5 ms·

What would happen if they started writing the articles to a blockchain? It would be functionally impossible to remove, right?

maxerickson 9y ago
The durability would depend on how many people cared to host that particular blockchain. For a popular blockchain like teh bitcoin, it would cost quite a lot to introduce much data.
- prepend 9y ago
  At 30 satoshi per byte, 5 gigs would be about 50 bitcoins. At $7, that’s only$350k right? That’s a pretty awesome Kickstarter project.
  - gruez 9y ago
    or you can host it on some offshore/for/ipfs server and pay $100
    - prepend 9y ago
      Good point. But since there’s not much usage yet, they can block ipfs. They can’t block bitcoin.
iggg 9y ago
Namecoin
Dylan16807 9y ago
If you start a blockchain made of copyright violation, it's going to be legally about the same as a torrent, and you'll get hit for connecting at all.
- lovetrump 9y ago
  What if all servers would hold some random bits and no one would have any whole file (only the clients would be getting whole files)
  - dane-pgp 9y ago
    The talk of holding "random bits" reminds me of the idea behind the Owner-Free File System: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFFSystem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFFSystem Basically people would be hosting random-looking blocks of data, but users could be instructed to XOR two carefully chosen blocks together, producing a meaningful file. Because of the nature of XOR, if Alice sees that Bob is hosting a file F, she could generate and host a file G, such that F XOR G produces a banned file, providing plausible deniability for Bob (as long as he can point to a file H such that F XOR H produces an innocent file).
- userbinator 9y ago
  There's already plenty of legally questionable stuff in Bitcoin's blockchain: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16617136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16617136 Thus, it would be better (if it could be afforded --- see some of the other comments on cost estimates) to continue there, or perhaps one of the other altcoins that's already in use for monetary purposes.
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    It's very incidental, though, and most of it could be purged with mild effort.
    - chroma 9y ago
      The whole point of a blockchain is that it's append-only. Each block has a hash of the previous block. If you wanted to modify a Bitcoin block from a year ago, you'd have to do the same computation as a year worth of all miners.
220V_USKettle 9y ago
Until somebody adds CP.

maxerickson 9y ago

The durability would depend on how many people cared to host that particular blockchain. For a popular blockchain like teh bitcoin, it would cost quite a lot to introduce much data.

prepend 9y ago
At 30 satoshi per byte, 5 gigs would be about 50 bitcoins. At $7, that’s only$350k right? That’s a pretty awesome Kickstarter project.
- gruez 9y ago
  or you can host it on some offshore/for/ipfs server and pay $100
  - prepend 9y ago
    Good point. But since there’s not much usage yet, they can block ipfs. They can’t block bitcoin.

iggg 9y ago

Namecoin

Dylan16807 9y ago

If you start a blockchain made of copyright violation, it's going to be legally about the same as a torrent, and you'll get hit for connecting at all.

lovetrump 9y ago
What if all servers would hold some random bits and no one would have any whole file (only the clients would be getting whole files)
- dane-pgp 9y ago
  The talk of holding "random bits" reminds me of the idea behind the Owner-Free File System: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFFSystem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFFSystem Basically people would be hosting random-looking blocks of data, but users could be instructed to XOR two carefully chosen blocks together, producing a meaningful file. Because of the nature of XOR, if Alice sees that Bob is hosting a file F, she could generate and host a file G, such that F XOR G produces a banned file, providing plausible deniability for Bob (as long as he can point to a file H such that F XOR H produces an innocent file).
userbinator 9y ago
There's already plenty of legally questionable stuff in Bitcoin's blockchain: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16617136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16617136 Thus, it would be better (if it could be afforded --- see some of the other comments on cost estimates) to continue there, or perhaps one of the other altcoins that's already in use for monetary purposes.
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  It's very incidental, though, and most of it could be purged with mild effort.
  - chroma 9y ago
    The whole point of a blockchain is that it's append-only. Each block has a hash of the previous block. If you wanted to modify a Bitcoin block from a year ago, you'd have to do the same computation as a year worth of all miners.

220V_USKettle 9y ago

Until somebody adds CP.