> While Pertsev added functionality to the web interface that allowed legitimate users to separate their funds from those arriving from known criminal addresses, they characterized the effort as “too little and too late.”
I admit it sounds pretty damning to have a UI affordance for “keep my funds separate from the known criminals this service knowingly serves”.
I have little sympathy for those who intentionally increase crime as some kind of political statement, but it seems like maintaining plausible deniability would be very important to those who do so.
"Known criminal addresses" isn't an easy nut to crack. False positives prevail and the list is held by institutions readily hostile towards crypto. People who used Tornado Cash themselves, even non-criminals, are marked as criminals because of the way the lists are maintained. The article itself says "30% of the funds were from illicit activity", which leaves 70%. When is the last time a bank enabling criminals like HSBC had it's directors arrested and thrown in jail?
> Wow, just wow. Am i alone in thinking this is not going to fly if all he did was write some software that helps with your financial anonymity? There must be more. Perhaps he also deployed it? That would be a different story. The article is quite murky in that regard. Perhaps they don't know yet
Code isn’t law. The law is the law. If you enable the crime willfully, you are a party to it.
I don't agree with the ruling, but I wonder how many people out there are living the good life because of dodgy funds they laundered through Tornado Cash. Flying in private jets, driving lambos, drinking the finest whisky. While many of those that do honest work like teaching the next generation live in poverty.
Keep in mind that the crime occured earlier - when they got the dodgy funds somehow. If tornado cash didn't exist, they would just launder the money some other way (like people did for thousands of years before - and there's plenty of ways to launder money using cryptocurrencies).
This story is framed oddly. Imagine if you blamed, say, cash, for being used by North Korea. Also compare this treatment to the employees at Wells Fargo/Wachovia who laundered billions for Mexican drug cartels,
>The settlement reached between Wachovia and U.S. authorities, known as a "deferred prosecution," raises questions. It's a probationary agreement, effectively allowing the bank to evade prosecution if it abides by the law for a year. While the fine imposed was substantial, it amounted to less than 2% of Wachovia's 2009 profit.
The quote from prosecutors in the article is actually really good: it is about human behavior, not the tools.
Abstracting the question to whether tumblers or cash or guns or whatever should be 100% legal or 100% illegal is too reductive to be useful for anything but rhetoric.
It’s when people take actions with intent and outcomes that the law gets interested. Those are what we should talk about.
Cash has lots of legitimate uses and some uses which I’m fine saying are illegal. Ditto with guns, even speech.
In this case the summaries at least sound like there was tons of evidence he was specifically designing and building features to make the service better for criminals, with the intent and outcome of facilitating criminal activity. Behaviors, as the prosecutor said.
> Imagine if you blamed, say, cash, for being used by North Korea.
This is odd framing. If you launder cash for the North Koreans, you will similarly find the weight of various criminal justice systems descending upon you. Ethereum is widely in legal usage.
> But Dutch prosecutors say the case was simpler than all that. It wasn’t about the right to privacy, or the liability of open source developers, they claim, but the choices of an individual. “[Pertsev] made choices writing the code, deploying the code, adding features to the ecosystem. Choice after choice, all the while he knew that criminal money was entering his system,” M. Boerlage, the lead prosecutor on the case, told WIRED ahead of the verdict. “So it’s not about code. It’s about human behavior.”
How is it different than, say, gun or ammo manufacturers? I suppose the quote here is highly simplified and almost all nuance removed, but still. How is this different than metasploit?
brookst|1 year ago
> While Pertsev added functionality to the web interface that allowed legitimate users to separate their funds from those arriving from known criminal addresses, they characterized the effort as “too little and too late.”
I admit it sounds pretty damning to have a UI affordance for “keep my funds separate from the known criminals this service knowingly serves”.
I have little sympathy for those who intentionally increase crime as some kind of political statement, but it seems like maintaining plausible deniability would be very important to those who do so.
joemazerino|1 year ago
This sets a dangerous precedent.
olegp|1 year ago
toomuchtodo|1 year ago
> Wow, just wow. Am i alone in thinking this is not going to fly if all he did was write some software that helps with your financial anonymity? There must be more. Perhaps he also deployed it? That would be a different story. The article is quite murky in that regard. Perhaps they don't know yet
Code isn’t law. The law is the law. If you enable the crime willfully, you are a party to it.
cedws|1 year ago
lambdaxyzw|1 year ago
warkdarrior|1 year ago
superkuh|1 year ago
>The settlement reached between Wachovia and U.S. authorities, known as a "deferred prosecution," raises questions. It's a probationary agreement, effectively allowing the bank to evade prosecution if it abides by the law for a year. While the fine imposed was substantial, it amounted to less than 2% of Wachovia's 2009 profit.
brookst|1 year ago
Abstracting the question to whether tumblers or cash or guns or whatever should be 100% legal or 100% illegal is too reductive to be useful for anything but rhetoric.
It’s when people take actions with intent and outcomes that the law gets interested. Those are what we should talk about.
Cash has lots of legitimate uses and some uses which I’m fine saying are illegal. Ditto with guns, even speech.
In this case the summaries at least sound like there was tons of evidence he was specifically designing and building features to make the service better for criminals, with the intent and outcome of facilitating criminal activity. Behaviors, as the prosecutor said.
SpicyLemonZest|1 year ago
ceejayoz|1 year ago
This is odd framing. If you launder cash for the North Koreans, you will similarly find the weight of various criminal justice systems descending upon you. Ethereum is widely in legal usage.
I'm all for harsher penalties for Wells Fargo.
itsoktocry|1 year ago
Wasn't the Wells Fargo amount much smaller, in the millions? And someone is going to jail for that, too?
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
jiveturkey|1 year ago
> But Dutch prosecutors say the case was simpler than all that. It wasn’t about the right to privacy, or the liability of open source developers, they claim, but the choices of an individual. “[Pertsev] made choices writing the code, deploying the code, adding features to the ecosystem. Choice after choice, all the while he knew that criminal money was entering his system,” M. Boerlage, the lead prosecutor on the case, told WIRED ahead of the verdict. “So it’s not about code. It’s about human behavior.”
How is it different than, say, gun or ammo manufacturers? I suppose the quote here is highly simplified and almost all nuance removed, but still. How is this different than metasploit?
ab5tract|1 year ago
For my taste, the answer is en emphatic yes it would and yes it should.
And I would expect any service offering turn key, automated “metasploit-ing” would find themselves in violation of the law as well.
frank_bb|1 year ago
[deleted]
Night_Thastus|1 year ago
I am shocked, shocked!
Well, not that shocked.
krishan711|1 year ago