5 ms·

Let's say you use something like a striped raid on different nodes. Node A contains the odd bytes for something copyrighted like "the love guru" those bytes by

Let's say you use something like a striped raid on different nodes. Node A contains the odd bytes for something copyrighted like "the love guru" those bytes by themselves aren't the copyrighted content and no one claims rights to them. Node B has has the even ones. Downloading either doesn't yield the copyrighted file, but on a person's own machine if they combine them it does. Still illegal?

mmastrac 5y ago
Yes. The law isn't naive and seeing content A appear when using innocent content B as a key is beyond a reasonable doubt.
edoceo 5y ago
Having copyrighted works isn't the inherently illegal part. It's the act of obtaining them outside the licensed methods and then holding them. At that point, according to some, is when it becomes theft. Hosts with unknown blobs of bytes can, and have, been taken to task by various authorities. Maybe it's grey-area but looks more towards the illegal side to me. Not a lawyer.
hash872 5y ago
Let's say instead of 'copyrighted file' it's CSAM material instead. Is it 'illegal'? Maybe you can convince a judge otherwise.... after your home has been raided, you've already done at least some time in jail where all the inmates know you've been arrested for CSAM, your friends & family know you've been arrested for that, that's what comes up under a Google search for your name for all time, thus making you unemployable..... Yes, after spending $500k-1 million on a defense attorney, it's possible that you could convince a judge that that content isn't 'illegal', sure. (How many judges- average age over 60- can learn what a 'striped raid' is?) But none of those other consequences can be reversed, even if you 'win' at trial
- kragen 5y ago
  The system you're describing is a system in which random policemen can arbitrarily destroy the life and legacy of whoever they want. Such a system does already exist in many countries. It doesn't depend on people actually hosting decentralized communications facilities at all; police officers can do the same to anyone who refused them free accommodations at their hotel, or declined their offer of partnership in their nightclub venture. It's irrelevant whether there's any forbidden information actually being communicated, striped or otherwise. In other places, there does exist a "rule of law" that limits such abuses to a significant degree.
  - acdha 5y ago
    > In other places, there does exist a "rule of law" that limits such abuses to a significant degree. Yes — my original point was that this is what will protect you and that's what you want to focus on strengthening. If you don't have a reasonable civil society, technology is unlikely to help and the various ways to get it wrong mean that there's a substantial risk of false confidence.
    - kragen 5y ago
      In places where some degree of rule of law exists, to the extent that that's at all compatible with some knowledge being forbidden, not actually having the forbidden knowledge yourself will also protect you.
  - hash872 5y ago
    What are the countries where you can interact with a blockchain that contains CSAM, but you can avoid charges by explaining in technical detail what a 'striped raid' is to the relevant authorities? Can you name these countries? My personal guess, no offense, is that they don't exist
    - kragen 5y ago
      Nobody has any idea, but so far almost all of the Freenet, IRC, and Usenet police raids have been on end-users who originated or used forbidden information, not people who merely ran a server. In most countries running a Tor bridge is safe, and in a smaller number of countries running a Tor exit node is relatively safe, although numerous end-users of Tor have been arrested for one or another crime.
acdha 5y ago
Yes. What happens is that the FBI uses the system to download the illicit content and every IP they connect to gets a letter to their ISP demanding that they identify the customer. When they show up at your door, you get to hope they believe you saying that you had no idea your system was hosting that content and/or that you never had the decryption key. If you say anything which a judge/jury believes untrue, that’s a federal crime in its own right. Better hope that you don’t need any of the hardware they seized as evidence (possibly for years - see Steve Jackson Games), and that your employer doesn’t hear the news and sack you.
dane-pgp 5y ago
This is the question / thought experiment that the Owner-Free File System explored[0] (based on the XOR operation), and the legal / philosophical issues are discussed in the famous essay "What Colour are your bits?".[1] An idea that is often missed in these discussions is that if you have two random-looking files which, when XORed together, produce an interesting file, it isn't clear which of the two source files were created by someone with access to the interesting file. For example, if you produce a sufficiently large random file, I can create another file which, when XORed with your file, implicates you in copyright infringement. My non-expert conclusion is that unless a third party can prove which file was created first, there is no way of knowing who to prosecute, like having an eye witness trying to separate identical twins (which I believe has been a problem in court cases before). There is, however, the counter-argument that merely publishing large random-looking data files is evidence of a conspiracy to aid copyright infringement, although the same could be said of running a Tor node. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFFSystem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFFSystem [1] https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
moolcool 5y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think the law is as interested in pedantic "you're technically correct" loopholes as HN is.

