What do you legally “own” with Bitcoin? A short introduction to krypto-property
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Re: What do you legally “own” with Bitcoin? A short introduction to krypto-property
#2>Unlike physical goods which can only exist in one place at one time, it is conceivable that with a powerful enough computer, the solution could be found entirely honestly by a third party simply doing some math and stumbling upon the answer at random, or by asking the right questions and exploiting some as-yet-undiscovered weakness in the implementation.
This seems fanciful, but there are in fact UTXOs which could be "owned" by multiple people without explicitly sharing the key. For example, Peter Todd created an UTXO that you spend by proving that a sha1 collision (any collision) exists [1]. Two parties could thus acquire ownership independently.
Re: What do you legally “own” with Bitcoin? A short introduction to krypto-property
#3>Unlike physical goods which can only exist in one place at one time, it is conceivable that with a powerful enough computer, the solution could be found entirely honestly by a third party simply doing some math and stumbling upon the answer at random, or by asking the right questions and exploiting some as-yet-undiscovered weakness in the implementation. This seems fanciful, but there are in fact UTXOs which could b…
Following the context set by article, it's worth noting that it would be far more accurate to not use the word "owned" in your sentence - you could say such UTXOs are controlled by multiple people without explicitly sharing the key, two parties can acquire control independently, but, as the article describes, that's not exactly the same as the legal concept of ownership.
Re: What do you legally “own” with Bitcoin? A short introduction to krypto-property
#4>Unlike physical goods which can only exist in one place at one time, it is conceivable that with a powerful enough computer, the solution could be found entirely honestly by a third party simply doing some math and stumbling upon the answer at random, or by asking the right questions and exploiting some as-yet-undiscovered weakness in the implementation. This seems fanciful, but there are in fact UTXOs which could b…
Following the context set by article, it's worth noting that it would be far more accurate to not use the word "owned" in your sentence - you could say such UTXOs are controlled by multiple people without explicitly sharing the key, two parties can acquire control independently, but, as the article describes, that's not exactly the same as the legal concept of ownership.
Bingo. This is the sort of scenario for which the courts don't currently have rules to decide to whom the coins (qua krypto-property) should belong.
Re: What do you legally “own” with Bitcoin? A short introduction to krypto-property
#5This looks a lot like bearer-bonds to me. Anyone knowing ("bearing") the key and having the means to use it is effectively the owner, except that ownership can be copied because digital. Pretty dangerous...
Perhaps the legal response here should be dismissal.
Re: What do you legally “own” with Bitcoin? A short introduction to krypto-property
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
Following the context set by article, it's worth noting that it would be far more accurate to not use the word "owned" in your sentence - you could say such UTXOs are controlled by multiple people without explicitly sharing the key, two parties can acquire control independently, but, as the article describes, that's not exactly the same as the legal concept of ownership.
Bingo. This is the sort of scenario for which the courts don't currently have rules to decide to whom the coins (qua krypto-property) should belong.
I think they do. Ownership can for instance be agreed upon by regular contracts, completely orthogonal to who controls some keys. (Your accountant might, for instance.)
Re: What do you legally “own” with Bitcoin? A short introduction to krypto-property
#7> Unlike physical goods which can only exist in one place at one time, it is conceivable that with a powerful enough computer, the solution could be found entirely honestly by a third party simply doing some math and stumbling upon the answer at random, or by asking the right questions and exploiting some as-yet-undiscovered weakness in the implementation.
This really isn't hypothetical - a multitude of poorly designed and implemented key generation algorithms (brain wallets being one of the worst examples) have made it computationally feasible to find private keys. I have the private key for 13Yk7NTC64VEfrBL9KE2NNHDrorcJ3SQbz, which currently holds a few thousand dollars worth of Bitcoin (and various forks). I found it by using an algorithm to generate many candidate keys and checking whether they'd been used. I've previously found much more substantial amounts, and in some cases have been able to track down the rightful owner.
As far as I'm concerned, finding a key through clever use of computing power does not entitle one to use it from an ethical standpoint. Legally... well, I've talked to quite a few lawyers about it. There is no agreement on the answer, and as the article mentions, it's unclear who would have jurisdiction.
Re: What do you legally “own” with Bitcoin? A short introduction to krypto-property
#8"""
What hasn’t happened yet, and what invariably will happen as more and more cases hit the courts, is that someone will ask the question, “what property classification do we apply to Bitcoin – WTF is it that Bob actually owns?”
"""
Well - this question has been asked for taxation purposes. In particular it was answered by a Polish court in http://orzeczenia.nsa.gov.pl/doc/C8296DC8B9 - and the courts answer is that it is a 'prawo majątkowe' (google translate suggests "property law" - but I am not a lawyer - and it probably is not just 'property'), and that it is not money nor financial instrument.
Re: What do you legally “own” with Bitcoin? A short introduction to krypto-property
#9What does "Is that legal" actually _mean_ in this context?
It's clearly not _illegal_ for me to own a private key.
Bitcoin users generally accept that if they lose sole access to their keys, they lose sole access to their funds. It's an opt-in system.
The fact that such opt-in systems may be rendered impossible due to the application of force is a tremendous flaw in the legal system; it's not otherwise an interesting question.
If I post this comment and claim it's public domain, and some legalistic construct pops through a side channel and claims that in my jurisdiction public domain doesn't exist; clearly my personal attribution takes precedence.
Re: What do you legally “own” with Bitcoin? A short introduction to krypto-property
#10What does "Is that legal" actually _mean_ in this context? It's clearly not _illegal_ for me to own a private key. Bitcoin users generally accept that if they lose sole access to their keys, they lose sole access to their funds. It's an opt-in system. The fact that such opt-in systems may be rendered impossible due to the application of force is a tremendous flaw in the legal system; it's not otherwise an interesting…
> It's clearly not _illegal_ for me to own a private key.
How is that clearly true? Under the computer-fraud-and-abuse act, it's probably illegal for you to own information on my server I don't intend you to own (if you got it from my server at least).
If I worked at a certificate authority and stole the signing key they used, quit, and began minting certificates, I can assure you I would be prosecuted and found guilty (both for damage to the company, for stealing company property, violating my contract, and probably a CFAA violation to boot).
There are plenty of numbers that you can't legally have on your computer under certain circumstances [0].
All of this relates to "the color of bits"[1], which is to say what's legal and not legal depends on more than just the number. If you steal someone's private key, that's probably illegal. If you are given it or derive it by chance, it's possibly legal. If you use it to steal their bitcoin, even if derived by chance, that's probably illegal (the law doesn't really care about the details of bitcoin, it's still a thing of value that's owned by an individual).
The law doesn't care that all those bits are the same; some of them are legal, some of them are not, and we as technical people don't like that.
> claim it's public domain, and some legalistic construct pops through a side channel and claims that in my jurisdiction public domain doesn't exist; clearly my personal attribution takes precedence.
That also doesn't seem clear to me. In reality, no one will care enough for it to be an issue, but it seems legally arguable.
I would like to again refer you to the second post I linked. As a technical person, you don't want to think about how arbitrary and situational the law is, especially in technical issues that seem like they should be clearcut. The reality is much more complicated.