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> but they can't force you to decrypt it if the key is lost or you don't give in. A very US-centric view is it not? Many places can force you to decrypt someth

> but they can't force you to decrypt it if the key is lost or you don't give in. A very US-centric view is it not? Many places can force you to decrypt something by law. In fact the US does on entry to the country and can refuse entry if you do not comply. > there ain't shit they can do to actually enforce that demand. Watch forks become more commonplace and "official" forks being recognised and non-official forks being barred from use in any legitimate transactions. The courts will have the power to force blockchains to reverse transactions or other fraud this way - at a technical level still quite difficult but if it becomes law then solutions to make it easier will be created. Perhaps to cherry pick transactions just like you can cherry pick git commits.

mw888 4y ago
> Courts forcing forks I wouldn’t be so sure about that, unless you are equally convicted in that court’s jurisdiction’s conviction to outright ban the whole chain from use - because as soon as two courts mandate two different forks, one of them will be banning a chain that the rest of the globe has consensus on. It’s a lot like banning a whole region from sending mail because one person in that region got caught mailing drugs.
- bendews 4y ago
  Right - but nothing is stopping them from making that law. Countries aren't simply going to adhere to a digital currencies protocol or allow it to avoid regulation because otherwise it goes against the "community spirit". Here we are talking about the hypothetical situation of the U.S claiming complete jurisdiction of Ethereum. The U.S could make whatever laws it likes around the usage of Ethereum, legislate that all nodes have to adhere to these laws and job is done. The rest of the world can say "lolbye" and continue using it like nothing has happened, but in the U.S they would likely have to fork and create a new chain, and those who want to use it legally in the U.S would also have to use this new U.S-regulated chain. From there they can then implement processes to reverse transactions, introduce identification requirements etc.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - mw888 4y ago
    Yeah, if larger jurisdictions behaved as such the issues I described are easier to avoid. I don’t think the regulatory bodies have an attitude towards crypto that would enable that large scale attempt at control, but we can see how it’s possible. When your protocol’s primary use case relies on denominating centralized currency, it makes these types of network attacks far, far more effective when the attacker controls that currency. People have completely forgotten about any use case of a non-excludable censorship resistant network that isn’t tokens, but I digress.
adastra22 4y ago
> A very US-centric view is it not? Many places can force you to decrypt something by law. In fact the US does on entry to the country and can refuse entry if you do not comply. I must not be explaining well, because you're saying the same thing I am. There can be consequences for refusing to comply, ranging from being turned away at the border to being thrown in jail, all the way to, in some countries, torture and execution. That's how the government gets you to comply. But--here's the critical point--your compliance is required to actually decrypt the email/drive/whatever. This is unlike, say, a cloud hosting provider where the government can just show up with a warrant or probable cause and get the data without your involvement. With strong encryption your data is protected by math, and the math insures that the government or whoever has to go through you to get it. No exceptions. They might throw you in prison for the rest of your life, or threaten to kill your family to get you to give up the encryption keys. But they do need to get you to comply to get access to the decrypted data. Likewise with blockchain technology. A court or law enforcement agency can't just appropriate stolen bitcoin. They have to either (1) recover the keys, or (2) have the thief pay an equivalent amount in reparations. What I'm saying is that they can't just show up at the Bank of Bitcoin with a warrant and request a stop payment, recovering the funds that way as they're used to with the legacy financial system. The blockchain is irreversible even in the face of the law, for reasons rooted either in physics (proof-of-work) or math (staking). > The courts will have the power to force blockchains to reverse transactions or other fraud this way - at a technical level still quite difficult but if it becomes law then solutions to make it easier will be created. No, at a technical level it is impossible. You could no more do this than legislate that pi=3 or raise the speed of light.
- bendews 4y ago
  Completely see where you are coming from now - absolutely agree. On your second point - where I am coming from is that there is nothing stopping countries from creating laws which introduce these powers and outlaw methods to avoid the new legislation. No it doesn't work with the current architecture. But we absolutely can end up in a situation where there is a U.S Ethereum chain where all nodes are legally required to follow updates/forks to the chain as they occur, caused by various court orders to reverse transactions etc. At this point the consensus can go whichever the government likes because those operating the nodes would want to be participating in the current legal chain.

