Tornado Cash and collateral damage

Posted Aug 22, 2022 15:50 UTC (Mon) by immibis (subscriber, #105511)
In reply to: Tornado Cash and collateral damage by paulj
Parent article: Tornado Cash and collateral damage

Wasn't crypto only declared illegal to export? I thought USA citizens were allowed to use it.

Tornado Cash and collateral damage

Posted Aug 22, 2022 16:15 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

It was illegal to export, yes. In principle this meant companies /could/ have a 'domestic' version of software with proper crypto and a crippled 'export' version. In practice this meant that any 'free' (beer) software (e.g. Netscape) that was made available on the Internet had to be in the crippled form.

And elsewhere the GSM A5/2 cryptography was deliberately weakened too. Maybe not direct laws, but still at the behest of European states and their intel agencies - I'd assume in consultation with the NSA and US State dept.

Tornado Cash and collateral damage

Posted Aug 22, 2022 16:20 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

More detail here - and wrt regulatory environment it's worth bearing in mind that security agencies in western Europe have almost unchecked power (esp. back then): https://yarchive.net/phone/gsmcipher.html - the control of crypto was generally done via their vague, sweeping powers; rather than via more explicit legislation and regulation as was required in the USA.