I freaked a bunch of FBI agents out a while back by Base64 encoding a photo of an FBI logo and writing that to the Eth chain. They have massive concerns around this regarding data exfiltration. The cost of removing the data, once written to a chain, is essentially equal to the market cap of the coin for that chain.
What would happen if someone encoded something horrible and illegal like child porn into a blockchain? Is everyone who operates on that chain guilty of possession? Does that make a specific crypto "illegal" if its blockchain contains illegal content?
> People already added it into bitcoin if you stretch the definition a bit.
Which is a fancy way of saying that they haven't. The only images in the bitcoin blockchain are ascii art.
There are plenty of hashes of different types of data in the bitcoin blockchain, but hashes are not the hash function's input data.
Schneier himself repeated this bogus "there's illegal content in the bitcoin blockchain already!" claim, which shows the legs this false meme has on it.
I agree that a hash of data != the source data, but these links seem to indicate that it is at least possible, if not already evident, that illegal images and content can be encoded into the bitcoin blockchain (and presumably other blockchains that permit similar writing to the ledger)
Really? That’s very sad, but I’m not too surprised.
(Unless you’re saying that the bits 0 and 1 already exist in the blockchain, which is reaaaaallllyyy stretching the definition.)
There’s the concept of “illegal numbers”, which means that there are technically numeric representations of images or copyrighted material that you can’t know/possess without breaking a law. But the law is subjective which is why we have judges and juries to apply judgement to whether having a large number written on a piece of paper is equivalent to possessing illegal material.
There’s the concept of “illegal numbers”, which means that there are technically numeric representations of images or copyrighted material that you can’t know/possess without breaking a law. But the law is subjective which is why we have judges and juries to apply judgement to whether having a large number written on a piece of paper is equivalent to possessions illegal material.
It is amazing that the output of a random number generator can be considered a core part of a DMCA-style 'illegal to work around' anti-circumvention solution.
Because the data is there _forever_ and there's not really anything they can do about it, which stands in stark contrast to how they're used to operating.
There is no person they can throw in jail, no corporation that can be sued, no servers that can be seized, domains taken over, etc, that will result in that data no longer being available to those that know where to look for it.
The data just remains online until such a time that the coins of a given chain are worth $0.0 and coin holders no longer have a financial incentive to keep the ledger online.
FWIW the ones I talked to where more of the door kicking variety, not the 'cyber' type.
Well I don't have any actual secret bunker blueprints or nuclear submarine specs or w/e. It was an extremely simple PoC where I gave them them an Eth txID and a link to a site like https://base64.guru/converter/decode/image/jpg
The point wasnt that I put their logo on a chain, its that I could put a photo online that the states monopoly on violence was entirely incapable of removing.
Are you asking why it freaked out real FBI agents or the ones in lozaning's imagination?
The FBI doesn't give a single damn hoot about "data exfiltration" via blockchain metadata. Anyone with half an understanding of any of those terms knows what an absurd implication that is.
For concerns about "data exfiltration", discussing blockchain doesn't even make a single damn bit of sense. Blockchain is about impermanence and publishing, not about "exfiltration".
I'm not sure which is more amusing, thinking that the FBI would give a hoot about b64-encoded data in the metadata of a transaction, or that this person wrote that comment on HN to try and seem cool. LOL, what, the FBI reached out to them (how?/why? nothing about this makes sense)?
The FBI is used to situations where they can issue targeted takedown orders when groups publish illegal information, but blockchain setups complicate the situation. How does a company "providing" an immutable blockchain stop providing illegal / unlicensed content? Does the fact that their blockchain contains illegal / unlicensed content mean the service is illegal to operate in the US? The alternative is having some sort of legal safe harbor where there is content that, in other circumstances, you would not be allowed to distribute but you can because you are on the blockchain.
"It has come to the attention of the FBI that “Fair Use Warnings” accompanied by an image of the FBI seal (or similar insignia) have been posted on various websites, giving the appearance that the FBI has created or authorized these notices to advise the public about the fair use doctrine in U.S. copyright law. The FBI recognizes that the fair use of copyrighted materials, as codified in Title 17, United States Code, section 107, does not constitute infringement. These warnings, however, are not authorized or endorsed by the FBI. Unauthorized use of the FBI seal (or colorable imitations) may be punishable under Title 18 United States Code, Sections 701, 709, or other applicable law." [1]
