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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.

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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.

11:54 PM · Aug 23, 2022Twitter Web App

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Or get paid with it and then pay others accepting it. It's the same kind of approach as the Zcash shielded pools. It isn't a 'mixing service' in the sense that's being reported by journalists. It's essentially a shielded pool within Ethereum via a smart contract.

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Ethereum itself doesn't have privacy. They implemented a pool within Ethereum with privacy. If you're moving money to and from it, that's publicly visible. Can try to hide that by splitting it up, sending it to many different places, etc. but it doesn't change that it's public.