9mo ago

Dutch court convicts engineer to 5 years for maintaining crypto mixer Tornado Cash

www.patrick-breyer.de Conviction of Tornado Cash programmer: Privacy is not a crime!

On Tuesday a Dutch court sentenced the programmer Alexey Pertsev to five years in prison. The court found him guilty of money laundering because the "Tornado Cash" software he developed enables criminals to carry out completely anonymous and untraceable crypto transactions (so-called "crypto mixer")

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the court accused him of an “ideology of maximum privacy.”
In what twisted fucked up crazy world is that a bad thing?
I hate this timeline..
- If you read the verdict it says: maximum privacy combined with optimal obfuscation techniques. This implies that the sole role of the software is money laundering. The striving for privacy itself is not in question.
  
  Free software can be used for what every you want to use it for.
- If you guys do want to get into crypto to buy certain....things, though if ill advise it, I'd recommend Monero not stuff like Bitcoin.

The same logic should apply to manufacturers whose products are used in committing a crime...
- Uhh really hope that's sarcasm...
  
  I dunno. If you manufacture tools designed specifically for killing, for example, you've definitely played a part in somebody's use of your tools for killing.
  
  You hoped right.
- That logic they're using should be burned with fire.
  With that logic, cars being highjacked for a crime should make the company liable for the crime (Revolutionary actions would also count as crimes). That gives car manufacturers alot more legal reason for adding kill switches to their vehicles' engines, which would most likely be used by cops for whatever the fuck they want.
  How about DJI's drones being used to kill individuals in Ukraine? Steam decks are currently also being used by Ukraine to control machine gun turrets remotely, and they're able to be used that way explicitly because they use regular OS's (a major boon to its users.)
  This type of regulation would only further lead to anti-consumer products, and a stronger police state.

By this logic DARPA should be put on trial for creating TOR
- By this logic every locksmith should be put on trial for making locks, every manufacturer of vaults and safes, every lumber company for making wood used in fences, every costume designer for making halloween masks, every post office for renting PO boxes... etc.
  
  Evil privacy maximalists !
  
  Dont give them any ideas.
- That would be the story if a lifetime
- please don't jinx it :(
  
  Oh... We are in THAT timeline.
- what about computers and the internet? those were created and used for bad too. also gps and weather satellites.
  fun fact: the first digital computer was invented for the explicit purpose of calculating artillery firing tables for the army during the war. what it actually ended up getting used for on its first program, was studying global thermonuclear war.

Looks like development of such things will have to start happening on the dark web. What a ridiculous conviction.
In its judgement, the court accused him of an “ideology of maximum privacy.”
What the fuck is this kind of reasoning? Is privacy illegal now?
Anti Commercial-AI license
- Oops I'm a privacy maximalist now, I didn't even know. Time to privacymaxx this removed up !!
  
  Damn, even your slurs get maximum privacy.
  
  Some famous ex felon and computer hacker named Kevin Mitnick wrote some books about privacy maxing, you might want to read a few of them. I guess he's still a felon, he just served his sentence and is no longer in prison. He did legit steal some people's identity and commit wire fraud.
  
  privlets don't stand a chance
- Privacy maximums end up in supermax

Absolutely disgusting. Privacy is a right!

Due to its mode of operation, the court considered the software to be “specifically intended for criminals”
Crime is an action a state doesn't like, not necessarily wrong or evil, but serves interests other than the state. If the state has to authorize everything, then the state is favoring dominance over governance.
When the state has to monitor all transactions it is tyranny.
- The state is just the abstraction of the collective will of the governed, if the Dutch people have determined this is a crime against their society, then it is.
  The state holds a monopoly on violence, another monopoly isn’t a stretch.
  
  That's really only in theory. I don't think there's any country where the government does what the polis wants in every instance.
  
  For an entity hat already has monopoly over violence, how difficult is it to claim monopoly over the collective will?
  
  Collective will is just the myth that is used to legitimize the state
  The state is also so much more than the will of the governed. To say that it is all there is to it would consider governments like those governed by the divine right of kings fo be stateless. Stalin’s Russia, or Kim Jong Un’s DPRK would then be stateless.
  
  This is only true in a people's democracy. The Netherlands is capitalist. The government is the collective will of the capitalist class.
  
  What a fantasy world you live in. Must be nice. In truth, the state is a gang of thugs and parasites. Has nothing to do with the collective will of the people, a concept which doesn't exist in reality.

Hopefully, not all is lost. He has appealed and hopefully a greater authority will overturn this ruling.
- Where could I follow up on this story?
  
