Zooko: Decentralized, immutable and uncensorable microblogging(github.com)
github.com
Zooko: Decentralized, immutable and uncensorable microblogging
https://github.com/publiusfederalist/zooko
136 comments
> The underlying mistake is thinking about this like a game where you can make up rules for the government to follow.
Thanks for describing that error so clearly and succinctly. It's one of those fundamental misconceptions that's depressingly common.
Don't assume you've defeated the them because they haven't cared enough to come after you.
Thanks for describing that error so clearly and succinctly. It's one of those fundamental misconceptions that's depressingly common.
Don't assume you've defeated the them because they haven't cared enough to come after you.
The readme does explain that you could censor it by blocking access the chain entirely, it's not pretending otherwise.
But by embedding the information into the chain, if you are just reading posts I don't know how snoops could notice. You just need to run a node that keeps up with the state of the chain; there's no obvious way for network snoops to know whether you're doing that because you are using Handshake to resolve domain names or to read messages embedded in it, since you can do all that offline.
But by embedding the information into the chain, if you are just reading posts I don't know how snoops could notice. You just need to run a node that keeps up with the state of the chain; there's no obvious way for network snoops to know whether you're doing that because you are using Handshake to resolve domain names or to read messages embedded in it, since you can do all that offline.
Okay, so now you’ve downloaded the entire chain. Does that seem safe to have in your possession in this scenario? Even if I have the storage, I would not want to find out that someone else had uploaded something illegal when the police search my computer/phone and I have to prove to their satisfaction that I didn’t know.
If you don’t download the entire chain, your traffic connecting to certain nodes and downloading certain sizes can be enough to track you - there are academic papers about using this to figure out what movies you’re watching over HTTPS – and that’s assuming that you don’t learn the hard way that the fast server with all of the underground content is the secret police’s honeypot.
This is all probably moot in any case because it’s tricky to build something like this which never does DNS resolution, connects to a suspicious server, etc. The average user is going to have a very hard time avoiding mistakes like that, and that’s assuming you don’t have police informants encouraging unsafe opsec or use of treacherous apps — real things which happen to dissidents and activists all over the world. Remember Citizen Lab’s report on the use of NSO’s malware to go after supporters of a soda tax?
What bothers me most about cryptocurrency proponents are that most of the claims are being made by people who will not personally suffer the consequences of being wrong if someone follows their advice. If you care about people in dangerous legal environments, that really needs to focus on changing the system rather than advocating use of electronic systems which even experts cannot use safely in those environments.
If you don’t download the entire chain, your traffic connecting to certain nodes and downloading certain sizes can be enough to track you - there are academic papers about using this to figure out what movies you’re watching over HTTPS – and that’s assuming that you don’t learn the hard way that the fast server with all of the underground content is the secret police’s honeypot.
This is all probably moot in any case because it’s tricky to build something like this which never does DNS resolution, connects to a suspicious server, etc. The average user is going to have a very hard time avoiding mistakes like that, and that’s assuming you don’t have police informants encouraging unsafe opsec or use of treacherous apps — real things which happen to dissidents and activists all over the world. Remember Citizen Lab’s report on the use of NSO’s malware to go after supporters of a soda tax?
What bothers me most about cryptocurrency proponents are that most of the claims are being made by people who will not personally suffer the consequences of being wrong if someone follows their advice. If you care about people in dangerous legal environments, that really needs to focus on changing the system rather than advocating use of electronic systems which even experts cannot use safely in those environments.
As long as there is illegal content on the blockchain, they can simply state that you are hosting a node connected to a network that downloads and shares illegal content, which will be true, and therefore that you possess it, which will also be true. And that can be enough to get you prosecuted regardless of how many crypto bros are going to try to convince you, or them, otherwise.
They being who, under what law?
It's widely known there's child porn on the bitcoin blockchain, not familiar with any prosecutions that have happened.
Pretending that the law trumps all technology is as naive as pretending technology trumps all law. No extreme is true: you can build technological problems to solve many social or political problems (example: VeraCrypt with plausible denialability)
It's widely known there's child porn on the bitcoin blockchain, not familiar with any prosecutions that have happened.
Pretending that the law trumps all technology is as naive as pretending technology trumps all law. No extreme is true: you can build technological problems to solve many social or political problems (example: VeraCrypt with plausible denialability)
>It's widely known there's child porn on the bitcoin blockchain,
Are there actual bytes of child porn embedded in Bitcoin blockchain or only encrypted-or-obfuscated urls of possible websites that lead to child porn?
