Child abuse imagery found within bitcoin's blockchain
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Child abuse imagery found within bitcoin's blockchain | Technolo..
Researchers discover illegal content within the distributed ledger, making possession of it potentially unlawful in many countries
“Our analysis shows that certain content, eg, illegal pornography, can render the mere possession of a blockchain illegal,” the researchers wrote. “Although court rulings do not yet exist, legislative texts from countries such as Germany, the UK, or the USA suggest that illegal content such as [child abuse imagery] can make the blockchain illegal to possess for all users.”
“This especially endangers the multi-billion dollar markets powering cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.”
While the spending of bitcoin does not necessarily require a copy of the blockchain to facilitate, some processes, such as some mining techniques, require the downloading of the full blockchain or chunks of it.
“Since all blockchain data is downloaded and persistently stored by users, they are liable for any objectionable content added to the blockchain by others. Consequently, it would be illegal to participate in a blockchain-based systems as soon as it contains illegal content,” the researchers wrote.
To the surprise of no one.
It's almost as if completely unregulated economies have a history of being corrupt and illicit without judicious oversight.
How does that work? How does someone put arbitrary data in the blockchain?
I mean, they were warned such a thing could actually happen:
This is not the first time warnings over the ability to store
non-financial data within the blockchain have been issued. Interpol sent out an alert in 2015
saying that “the design of the blockchain means there is the
possibility of malware being injected and permanently hosted with no
methods currently available to wipe this data”.
Feels like a group effort of folks trying to bring bitcoins down a peg, but that's just my tinfoil hat. Wonder what this'll mean for block chain tech for the future if this isn't cared for now.
See, this is actually good for bitcoin, because
Well as much I love to shit on crypto this is a worrying development. Why would you enable the ability to upload files? Wouldn't you foresee that someone would use you as a distribution method?
It is actually good. Because hopefully it dies and is replaced by something better.
Hopefully.
This whole news cycle in general from the last few weeks has been absolute madness.
Links to Tor sites and such have existed on the blockchain for quite some time.
On the other hand, the part about embedding malware in the blockchain makes no sense to me: just as with the images and text in the blockchain, you'd have to go out of your way to write a tool to process the blocks in an unusual way to extract the data and then execute that malware. Even if there is a flaw on the node that would allow automatic execution of malicious data, it would be just a matter of fixing that bug, just as we currently do with web browsers, libraries, operating systems and pretty much every type of Internet-connected software.
Is this data encoded in the same way that everything is encoded in pi, or is it actually intentionally encoded?
How would you even piece together enough data from an image from arbitrary transaction data? Wouldn't it take a massive amount of transactions to actually build something that large?
Are we literally living in cyberpunk or what
It's almost as if regulated economics have a history of being corrupt and illicit with judicious oversight
"less people will want to mine bitcoin because they're associated with pedophiles! more for me!"
So um guys, why don't we ban internet, since it transfers those child porn images?
This has nothing to do with it being an economy. This could happen with any distributed database that allows anyone to store data.
Bitcoin is now a registered sex offender.
Now that this hit the news, more people are gonna get the idea to use blockchains for storing illicit content.
"we're getting kids involved in economics at a young age"
imagine if everyone who mines bitcoin got put on a sex offender registry
It should be treated similarly to the whole Temp files thing, where people shall not be convicted because of an thumb or two in their Temp files because they went on 4chan on the wrong day.
But maybe it's worse than that, I'm ill-informed on exactly how the blockchain works. I just know it backs bitcoin and prevents you from simply copy+pasting them.
For what reason would anyone want to do this? From what I understand this'd just be randomly sending out illegal shit to people aimlessly. What's the point of that, if not sabotage/getting as many people in trouble as possible?
I can't wrap my head around this.
I don't think you're really understanding.
It's not that they're sending child pornography from one person to another over the blockchain. I mean, they might be, but it's not as if the recipient of the BTC is in any more trouble than anyone else.
What's actually happening is that the blockchain is a distributed database, essentially, that cannot be modified once it's been written. And everybody can access this data. Which means once you put the content on the blockchain, it can't come off.
So if you have a copy of the blockchain, you also have child pornography.
Clearly, the banks did this intentionally! "Let's just make Bitcoin illegal by smuggling child porn in there, then we can shut it down!"
It was all a ruse!
Maybe don't miss the point, and think before opening your mount before making yourself 'hey look at me i am hoarding feel good ratings' kind of idiot?
Let me explain:
This whole piece of news is just bullshit. Storing images on BTC blockchain is one of most retarded ways to store image, and costs shitload of upload such image.
It costs about 480$ per 7kb of data and that means that for 50kb (shitty compressed jkg) would cost 3360$.
Aaaaand lets say kiddo molesters with too much money do decide to abuse the system, crime/spy agencies can easily run bitcoin node with IP tracking. Which brings to what? Classical crime fighting, which already is happening with Tor. So they can get IPs that upload such content, and they can get IPs that download such content.
So essentially this news piece just smells of FUD to make people shake and point fingers saying "see BTC is bad, the child molesters will thrive on it" and "think of the children".
I don't really get this blockchain thing too terribly in-depth anyway, so pardon my confusion. Googling it kinda generated more questions than it answered.
How is it really getting there in the first place, and why? That's what I'm wondering. Mostly the "why". If anything I am asking to be educated.
So, it's pretty complicated.
I'll try to give a metaphor that works to explain... enough.
Basically, imagine there's a chain. Like, a steel chain. With links and shit. Imagine that this steel chain is held in a public place, where anyone can go visit it.
Now imagine that you're able to add a link to the end of the chain. Anyone can add a link; you just pick one up and attach it to the last link on the chain. Also, they give you a sharpie, so you can write something on the link before you put it on there.
Now, they can't remove your link because it would break the chain. (Real steel chains can be re-attached, but for BTC purposes, this chain must NEVER be broken. You CANNOT break the chain.)
"Why not clean the link off?" you might ask. Good question. As it turns out, the next link in the chain requires the previous one to be unchanged. Every time a link is added to the chain, it "fuses" with the link it's added to along with its properties (what you wrote on it). If you cleaned the link, the next link would become invalid. That link proved its validity based on the previous link, and if the previous link changes, it can't prove itself anymore. Every link past the one scrubbed would become invalid.
So, basically, once a link is added to the chain, it can never change or be removed. And the whole point of this chain is that anybody can come look at any link at any time, and removing that ability would make it completely pointless.
I wonder what the solution to this will be? I mean, if the ledger contains CP, then all nodes with up to date ledger do technically possess CP. You can't scrub it out, so what do you do? Maybe there could be some sort of legal exception or pardon for this case, countries saying they will not prosecute anyone for having these particular blocks and their illegal content, but what about moving forward? If there's no mechanism within Bitcoin to vet blocks for illegal data, how do you prevent this from becoming a widespread issue (as un-cost effective as it is)?
Thanks, I understand it a bit better now.
So I guess that's the how, but there's still the why. As in, why anyone would put CP on these chain links. They don't sound like they could hold enough information to make it "worthwhile", and since it's so out in the open, to meet a metaphor with a metaphor, it'd be like taping a picture of child porn to or using the sharpie to write a link to that sort of shit on one of those steel chain links that's so out in the public for anyone to walk up and find whether they mean to or not.
What is the point of doing all that? Is it an attempt at anonymous distribution to those who are actually looking for it?
I predict it will slump due to the hype, people will buy it because "LOL IT'S CHEAP AGAIN!" and then they'll feel perfectly fine with it once the value inevitably goes back up because reasons.
"... because it takes out the middleman of actually buying the child abuse imagery with the bitcoin you were getting in the first place"
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