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Comment by whatisweb3 | Hacker News Reader

A private key is a 256 bit integer.

> If someone built something that said "Launder your [256 bit integers] here" and it took in a bunch of [256 bit integers], and then [encrypted] it sans fees to hide where it came from... they'd say it was [256 bit integer] laundering and arrest the person.

When you compare this to encrypting 256 bit integers, text, or E2EE chat protocols, the shock is easier to understand. People should not be treated as a criminal for building Matrix E2EE protocol that enables privacy, they should not be treated as criminal for building Tornado Cash protocol that enables privacy.

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Except the law isn’t talking about the private key or the encryption or the math, it is talking about what they are using those things for.

You are focusing on the numbers themselves and the math, but that isn’t the important part. This would be like someone getting arrested for check fraud and then trying to argue, “they are just a bunch of lines on a paper in a certain format, how can that be a crime!”

The crime isn’t that arrangement of ink on the paper, the crime is using those lines on the paper to commit fraud. Same thing here, it isn’t the numbers or math that are criminal, it is using those numbers and math to commit crime.

The sanctions apply directly to the protocol and it’s code, and this is the issue. It is not applying to persons, or criminal actions.

It would be like sanctioning the Matrix protocol and it’s code because it has facilitated terrorist communication. Obviously terrorists planning a bombing over Matrix protocol are engaging in criminal behavior, but this doesn’t mean the protocol itself is also a criminal entity.

Okay so you’re saying NFTs are absolutely meaningless, what the holder solely owns is a 256 bit integer and absolutely nothing else?

Anyway, in this case unlike debatably with nfts, there is concrete value tied to possessing knowledge of the integer so acting like it’s just sharing random numbers is deceptive and rather easily detected deception. resorting to deceptive arguments generally makes people turn against the position of the one trying to deceive so if advocating for tornado devs, one should avoid that argument unless one is actually trying to make people against them.

The point is: the protocol encrypts a private key, a private key is an integer, or text hash. Saying that it is OK to build tools that encrypt text, like Matrix protocol, but it is not OK to build tools that encrypt private-keys-as-text is a slippery slope.

Which one is it?

- privacy is a right, and people should be allowed to share knowledge privately

or,

- privacy is not a right, and people should only be allowed to share knowledge if that knowledge is not associated with "value"

Repeating an argument _verbatim_ this many times just comes across as patronizing. We get it. You think numbers can’t be outlawed. You’re wrong and in general, pedantry/technicalities about theoretical computer science is _not_ going to help you when considering human power structures.

Someone else has told you this already, but you seem intent on ignoring it.

You did not answer my simple question. :) Sorry to be a broken record by comparing this to E2EE privacy protocols, but many commenters on HN only seem to think privacy is worthwhile when in the form of a chat app.

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