Example story from 2018 saying child porn bytes are not in the blockchain and non-tech journalists are misreporting it: https://news.bitcoin.com/no-isnt-child-porn-bitcoin-blockcha...
Any credible embedding of child porn bytes in the blockchain since that story?
Are there actual bytes of child porn embedded in Bitcoin blockchain or only encrypted-or-obfuscated urls of possible websites that lead to child porn?
Example story from 2018 saying child porn bytes are not in the blockchain and non-tech journalists are misreporting it: https://news.bitcoin.com/no-isnt-child-porn-bitcoin-blockcha...
Any credible embedding of child porn bytes in the blockchain since that story?
If not, an enforcement agency could always upload it itself to create the pretext. It might be expensive, but nation states can afford mining hardware.
Related question: does the cost of storing data on the blockchain on a byte basis decrease over time?
Meaning would such attacks (attaching CSAM content to a blockchain) become more feasible at lower cost in the future?
Meaning would such attacks (attaching CSAM content to a blockchain) become more feasible at lower cost in the future?
There's no fundamental link between the cost of storing data on a blockchain and time. However, practically, it does look like the most common blockchains have gotten more expensive over time: Bitcoin, Ethereum, even Dogecoin. However, you could imagine a blockchain that gets cheaper over time i.e. by issuing more coins or even stays the same.
> They being who, under what law?
Governments, under any law they wish to create. In some countries (eg Australia) they can (and have) created retrospective legislation that makes what was perfectly legal when you did it now illegal, and then prosecute you for it.
Governments, under any law they wish to create. In some countries (eg Australia) they can (and have) created retrospective legislation that makes what was perfectly legal when you did it now illegal, and then prosecute you for it.
So, if some bad actor embedded child sexual abuse material in the blockchain it would become illegal to run a Bitcoin node?
Seems like somebody could short Bitcoin or eth, do that, make it pubic, cause a furor, and profit despite the cost.
Seems like somebody could short Bitcoin or eth, do that, make it pubic, cause a furor, and profit despite the cost.
Well, sure. They could make owning a computer illegal, or whatever. Anything outside your skull is censorable. The readme doesn't pretend that this works if you can't access the Handshake chain.
> Anything outside your skull is censorable
Given a bullet and a gun, anything inside your skull is also censorable.
Given a bullet and a gun, anything inside your skull is also censorable.
> where you can make up rules for the government to follow
Exactly. It always reminds me of that scene in the Simpsons where Burns goes through tons of security in the nuclear plant, then a dog walks in through a screen door.
Exactly. It always reminds me of that scene in the Simpsons where Burns goes through tons of security in the nuclear plant, then a dog walks in through a screen door.
is that true though? CP on Etherium blockchain is a well known problem, and no prosecution jurisdiction is doing anything about it. Who would even have jurisdiction on something so decentralised? Sure you could shut down some nodes, but not all of them. And even then new nodes would pop up vastly more quickly than you can kill them. So prosecutors really are powerless. I think. Am I wrong?
> So prosecutors really are powerless. I think. Am I wrong?
Yes, you're wrong.
> Sure you could shut down some nodes, but not all of them. And even then new nodes would pop up vastly more quickly than you can kill them.
Your error is here. If prosecutors actually decide to start shutting down nodes because of CP and make successful prosecutions, it will deter people from running new nodes in that jurisdiction. If hosting a copy of the Etherium blockchain had a high chance of landing you in jail for CP possession, would you start up a new node to replace one that was shut down? Instead of "new nodes ... pop[ping] up vastly more quickly than you can kill them," most operators would get scared and quickly shut down their nodes and wipe their HDs, and the rest would get prosecuted. Maybe you'd have a few stragglers hiding out on Tor, but at that point the network is unusable for any legitimate use.
Don't believe me? There's even been a recent example of something like that. China banned Bitcoin mining, and the miners there shut down or GTFO of China:
https://fortune.com/2021/11/17/china-bitcoin-mining-ban-cryp...
> Available data shows that crypto mining no longer exists in China and that China's crypto mining ban completely upended the global Bitcoin mining industry. China went from controlling up to two-thirds of all Bitcoin mining in the world in April to not contributing to the industry at all as of July 2021, according to data compiled by the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Alternative Finance. And anecdotal evidence suggests that the vast majority of Chinese Bitcoin miners relocated their operations to places like Kazakhstan, the U.S., and Canada or simply sold off their equipment at discounted prices and left the industry.
Yes, you're wrong.
> Sure you could shut down some nodes, but not all of them. And even then new nodes would pop up vastly more quickly than you can kill them.
Your error is here. If prosecutors actually decide to start shutting down nodes because of CP and make successful prosecutions, it will deter people from running new nodes in that jurisdiction. If hosting a copy of the Etherium blockchain had a high chance of landing you in jail for CP possession, would you start up a new node to replace one that was shut down? Instead of "new nodes ... pop[ping] up vastly more quickly than you can kill them," most operators would get scared and quickly shut down their nodes and wipe their HDs, and the rest would get prosecuted. Maybe you'd have a few stragglers hiding out on Tor, but at that point the network is unusable for any legitimate use.
Don't believe me? There's even been a recent example of something like that. China banned Bitcoin mining, and the miners there shut down or GTFO of China:
https://fortune.com/2021/11/17/china-bitcoin-mining-ban-cryp...
> Available data shows that crypto mining no longer exists in China and that China's crypto mining ban completely upended the global Bitcoin mining industry. China went from controlling up to two-thirds of all Bitcoin mining in the world in April to not contributing to the industry at all as of July 2021, according to data compiled by the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Alternative Finance. And anecdotal evidence suggests that the vast majority of Chinese Bitcoin miners relocated their operations to places like Kazakhstan, the U.S., and Canada or simply sold off their equipment at discounted prices and left the industry.
And I really hope that there wouldn't be that many with such a vested interest in CP to fight against those shutdowns.
Bitcoin survival isn't predicated on mass mining farms of the sort that are easily shutdown in china and elsewhere. Running nodes yields more revenue the higher proportion of the hash rate you have. Making it illegal just makes it that much more profitable to run nodes in difficult to shut down ways, such as a cell phone powered by a solar array running tor and a miner.
The market will provide.
The market will provide.
You're missing the point. It's not about Bitcoin mining per se, it's about people's willingness to run illegal services.
> The market will provide.
Nope, sorry. The market doesn't guarantee whatever random distributed thing you like will be resilient.
> The market will provide.
Nope, sorry. The market doesn't guarantee whatever random distributed thing you like will be resilient.
>it's about people's willingness to run illegal services.
Which looks to be quite high.
>Nope, sorry. The market doesn't guarantee whatever random distributed thing you like will be resilient.
While I'm sure 'nope, sorry' felt gratifying for you to type, the market cares very little about your individual opinion. Even illegal drugs, tangible items that a drug dog might sniff out, can't be choked off.
>whatever random distributed thing you like
The 'whatever random distributed thing I like' is something with a market cap of 2.21 Trillion dollars, which is like 1/10th the GDP of the united states. You make it sound like it's my random pet individual project.
Which looks to be quite high.
>Nope, sorry. The market doesn't guarantee whatever random distributed thing you like will be resilient.
While I'm sure 'nope, sorry' felt gratifying for you to type, the market cares very little about your individual opinion. Even illegal drugs, tangible items that a drug dog might sniff out, can't be choked off.
>whatever random distributed thing you like
The 'whatever random distributed thing I like' is something with a market cap of 2.21 Trillion dollars, which is like 1/10th the GDP of the united states. You make it sound like it's my random pet individual project.
> While I'm sure 'nope, sorry' felt gratifying for you to type, the market cares very little about your individual opinion. Even illegal drugs, tangible items that a drug dog might sniff out, can't be choked off.
Lol. Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies aren't illegal drugs, and thinking they would be as resilient as them is missing many important differences. For one, networks are far easier to surveil than physical spaces. For another, about the only thing cryptocurrencies are actually good for is speculation, so there'd be few incentives to keep them going in the face of severe penalties. That quite unlike drugs, which get you high and in some cases can get you addicted, so there's some natural demand.
> The 'whatever random distributed thing I like' is something with a market cap of 2.21 Trillion dollars, which is like 1/10th the GDP of the united states. You make it sound like it's my random pet individual project.
Speculators driving up the price is not proof of resilience. Bitcoin is a technology in search of a real problem to solve, not an actual good solution to anything.
Lol. Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies aren't illegal drugs, and thinking they would be as resilient as them is missing many important differences. For one, networks are far easier to surveil than physical spaces. For another, about the only thing cryptocurrencies are actually good for is speculation, so there'd be few incentives to keep them going in the face of severe penalties. That quite unlike drugs, which get you high and in some cases can get you addicted, so there's some natural demand.
