8 ms·
New Jersey slaps MIT Bitcoin hackers with subpoena
- gnu8 13y agoI hope they are asking for sanctions in addition to quashing the subpoena. Whoever wrote this subpoena is not only ignorant but has a massive attitude problem, for which some jail time would be therapeutic.
- carbocation 13y agoNo. Let us, instead, wish for justice for all.
- gopher1 13y agoIf these New Jersey prosecutors fail with this one, I'm sure they can slap some felony computer fraud charges on them for violating X website's ToS agreement. Prosecutors need to lose their immunity, then we might get some sanity back in the justice system.
- rayiner 13y agoWhat prosecutors?
- gopher1 13y agoNew Jersey Attorney General John Hoffman and Deputy Attorney General Glenn Graham... since you asked.
- rayiner 13y agoNote the caption: Rubin v. New Jersey. Rubin is the plaintiff. The AG is acting in its capacity as the government's lawyer, not in its capacity as a prosecutor. There is no prosecutor, because there is no criminal complaint. What's at issue is a civil subpoena (a request for information and materials) issued by a state consumer protection agency.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago"What prosecutors?"? What do you imagine the difference is between saying "prosecutors need to lose their immunity" and "we need to lose prosecutorial immunity"? All prosecutors, obviously.
- comrh 13y ago> "felony computer fraud charges" Just for violating a ToS? I thought those were mostly legalese and overly broad.
- FootballMuse 13y agoOf course. Yet still, Carmen Ortiz approved a felony indictment of up to 37 years against Aaron Swartz for breaking one of those vague/broad terms. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/aarons-law-violating-a-sites-terms-of-service-should-not-land-you-in-jail/267247/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/aarons...
- dreamdu5t 13y agoUmm.... what were they issued the subpoena FOR!? I read the entire article waiting for this to be explained. Or can you just be subpoena'd without any case?
- jpwright 13y agoThe article explains the case pretty well: > ...the language in the subpoena reads much like the state’s computer fraud act, which carries some stiff penalties. Last year, New Jersey alleged that E-Sports Entertainment (ESEA) hijacked their [subscribers'] computing power to mine Bitcoins... the state believes Tidbit may similarly violate consumers’ rights. According to the EFF: > the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs issued a subpoena to Rubin, requesting he turn over Tidbit's past and current source code, as well as other documents and agreements with any third parties. It also issued 27 interrogatories -- formal written questions -- requesting additional documents and ordering Rubin to turn over information like the names and identities of all Bitcoin wallet addresses associated with Tidbit, a list of all websites running Tidbit's code and the name of anybody whose computer mined for Bitcoins through the use of Tidbit, although Tidbit's code was not configured to mine for Bitcoins. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/02/eff-challenges-new-jersey-subpoena-issued-mit-student-bitcoin-developers https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/02/eff-challenges-new-jer...
- lukifer 13y agoIt reads "much like" the computer fraud act, but that doesn't mean a case was brought forward. Can a subpoena really be issued without a corresponding case?
- bmelton 13y agoWhere the state wants to, it can press charges on its own. It's up to the prosecutors, generally. This is why there are cases like "so and so vs. New Jersey". In cases like murder and such, the state is the only viable prosecutor, which is why the prosecutor works for the state. That said, I don't know the procedure for determining whether or not an actual crime has been committed, and without there being an actual case in hand, I have no idea if the subpoenas are valid.
- diminoten 13y agoHysteria aside, what happens when a court subpoena demands someone hand over something they don't have? Does the person just say, "I don't have it." and that's that? What if they lie about not having it?
- dmix 13y agoContempt of court faces up to 5yrs in jail.
- ye 13y agoThere's no jail limit for contempt of court. 14 years: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/07/14/man-jailed-on-civil-contempt-charges-freed-after-14-years/ http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/07/14/man-jailed-on-civil-cont... 7 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_A._Armstrong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_A._Armstrong
- dmix 13y agoAh, in Canada it's 5 years. "Punishment can range from the person being imprisoned for a period of less than five years or until the person complies with the order or fine."
- diminoten 13y agoA judge can and will hold someone in contempt of court for not producing documents they haven't even been shown to possess? That doesn't sound right...
- quackerhacker 13y agoThe prosecutor's would have to... 1. prove they have the evidence. or 2. prove they destroyed or concealed it. Greatest quote I've ever heard: "it's not what they know, it's what they can prove in court"
- sczkid 13y agoLaw Abiding Citizen is a pretty thought-provoking (and pessimistic) take on the US justice system.
- sneak 13y agoCan someone with a background in law tell me if or why it wouldn't be legal to turn over bitcoin private keys, complying exactly with a request, while also using your own retained copies of those keys to sign transfer transactions sending all those bitcoins held by the previous (now compromised) keys to your new ones that are not covered by the subpoena? It seems to me that you'd be complying exactly with their request, as furnishing a copy of data does not obligate you to delete your own.
- carbocation 13y agoSubverting the intent of a ruling or law is not viewed favorably, and can easily be fixed, if need be, by tighter wording.
- vbuterin 13y agoI don't think it's subverting the intent to move the BTC out. The point of subpoenas is to get information, not resources; if you want resources the correct mechanism is a seizure. The court is probably just asking for everything it can just in case.
- sneak 13y agoIs it the intent of this subpoena to confiscate their bitcoins? It doesn't seem to be.
- tptacek 13y agoIsn't this like suggesting that when the image of an HDD is subpoenaed, you might first copy all the data off it, then wipe it, then image that? Because that trick doesn't work. Relevant statute: 18 U.S.C. § 401. It's pretty broad.
- sneak 13y agoI am talking about providing exactly what the subpoena is asking for, complying both in letter and in spirit. And transferring your coins to different keys. The subpoena isn't "for all keys, and no using them on the blockchain". It's just for the data. There is no such thing as ownership of bitcoin.