mmastrac 5y ago

Yes. The law isn't naive and seeing content A appear when using innocent content B as a key is beyond a reasonable doubt.

edoceo 5y ago

Having copyrighted works isn't the inherently illegal part. It's the act of obtaining them outside the licensed methods and then holding them. At that point, according to some, is when it becomes theft. Hosts with unknown blobs of bytes can, and have, been taken to task by various authorities. Maybe it's grey-area but looks more towards the illegal side to me. Not a lawyer.

hash872 5y ago

Let's say instead of 'copyrighted file' it's CSAM material instead. Is it 'illegal'? Maybe you can convince a judge otherwise.... after your home has been raided, you've already done at least some time in jail where all the inmates know you've been arrested for CSAM, your friends & family know you've been arrested for that, that's what comes up under a Google search for your name for all time, thus making you unemployable..... Yes, after spending $500k-1 million on a defense attorney, it's possible that you could convince a judge that that content isn't 'illegal', sure. (How many judges- average age over 60- can learn what a 'striped raid' is?) But none of those other consequences can be reversed, even if you 'win' at trial

kragen 5y ago
The system you're describing is a system in which random policemen can arbitrarily destroy the life and legacy of whoever they want. Such a system does already exist in many countries. It doesn't depend on people actually hosting decentralized communications facilities at all; police officers can do the same to anyone who refused them free accommodations at their hotel, or declined their offer of partnership in their nightclub venture. It's irrelevant whether there's any forbidden information actually being communicated, striped or otherwise. In other places, there does exist a "rule of law" that limits such abuses to a significant degree.
- acdha 5y ago
  > In other places, there does exist a "rule of law" that limits such abuses to a significant degree. Yes — my original point was that this is what will protect you and that's what you want to focus on strengthening. If you don't have a reasonable civil society, technology is unlikely to help and the various ways to get it wrong mean that there's a substantial risk of false confidence.
  - kragen 5y ago
    In places where some degree of rule of law exists, to the extent that that's at all compatible with some knowledge being forbidden, not actually having the forbidden knowledge yourself will also protect you.
- hash872 5y ago
  What are the countries where you can interact with a blockchain that contains CSAM, but you can avoid charges by explaining in technical detail what a 'striped raid' is to the relevant authorities? Can you name these countries? My personal guess, no offense, is that they don't exist
  - kragen 5y ago
    Nobody has any idea, but so far almost all of the Freenet, IRC, and Usenet police raids have been on end-users who originated or used forbidden information, not people who merely ran a server. In most countries running a Tor bridge is safe, and in a smaller number of countries running a Tor exit node is relatively safe, although numerous end-users of Tor have been arrested for one or another crime.

acdha 5y ago

Yes. What happens is that the FBI uses the system to download the illicit content and every IP they connect to gets a letter to their ISP demanding that they identify the customer. When they show up at your door, you get to hope they believe you saying that you had no idea your system was hosting that content and/or that you never had the decryption key. If you say anything which a judge/jury believes untrue, that’s a federal crime in its own right. Better hope that you don’t need any of the hardware they seized as evidence (possibly for years - see Steve Jackson Games), and that your employer doesn’t hear the news and sack you.

dane-pgp 5y ago

This is the question / thought experiment that the Owner-Free File System explored[0] (based on the XOR operation), and the legal / philosophical issues are discussed in the famous essay "What Colour are your bits?".[1] An idea that is often missed in these discussions is that if you have two random-looking files which, when XORed together, produce an interesting file, it isn't clear which of the two source files were created by someone with access to the interesting file. For example, if you produce a sufficiently large random file, I can create another file which, when XORed with your file, implicates you in copyright infringement. My non-expert conclusion is that unless a third party can prove which file was created first, there is no way of knowing who to prosecute, like having an eye witness trying to separate identical twins (which I believe has been a problem in court cases before). There is, however, the counter-argument that merely publishing large random-looking data files is evidence of a conspiracy to aid copyright infringement, although the same could be said of running a Tor node. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFFSystem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFFSystem [1] https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

moolcool 5y ago

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think the law is as interested in pedantic "you're technically correct" loopholes as HN is.