privacy

As cynical as this sounds, having VCs' houses raided and devices seized over having invested into privacy protocols may be the most effective way to get future VC funding decisions to actually take privacy and other cypherpunk values seriously.

BREAKING: Morning hearings in US. v Storm revealed that Dragonfly Capital VC Thomas Schmidt's home was raided and devices seized as part of the Storm investigation, and that both he and Dragonfly's Haseeb Qureshi have been "subjects" of the investigation.

That and more: https://t.co/Atsm4KnXTn

The Rage

As cynical as this sounds, having VCs' houses raided and devices seized over having invested into privacy protocols may be the most effective way to get future VC funding decisions to actually take privacy and other cypherpunk values seriously.

https://x.com/theragetech/status/1948771849686417578

Contributor @ /walletbeat.

Censorship resistance requires privacy.

This is insane…so investing in privacy tech is a crime now?

Unclear what the term "subject of the investigation" means. Perhaps the prosecution is picking this term specifically because it is legally vague, to avoid creating the impression that they are being charged with a specific crime.

But generally speaking, cryptography and privacy technology has a history of running into disputes with governments. This is because giving privacy to individuals adds barriers to governmental encroachment on individual liberties, so governments feel like power is being taken away from them (which it is).

The "Crypto Wars" of the 90s contain a lot of such examples, which were all necessary legal battles to arrive at the open web and the widely-available public encryption algorithms we have today:

I’m a classical pianist and composer.
I perform live, compose and produce music for film and games🎹🎮🎶
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Unclear what the term "subject of the investigation" means. Perhaps the prosecution is picking this term specifically because it is legally vague, to avoid creating the impression that they are being charged with a specific crime.

But generally speaking, cryptography and privacy technology has a history of running into disputes with governments. This is because giving privacy to individuals adds barriers to governmental encroachment on individual liberties, so governments feel like power is being taken away from them (which it is).

The "Crypto Wars" of the 90s contain a lot of such examples, which were all necessary legal battles to arrive at the open web and the widely-available public encryption algorithms we have today:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars