to arrest people who are linked to people who are linked to people who they don't like.
Borealid 27d ago
KYC stands for Know Your Customer, the regulations that require institutions moving money between two parties to positively identify each of those two parties. I think the intellectual position "it should be illegal for institutions transmitting money between two parties to identify either of those parties" might require some kind of logical argument behind it. Are you saying all financial transactions should be anonmyous by law? How would banks function if they were required to be blind to their customers? How would the government prosecute money laundering if all cash-trails went cold after the first time they passed a bank? I understand people often like to express extreme positions on the Internet, but I think it's pretty easy to see an ideal society has rules somewhere in between "you're not allowed to know your customers" and "you can't accept a penny unless the giver does a blood draw in front of you and is confirmed to be in a central register of DNA".
- zmgsabst 27d ago
  I suspect the argument is more the particular KYC required by American law, eg, as long as your bank can identify you as a particular customer, they shouldn’t be required to collect certain information by law. Though if I were going to rant, it would be about how constructive surveillance, such as requiring banks keep certain records and then claiming those records aren’t protected from search because they’re third party business records and not those of a private citizen, would be a much higher priority to fix.
  - Terr_ 27d ago
    Right: We must distinguish between: 1. "The business-model of being an anonymous fence of stolen goods is prohibited." 2. "You have to give us access to all your records at any time on the flimsiest of pretexts, and we'll charge you with a crime if you don't keep it ultra-secret that we even approached you."
- logicchains 27d ago
  "regulations that require institutions moving money between two parties to positively identify each of those two parties" Any such kind of regulation is not compatible with financial privacy. Maybe you could argue corporations don't deserve financial privacy, but an individual should have the right to send money to someone without being spied on the same way they should have the right to send a private communication to someone without being spied on.

KYC is necessary because you do not want for money laundering to be easy. Nor sanctions avoiding, nor terrorist sponsoring.

