A dialog

Crypto Bro: So I’m using cryptocurrency, it enables me to make transactions that can’t be stopped by the authorities!
Authorities: OK
CB: Only it’s all public, for technical reasons, so everyone can see what I do.
A: Interesting.
CB: So I need to use a mixing service, so the authorities can’t track my totally legitimate transactions. But the authorities have placed the endpoints of the mixing service on the OFAC list so it can’t be used anymore!
A: Yes, we believe it was being used by bad people to launder money.
CB: Laundering moneyPrivacy is a human right!
A: We don’t agree on that but never mind.
CB: You can’t censor the output of decentralized anonymous smart contracts!
A: Actually we just did.
CB: Code has rights!
A: Now you’re just being silly. Anyway if it’s just code, no-one’s being harmed by it. It’s one less way for criminals to launder money.
CB: We’ll just set up more mixers! You’ve unleashed a monster!
A: Perhaps. But mixers rely on “innocent” transactions to conceal criminal traffic. If we block the contract outputs, no-one who is “innocent” will want to risk their funds in it. That’s a win from our side, we think.
CB: incoherent sputtering

The EFF are idiots.

Nicholas Weaver has more:

They happened to release their code as open source, and the instance of the program is running on a zombie basis, but nothing about the sanction was sanctioning “code”.

The sanction was “Tornado Cash the organization” and “These running instances of the money laundormat”

And it really was “profit from” too.

The “TORN” token was an unregistered security that paid the insiders. The mixer claims 1% withdraw fees for any withdraw using a relayer to fund the gas fees. So for laundering $1B, that is $10M to the organization.

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This week’s entertainment is seeing web3 dweebs run headfirst into OFAC sanctions and whine impotently about “code is law” and “privacy”.

You help NORKs launder money, you get rekt. Enjoy being in prison.

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Concerted effort to promote crank cosmology on HN under the guise of “cancel culture”:

• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32434124 - Anti-Big Bang theory scientists face censorship by international journals
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32443298 - Scientists Protest Censorship in Cosmology
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32443476 - JWST Shows The Big Bang Didn’t Happen (dead)
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32436123 - The Big Bang didn’t happen

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LOCK HIM UP

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Evangelical protestants with extra steps

“Yo Catholic Church, I’m a recent convert! Love the Latin, the architecture (so like the anime I watch) and of course I’m fully on board with the oppression of females. But I don’t like the Pope going on about social justice. Can we just skip that?”

“Actually obeying the Pope is part of being a good Catholic.”

“Urgh fine I’ll just find a new Pope then.”

ME: hey, my car broke down. what saint should i pray to for help
TRADCATH WEIRDO: Uhhhhhh the virgin mary. Saint God
ACTUAL CATHOLIC: Idk man St. Christopher if the motor turns over and St. Frances of Rome if it doesn’t, good luck

https://twitter.com/yurirando/status/1557070885311221760

imagine being an eighty-year-old polish bingo-going catholic and sitting down at mass only to have a coke-addled podcaster start explaining the 12 century roots of their dispute with vatican ii

https://twitter.com/shocks/status/1557013905821650944

These people are so fucking lame my god - if you have a guilty conscience about being professionally useless at least do Works or something. They can’t even be Catholic without being Protestant

https://twitter.com/dkulchar/status/1557016238802538496

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Today’s amusement is seeing HN incorrecting themselves about law, copyright, open source and sanctions with regard to Tornado.cash being nuked.

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Jag kallar vårt hem-kolsyrade vatten “fräsvatten” till min frus stora förtrytelse.

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HN: “The public should listen to experts and stop being so afraid of nuclear power.”

Rest of world: “The public should listen to experts about COVID vaccines too, then?”

HN: “Don’t be silly.”

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“Cheating?! In this casino?? Well I never!!

Coding as 11 purportedly independent developers, Ian [Macalinao], a 20-something computer wiz from Texas, created a vast web of interlocking DeFi protocols that projected billions of dollars of double-counted value onto the Saber ecosystem. That temporarily inflated the total value locked (TVL) on Solana, as the network was racing toward its zenith last November. The DeFi faithful regard TVL as a barometer for on-chain activity.

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Werewolf erotica is the latest global gig work trend

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everyone hates Microsoft (again)

I commented here:

Linux-tinged hatred of Microsoft is a meme in the original sense - I’m surprised seeing nerds a generation younger than me essentially repeating the same tropes people I knew did in the late 90s. […]

One difference is that I don’t remember Linux boosters being quite so right-libertarian back in the day. Lunduke himself is rabidly anti-abortion, for example.

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Alex Jones getting rekt you love to see it.

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lobste.rs is down and I’m starting to get withdrawal symptoms

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