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This makes me think. Any data in a certain form could be used to generate an image. What if someone added data in a form that only later after a viewer appear

by wolco 8y ago

This makes me think. Any data in a certain form could be used to generate an image. What if someone added data in a form that only later after a viewer appeared will it reveal this type of content. This would make any system with that data immediately illegal. Looking down the road what it was encoded in dna would it be illegal for someone to read another person's dna? If someone had a tattoo on there face of one of these images would security cameras need to wipe any data caught?

Tepix 8y ago
Remember that every imaginable image is also somewhere in the digits of pi. You "just" have to find it. Does that make the number pi illegal? I guess not. Does it make programs illegal that can calculate those digits of pi? Doesn't sound reasonable, does it?
- Andrex 8y ago
  Humans often aren't reasonable, nor are we computers with the capacity to instantly recall large sets of data (such as whatever billion digits of pi would be necessary to encode an image.) And U.S. law agrees: it's possible for numbers to be illegal, the same way certain speech is illegal, and in fact the same way certain images are illegal. It's mildly annoying on its surface but that dissipates when you stop and think about why things are the way they are. (It's possible I misread your comment and we agree.)
- lalaland1125 8y ago
  This analogy to "storing information" in the digits in pi is simply incorrect. The reason why it's incorrect is that in order to "store information", your access key must by definition be smaller than the data you are storing. This is not the case for "hiding" things in the digits of pi. In general, the index offset needed to find something will have more bits than the target information. This is clearly not the case for storing information in a blockchain as you only need a small index to find the transaction.
- msla 8y ago
  > Remember that every imaginable image is also somewhere in the digits of pi. This isn't known for sure. It depends on the digits of pi being normally distributed, which hasn't been proven.
claudiawerner 8y ago
>Looking down the road what it was encoded in dna would it be illegal for someone to read another person's dna? In a way that is made to show the image, perhaps yes. >If someone had a tattoo on there face of one of these images would security cameras need to wipe any data caught? Probably not. These questions are usually thought of as clever "gotchas" for the law. They're not.
gaius_baltar 8y ago
> Looking down the road what it was encoded in dna would it be illegal for someone to read another person's dna? Speaking of DNA, hypotheticals, and really crazy possibilities: let's assume some troll encodes an illegal image as DNA and implants it (CRISPR is all hype and rage these days, right?) in some sperm; An embryo is generated from this sperm so the image will always exists in this new person and their descendants for a good number of generations. Nobody with a sound mind will think anybody apart from the initial CRISPR-troll has any guilt here, but the image will exist and once its presence is revealed, the victims will be knowingly generating more copies by just staying alive and passing the "guilt" along by reproducing. And no government could declare a person's life illegal.

by wolco 8y ago

Tepix 8y ago

Remember that every imaginable image is also somewhere in the digits of pi. You "just" have to find it. Does that make the number pi illegal? I guess not. Does it make programs illegal that can calculate those digits of pi? Doesn't sound reasonable, does it?

Andrex 8y ago
Humans often aren't reasonable, nor are we computers with the capacity to instantly recall large sets of data (such as whatever billion digits of pi would be necessary to encode an image.) And U.S. law agrees: it's possible for numbers to be illegal, the same way certain speech is illegal, and in fact the same way certain images are illegal. It's mildly annoying on its surface but that dissipates when you stop and think about why things are the way they are. (It's possible I misread your comment and we agree.)
lalaland1125 8y ago
This analogy to "storing information" in the digits in pi is simply incorrect. The reason why it's incorrect is that in order to "store information", your access key must by definition be smaller than the data you are storing. This is not the case for "hiding" things in the digits of pi. In general, the index offset needed to find something will have more bits than the target information. This is clearly not the case for storing information in a blockchain as you only need a small index to find the transaction.
msla 8y ago
> Remember that every imaginable image is also somewhere in the digits of pi. This isn't known for sure. It depends on the digits of pi being normally distributed, which hasn't been proven.

claudiawerner 8y ago

>Looking down the road what it was encoded in dna would it be illegal for someone to read another person's dna? In a way that is made to show the image, perhaps yes. >If someone had a tattoo on there face of one of these images would security cameras need to wipe any data caught? Probably not. These questions are usually thought of as clever "gotchas" for the law. They're not.

gaius_baltar 8y ago

> Looking down the road what it was encoded in dna would it be illegal for someone to read another person's dna? Speaking of DNA, hypotheticals, and really crazy possibilities: let's assume some troll encodes an illegal image as DNA and implants it (CRISPR is all hype and rage these days, right?) in some sperm; An embryo is generated from this sperm so the image will always exists in this new person and their descendants for a good number of generations. Nobody with a sound mind will think anybody apart from the initial CRISPR-troll has any guilt here, but the image will exist and once its presence is revealed, the victims will be knowingly generating more copies by just staying alive and passing the "guilt" along by reproducing. And no government could declare a person's life illegal.