  This article was posted by a MEP of the pirate party. You can follow him on mastodon.
  https://digitalcourage.social/@echo_pbreyer

So they throw vendors of knives in jail too?
- How is that a privacy tool?
  I think you meant vendors of safes.
  
  Same idea
  
  And vendors of locks.
- No, but they throw vendors of screwdrivers in jail too.

That is absolutely crazy. I wish the strength to go through that for Alexey Pertsev!

Dutch court convicts engieneer, not Dutch engieneer gets convicted.
I wouldn't be surprised if Dutch court wants to say that he should have stayed in Russia and supported Putin's war.
- Dutch court convicts engieneer, not Dutch engieneer gets convicted.
  Honest question, what do you mean by this? What’s the difference really?
  
  Citizenship.
- Updated, my bad.

Thank fuck for the PirateParty!🏴‍☠️
- About the licence, how are you going to prove that your data was indeed used in training a Model ?
  
  My best guess for the hopeful outcome is the ai starts tacking on the license magic words at the end of things it says... But ultimately it feels like a digital version of sovereign citizens to me.
  
  It's not enforceable in any way, it's just virtue signaling. Lemmy itself is a privacy dumpsterfire. GDPR compliance is literally impossible.
  
  This is a good question but I would just like to point out that 15 years ago nobody would have predicted that the questions we were asking and answering on stackoverflow would be used to train models (and that open source would have it's license violated so brazenly) and that if you tried to delete your contributions because you didn't want them to be used to train models you would get banned from the site, so even though adding a license to your comments might be meaningless, it might also be a powerful tool down the line. You never know how it'll go.
  
  How would I prove it? I don't know. Do I think it will work? Probably not. But if I have the license someone might find it when a LLM accidentally reveals that it was trained with data that is under that license, and maybe the EU does something about it. Maybe the Pirate party will make the EU do something about it? Who knows? But they are the only ones I see that are actively trying to protect all of us an our right to privacy, and for that they have my vote! 🏴‍☠️🇪🇺

This happens with cash too. If you take in a bunch of cash, you have a duty to know what it's from so that you're not facilitating terrorism or crime or subverting sanctions. In fact, of you handle cash or finance, you generally have to take training on these laws every year.
This thing is the definition of money laundering and was known for exactly those problems.
- There are reasons to use this service that are completely legal. They should sentence the people laundering money, not the people providing privacy tools that happen to be misused.
- There's no reason people using tornado wouldn't have to disclose their sources to the authorities, same as cash.
  But it does protect them from malicious actors.
  
  I don't think you understand. Banks (or anyone who accepts large amounts of money) has a duty to have some idea of where that money comes from. There are anti money laundering laws.
  Go open a bank account right now and try to deposit a briefcase full of $50,000 in cash and see what happens. You might, maybe be able to do it, but there will absolutely be questions.
- But in essence, they are punishing this guy for writing code. And at least in the United States, code is considered speech. And this is a very bad precedent. I know that this is a Dutch court, but still that is not a good thing.
  
  It's continental system. Precedents don't have as much power as in English system. And Netherlands are in ECHR jurisdiction, so it's likely to be ~~overturned~~ found contradicting European Convention on Human Rights.
  
  He can write the code. He can release the source. Nothing is illegal until he takes currency.
- Yes, we agree. It's still a bunch of bullshit.

money laundering is a big bad no-no word that THEY have stigmatized (conditional brainwashing) in order to get every day people to SUPPORT their regime of THEFT and CONTROL.
"You are trying to keep your money to yourself and stop us from seeing it so that we can't steal some of it and punish you for using it how you like??? You're a MONEY LAUNDERER. Money laundering Money laundering Money laundering"
When you control money, you control minds, livelihoods, and monopolize fear itself.
- its not the actual money laundering they object to.
  it's that they didn't get a cut.
- I spotted the libertarian in the room, LOL. Although I completely agree, so I'm right with you, brother.
- Same as CP used against encryption.

Official link to ruling (in Dutch): https://deeplink.rechtspraak.nl/uitspraak?id=ECLI:NL:RBOBR:2024:2069
Snapshot of translation: https://archive.ph/JKdbV

Wasn't the arrest over a year ago? How much time is left on the sentence?
This is terrible, but 5 years is pretty tolerable. Assange is in locked up for being a journalist and faces life in tortuous conditions.
Also, write your MEP and vote pirate party.
- Assange isn't merely a journalist. He collobarated with russian security services and was on their payroll during his work on their "RT" initiative.
  
  Please stop with the C.I.A. talking points. Have some self awareness. All of this McCarthy red scare shit is embarrassing.
  
  Horseapples. Why I suddenly see a lot of out of touch with reality statements lately?

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