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> He said there was "ongoing research" to find ways to remove such content from block chains but these were "not yet mature". Either you have centralization, w

> He said there was "ongoing research" to find ways to remove such content from block chains but these were "not yet mature". Either you have centralization, which nobody wants, or you have a bot that everyone agrees on to censor things, and people will will always find ways around bots. Are there really any other alternatives?

anonymousDan 8y ago
I've seen some recent research proposals: https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/sp/2019/6660/00/666000a629-abs.html https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/sp/2019/6660/00/66... The basic idea is you have a way to delete the data associated with an old transaction but not the transaction itself. A majority have to agree to the redaction though and the fact something has been redacted is recorded.
mayniac 8y ago
The easiest solution is probably just limiting how much data you can add to the ledger. There's no real reason why people need to add more than 10kb of information to a transaction. Cryptocurrencies aren't meant to be image hosting platforms anyway.
- kennywinker 8y ago
  Images can be split into 10kb blobs...
  - mayniac 8y ago
    Then there's also a million other ways to store or transmit images if you use tiny segments. Encode the image in base64 and you can use Twitter, reddit comments, SMS etc. The point is to make it unfeasibly hard to store/send the images, not impossible.
- neuralzen 8y ago
  That isn't exactly true, the whole reason IPFS and Filecoin exists is to supply this service.
  - wmf 8y ago
    Filecoin doesn't store data on the blockchain, only metadata; one side effect of that decision is that nodes won't get tricked into downloading illegal data.
jMyles 8y ago
One possible alternative, with its own drawbacks, is no censorship at all.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Problem is, that alternative leads to you being thrown in prison if they find child abuse images encoded in a block chain that you have on a storage device in your possession. Understand, the law is the law. Whether or not you knew the images were encoded in that chain is irrelevant to the Feds. (At least in the US.) (Actually, now that I think about it, I guess everyone would say they didn't know the images were there if they were caught in that situation. So I guess that's probably why the Feds just arrest you and charge you with child abuse. That would suck. Just don't use any block chain where that would be possible. Not worth it.)

anonymousDan 8y ago

I've seen some recent research proposals: https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/sp/2019/6660/00/666000a629-abs.html https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/sp/2019/6660/00/66... The basic idea is you have a way to delete the data associated with an old transaction but not the transaction itself. A majority have to agree to the redaction though and the fact something has been redacted is recorded.

mayniac 8y ago

The easiest solution is probably just limiting how much data you can add to the ledger. There's no real reason why people need to add more than 10kb of information to a transaction. Cryptocurrencies aren't meant to be image hosting platforms anyway.

kennywinker 8y ago
Images can be split into 10kb blobs...
- mayniac 8y ago
  Then there's also a million other ways to store or transmit images if you use tiny segments. Encode the image in base64 and you can use Twitter, reddit comments, SMS etc. The point is to make it unfeasibly hard to store/send the images, not impossible.
neuralzen 8y ago
That isn't exactly true, the whole reason IPFS and Filecoin exists is to supply this service.
- wmf 8y ago
  Filecoin doesn't store data on the blockchain, only metadata; one side effect of that decision is that nodes won't get tricked into downloading illegal data.

jMyles 8y ago

One possible alternative, with its own drawbacks, is no censorship at all.

bilbo0s 8y ago
Problem is, that alternative leads to you being thrown in prison if they find child abuse images encoded in a block chain that you have on a storage device in your possession. Understand, the law is the law. Whether or not you knew the images were encoded in that chain is irrelevant to the Feds. (At least in the US.) (Actually, now that I think about it, I guess everyone would say they didn't know the images were there if they were caught in that situation. So I guess that's probably why the Feds just arrest you and charge you with child abuse. That would suck. Just don't use any block chain where that would be possible. Not worth it.)