what use outside of money laundering did this tool have?
There are groups who think property rights are inane and tyrannical. One way to ignore those laws is breaking and entering. Is it only a good thing when it conveniently aligns with what you consider inane and tyrannical?
What is your position? That tools primarily intended to break any law are inherently suspect and it's good to ban them?
I think a tool's primary use is important. And that's nuanced, and subjective.
Let's take guns for example. Guns are regulated in most western countries, some more heavily than others. Gun advocates often cite needing them to hunt animals or to defend themselves from predatory animals in rural environments. Sometimes they also cite using them to defend themselves against other humans. Mostly though guns seem to be used for self harm and to shoot others.
In a more tyrannical setting, guns could be used for revolution and to overthrow oppressors. I assume you're OK with things like banning assault rifles for civilian use in your country even though that use case is a possibility elsewhere in the world?
When Tornado Cash's primary uses are speculation, tax evasion, and money laundering in a country like the US -- I don't disagree that it should be banned or heavily regulated even if in some specific setting it could possibly be used for other purposes.
A lot of folks in the west very loudly cite Tornado Cash (and other things in the crypto space) as a means for oppressed peoples to bypass government control. I wonder if they're not similar to the people who want to own an AK-47 because they sometimes like to hunt ducks or want to protect themselves from home invasions.
" I don't disagree that it should be banned or heavily regulated even if in some specific setting it could possibly be used for other purposes." - but wouldn't that apply to everything? It is obvious that a typical govt would try to clamp down on things that are a threat to itself, be it guns on anonymous defi.
The question is (1) how much do you trust the current government / an average government on Earth / support whatever the current laws / average laws are in the first place, (2) how much do you trust the government / laws to not deteriorate in future (e.g. abortion ban with financial punishment for violators, Canadian trucker style, how about that?), (3) is the government less or more likely to deteriorate when checks on it are removed?
I personally think that's the point of privacy. To protect people from the government. Otherwise it easily becomes a tyranny if they have a full control and visibility over the citizens.
Cash is much safer because the risk is only at the time of transfer.
How you send the cash, btw? By mail? How do you ensure that post office is not going to learn who is the sender of the envelope with cash?
Re: cash - if you think about the problems I listed, you can see how it’s better in each case, all stemming back from not creating a permanent public ledger of potentially risky activities.
Vitalik himself used tornado cash for private transactions. Do you think that Vitalik openly launders money?
Who can tell? Isn't that the point of Tornado Cash?
Authoritarian governments should really start hanging around on HN, they would love the sentiment here...
The point is that you can't know. That's the purpose of a money laundering operation.
I think maybe a better analogy would have been to use VPN rather than SSL. Because SSL doesn't obscure the source and destination, just the contents of the message.
Wrong. You can in fact know, because it has auditing tools which allow one to disclose transactions exactly for AML reasons.
At least put in some research before you engage in a discussion where it becomes apparent that you clearly lack the knowledge to participate in a fruitful discussion. Making factually incorrect statements like yours as if they were facts is misleading a lot of people.
Usually the person making that claim is incapable of making any substantial argument, and that's their crutch at stopping any more criticism of their position.
>Usually the person making that claim is incapable of making any substantial argument, and that's their crutch at stopping any more criticism of their position.
In this case this is describing you tho, on top of you spreading clear cut misinformation.
Or more corporate, you don't want your competitors to know details of your next project.