Tornado Cash and collateral damage

Posted Aug 18, 2022 5:07 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
Parent article: Tornado Cash and collateral damage

> Typically, however, tools are not prosecuted (or sanctioned), people are.

I think this is a very American view. In the rest of the world, guns are controlled, polluting vehicles are banned, etc. If a tool is a danger to society, the tool is the problem, not the people.

Whether the negative side of mixing cryptocurrency merits the ban on Tornado Cash, I don't know. But the tradeoff between individual liberties and societal good is, in general, not viewed the same way in most other countries as in America.

Tornado Cash and collateral damage

Posted Aug 18, 2022 11:18 UTC (Thu) by camhusmj38 (subscriber, #99234) [Link] (1 responses)

Even in America, many tools are actually banned. There is a tendency for FOSS advocates to view code as suis generis but the fact remains that it is just like anything else. The fact that you've written a computer program to do your money laundering shouldn't change the fact that you're money laundering.

Tornado Cash and collateral damage

Posted Aug 29, 2022 19:38 UTC (Mon) by sammythesnake (guest, #17693) [Link]

In most cases laws criminalise *uses* of such things as are under restrictions. The are certainly things where *possession* is a crime (e.g. various weapons or drugs, depending on the jurisdiction), but the "uses" laws outweigh them somewhat.

Even many laws restricting possession aren't absolute, allowing it if certain requirements are met (e.g. requirements on storage of firearms or ammunition, or valid prescription for drugs etc)

In any case, though, there is necessarily a responsible party to be held criminally liable in the event of overstepping the bounds. You can't imprison or fine a knife/gun/doobie, you need a person to subject to consequences.

There are laws that restrict doing things you can/should "reasonably suspect" enable illegal actions by another party - essentially making you liable for others' actions with a defense of due diligence.

That kind of restriction might work for tornado by applying only to the "money in" part if you could ensure legitimacy of the money going in and somehow apply whatever taxation is appropriate while allowing the egress of funds to be anonymous...

Making it illegal to use for otherwise legal purposes is overreach (though that's hardly unprecedented, c.f. the DMCA)

Making it illegal to possess is near pointless given how difficult it would be to enforce such a law (defining the software in question, proving that an encrypted drive contains it, even proving that a hard drive is formatted if certain encryption methods are used!)

Of course, legislators do stupid things five times by breakfast...