This is just like the SEC "not enforcing" securities clauses until they have evidence. I think the writing is on the wall for not just Tornado Cash, but any system that functions like it: if you don't have an AML system that works, and your system is used for anything the government can prove would've been stopped by AML and should have been stopped by AML, it is incompatible, in principle, with the US dollar.

Just because Tornado Cash and other mixers survived for this long doesn't mean that the law suddenly changed or anything. All it means is that there was enough evidence collected to justify OFAC/SDN sanctioning. Then, the dominoes fell.

Tornado Cash was /never/ okay, but the government waited patiently for the evidence and acted when it had it. The same thing should be assumed to be true for /all/ systems in this sphere. The US dollar is the world reserve currency, and the SDN list is a death sentence for any project or system if that system has outputs to US dollars anywhere in the chain. All electronic cash transfer systems should be assumed to be incompatible unless there's a clear AML chain established that can reasonably defend against a blanket sanction.

In the exact same way, the SEC will go after any cryptocurrency "securities" that they want to, as soon as those securities blow up. Filecoin had an ICO just like a lot of other securities, but seemingly because it hasn't blown up, the SEC hasn't come knocking yet. It's just an evidence collection game.

For me, nothing more clearly signifies "the death of the hacker in the classic sense" than discussions about removing "dangerous" code from Github.

I'm from an older era, and it's continually bizarre to me that, apparently, nearly the entire collective hive mind of "tech" has forgotten that the point of Free and/or Open Source code is that you can spread it around everywhere and get it from different places.

> Given that code has been found to be protected free speech, at least in the US, causing its removal from GitHub seems like a clear violation of the constitution. ...

I doubt it very much. It is not a violation of the Constitution for the owner of a website to remove user-generated content. It happens all the time and has never been ruled to be unconstitutional.

> ... Cryptographer Matthew Green noted that, but also pointed out the irony of removing code from a distributed, decentralized revision-control system like Git. ...

GitHub != Git. And GitHub is not decentralized in anywhere close to the sense that Git is. I'm not sure where this author is getting their information from, but seems to be just repeating, uncritically, things said on the internet.

I appreciate the general take of:

>It seems clear that mixers are used for money laundering, but many tools, perhaps all, can be used for both good and ill. Typically, however, tools are not prosecuted (or sanctioned), people are.

Just because humans have figured out how to cause harm with something does not mean it should be prohibited. Other examples that come to mind include: Tor, encrypted messengers, knives, guns, automobiles, explosives, cleaning chemicals, recreational drugs, cash, and masks.

> In fact, someone would appear to be trolling the authorities by sending small amounts from prohibited Tornado Cash addresses to prominent people; those transactions cannot be declined, but receiving such a "gift" is technically in violation of the sanctions.

How can I be violating sanctions as a result of someone else’s actions? I’m not a lawyer, but I imagine one could just argue that receiving an output from a transaction that touches Tornado is considered different from interacting with Tornado oneself.

> Mixers (or "tumblers") work by collecting up a bunch of deposits, which get coalesced into larger chunks over a random period of time, then doling out portions of that chunk as withdrawals at a later time. Naturally, a percentage of the deposits (1-3% normally) typically stay with the service as profit.

Actually I think the v1 contracts did not require or accept a fee for usage. I'm not sure about their v2 contracts which incorporated some sort of governance token called TORN.

Would someone kindly tell me (or direct me somewhere) how to extract funds from Tornado Cash given the web frontend being down? As far as I understand, the web must be just an interface to ethereum contract. Thanks.

(Given the sanctions concern US citizens only, I really can't understand just why there did not any alternative web interface for the rest of us pop up)

This has the potential to be a major problem for the upcoming merge. If OFAC regulations hit major public companies like Coinbase & LIDO etc., they may start censoring transaction at the base layer (not in a DAPP). And given that they represent the majority of stake currently, ETH would effectively no longer be a decentralized project.

> Here at LWN, we generally do not pay much attention to the machinations of the cryptocurrency world—all of that tends to be far outside of our remit. There is a fair amount of distasteful hype, snake oil, and scams that go with that territory as well. But this event is not about any of that stuff, really; this comes down to a question of fundamental freedoms and human rights.

There is a much deeper contradiction between cryptocurrency and the free software movement of which LWN is an outpost.

The goal is to keep software free of the bonds of scarcity inherent in physical goods. Because digital goods are virtually free to copy, they can only be limited by typical systems of ownership when artificially forced to. Software spread openly is better able to help everyone rather than just a few capitalists. Private industry has fought against this in its drive to grind profit out of everything it can.

Cryptocurrency is an effort to dig artificial scarcity deeper into digital goods than ever before. So it's strange to see FOSS advocates getting crypto's back. The people driving the spread of crypto are zealous advocates of a system inherently opposed to FOSS ideals. Like many before them, they will push software freedom to the extent that it helps them and then relentlessly pursue its enclosure when it doesn't.

> But this event is not about any of that stuff, really; this comes down to a question of fundamental freedoms and human rights

It is not a fundamental freedom nor human right to be able to anonymously transfer money.

Nor do you have a right for your code to be hosted at Github.

I wish people would stop demeaning the real threat to human rights happening across the world.

I'm really confused how we're still taking the position that if something is free speech that means it can't be controlled, because the constitution.

Like, lol, what?

You can't publish someone else's book, or nuclear weapon plans, or a credible murder threat

"But code is free speech?"

One, it's speech, not free speech. They're not the same thing and the linked decision doesn't say what everyone's claiming it does.

Two, freedom of speech doesn't mean you can't be punished for what you say. Go try yelling fire in a crowded theater, and try to plead freedom of speech. Watch what happens.

Three, they're not being punished for the speech, they're being punished for defying monetary controls. Just because there was speech adjacent doesn't mean anything.

We should be able to see through things like this.

There's been a lot of hand wringing about "how can the SEC sanction an open source software?" The fact of the matter is, code is not value neutral. Code may be protected under free speech, but that doesn't make it legal to actually execute that code.

Just because it's on the blockchain, doesn't mean people aren't ultimately responsible. People chose to develop Tornado Cash, they chose to deploy it to the blockchain, and they chose to run the contracts. And now everyone involved in Etherium has to deal with this sanctioned code touching everything in that space.