mw888 4y ago

> Courts forcing forks I wouldn’t be so sure about that, unless you are equally convicted in that court’s jurisdiction’s conviction to outright ban the whole chain from use - because as soon as two courts mandate two different forks, one of them will be banning a chain that the rest of the globe has consensus on. It’s a lot like banning a whole region from sending mail because one person in that region got caught mailing drugs.

bendews 4y ago
Right - but nothing is stopping them from making that law. Countries aren't simply going to adhere to a digital currencies protocol or allow it to avoid regulation because otherwise it goes against the "community spirit". Here we are talking about the hypothetical situation of the U.S claiming complete jurisdiction of Ethereum. The U.S could make whatever laws it likes around the usage of Ethereum, legislate that all nodes have to adhere to these laws and job is done. The rest of the world can say "lolbye" and continue using it like nothing has happened, but in the U.S they would likely have to fork and create a new chain, and those who want to use it legally in the U.S would also have to use this new U.S-regulated chain. From there they can then implement processes to reverse transactions, introduce identification requirements etc.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mw888 4y ago
  Yeah, if larger jurisdictions behaved as such the issues I described are easier to avoid. I don’t think the regulatory bodies have an attitude towards crypto that would enable that large scale attempt at control, but we can see how it’s possible. When your protocol’s primary use case relies on denominating centralized currency, it makes these types of network attacks far, far more effective when the attacker controls that currency. People have completely forgotten about any use case of a non-excludable censorship resistant network that isn’t tokens, but I digress.

adastra22 4y ago

> A very US-centric view is it not? Many places can force you to decrypt something by law. In fact the US does on entry to the country and can refuse entry if you do not comply. I must not be explaining well, because you're saying the same thing I am. There can be consequences for refusing to comply, ranging from being turned away at the border to being thrown in jail, all the way to, in some countries, torture and execution. That's how the government gets you to comply. But--here's the critical point--your compliance is required to actually decrypt the email/drive/whatever. This is unlike, say, a cloud hosting provider where the government can just show up with a warrant or probable cause and get the data without your involvement. With strong encryption your data is protected by math, and the math insures that the government or whoever has to go through you to get it. No exceptions. They might throw you in prison for the rest of your life, or threaten to kill your family to get you to give up the encryption keys. But they do need to get you to comply to get access to the decrypted data. Likewise with blockchain technology. A court or law enforcement agency can't just appropriate stolen bitcoin. They have to either (1) recover the keys, or (2) have the thief pay an equivalent amount in reparations. What I'm saying is that they can't just show up at the Bank of Bitcoin with a warrant and request a stop payment, recovering the funds that way as they're used to with the legacy financial system. The blockchain is irreversible even in the face of the law, for reasons rooted either in physics (proof-of-work) or math (staking). > The courts will have the power to force blockchains to reverse transactions or other fraud this way - at a technical level still quite difficult but if it becomes law then solutions to make it easier will be created. No, at a technical level it is impossible. You could no more do this than legislate that pi=3 or raise the speed of light.

bendews 4y ago
Completely see where you are coming from now - absolutely agree. On your second point - where I am coming from is that there is nothing stopping countries from creating laws which introduce these powers and outlaw methods to avoid the new legislation. No it doesn't work with the current architecture. But we absolutely can end up in a situation where there is a U.S Ethereum chain where all nodes are legally required to follow updates/forks to the chain as they occur, caused by various court orders to reverse transactions etc. At this point the consensus can go whichever the government likes because those operating the nodes would want to be participating in the current legal chain.