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Interesting twist if bitcoin blockchain would be found to distribute illegal porn or private/secret/classified data(it already stores some wikileaks content). #

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.
        Twisell 9y ago
        This is exactly the right mindset to build great software that is totally unable to run on modest hardware.
        stale2002 9y ago
        Only if Moore's law turns out to be false. A hundred years from now, you could store the blockchain on current day hardware. And that is without talking about improvements in technology.
    - Twisell 9y ago
      Well as far as I know X already tend to grow since Bitcoin introduction and it's a big point of discord between developers ("should we increase block size" argument as far as I know). Now to be more accurate it might rather be a growth according to a logistic curve. Right now Bitcoin is used only by early adopters, but should Bitcoin usage diffuse among general customers it will growth quasi exponentially before plateauing.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
dogeyip 9y ago
Interestingly, it would be very difficult to censor compressed data that is stored in Bitcoin addresses and impossible to censor encrypted data that is stored there.
ringaroundthetx 9y ago
> Interesting twist if bitcoin blockchain would be found to distribute illegal porn I mean... its happened before and you had no idea Its still in bitcoin's blockchain. There's lots of stuff in there.

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.
      - Twisell 9y ago
        This is exactly the right mindset to build great software that is totally unable to run on modest hardware.
        stale2002 9y ago
        Only if Moore's law turns out to be false. A hundred years from now, you could store the blockchain on current day hardware. And that is without talking about improvements in technology.
  - Twisell 9y ago
    Well as far as I know X already tend to grow since Bitcoin introduction and it's a big point of discord between developers ("should we increase block size" argument as far as I know). Now to be more accurate it might rather be a growth according to a logistic curve. Right now Bitcoin is used only by early adopters, but should Bitcoin usage diffuse among general customers it will growth quasi exponentially before plateauing.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]

dogeyip 9y ago

Interestingly, it would be very difficult to censor compressed data that is stored in Bitcoin addresses and impossible to censor encrypted data that is stored there.

ringaroundthetx 9y ago

> Interesting twist if bitcoin blockchain would be found to distribute illegal porn I mean... its happened before and you had no idea Its still in bitcoin's blockchain. There's lots of stuff in there.