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127 sats \ 4 replies \ @0xIlmari 28 Apr \ on: The Network Access Exception To The Money Transmitter Rule bitcoin
I personally think that the TC case is pretty clear cut, so either I'm misunderstanding something (in which case, I'm happy to be corrected) or it's insanely difficult to establish the technicalities in court with the judge and jury being all normies.
The TC guys wrote some software. That should be free speech-protected activity. If it isn't then God help us all, because it means we're already living in a dystopia.
They deployed it to the Ethereum Virtual Machine. You could argue that this constitutes "enablement" (or whatever the legalese term is) but the court must understand that this is FOSS, and anyone can do it.
So perhaps Ethereum itself should be prosecuted for allowing this in the first place? Perhaps a muddied issue, but I still wouldn't call this "providing a service".
That's it, technically speaking. You can already "launder" money with it. You can invoke the contract from command line, you can use any generic Ethereum blockchain explorer that allows you to invoke any deployed contract.
So they wrote and operated a website which made it easier for a wider audience to use. But again, the court must understand that a) the website is not a prerequisite to using the service, b) anyone can host a copy of it (since it's FOSS) and c) indeed, there are copies running out there, both on the clearnet and as Tor onion services.
Okay, so maybe the case is a bit more muddied, but what's clear to me:
- the shutdown of the website is not technically preventing anyone from using the service
- prosecuting the developers is not preventing anyone from using the service
- the legal system is completely broken and unable to handle intricacies of FOSS
The purpose of the post was just to discuss the likelihood that lightning wallets, nodes, or LSPs will be targeted next. In arguing against Tornado Cash, the US Attorney's Office actually argued in favor of lightning providers not being money transmitters. So, the FBI advisory inaccurately, and probably intentionally, left the impression that lightning products could be targeted under a similar theory as Tornado Cash and Samourai. It seems that by their own admission they can't.
All your points make sense legally. We'll see how the courts rule. I'm just saying that IMO it's far less likely that LN products will be attacked next.
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Yeah, in the end you're probably right. Maybe pointing out the weakness in their arguments might give a few people the courage to stand tall.
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Lightning is very vulnerable to attack though, because of its architecture. It leads to centralized large nodes run by companies that can be easily targeted.
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