5 ms·

I wonder if that could turn into a government justification for shutting down the blockchain, something they don’t want in there.

ceejayoz 5y ago
There's already one piece of CSAM in there. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abu... Anyone with a full Bitcoin node is in theory in significant violation of US law; child porn is a strict liability scenario, where intent doesn't matter.
- mrlemke 5y ago
  I have had concerns about this possibility. Would it be possible for a miner to reject transactions containing this crap?
  - inkblotuniverse 5y ago
    Encrypt arbitrary data, put it on-chain, and then publish the key on-chain at a later date. No real way around that unless all miners opt to drop that metadata, which amounts to a fork
wolverine876 5y ago
Blockchain has a lot of mythology around it right now, but really no special status. For these purposes, it's a distributed database. If you opt to put a distributed database with criminal materials on your computer, you could very well break the law. People have been criminalized for bittorrent, music sharing services, etc. Uninformed people I know hesitate to use Tor clients due to its reputation; well-informed people hesitate to run Tor exit nodes. Why would blockchain get special status? For example, imagine a blockchain explicitly intended for use by drug dealers to exchange money or CSAM users to exchange materials (maybe they read on HN that it's anonymous, impossible to censor, etc.): Could the government shut that down? Would they? Would you dare allow any such thing on your computer (ignoring that you probably have no interest in either service).
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  There are interesting experiments using torrent streaming, tor, and riffs on ipfs exploring the possibilities of distributed data storage. The existing tech is resilient and resists censorship at the highest level of skill and resources. Blockchains allow structure and incentive beyond the data in itself. If someone published all the leaked pii of us citizens from the last decade to the bitcoin blockchain (which would probably exceed high 6 figures in fees,) the financial incentive would effectively permanently protect it. It's about as far from ephemeral as data can get. Governments could hamper the use of bitcoin, shut down exchanges for fiat, but it's effectively impossible to get rid of the data once it's published to the blockchain. Non blockchain distributed data systems can theoretically be censored, but in the same sense that tor users can be tracked - the resources needed aren't trivial. Building in a consensus based way of eliminating garbage from non-functional blockchain data might prove legally necessary, as bitcoin nodes are effectively hosting all sorts of nasty and illegal data even now. Transaction size limits and fees prevent meaningful abuse or use of bitcoin as a data sharing platform, but there are solid cryptocurrencies designed for arbitrary public distributed data. I'd love to see a scihub blockchain, or a better steemit type system. It'll be interesting to see how cryptocurrencies evolve, and how long it takes governments and cultures to adapt.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > the financial incentive would effectively permanently protect it What financial incentive? How would that work?
    - robbedpeter 5y ago
      The roughly 1 trillion usd market cap. The whole reason people get into bitcoin is to make or move money. Sure, it could go down, but even if governments crack down there will be a residual user base and the blockchain will persist.
      - wolverine876 5y ago
        People keep saying things like that, but I haven't seen much reason or evidence. It seems like a techno-nerd sci-fi story.

ceejayoz 5y ago

There's already one piece of CSAM in there. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abu... Anyone with a full Bitcoin node is in theory in significant violation of US law; child porn is a strict liability scenario, where intent doesn't matter.

mrlemke 5y ago
I have had concerns about this possibility. Would it be possible for a miner to reject transactions containing this crap?
- inkblotuniverse 5y ago
  Encrypt arbitrary data, put it on-chain, and then publish the key on-chain at a later date. No real way around that unless all miners opt to drop that metadata, which amounts to a fork

wolverine876 5y ago

Blockchain has a lot of mythology around it right now, but really no special status. For these purposes, it's a distributed database. If you opt to put a distributed database with criminal materials on your computer, you could very well break the law. People have been criminalized for bittorrent, music sharing services, etc. Uninformed people I know hesitate to use Tor clients due to its reputation; well-informed people hesitate to run Tor exit nodes. Why would blockchain get special status? For example, imagine a blockchain explicitly intended for use by drug dealers to exchange money or CSAM users to exchange materials (maybe they read on HN that it's anonymous, impossible to censor, etc.): Could the government shut that down? Would they? Would you dare allow any such thing on your computer (ignoring that you probably have no interest in either service).

robbedpeter 5y ago
There are interesting experiments using torrent streaming, tor, and riffs on ipfs exploring the possibilities of distributed data storage. The existing tech is resilient and resists censorship at the highest level of skill and resources. Blockchains allow structure and incentive beyond the data in itself. If someone published all the leaked pii of us citizens from the last decade to the bitcoin blockchain (which would probably exceed high 6 figures in fees,) the financial incentive would effectively permanently protect it. It's about as far from ephemeral as data can get. Governments could hamper the use of bitcoin, shut down exchanges for fiat, but it's effectively impossible to get rid of the data once it's published to the blockchain. Non blockchain distributed data systems can theoretically be censored, but in the same sense that tor users can be tracked - the resources needed aren't trivial. Building in a consensus based way of eliminating garbage from non-functional blockchain data might prove legally necessary, as bitcoin nodes are effectively hosting all sorts of nasty and illegal data even now. Transaction size limits and fees prevent meaningful abuse or use of bitcoin as a data sharing platform, but there are solid cryptocurrencies designed for arbitrary public distributed data. I'd love to see a scihub blockchain, or a better steemit type system. It'll be interesting to see how cryptocurrencies evolve, and how long it takes governments and cultures to adapt.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > the financial incentive would effectively permanently protect it What financial incentive? How would that work?
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    The roughly 1 trillion usd market cap. The whole reason people get into bitcoin is to make or move money. Sure, it could go down, but even if governments crack down there will be a residual user base and the blockchain will persist.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      People keep saying things like that, but I haven't seen much reason or evidence. It seems like a techno-nerd sci-fi story.