US govt has banned Tornado Cash the organization, not code of Tornado Cash.

Github complies to sanctions by removing all repositories owned by sanctioned organization. Doesn’t mean you can’t have a copy of their code.

> US govt has banned Tornado Cash the organization, not code of Tornado Cash.

This seems to be a core misunderstanding of people on this thread.

My understanding is that GitHub voluntarily took down the repo, which is a no-brainer from a business perspective and well within their rights.

That's good to hear, because the code itself should be considered free speech

Platforms have the right as is to deplatform undesirable speech, including code. Social media platforms do this daily (speech, not code).

Freedom of speech protects you from your government. It does not guarantee you a platform.

So now we'll find out whether this platform is choosing to deplatform this particular speech, now that it's more clear that they're under no legal obligation to do so.

I don't really blame them if they are. The risk:reward for offering essentially a free service to take legal heat on something this "hot" seems like a bad tradeoff for github. Seems like the kind of thing better hosted on some financially fire-walled shell company's website where any losses from a protracted legal battle can fall off into oblivion.

I think you're talking about the first amendment. There are principles of free speech that go beyond just what's legal.

Wishes aren’t statute and GitHub isn’t a public good or commons. There are more valuable efforts for GitHub than fighting sanctions on money laundering code. One can always host the tarball on their website, or the code on their own Gitlab instance. Very common in the edu space.

Freedom of Speech is a principle, a concept, a philosophy. Not a Law

In the US, the 1st amendment prohibits the US government from infringing on a persons natural right to free speech.

"Freedom of speech" is not a law, or provision. Pointing out that a platform "has the right" to violate peoples freedom of speech (and yes it is an infringement of the principle) is both obvious and pointless. People that actually support the principle also have the right to express their deep disappointment that GH would abuse their position of power, abuse the privilege bestowed upon them by the community of open source developers by cowering to the US government and refusing to stand up for the principle of Free speech

This is literally wrong. The first amendment is as much a law or statute or provision as any other law or component of the Constitution.

That is literally what I said...

First Amendment is the application of the principal of free speech to law

However freedom of speech is also a larger principal then just the first amendment. People seem to only want to focus on the first amendment and government censorship as if that is the only type of censorship

Obviously, GitHub is private property

They might also be banking on this giving Microsoft cover to not take it down.

With the original takedown, Microsoft would be worried that the relative nobodies disappear with Microsoft left holding the bag. If Microsoft instead knows that it’s backed by the EFF who is itching for a Supreme Court fight, they might instead tell the USG “here’s their mailing address, you guys settle it in court”.

I think this is about proving a point. The point being "code is free speech" and to not let GitHub / Microsoft slide and set a precedent that takes us back 30 years.

Whether code is protected speech or not is utterly irrelevant. Microsoft is not the US Government and has no free speech obligations to anyone.

There are already many forms of protected speech that are banned from GitHub, this is not proving anything.

Just like any other platform, Microsoft is a private entity and is not required to provide a platform for people they don't agree with.

Anyone is free to host their own repos on their own servers

Just because someone is a private entity and they are not required to host something doesn't mean that they shouldn't be a good example.

Businesses will act in their best interest to protect their profits. That's the base of capitalism.

If we don't like that we need to enact regulations

The author explains why it's on GH.

> I’ve worked with this code as a researcher and I use it to teach my classes, so it’s important to me that it stays easily-accessible on a major site like GitHub. (This is not the only copy, in fact it’s a fork of someone else’s.)

Hopefully the government can identify any forks that achieve meaningful TVL and taint the coins

What would that for you? Why the hope?

I'm hoping the government makes money laundering harder. North Korea laundered a billion dollars through Tornado: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/north-ko...

It may sound a little odd, but you do not think existing AML regime is already working in overdrive mode punishing regular people ( all while actual big fish manage to get away undetected or, worse, protected )?

That's almost 0.3% of the money estimated to be laundered in the US through traditional means, and 0.05% of the estimated money laundered globally.

It is a much larger percentage of North Korea’s total economy, however, and I think that’s going to turn out to be the primary motivation here: not that OFAC woke up one morning and said that Tornado Cash is public enemy #1 but that the people watching North Korea saw that ransomware proceeds were being laundered using this specific system and wanted to stop it.

And AML wastes tens of billions of good dollars in GDP and revenue per year through added monitoring costs, insurance, enforcement expenses, etc. If AML were 90% effective, it’d be supported; but it’s more like 0.1% effective.