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Comment by Hermel | Hacker News Reader

We are shifting more and more towards a legal system where not only those who actually did something wrong (here the tax evaders), but also those whose services have been used to do so are considered guilty. Another example is copyright, where websites are increasingly held liable for user uploads. I'm not convinced that this is a good development.

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If a stranger walks up to you, and gives you $10,000 to drive a large, heavy, body-sized bag to the outskirts of town, and dump it in a river, I think most reasonable people would consider you to be at least an accessory to murder. On the other hand, if you were a department store clerk who sold that bag, most reasonable people would consider you in the clear.

There's a spectrum for this sort of thing, and I think UBS was clearly on the 'knowingly profiting from crime' side of it.

I think we are talking about a company calling people to ask them if they have a bag to dispose of and organizing conferences on the fine art of bag disposal, a primer on material science, some workshops on bag design and the intricacies of selecting rivers.

They were cold calling the customers accross the border, not closing their eyes on the paperwork associated with the money.

They were actively recruiting clients in France to offer them tax evasion services. There's nothing innocent here.

You're exaggerating. Due diligence is a thing in most professional services. Banks have been complicit in money laundering and tax evasion for decades and they have shown that they have little interest in solving these issues.

Software Developers have been complicit in copyright infringement for decades and they have shown that they have little interest in solving these issues.

Just like bits have no color for you[1] dollars had no color for bankers for a long time. Stopping money laundering in your organization is just as much pain as stopping copyright infringement on your system.

[1] https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

The analogy doesn't work. You've constructed a fragile argument by simple substitution as though money laundering and tax evasion had the same impact and damage as copyright infringement.

Well, it's been established empirically that such is not the case, and that the supposed statistics by the copyright lobbyists on the damage of piracy are outright lies.

Moreover, there is a very strong argument to be made that strong enforcement of copyright goes against several rights that individuals have whose values are above copyright. Privacy, fair use, distribution, preservation of knowledge and culture all have higher priority in many jurisdictions and the fight in this matter for the past two decades has shown that the argument in favor of strong copyright enforcement is not for the benefit of all.

But money laundering? Tax evasion? There are few if any arguments that support what is essentially billions and billions of dollars of theft from the commons where there is real, easily quantified damage to the entirety of society.

Arguments such as yours are fundamentally weak in that you expect that mere substitution of terms equates to... anything really. I don't know what world you live in where that's a strong proposition.

The GP's point is fair, though. Money is fungible, which is just another way of saying that it has no color. Anti-money-laundering schemes are essentially DRM for money.

Now it is my personal and completely biased opinion that money laundering and tax evasion are very big problems affecting society negatively, while copyright infringement on-line is mostly a non-issue due to IP laws being abusive; still, while relatively different in importance, the problems are still similar in the way GP describes them.

(And in both cases you learn that color is very important to the law.)

Except it's not DRM for money. I, as a normal software engineer, have never encountered any difficulty in moving money around. Even fairly large sums ($100k+) across continents. It was quick and almost painless.

I imagine most of us here have never felt like our money had "DRM" on it.

Our money is, in fact, a different color from the terrorists'.

That's because you're on the golden path. I don't feel "DRM" when I'm watching YouTube or Netflix on my Windows/Chrome. It's only when I want to do the unconventional - like watching a movie that's region-locked, or listening to some YouTube music on my phone with the screen turned off - it's only then that I suddenly experience the extent of machinery that pays attention to colors of bits.

> Our money is, in fact, a different color from the terrorists'.

Yes. The point is, the color isn't a feature of money - or of bits - but the legal systems around use of those.

I think that’s definitely the exception, moving money internationally is a PITA unless you want to pay high fees for less hassle. It’s definitely more trouble than moving money within the same country.

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