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0 pointsSamPatt1y ago0 comments

Was he making the software better for criminals because he wanted to help (and presumably benefit from) criminals, or was he just making the software more private for anyone, and that happened to help criminals too?

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?

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ceejayoz1y ago

> 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.”

When you add a "don't mix my stuff with the known criminal accounts" toggle in the UI, it's hard to argue ignorance.

SamPattOP1y ago

I'm not so sure. An idealist might build something to be totally agnostic, and only after adoption from criminals might then realize they need to do something about that, hence adding in a filter. Then that effort is seen as evidence against them?

Lots of open source software activists are idealists. This is why I asked if there's evidence they were actually receiving illicit funds.

brookst1y ago

> An idealist might build something to be totally agnostic, and only after adoption from criminals might then realize they need to do something about that, hence adding in a filter. Then that effort is seen as evidence against them

So, if he had an epiphany that criminals were using the system and the feature requests he was getting an naively implementing were benefiting criminals, why not block those accounts rather than implementing a "keep my stuff separate from the criminals the system knows about" switch?

The whole point of a trial is to establish guilt, and part of guilt is mens rea. Well, at least I assume that's true in the Netherlands, please correct if I'm wrong.

An idealist who just happens to believe that firing guns into the air is the most noble expression of freedom is still going to be liable for bad outcomes. You can argue murder versus negligence, but there is no "maybe he just wanted to see a bunch of lead in the air" argument for actual innocence.

theturtletalks1y ago

If he was not receiving funds, why even host it for these users? Make it easy for people to self host it on their AWS, PaaS, etc. and then you’re not directly involved in the use of that software. If software was really the issue, how could Kali Linux exist?

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dpc_012341y ago

I don't think you understand what it means.

The on chain contract like that can't possibly know which funds are "illicit" or "marked as suspicious". Only users entering the contract can possibly have some logic on the client side to bail out if they notice the would be joining funds with some best effort list of "illicit" addresses, and there's really nothing forcing them to use it.

I bet generally here both the public and judges do not understand the technical details.

PretzelPirate1y ago

A contract can reference a list of addresses that have been marked as suspicious as long as someone stores that list on chain. It doesn't need to be client side.

SpicyLemonZest1y ago

He was making the software better for criminals because he wanted to benefit from criminals. I can’t read Dutch, so I don’t know exactly what evidence was presented with regards to this guy, but the US DOJ has pretty damning evidence that Tornado devs knowingly allowed their service to launder the proceeds of the Axie Infinity hack. (https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/file/1311391/dl?inline)

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