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An Analysis of the Impact of Arbitrary Blockchain Content on Bitcoin [pdf]

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Re: An Analysis of the Impact of Arbitrary Blockchain Content on Bitcoin [pdf]

#41

Post by paulgb »

phkahler wrote: post #39
ddalex wrote: post #35

So the obvious bit here is that an adversarial actor can poison the blockchain with bits that make downloading, storing and processing the blockchain a highly illegal act. This may have a chilling effect on participating in the network, thus reducing the number of nodes, and undermining the trust on the blockchain and in the coin because the reduced requirement of computing power needed to mutate the blockchain. Acco…

In addition to illegal content, one could just put a huge amount of data in there to accelerate what seems to be a built in problem of ever increasing storage requirements.

The size of each block is fixed, and the transaction fee is proportional to the number of bytes in the transaction, so you could block people from making transactions (if you were willing to outbid them) but couldn't make the chain grow faster.

Re: An Analysis of the Impact of Arbitrary Blockchain Content on Bitcoin [pdf]

#42

Post by ianai »

mcny wrote: post #29
gambiting wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's controversial, but I think simply having any information should never be illegal - be it a manual on building bombs, detailed plans of the white house or yes, child porn. Obviously production of such material should be completely 10000% illegal, but we already have laws that cover this extensively. But simply having a written text, drawn picture, photograph or a video should never be illegal in itself.

> But simply having a written text, drawn picture, photograph or a video should never be illegal in itself. Exactly! However, reality is very sad. A map could potentially get you in prison in India https://archive.fo/nLtJX > The draft bill says: “No person shall depict, disseminate, publish or distribute any wrong or false topographic information of India including international boundaries through internet platforms…

I wonder if they had scams around that somewhere/time.

Re: An Analysis of the Impact of Arbitrary Blockchain Content on Bitcoin [pdf]

#43

Post by icelancer »

phkahler wrote: post #39
ddalex wrote: post #35

So the obvious bit here is that an adversarial actor can poison the blockchain with bits that make downloading, storing and processing the blockchain a highly illegal act. This may have a chilling effect on participating in the network, thus reducing the number of nodes, and undermining the trust on the blockchain and in the coin because the reduced requirement of computing power needed to mutate the blockchain. Acco…

In addition to illegal content, one could just put a huge amount of data in there to accelerate what seems to be a built in problem of ever increasing storage requirements.

>> one could just put a huge amount of data in there

That, ah, isn't how that works. You can't just dump terabytes into the blockchain for BTC, LTC, or really any blockchain I can think of that has any sort of adoption.

Re: An Analysis of the Impact of Arbitrary Blockchain Content on Bitcoin [pdf]

#44

Post by zeth___ »

Tomte wrote: post #37
zeth___ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You already have hundreds of gigabytes of child porn on your computer. What you lack is a program to decode them consistently (I hope). You can read digital information in any way you please. An image is fundamentally two numbers that give you the height and width and a bunch of number triplets that give you the color values for the pixels inside. You can always find a transformation from any number to any image give…

You're so clever! If only anyone had ever thought of it. He could then have written "What Colour are your bits?".

You are extremely hostile and unhelpful in this discussion.

If you want to drag discourse down there are a lot of other forums where one line replies signaling you know something profound without actually saying anything are acceptable.

HN is not one of these.

Re: An Analysis of the Impact of Arbitrary Blockchain Content on Bitcoin [pdf]

#45

Post by switch007 »

runeb wrote: post #40
cstross wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK (and, I believe, the USA) child pornography is a "strict liability" issue — intent is irrelevant, mere possession is itself illegal. This is how teens get nailed for receiving unasked-for sexts from their under-age-of-consent SO. As with illegal drugs and, in the UK, unlicensed firearms, this means the prosecution doesn't need to prove intent. (Mandatory — usually harsh — sentence terms are usually part of…

So if a person sees you are about to have your phone searched by police they can send you child pornography and you will go to jail? It somehow doesn't sound like it would hold up in court. At least I feel like it should not.

