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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]

#2
If you can trade and breed Pokemon-esque creature in the blockchain, why not illegal content? It's practically untraceable and you don't have to go to trouble of running something like and onion skin router to obscure your identity.

CryptoKitties craze slows down transactions on Ethereum

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42237162

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

#3
god this is reposted so many times, SOO MANY TIMES

public service advisory: read the whole btc wiki, there's a lot of great stuff in there!

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Agent

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Script

Links of note: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bootstrapping-a-decentr...

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

#4

god this is reposted so many times, SOO MANY TIMES public service advisory: read the whole btc wiki, there's a lot of great stuff in there! https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Agent https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Script Links of note: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bootstrapping-a-decentr...

I don't see relation between these links and the topic. Could you be more specific?

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

#5
Abstract:

Blockchains primarily enable credible accounting of digital events, e.g., money transfers in cryptocurrencies. However, beyond this original purpose, blockchains also irrevocably record arbitrary data, ranging from short messages to pictures. This does not come without risk for users as each participant has to locally replicate the complete blockchain, particularly including potentially harmful content. We provide the first systematic analysis of the benefits and threats of arbitrary blockchain content. Our analysis shows that certain content, e.g., illegal pornography, can render the mere possession of a blockchain illegal. Based on these insights, we conduct a thorough quantitative and qualitative analysis of unintended content on Bitcoin’s blockchain. Although most data originates from benign extensions to Bitcoin’s protocol, our analysis reveals more than 1600 files on the blockchain, over 99 % of which are texts or images. Among these files there is clearly objectionable content such as links to child pornography, which is distributed to all Bitcoin participants. With our analysis, we thus highlight the importance for future blockchain designs to address the possibility of unintended data insertion and protect blockchain users accordingly.

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

#6
Some interesting graffiti on the bitcoin blockchain: http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks-photo...

I have always wondered this. What will a country do if someone embeds child pornography or a picture of Mohammed or something in the blockchain? Will it then be illegal to store the blockchain in that country? Is a link to such an image much different to an actual image? It seems hard to ever stop this happening with a public permissionless blockchain, pretty much by design.

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

#7

god this is reposted so many times, SOO MANY TIMES public service advisory: read the whole btc wiki, there's a lot of great stuff in there! https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Agent https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Script Links of note: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bootstrapping-a-decentr...

I don't see relation between these links and the topic. Could you be more specific?

The fact that transactions are scripts is one of the ways that a miner can embed arbitrary data in the blockchain (eg via https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/OP_RETURN ), which is what the paper is about.

I don't know why the links for agents are relevant.

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

#8
post #6

Some interesting graffiti on the bitcoin blockchain: http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks-photo... I have always wondered this. What will a country do if someone embeds child pornography or a picture of Mohammed or something in the blockchain? Will it then be illegal to store the blockchain in that country? Is a link to such an image much different to an actual image? It seems hard to ever stop this…

> What will a country do if someone embeds child pornography or a picture of Mohammed or something in the blockchain?

In the US at least, I'd hope that we probably wouldn't criminalize 1M people for the actions of 1. Hopefully in other countries they wouldn't do that either.

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

#9

god this is reposted so many times, SOO MANY TIMES public service advisory: read the whole btc wiki, there's a lot of great stuff in there! https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Agent https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Script Links of note: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bootstrapping-a-decentr...

oh great cryptocurrency zealot, how must we repent for our transgressions against the faith?

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

#10
post #6

Some interesting graffiti on the bitcoin blockchain: http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks-photo... I have always wondered this. What will a country do if someone embeds child pornography or a picture of Mohammed or something in the blockchain? Will it then be illegal to store the blockchain in that country? Is a link to such an image much different to an actual image? It seems hard to ever stop this…

The first one would be horrible. The second one, eeh who cares.

Not much you can do about it anyway.

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