zmgsabst 27d ago
In practice, KYC does little to stop any of that — but does do a lot to enable mass surveillance and oppression.
- HighGoldstein 27d ago
  > In practice, KYC does little to stop any of that Source? The fact that it's not infallible doesn't mean that it's ineffective.
  - zmgsabst 27d ago
    They route through all kinds of intermediaries that handle the banking by proxy — eg, as we saw in the Panama Papers and similar leaks. Reporting $600 in CashApp isn’t about stopping cartels, terrorists, etc; it’s about harassing sex workers and street dealers, profiling side businesses, etc.
  - miohtama 27d ago
    Here is a good book on the topic of ineffectiveness of anti-money laundering: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DVLLL1X3?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DVLLL1X3?lv=shuf&channelId=500&p... Podcast if you do not want to buy the book: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-09-08/odd-lots-why-money-launderers-love-100-bills-video https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-09-08/odd-lots-wh...
mistrial9 27d ago
I just tried to pay my elderly neighbors cell phone bill here in California. I will spare you the details. Is all of this really required? It reminds me of a time when credit and credit cards were flying fast. Large losses started appearing on consumer credit accounts by the tens of thousands. A casual look into it indicated that it was the employees and leaders of the sector, who read and understood the credit agreement that put liability ultimately on the company. The actual credit card employees, adjacent accountants, quick witted cons, all siphoning money from credit cards in very large numbers. Why say this? Actual customers with increasing security requirements were largely not at all involved with the growing fraud. It was the participants in the credit industry seizing the opportunity to steal, with relative impunity. Things have changed and changed again since then with scale, local rules, fraud detection systems etc. The point of the rant is that ordinary people's rights are squeezed, privacy vanishes, routine humiliating document production and security, required because the people in the industry that created those is cheating. Yes of course there is cheating on taxes over tip money, or no-show jobs for relatives.. but what kind of society is being built with constant oversight into ordinary people's activity ? cash indeed
newspaper1 27d ago
Who decides who we're sanctioning and who is a "terrorist"? Not me, that's for sure! My money is my business and I don't need the state nanny watching who I send it to.
- miohtama 27d ago
  Southern Poverty Law Center decides: > Government should require regular, mandatory reporting by technology service providers to document abuse of their systems including financial support of violence, harassment, and terrorism.This includes implementation of mandatory financial abuse reporting requirements for internet services operating in the United States, including social media services, infrastructure providers, banking institutions, cryptocurrency exchanges, crowdfunding sites, video streaming platforms, and the like. > [These companies] should be required to investigate and report the details of harms and abuse of their service. There should be … penalties applied to services that refuse these tracking and reporting responsibilities. https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/nonprofit-indicted-bank-fraud/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/nonprofit-indicted-ba...
miohtama 27d ago
The criminal money and money laundering has been researched since 19th century. It has stayed at constant 2-5% of world GDP. However the cost of compliance has gone up exponentially. Today banks use $250B/year on KYC checks. You could fix the world hunger and still have $50B leftover money with this amount.
- rapatel0 27d ago
  It's not a fair comparison. Money laundering controls likely have also been implemented since the 19th century in some way shape or form. Therefore, that 2-5% figure also includes the effect of those controls. This might just the natural equilibrium below which the juice is no longer worth the squeeze. Access to information and interconnectedness have also increased exponentially so it might make sense that the costs have increased proportionately. Finally 200B/year would not solve world hunger if nefarious actors grift away most of that money (especially because you wouldn't be able to track them with out some form of KYC)
  - ryandrake 27d ago
    You also have to ask if money laundering is bad enough of a crime to warrant all of the overkill responses to it. At some point the medicine becomes worse than the disease. Lawmakers tend to get into these inescapable loops: Crime X exists -> Try solution Y -> Crime X still exists -> Try harsher solution Y0 -> Crime X still exists -> Try harsher solution Y1 -> Crime X still exists -> Try harsher solution Y2...
    - bdangubic 27d ago
      > Crime X exists -> Try solution Y ... I think the problem here might be that while Crime by its definition might be the same, the way that it is executed changes drastically so Solution Y/Y0/Y1/Y2 are not required to exist in terms of severity (very likely solution Y was severe enough if you were tried and convicted of the crime) but they are needed because the way Crime X is executed changes (especially this Crime X)
    - rapatel0 27d ago
ratelimitsteve 27d ago
when terrorism can be defined as "having a book" and can result in indefinite detention without charge or access to an attorney maybe i'm not 100% gung-ho by default on everything labelled anti-terrorism
- MSFT_Edging 27d ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49481385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49481385
charlieyu1 27d ago
Why should our rights be restricted when law enforcement is impotent?
AngryData 27d ago
Hard disagree, low level crimes should not be so heavily enforced. A bit of blackmarket activity is not only beneficial but neccessary for any stable economy. It can't be allowed at mass scale, but you can't effectively micromanage every transaction and account for every situation for every single good or dollar.
d5lt5 27d ago
It's rich coming from a person affected by ukrainian propaganda that is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe. Maybe you should back your opinion with facts. Citation is desperately needed.
- sofixa 27d ago
  How am I affected by Ukranian propaganda? And how does Ukranian corruption relate to.. money laundering? > Maybe you should back your opinion with facts. Citation is desperately needed That you don't want to make money laundering too easy? What exactly are you looking for as a citation here? "Crime bad"?
  - d5lt5 21d ago
    How about you provide citations first? We've seen so many charities in Ukraine stealing money. And Ukraine itself is a haven of corruption. If you don't see how you are affected by propaganda, maybe zoom out. You clearly become emotional when someone online challenges your viewpoint.
pocksuppet 26d ago
Money laundering isn't even a real thing. It's an excuse for the government to arrest people who are linked to people who are linked to people who they don't like.

Borealid 27d ago

KYC stands for Know Your Customer, the regulations that require institutions moving money between two parties to positively identify each of those two parties. I think the intellectual position "it should be illegal for institutions transmitting money between two parties to identify either of those parties" might require some kind of logical argument behind it. Are you saying all financial transactions should be anonmyous by law? How would banks function if they were required to be blind to their customers? How would the government prosecute money laundering if all cash-trails went cold after the first time they passed a bank? I understand people often like to express extreme positions on the Internet, but I think it's pretty easy to see an ideal society has rules somewhere in between "you're not allowed to know your customers" and "you can't accept a penny unless the giver does a blood draw in front of you and is confirmed to be in a central register of DNA".

zmgsabst 27d ago
I suspect the argument is more the particular KYC required by American law, eg, as long as your bank can identify you as a particular customer, they shouldn’t be required to collect certain information by law. Though if I were going to rant, it would be about how constructive surveillance, such as requiring banks keep certain records and then claiming those records aren’t protected from search because they’re third party business records and not those of a private citizen, would be a much higher priority to fix.
- Terr_ 27d ago
  Right: We must distinguish between: 1. "The business-model of being an anonymous fence of stolen goods is prohibited." 2. "You have to give us access to all your records at any time on the flimsiest of pretexts, and we'll charge you with a crime if you don't keep it ultra-secret that we even approached you."
logicchains 27d ago
"regulations that require institutions moving money between two parties to positively identify each of those two parties" Any such kind of regulation is not compatible with financial privacy. Maybe you could argue corporations don't deserve financial privacy, but an individual should have the right to send money to someone without being spied on the same way they should have the right to send a private communication to someone without being spied on.