> The 'whatever random distributed thing I like' is something with a market cap of 2.21 Trillion dollars, which is like 1/10th the GDP of the united states. You make it sound like it's my random pet individual project.
Speculators driving up the price is not proof of resilience. Bitcoin is a technology in search of a real problem to solve, not an actual good solution to anything.
Bitcoin/crypto as you say are not illegal drugs. There's no inherent moral outrage like there would be for murder/rape/theft/selling crack to an addict slowly poisoning himself and visibly robbing his neighbors. Convincing the populace to wage the kind of war-on-drugs style attack that would be necessary to snuff it out will be even more difficult to sell to populace than it was to sell the need to imprison drug dealers.
All I can say about stopping crypto-currency, is good luck. The Crypto Stasi or whatever oppressive mechanism that would be needed to actually snuff it out will have to shoot me in the head to make me stop. I'd happily keep trading and mining crypto from cellphone smuggled up someone's ass into the prison or whatever else is needed to keep the system going.
All I can say about stopping crypto-currency, is good luck. The Crypto Stasi or whatever oppressive mechanism that would be needed to actually snuff it out will have to shoot me in the head to make me stop. I'd happily keep trading and mining crypto from cellphone smuggled up someone's ass into the prison or whatever else is needed to keep the system going.
> All I can say about stopping crypto-currency, is good luck. The Crypto Stasi or whatever oppressive mechanism that would be needed to actually snuff it out will have to shoot me in the head to make me stop. I'd happily keep trading and mining crypto from cellphone smuggled up someone's ass into the prison or whatever else is needed to keep the system going.
What an utterly bizarre attitude.
Also, you do realize if what you describe is what it takes to keep cryptocurrency going; it would be actually, really dead-dead, despite you and a few hold outs trading it from prison ass-phones forever and keeping the technical infrastructure barely alive? To put it in crypto-terms: at that point Bitcoin will be a Shitcoin.
What an utterly bizarre attitude.
Also, you do realize if what you describe is what it takes to keep cryptocurrency going; it would be actually, really dead-dead, despite you and a few hold outs trading it from prison ass-phones forever and keeping the technical infrastructure barely alive? To put it in crypto-terms: at that point Bitcoin will be a Shitcoin.
You asked for resiliency, I merely provided an example of it. Of course not everyone can be imprisoned, so it's pretty unrealistic to think only ass-phones would mine bitcoin/crypto.
> Making it illegal just makes it that much more profitable to run nodes in difficult to shut down ways, such as a cell phone powered by a solar array running tor and a miner. … The market will provide.
This is wishful thinking: Bitcoin has no value beyond what someone is currently willing to pay for it. If it becomes risky, your options for converting Bitcoin into local currency will shrink correspondingly. Similarly, if you're in a climate where you need to worry about this I would not want to use a cellular node which is so trivially linked to your account and physical location.
This is wishful thinking: Bitcoin has no value beyond what someone is currently willing to pay for it. If it becomes risky, your options for converting Bitcoin into local currency will shrink correspondingly. Similarly, if you're in a climate where you need to worry about this I would not want to use a cellular node which is so trivially linked to your account and physical location.
>Bitcoin has no value beyond what someone is currently willing to pay for it.
A little under a trillion for BTC alone, all in.
>If it becomes risky, your options for converting Bitcoin into local currency will shrink correspondingly.
So it will basically shrink to fit black market demand. Bad for speculators, good for crims.
>Similarly, if you're in a climate where you need to worry about this I would not want to use a cellular node which is so trivially linked to your account and physical location.
Then someone smarter than me wins the mining rewards.
A little under a trillion for BTC alone, all in.
>If it becomes risky, your options for converting Bitcoin into local currency will shrink correspondingly.
So it will basically shrink to fit black market demand. Bad for speculators, good for crims.
>Similarly, if you're in a climate where you need to worry about this I would not want to use a cellular node which is so trivially linked to your account and physical location.
Then someone smarter than me wins the mining rewards.
> >Bitcoin has no value beyond what someone is currently willing to pay for it.
> A little under a trillion for BTC alone, all in.
