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> governments allowing PoW Is there any precedent for this? Have governments ever ruled on how people can use their computational power?
by bibabaloo 4y ago
> governments allowing PoW
Is there any precedent for this? Have governments ever ruled on how people can use their computational power?
- rekoil 4y agoIgnoring your actual question; do you think it's reasonable that we don't introduce new societal rules as technology progresses?
- cesarb 4y ago> Is there any precedent for this? Have governments ever ruled on how people can use their computational power? Yes, they have. For instance, the DMCA is a USA law which, among other things, forbids people in the USA from using their computational power to circumvent an access control system (for instance, by brute forcing a cryptographic key) which happens to be preventing access to a copyrighted file. An older example is that encryption within France used to be severely restricted (quoting from https://www.theregister.com/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe_encryption/ https://www.theregister.com/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe_... which is from before the current laws: "Until 1996 anyone wishing to encrypt any document had to first receive an official sanction or risk fines from F6000 to F500,000 ($1000 to $89,300) and a 2-6 month jail term. Right now, apart from a handful of exemptions, any unauthorised use of encryption software is illegal. Encryption software can be used by anyone, but only if it's very easy to break.")
- wmf 4y agoMore generally, governments have banned inefficient light bulbs, appliances, and cars. Banning PoW ASICs would be no different. PoW on GPUs would be harder to ban.