Conversation

yan
@bcrypt
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.
Quote Tweet
Petr Korolev 🦇🔊
@skywinder
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.
Show this thread
19
295
Oskar Ojala
@PicsPlz
Replying to
@bcrypt
It seems that this could potentially be legally complicated, a lot depending on Dutch law. Running a full on anonymized service would likely violate laws, unclear what writing software would imply and what’s the specific suspected crime here
3
Daniel Micay
@DanielMicay
Replying to
@PicsPlz
and
@bcrypt
Tornado Cash is a smart contract which had approval for updates, etc. delegated to a community via a DAO. It's not a service they ran. The people running the code are Ethereum miners and people running other validating Ethereum nodes. The developers didn't host it as a service.
2
2
Daniel Micay
@DanielMicay
Replying to
@RichFelker
@PicsPlz
and
@bcrypt
Ethereum miners are the ones who can choose to omit transactions. One of the mining pools stopped including Tornado Cash transactions after the sanctions. They're the ones processing the transactions. It's legal for them to do that if they follow regulations placed on them.
1
Daniel Micay
@DanielMicay
Replying to
@DanielMicay
@RichFelker
and 2 others
Since the DAO killed itself and apparently wiped their multisig keys, the only way to stop it is to find a serious vulnerability or miners could stop including TC transactions in their blocks. The code is still being run, and the DAO is gone. They aren't the ones running it.
1
Daniel Micay
@DanielMicay
Replying to
@DanielMicay
@RichFelker
and 2 others
Ethereum miners are in the process of being replaced this month. Miners omitting transactions from blocks is relevant for a couple more weeks, at which point the people able to do that don't need a significant real world presence with lots of hardware / electricity anymore.
1