That’s not what we’re talking about, but it shows where your misunderstanding lies. The current value of a Bitcoin is what you can sell it for — there’s no intrinsic value and while Bitcoin is a fiat currency it’s much weaker than anything else because there isn’t any sort of guaranteed demand created by things like the need to pay taxes or handle government contracts. If 1 BTC is $10,000 today, it could be $5,000 or $50,000 tomorrow based solely on how much someone is willing to give you at that time. That’s why it’s so volatile historically and one of two reasons why it’s not widely used other than for speculation — no business wants unpredictable spikes in the difference between what they paid for their inputs and what they receive from their customers.
This is important to understand because what you’re doing is tossing out a big number by multiplying all of the coins by the recent hard currency exchange rate. That’s not accurate, however, unless you know that there are buyers collectively sitting on $1T USD willing to buy all of those Bitcoins. If I buy one Bitcoin for $1M that does not mean that the value of everyone else’s Bitcoins suddenly changed because nobody else is crazy enough to overpay by that much. Similarly, if I think the bubble is popping and start selling, I may not find a buyer if many people decide to wait and see — and since very few people need Bitcoin, there isn’t any pressure to push them off of the fence like there is with a fiat currency backed by a sovereign state.
> So it will basically shrink to fit black market demand. Bad for speculators, good for crims.
Not good for them if they can’t convert into the things they want to buy, and it’s especially risky to leave a signed transaction log for the police when there’s little legal traffic to hide in.
> A little under a trillion for BTC alone, all in.
That’s not what we’re talking about, but it shows where your misunderstanding lies. The current value of a Bitcoin is what you can sell it for — there’s no intrinsic value and while Bitcoin is a fiat currency it’s much weaker than anything else because there isn’t any sort of guaranteed demand created by things like the need to pay taxes or handle government contracts. If 1 BTC is $10,000 today, it could be $5,000 or $50,000 tomorrow based solely on how much someone is willing to give you at that time. That’s why it’s so volatile historically and one of two reasons why it’s not widely used other than for speculation — no business wants unpredictable spikes in the difference between what they paid for their inputs and what they receive from their customers.
This is important to understand because what you’re doing is tossing out a big number by multiplying all of the coins by the recent hard currency exchange rate. That’s not accurate, however, unless you know that there are buyers collectively sitting on $1T USD willing to buy all of those Bitcoins. If I buy one Bitcoin for $1M that does not mean that the value of everyone else’s Bitcoins suddenly changed because nobody else is crazy enough to overpay by that much. Similarly, if I think the bubble is popping and start selling, I may not find a buyer if many people decide to wait and see — and since very few people need Bitcoin, there isn’t any pressure to push them off of the fence like there is with a fiat currency backed by a sovereign state.
> So it will basically shrink to fit black market demand. Bad for speculators, good for crims.
Not good for them if they can’t convert into the things they want to buy, and it’s especially risky to leave a signed transaction log for the police when there’s little legal traffic to hide in.
So short bitcoin, if you think it's worth nothing. Good luck, acdha. We're both saying it's worth whatever people are willing to pay for it, I'm just acknowledging that happens to be quite a lot.
>but it shows where your misunderstanding lies
I understand market cap is different than the current volume buyers will buy at this moment. You've basically just provided an essay on what market cap is. There's no misunderstanding. Is this supposed to disprove the gigantic valuation assigned to bitcoin?
>Not good for them if they can’t convert into the things they want to buy, and it’s especially risky to leave a signed transaction log for the police when there’s little legal traffic to hide in.
This is why most black markets now use Monero or similar privacy coins. If a currency will buy drugs, then it will always be able to buy money since drugs are worth money.
>but it shows where your misunderstanding lies
I understand market cap is different than the current volume buyers will buy at this moment. You've basically just provided an essay on what market cap is. There's no misunderstanding. Is this supposed to disprove the gigantic valuation assigned to bitcoin?
>Not good for them if they can’t convert into the things they want to buy, and it’s especially risky to leave a signed transaction log for the police when there’s little legal traffic to hide in.
This is why most black markets now use Monero or similar privacy coins. If a currency will buy drugs, then it will always be able to buy money since drugs are worth money.
You don’t need nodes hosted in your jurisdiction to use the network though, so preventing running nodes in one jurisdiction accomplishes very little.
Funny thing is, I've done Bitcoin transactions since then, and the transaction fees and confirmation times (which are the fees charged by and service provided by the miners) were pretty normal. So the Bitcoin network seems to have totally avoided the "unusable for any legitimate use" fate you predict, even though half the hashrate went offline over the course of a few weeks.
