reply on: Samourai Indictment Count Two Could Have Serious Implications For All Wallets \ stacker news ~bitcoin

54 sats \ 9 replies \ @premitive1 24 Apr \ parent \ on: Samourai Indictment Count Two Could Have Serious Implications For All Wallets bitcoin

You can't imagine any code that violates free speech? All code, no matter what it does, absolves its creators of culpability? If I created a virus that wrecked the power of a city, resulting in the death of thousands? That's free speech?

25 sats \ 2 replies \ @02bcd3eeb0 24 Apr

Uh, in that case the damage was done because the city executed the code. Code by itself can't do anything to you unless you run it. Keeping your systems secure is on you.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @premitive1 24 Apr

Here's another version to better suit your position. Person A drugs you, but person B asks you to go to the ATM, empty it out, and give them all the money. Did person B do anything wrong?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @02bcd3eeb0 24 Apr

Morally wrong, sure. But legally? Person A committed the crime. One is an act of violence, the other is not.

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @siggy47 OP 24 Apr

Can we put aside the mixing aspect and focus on count two? You creating a virus would subject you to criminal liability. It's your act that made it criminal. Let's say you made that virus for a white hat defense?

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @premitive1 24 Apr

I'm happy to consider those two things separately, but I think the implication is that some code violates private property.

134 sats \ 2 replies \ @siggy47 OP 24 Apr

I didn't go through it carefully, but I think this article sums up the law regarding code as speech pretty well: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/is-code-free-speech/

In the 1990s, the Electronic Frontier Foundation—which, at the time, was a fairly new organization—took on a series of cases on behalf of a cryptographer named Daniel Bernstein, who argued that he had a right to make public certain cryptographic programs that he’d created. Bernstein wanted to publish an algorithm, a mathematical paper that explained the algorithm, and the source code for a computer program that incorporated it. But the government required Bernstein to apply for a license to do all of this— and to submit his ideas for federal review.

Bernstein sued and eventually won the case. Software source code was deemed speech protected by the First Amendment.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @premitive1 24 Apr

I don't think bernstein was charged for using the code, but for publishing it.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Cje95 24 Apr

I'd have to dig in deep and I haven't but it will be interesting to see what the guardrails of the protected free speech lane are. Typically protected things like this are limited in scope so I would assume there is some code that will fall outside the guidelines

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @premitive1 24 Apr

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