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by eropple 759 days ago
> The whole system is private and permissionless. I don't know what Tornado Cash could do other than simply indicating that a known bad actor made a deposit.

Not exist.

Like, this is the fundamental disjoint between this complaint and reality. "Your system behaves enough like a pattern that is core to how society works" is the filter here, not "have I cleverly designed it to not perfectly fit the pattern". The law isn't applied via robot.
1 comments
zomglings 759 days ago
If I were a money launderer, I would take the libre Tornado Cash smart contracts, the libre Tornado Cash zk circuits, and the source-available Tornado Cash relayer, and run the whole thing myself. I would pay someone to operate relayers using cash, gold, diamonds... something hard.

Does that mean the creator of the mathematical concept and the code should be punished?

I understand what you are saying, though. My complaint is really that the authorities are willing to stifle such radical innovation to continue to maintain control. Even that shouldn't be a surprise, but I continue to feel outrage when I see this kind of thing.

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aleph_minus_one 759 days ago
> I would pay someone to operate relayers using cash, gold, diamonds... something hard.

Side remark: diamonds are not hard, see

Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?

> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo...

> https://web.archive.org/web/20240510011736/https://www.theat...

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eropple 759 days ago
> Does that mean the creator of the mathematical concept and the code should be punished?

Code isn't an idea, code's a thing you make. There are entire classes of thing that are illegal for a citizen of many countries to make or possess or both. While I don't particularly care about this case except in the general "cryptocurrencies appear to exist for grift and need to actually prove their value to society or be stomped" sort of way I view all of it, it isn't legally outlandish.

> My complaint is really that the authorities are willing to stifle such radical innovation to continue to maintain control.

I don't think a system of blind drops but, in fine patent-office-esque fashion, With A Computer are particularly innovative at all, so this is begging the question.

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jncfhnb 759 days ago
> Does that mean the creator of the mathematical concept and the code should be punished?

You mean the guy that launched the service? Yeah.

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