3 ms·

Doesn't that mean that a whole blockchain could possibly be deemed illegal in some country due to copyright infringement or other liability of publications laws

Doesn't that mean that a whole blockchain could possibly be deemed illegal in some country due to copyright infringement or other liability of publications laws? I mean if you can't erase the data and keep publishing it, some would say you are liable. I see that as a particularly twisted legal argument, but couldn't some country use that against blockchain infrastructure if they feel like it?

zmonx 9y ago
Yes, this is indeed one possible attack vector! For more information, please see: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Illegal_content_in_the_block_chain https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Illegal_content_in_the... To quote: It is illegal in some countries to possess/distribute certain kinds of data. Since arbitrary data can be included in Bitcoin transactions, and full Bitcoin nodes must normally have a copy of all unspent transactions, this could cause legal problems. However, Local node policy generally doesn't permit arbitrary data (transactions attempting to embed data re non-standard), but steganographic embedding can still be used though this generally limits storage to small amounts. Various ideas have been proposed to further limit datastorage in the UTXO set but are not currently being seriously considered for deployment.
- dogeyip 9y ago
  All the content on http://dogeyip.com/ http://dogeyip.com/ is pulled from data encoded into UTXO on the dogecoin blockchain. If you're clever you can encode as much data as you want into any block chain using this technique. Obviously, the techniques used here can also be used on the bitcoin blockchain. Example: All the text for the blog posts here are pulled via api from data encoded into UTXOs in the dogecoin blockchain: http://dogeyip.com/blog.html http://dogeyip.com/blog.html
FrozenVoid 9y ago
Interesting twist if bitcoin blockchain would be found to distribute illegal porn or private/secret/classified data(it already stores some wikileaks content). # How does government stop/censor a global p2p network? I guess they would put pressure on developers and bitcoin foundation to remove the offending data and update the (official) software to block/reject/deny any upload of it. I assume it would have to employ heavy filtering to prevent rogue actors from spamming illegal content and some functionality to revoke bad blocks(will probably require major changes in ledger code). If there is no change in client software it becomes exponentially harder to censor the data if not impossible: at some point this could be used as legal reason vs anyone hosting the full blockchain. The blockchain would have to be hard-forked to point to the censored version. (I have no idea how this suppose to work since each block depends on previous one: any incident will require to create a new blockchain fork from the start of offending block and this probably won't scale to dedicated attackers inserting illegal content into every block).
- blunte 9y ago
  That's the beauty of a blockchain (and the rules that dictate how it is written) - one does not simply "remove the offending data". There are enough different parties involved that acquiring consensus to make historical changes is practically impossible. The data that is there, at least several blocks prior to the current block, is permanent. An attempt to do this would scare the market, affecting the value of bitcoin. The miners don't want that, so they will act in their greedy self-interest - which means they won't attempt to do such a thing.
  - Twisell 9y ago
    Sorry if I'm naive but another thing I've always wondered about that is the exponential size of the blockchain. I mean if Bitcoin ever gain real traction isn't it pretty inefficient to store all the data and replicate it around? Storage now seem infinite but practicality it is not, won't current blockchain be saturated to the point of uselessness when/if it reach usage level of an actual banking network? "Let think about scaling later" is maybe not a good idea for a currency implementation...
    - Govindae 9y ago
      There's a new block every X minutes. Where's the exponential growth?
      - criddell 9y ago
        I think you're being too literal. I'm not the person you replied to but I've also wondered how the unbounded growth is sustainable.
        thefalcon 9y ago
        Moore's Law/Kryder's Law ... advancement in technology outpaces growth.
        9y ago

zmonx 9y ago

Yes, this is indeed one possible attack vector! For more information, please see: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Illegal_content_in_the_block_chain https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Illegal_content_in_the... To quote: It is illegal in some countries to possess/distribute certain kinds of data. Since arbitrary data can be included in Bitcoin transactions, and full Bitcoin nodes must normally have a copy of all unspent transactions, this could cause legal problems. However, Local node policy generally doesn't permit arbitrary data (transactions attempting to embed data re non-standard), but steganographic embedding can still be used though this generally limits storage to small amounts. Various ideas have been proposed to further limit datastorage in the UTXO set but are not currently being seriously considered for deployment.

dogeyip 9y ago
All the content on http://dogeyip.com/ http://dogeyip.com/ is pulled from data encoded into UTXO on the dogecoin blockchain. If you're clever you can encode as much data as you want into any block chain using this technique. Obviously, the techniques used here can also be used on the bitcoin blockchain. Example: All the text for the blog posts here are pulled via api from data encoded into UTXOs in the dogecoin blockchain: http://dogeyip.com/blog.html http://dogeyip.com/blog.html

FrozenVoid 9y ago

Interesting twist if bitcoin blockchain would be found to distribute illegal porn or private/secret/classified data(it already stores some wikileaks content). # How does government stop/censor a global p2p network? I guess they would put pressure on developers and bitcoin foundation to remove the offending data and update the (official) software to block/reject/deny any upload of it. I assume it would have to employ heavy filtering to prevent rogue actors from spamming illegal content and some functionality to revoke bad blocks(will probably require major changes in ledger code). If there is no change in client software it becomes exponentially harder to censor the data if not impossible: at some point this could be used as legal reason vs anyone hosting the full blockchain. The blockchain would have to be hard-forked to point to the censored version. (I have no idea how this suppose to work since each block depends on previous one: any incident will require to create a new blockchain fork from the start of offending block and this probably won't scale to dedicated attackers inserting illegal content into every block).

blunte 9y ago
That's the beauty of a blockchain (and the rules that dictate how it is written) - one does not simply "remove the offending data". There are enough different parties involved that acquiring consensus to make historical changes is practically impossible. The data that is there, at least several blocks prior to the current block, is permanent. An attempt to do this would scare the market, affecting the value of bitcoin. The miners don't want that, so they will act in their greedy self-interest - which means they won't attempt to do such a thing.
- Twisell 9y ago
  Sorry if I'm naive but another thing I've always wondered about that is the exponential size of the blockchain. I mean if Bitcoin ever gain real traction isn't it pretty inefficient to store all the data and replicate it around? Storage now seem infinite but practicality it is not, won't current blockchain be saturated to the point of uselessness when/if it reach usage level of an actual banking network? "Let think about scaling later" is maybe not a good idea for a currency implementation...
  - Govindae 9y ago
    There's a new block every X minutes. Where's the exponential growth?
    - criddell 9y ago
      I think you're being too literal. I'm not the person you replied to but I've also wondered how the unbounded growth is sustainable.
      - thefalcon 9y ago
        Moore's Law/Kryder's Law ... advancement in technology outpaces growth.
        9y ago