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Comment by capableweb | Hacker News Reader

You're almost getting it. We still allow hot dog stands to exists, even though you could launder money via them. Instead, we let police investigate cases where money laundering is happening, and if it happens to be via one hot dog stand, take down that specific one. Rather than banning hot dog stands in general.

Same goes for Tornado Cash. It was not designed for money laundering, although you could use it for that. If the US government finds cases of money laundering happening, take down the entities doing the money laundering instead of attacking a tool.

If you think Tornado Cash was designed for money laundering, please point us to the documents where this is mentioned. I've personally followed the development of the project, but never saw any mentions of money laundering at all, anywhere.

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> take down the entities doing the money laundering instead of attacking a tool

This is what they’re doing. North Korea laundered money via Tornado Cash [1]. Authorities announced it and watched Tornado Cash do nothing. So it got sanctioned. Every other mixer is untouched.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/30/north-korea-likely-behind-10....

No, Tornado Cash is code, not a service operated by any entity.

North Korea also used HTTP for navigating websites which helped them hack targets and also launder more money. Banning Tornado Cash is like banning the HTTP specification/IETF for that, instead of going after the group in North Korea doing the money laundering/hacking.

> Tornado Cash is code, not a service operated by any entity

There was a team of developers earning compensation, hiring and firing. That’s more than just code.

The sanctions are literally added to the OFAC's SDN list, and consists of addresses and contracts. Neither of those things are services or operations, they are quite literally just executable code. See for yourself: https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/...

> consists of addresses and contracts. Neither of those things are services or operations, they are quite literally just executable code

Guns are quite literally just atoms. The context matters. Not all guns are illegal. But ones used to commit crimes will get lawfully seized. The code exists in context, and the developers’ actions and intentions are relevant. None of this is novel.

>No, Tornado Cash is code, not a service operated by any entity.

This is the kind of sociopathic irresponsibility that's too common in tech. "Oh, it's not my fault my lab-grown monster decided to terrorize the countryside!"

OFAC's attacks on privacy are sociopathically irresponsible, and unlike Tornado Cash the federal government has actual monsters with weapons terrorizing the countryside.

Good thing we have the North Korean government and CP traders on our side, defending our rights.

Same old pro-mass surveillance arguments, we need it because there are terrorists and pedos

...Because money laundering is illegal.

No one's going to advertise openly to the public "Assassination services here! Just call 1-800-KIL-THEM!"

And no one's going to put in public documents "we set up this company in order to facilitate money laundering."

Alright, so there is no proof that Tornado Cash was setup to facilitate money laundering, yet so many here on HN keeps saying "was designed to launder money". What does "designed to X" mean if not that the tool itself was intentionally, purposefully and explicitly made to do X? And if that's true, why isn't there any public evidence of that being true?

They did not include an automated KYC process for when the transactions are larger than 10k USD.

Therefore, they intended it to be used to hide transactions from the US government. They could have also limited the service to not run on amounts larger than 10k?

I think the confusion is one of definitions. Basically, the whole point of cryptocurrency tumblers like TC is to obscure the original source of funds. That can be used for both legal and illegal funding sources. I think some folks in this thread are using the term "money laundering" to refer to both legal and illegal fund-source-obscuring, while others are using it to refer purely to illicit sources.

I think danaris's point stands - if you design an iron maiden style murder chamber but simply alter the name to "one time use changing room", you're not fooling anyone, the purpose is still clear, and illegal.

Its purpose is clear because there is no plausible alternative reason for designing a murder chamber.

Are you suggesting that there is no plausible reason to want financial privacy, outside money laundering?

If I were a Russian (I'm not), I wouldn't want the Russian government finding out that I donated crypto to Ukraine defense efforts.

You're almost clever... Tornado is accused of being designed to facilitate money laundering and, realistically, has very little other purpose.

By contrast, a hotdog stand is typically designed to cook and sell hotdogs and, in the rare instances where money laundering occurs, it's not a primary service the hotdog stand offers to clients, and will still get the owner arrested.

> You're almost clever... Tornado is accused of being designed to facilitate money laundering and, realistically, has very little other purpose.

It does have other purposes, hiding transactions from the public, which I have used Tornado Cash for many times in the past.

> I used Tornado Cash (non-US citizen here) for hiding transactions from the public (not hiding from the government), and when I filed my taxes, I still accounted for everything that is stored there + transacted via Tornado Cash, just like I do for my bank account. Appendix contained instructions for how they could access the proof of my transactions and accounts to verify themselves.

Not sure why people think what I did should be illegal, I'm paying my taxes and declare everything just like everyone else, but somehow I shouldn't be allowed to hide my transactions from randoms on the internet?

> somehow I shouldn't be allowed to hide my transactions from randoms on the internet

You can do this. But it doesn’t come without risk.

If you kept using Tornado even after it was found Pyongyang used it to launder money, yes, you lose your money. It’s analogous to local law enforcement announcing a laundromat has been laundering money for the mafia, and then—months later–someone getting upset the clothes they dropped off have been seized. They may eventually get them back. But there is reasonable suspicion in the meantime.

People still use JPMorgan Chase and HSBC, both of which have been involved in money laundering.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/global-bank...

1) Those are major banks. Many thousands of people have accounts with them for 100% legitimate purposes, and most of them have likely not heard that they were involved in money laundering (which, see also #2)

2) Because those are major, highly entrenched banks, they not only have the resources to ensure that stories about them engaging in bad behavior get swept under the rug (which doesn't mean "no coverage", but does mean they don't get covered as much as they might perhaps deserve), they also have the connections to make it very unlikely that they will face any kind of meaningful repercussions for this.

This is quite unfortunate, and a decidedly negative aspect of our current system. But the answer to it is not "so other companies like TornadoCash should be allowed to break the law with impunity, too!" It's "so we need to find ways to change our system so that we can genuinely hold accountable big banks and others who currently break the law with impunity."

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