You can call it money laundering speech if you want, but that doesn't change the fact money laundering is illegal. Selling skimming services is illegal even if you don't skim people yourself.

Nobody is banning technology or math, only specific, usually criminal, uses of technology and math are banned.

> Banning maths is fascist

What about banning chemistry and physics? If I fire a gun and the bullet hits someone I get arrested (and maybe even if it doesn't hit anyone if I am somewhere were shooting guns is not illegal), yet all I did was use some levers (physics) to add compress a spring adding potential energy to it (physics) which then got converted to kinetic energy (Hooke's law, more physics), which imparted energy to some chemicals starting a reaction (chemistry) that produced expanding gases that caused the bullet to rapidly leave the barrel of the gun, where it followed a ballistic trajectory (physics).

Or what about banning biology? Look closely at other animals sometimes. Things that in humans we'd call rape and murder and robbery are quite common. Millions of years of evolution have selected for animals that do those things. Humans too have the same propensity to do many of those same things, and would do so more often if they were not illegal. Just look at what happens when people find themselves in situations where those laws do not apply or where they have no chance of being punished, such as when a country successfully invades another country.

you fired the gun, not the manufacturer. why would they arrest the manufacturer/inventor/etc for something that was done by you?

Manufacturers carry liabilities for the products the make all the time.

That's true for consumer products and even more significant for things like guns.

In most places you're a not even allowed to manufacture guns not to speak of Marketing and selling them.

Offering a service like tornado cash (e.g. getting financial benefits from transaction fees) would be just as illegal if they used potatoes instead of cryptocurrency. There are laws dealing with money laundering specifically and "doing it on the Blockchain" doesn't circumvent them.

Should we arrest the author of Nmap?

Probably not because

a) he doesn't operate, market or deploy nmap in most instances. Doesn't consult or gives input at all.

b) He doesn't receive fees from using nmap on an ongoing basis

c) Nmap doesn't fall under financial laws which are stricter and require more to be in compliance with.

even more shameful is the tone of conversation regarding this in internet forums now vs in 1993. How the hell can you be pro arrest of developers

The opinions being expressed regarding cryptography, cryptocurrencies, freedom, and privacy has been absolutely depressing. The state and corporations have exerted their influence, particularly in the last fifteen years or so.

It helps the fact that the vast majority of people on HN are against any project that use cryptocurrencies.

People don't seem to realize that there is little fundamental distinction between a crypto privacy service, and encrypted messaging apps like Signal and matrix.

A bitcoin private key is just "KwTHJw865SLeTAjK7otYb5bL5mwutBb2vDxxF7kGf5XvY7QttnvM" after all.

> People don't seem to realize that there is little fundamental distinction between a crypto privacy service, and encrypted messaging apps like Signal and matrix

A dollar in a bank account is similarly abstractable. Anyone equating crypto to speech is undermining actual privacy rights.

There's a distinction, you can't transfer a dollar in a bank account by sending text messages. You could instruct your bank to transfer; but the actual irreversible _movement_ happens out of band.

You _can_ transfer a cryptocurrency by sending its private key on an encrypted messaging app.

What happens if someone makes a mixer that operates over Signal messages? This is not a bad-faith argument: The entire CoinJoin protocol used to operate over IRC; before they developed their own communications system for increased efficiency.

> What happens if someone makes a mixer that operates over Signal messages?

Honestly, if someone just develops a mixer and publishes the code they’re probably fine. That’s speech. GitHub or a journal, it is protected.

Tornado’s developers didn’t do that. They made a token that with monetary value that they get paid; they hired people and had a website promoting the service; et cetera. If this were just a GitHub repo, yes, the comparison to speech would be apt. It’s not. And I’m none too thrilled about folks throwing actual free speech and privacy under the bus to defend crypto.

That’s not they key, that’s a representation of the key.

I don't think the cryptobros realise quite how much they've made the general forum public hate them, which is why everyone's cheering this arrest.

You make it sound like righteous people rejoicing, to me it feels like those medieval citizen cheering at a public execution or the burning of a witch.

Both thought they were right and the evil people got what they deserved. The fact that you divide the tech world into evil cryptobros vs good citizens is telling.