- quackerhacker 13y agoThis is the first I've heard of Tidbit and I have to say that it is absolutely ingenious!!! If they do open source the code, I strongly hope that webmasters would actually replace obtrusive ads with the mining protocol and not just add it in addition to ad revenue.
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoIt's been posted before and quite frankly, it can very easily be abused as a malicious feature. Especially if the user is unaware of their being complicit in mining.
- lukifer 13y agoIt should be noted that their intent was to be purely opt-in. Stealing a user's CPU/GPU cycles is extremely bad form. (It's bad enough when ads/tracking code does it by accident.)
- diminoten 13y agoCPU bitcoin mining doesn't really do much. The idea is nice, but it would take way too long to be competitive as a form of revenue generation if all it had access to was the CPU.
- daenz 13y agoi'm willing to wager it's possible to write a WebGL shader to mine bitcoins.
- I_am_Doge 13y agowow such ignorance dogecoin better
- protomyth 13y agoI'm all for state's rights, but, given what the article says, I cannot understand how NJ has any ability to issue the subpoena. It isn't an active product that has been used in production so no NJ resident has been "harmed". Its like the NJ prosecutor read some tech article and decided to act.
- ck2 13y agoFollow the lobbyists. Figure out who was threatened enough by a bitcoin model to want the government to step in. Because there is no way they have this kind of time on their hands to pursue this and have such in depth technical knowledge to know what to look for, without some corporate lobbyists spoon feeding it to the prosecutor. Not that I believe tidbit could ever be profitable or useful, but still.
- gamblor956 13y agoNo conspiracy necessary. From the article: "With a snippet of embedded code, Tidbit could enable websites to tap into visitors’ computers and borrow CPU cycles to mine Bitcoin." Ads that take over the screen for a few seconds are bad enouogh. A website that takes over a computer to run computationally expensive tasks? With ads, at least their is the opportunity to run adblockers. With a javascript miner, visitors are left with the choice of disabling javascript, and essentially their access to the modern web, or risking a website abusing their computer. The subpoena and accompanying interrogatories issued to Rubin demonstrate that the people working for New Jersey’s division of consumer affairs have made little effort to understand what Tidbit’s software actually does. Based on how Tidbit has described their software, it sounds like New Jersey knows exactly what the software actually does: it runs a BTC miner on a website visitor's computer, potentially without their knowledge. And as the ESEA fiasco demonstrated, this could result in actual, physical damage to people's computers. Is this overreaching? Maybe. Maybe not. That's what the purpose of the investigation is for.
- bhitov 13y agoThe javascript miner was not deployed anywhere. At no point was anyone in New Jersey knowingly or unknowningly served Tidbit's bitcoin mining code.
- gamblor956 13y agoThe Tidbit team claims that the miner was not deployed anywhere. The purpose of the investigation is presumably to make sure this is the case. Unfortunately, due to the antics of many other major Bitcoin players, anyone doing something Bitcoin-related is generally deemed untrustworthy unless they prove otherwise. (And from a ideological standpoint, if one believes in the free market, this is how it should be--trust must be earned, not granted.)
- jliptzin 13y agoRidiculous prosecution aside, something tells me Tidbit will be used in addition to, not as a replacement of display ads. (That assumes there will always be a cryptocoin worth mining with a CPU/GPU. Right now it's silly to do so for bitcoin)
- kaonashi 13y agoSounds like a wonderful way to waste electricity and kill browser performance at the same time.
- hrjet 13y agoThe concept could be adapted for a more productive proof-of-work currency like PrimeCoin[1]. I wonder why PrimeCoin and others don't get more exposure. [1] : http://primecoin.io/ http://primecoin.io/
- adregan 13y agoI can't make heads or tails of this—why is New Jersey, specifically, issuing this subpoena? Do they have jurisdiction? Is the student from New Jersey?
- flatline 13y ago> Tidbit uses the Stratum protocol, which would enable websites to get paid based on total work contributed to the mining pool rather than total Bitcoins mined No, that's what P2Pool, or really any pool, does. Stratum, as the link states, is just a long-poll protocol to reduce stale shares when a new block is found. But speaking of pools, it seems like the best bang for their buck would be a scrypt profit-switching multipool, that mines the most profitable scrypt coin and exchanges for btc or dollars or whatever. This would potentially create a huge pool so p2pool is better in that respect, but it's just not profitable to mine BTC like this at all.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- amurmann 13y agoI can't stand it anymore! Why are we prosecuting these people instead of Comcast who is on a course to destroy our infrastructure? Of course I know the answer. I just can't deal with it anymore. I will just stop reading any news.
- jheriko 13y agoif you do something that is legally ambiguous and you get penalised for it then it is your own fault. this is one reason why i am reluctant to buy any bitcoins or cryptocurrency in general - esp given the strong background of money laundering. its a shame. i do think the future of currency lies in bitcoin or similar... its just not there yet. sure if everyone ends up using it the legality will need resolving sooner, but to a very good approximation nobody uses it at the moment (!) i base this on the data that there are a great deal fewer bitcoin addresses in use atm than enough to assign one of them to each out of 0.1% of the world population - given that many people use multiple addresses i don't think its unreasonable to consider it very close to non-existent in that naive sense... penalising all of the people currently involved is not out of the question yet... not by a very long way imo. (source: http://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses?timespan=30days http://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses?timespan=30...)
- blueskin_ 13y agoI can actually see their point, although yes, they're going about it completely the wrong way. Bitcoin mining using malicious javascript will cost people a lot of money in power bills if done without permission, and this project has good intentions, but I'd be unsurprised if it has already been forked to run without victims knowing. It's just another form of intrusive advert.