We should probably be mentioning which laws (and subsections) we're talking about because:

"The presumption of mens rea is rebutted by express provision in the statute excluding the requirement of mens rea. Where the statute is silent as to the requirement the general presumption remains, however, the courts may look at other offences created under the same Act. If the other offences expressly require mens rea, the courts may well take the view that the omission to refer to such a requirement was deliberate and that Parliament intended to create an offence of strict liability." [0]

E.g. there is a section on mens rea for the Protection of Children Act 1978 here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Children_Act_197...

[0] http://e-lawresources.co.uk/Strict-liability.php

Re: An Analysis of the Impact of Arbitrary Blockchain Content on Bitcoin [pdf]

#46

Post by evanb »

userbinator wrote: post #28
pfortuny wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it depends on the design: the format of each entry might be fixed (think of a specific blockchain for a specific task). Yes, a generalistic blockchain is quite likely unable to avoid this. But who knows.

the format of each entry might be fixed (think of a specific blockchain for a specific task). As long as you can distinguish between a 0 and 1, or any two states in general, you can store and represent arbitrary data. This basic premise is what makes digital computers so flexible and powerful, and how things like stenography and crypto work.

I think you mean steganography.

Re: An Analysis of the Impact of Arbitrary Blockchain Content on Bitcoin [pdf]

#47

Post by Freak_NL »

zeth___ wrote: post #30
dpwm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reading this charitably as you saying that laws that criminalise distribution regardless of intent or knowledge need to be changed to recognise that with the internet people can effectively commit crimes without knowledge or intent. This is particularly relevant where distribution of material (child porn, terrorist material) is criminalised. This seems a really difficult area that's almost incompatible with the w…

>I'm reading this charitably as you saying that laws that criminalise distribution regardless of intent or knowledge need to be changed to recognise that with the internet people can effectively commit crimes without knowledge or intent. This is particularly relevant where distribution of material (child porn, terrorist material) is criminalised. No I am making the very simple case that a number is a number and you c…

Wouldn't that make cyberbullying and slander even in its most extreme forms legal? In those cases often someone is being harmed (with real, flesh space consequences), despite the material being nothing more then numbers.

Re: An Analysis of the Impact of Arbitrary Blockchain Content on Bitcoin [pdf]

#48

Post by thatcat »

ianai wrote: post #42
mcny wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But simply having a written text, drawn picture, photograph or a video should never be illegal in itself. Exactly! However, reality is very sad. A map could potentially get you in prison in India https://archive.fo/nLtJX > The draft bill says: “No person shall depict, disseminate, publish or distribute any wrong or false topographic information of India including international boundaries through internet platforms…

I wonder if they had scams around that somewhere/time.

It's probably due to border disputes with China.

Re: An Analysis of the Impact of Arbitrary Blockchain Content on Bitcoin [pdf]

#49

Post by cataphract »

dpwm wrote: post #23
zeth___ wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't looked for obvious reasons but back in the day people were saying that there was already child porn embedded in bitcoin: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=671894.0 Which is why child porn is one of the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: terrorists, pedophiles, drug dealers, and money launderers. That we are trying to apply flesh space laws to bits just goes to show how stupid we still are: https://en.w…

I'm reading this charitably as you saying that laws that criminalise distribution regardless of intent or knowledge need to be changed to recognise that with the internet people can effectively commit crimes without knowledge or intent. This is particularly relevant where distribution of material (child porn, terrorist material) is criminalised. This seems a really difficult area that's almost incompatible with the w…

> This seems a really difficult area that's almost incompatible with the way we do criminal law, because intent and knowledge are so hard to prove either way. Even where there's plenty of circumstantial evidence of intent it is not going to prove it either way.

Not incompatible at all. Most criminal laws actually have a mens rea requirement.

Re: An Analysis of the Impact of Arbitrary Blockchain Content on Bitcoin [pdf]

#50

Post by Tomte »

zeth___ wrote: post #44
Tomte wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're so clever! If only anyone had ever thought of it. He could then have written "What Colour are your bits?".

You are extremely hostile and unhelpful in this discussion. If you want to drag discourse down there are a lot of other forums where one line replies signaling you know something profound without actually saying anything are acceptable. HN is not one of these.

You should simply read the essay and educate yourself.

Obviously you won't, but don't act so high and mighty.

Especially since "illegal numbers" has been the standard argument of people with lots of opinion and little knowledge.

BTW, massively editing and expanding your comment after a reply without any notice is shady.

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