> While Pertsev added functionality to the web interface that allowed legitimate users to separate their funds from those arriving from known criminal addresses, they characterized the effort as “too little and too late.”
I admit it sounds pretty damning to have a UI affordance for “keep my funds separate from the known criminals this service knowingly serves”.
I have little sympathy for those who intentionally increase crime as some kind of political statement, but it seems like maintaining plausible deniability would be very important to those who do so.
This sets a dangerous precedent.
True. But good faith efforts go a long way. In no world is "separate my funds from those the operators of Tornado believe are illicit" good faith.
> When is the last time a bank enabling criminals like HSBC had it's directors arrested and thrown in jail?
Whaddaboutism is not a defense. I fully support jailing the entire executive staff of HSBC. The fact that has not happened does not change the facts or merits of this case, any more than I can get out of a speeding ticket by noting that I read about someone going much faster.
Eh, they’re marked as suspicious. (Correctly.) But I don’t know if merely using Tornado would be enough to convict on in most competent jurisdictions.
> Wow, just wow. Am i alone in thinking this is not going to fly if all he did was write some software that helps with your financial anonymity? There must be more. Perhaps he also deployed it? That would be a different story. The article is quite murky in that regard. Perhaps they don't know yet
Code isn’t law. The law is the law. If you enable the crime willfully, you are a party to it.
>The settlement reached between Wachovia and U.S. authorities, known as a "deferred prosecution," raises questions. It's a probationary agreement, effectively allowing the bank to evade prosecution if it abides by the law for a year. While the fine imposed was substantial, it amounted to less than 2% of Wachovia's 2009 profit.
Abstracting the question to whether tumblers or cash or guns or whatever should be 100% legal or 100% illegal is too reductive to be useful for anything but rhetoric.
It’s when people take actions with intent and outcomes that the law gets interested. Those are what we should talk about.
Cash has lots of legitimate uses and some uses which I’m fine saying are illegal. Ditto with guns, even speech.
In this case the summaries at least sound like there was tons of evidence he was specifically designing and building features to make the service better for criminals, with the intent and outcome of facilitating criminal activity. Behaviors, as the prosecutor said.
I don't know the answer, but I imagine looking at the benefits of his actions would help inform. Did he have ties to criminal organizations, or receive payments from them?
This is odd framing. If you launder cash for the North Koreans, you will similarly find the weight of various criminal justice systems descending upon you. Ethereum is widely in legal usage.
I'm all for harsher penalties for Wells Fargo.
Wasn't the Wells Fargo amount much smaller, in the millions? And someone is going to jail for that, too?
As for the prosecutors in general: they do a job. It's the DAs bringing indictments specifically that are corrupt as a rule.
> But Dutch prosecutors say the case was simpler than all that. It wasn’t about the right to privacy, or the liability of open source developers, they claim, but the choices of an individual. “[Pertsev] made choices writing the code, deploying the code, adding features to the ecosystem. Choice after choice, all the while he knew that criminal money was entering his system,” M. Boerlage, the lead prosecutor on the case, told WIRED ahead of the verdict. “So it’s not about code. It’s about human behavior.”
How is it different than, say, gun or ammo manufacturers? I suppose the quote here is highly simplified and almost all nuance removed, but still. How is this different than metasploit?
For my taste, the answer is en emphatic yes it would and yes it should.
And I would expect any service offering turn key, automated “metasploit-ing” would find themselves in violation of the law as well.
Your analogy would have to be more along the lines of the right to privacy that you own a firearm with a particular serial number, instead of every person on earth knowing exactly how to frame you with said serial number openly
I am shocked, shocked!
Well, not that shocked.
