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if true, this thread has scary implications for anyone who contributes to open source privacy software. basically you can be arrested if criminals use it and the authorities can’t figure out who else to arrest.

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Petr Korolev

@skywinder

Aug 19

4/ That triggered investigations in the USA and Europe. And it appears that the investigators had no idea how to deal with the situation, no idea how open-source software development works, and just hit a developer with numerous commits and a real name on GitHub.

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There is a difference between privacy software and money laundry software. Tornado Cash had no other real purpose. It wasn’t like mixmaster for email privacy

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This is false. I used it to buy a hoodie from a vendor I wasnt familiar with because there is no reason for them to know the contents of my wallet

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EFF has received donations via Tornado Cash. Analysis of the money going through it indicates most of it was not tied to criminals. North Korea found vulnerabilities in other smart contracts and passed the stolen money through TC, sure. They'd have hacked TC too if they could.

11:23 PM · Aug 23, 2022Twitter Web App

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That was something like 15% of the total money passing through it, not anywhere close to the majority. Even if you go by the total value of the money, there was more legitimate usage than anything tied to criminals or bypassing sanctions.

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So if you can analyse that, how private is it?

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It has strong privacy via encryption within it, similar to Zcash. If you're moving money into it and then out of it people can see it going in and out. If you want full privacy you have to keep the transactions within it. Could buy it with cash and then pay people who accept it.

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