That’s why I put it in terms of how much they care. I’d be surprised if there is something on the Ethereum chain itself because it’d cost a small fortune but if there was, the authorities could easily require all companies to block access to those records, filter network traffic for all but the most determined users, etc. because it’s a complex always-on network system with a fair amount of volume.
The underlying problem here is discoverability. If I can find your content, so can the police. If sharing it is personally risky, most people won’t and they feel who do won’t for long. Censorship has never relied on absolutely preventing anyone from saying something prohibited — it’s always the potential for retroactive consequences. This is why successful movements have generally needed outside support, anonymous communications (e.g. printed samizdat which is most risky if they catch you when you’re actually in possession of it), or some kind of social network which is hard to infiltrate (family, religion, etc.).
The underlying problem here is discoverability. If I can find your content, so can the police. If sharing it is personally risky, most people won’t and they feel who do won’t for long. Censorship has never relied on absolutely preventing anyone from saying something prohibited — it’s always the potential for retroactive consequences. This is why successful movements have generally needed outside support, anonymous communications (e.g. printed samizdat which is most risky if they catch you when you’re actually in possession of it), or some kind of social network which is hard to infiltrate (family, religion, etc.).
I'm curious about what exactly a "small fortune" would be to post an image to the Bitcoin blockchain.
For example, the Bitcoin Whitepaper PDF was embedded into the blockchain as 20kb. Here's a link to the specific transaction, encoded as a transaction with 947 outputs that hold the data: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/54e48e5f5c656b26c3bca14a8c...
Looking at the record, this transaction cost 198724 bytes. https://btc.network/estimate suggests that a transaction with 198724 bytes would cost about $200.
Not bad! Anyone up for posting a picture of Tank Man to the blockchain for $200?
Ah I googled to check and -- of course it's already been done in 2017: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z4k73w/someone-put-the-tiana...
For example, the Bitcoin Whitepaper PDF was embedded into the blockchain as 20kb. Here's a link to the specific transaction, encoded as a transaction with 947 outputs that hold the data: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/54e48e5f5c656b26c3bca14a8c...
Looking at the record, this transaction cost 198724 bytes. https://btc.network/estimate suggests that a transaction with 198724 bytes would cost about $200.
Not bad! Anyone up for posting a picture of Tank Man to the blockchain for $200?
Ah I googled to check and -- of course it's already been done in 2017: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z4k73w/someone-put-the-tiana...
Heh, thanks for digging up a the current price. I guess the other point there would be that you don’t need a high-res video to get in trouble in many cases — an Uighur with a VGA-quality image is probably still toast if the police catch them.
Could the reasoning behind that not simply be that there is only finite resources to use so you want to target where you get the most effect for the least resource and “CP on blockchains” ends up way down in that priority list?
Let's say you use something like a striped raid on different nodes.
Node A contains the odd bytes for something copyrighted like "the love guru" those bytes by themselves aren't the copyrighted content and no one claims rights to them.
Node B has has the even ones.
Downloading either doesn't yield the copyrighted file, but on a person's own machine if they combine them it does.
Still illegal?
Node A contains the odd bytes for something copyrighted like "the love guru" those bytes by themselves aren't the copyrighted content and no one claims rights to them.
Node B has has the even ones.
Downloading either doesn't yield the copyrighted file, but on a person's own machine if they combine them it does.
Still illegal?
This is the question / thought experiment that the Owner-Free File System explored[0] (based on the XOR operation), and the legal / philosophical issues are discussed in the famous essay "What Colour are your bits?".[1]
An idea that is often missed in these discussions is that if you have two random-looking files which, when XORed together, produce an interesting file, it isn't clear which of the two source files were created by someone with access to the interesting file. For example, if you produce a sufficiently large random file, I can create another file which, when XORed with your file, implicates you in copyright infringement.
My non-expert conclusion is that unless a third party can prove which file was created first, there is no way of knowing who to prosecute, like having an eye witness trying to separate identical twins (which I believe has been a problem in court cases before). There is, however, the counter-argument that merely publishing large random-looking data files is evidence of a conspiracy to aid copyright infringement, although the same could be said of running a Tor node.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFFSystem
[1] https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
An idea that is often missed in these discussions is that if you have two random-looking files which, when XORed together, produce an interesting file, it isn't clear which of the two source files were created by someone with access to the interesting file. For example, if you produce a sufficiently large random file, I can create another file which, when XORed with your file, implicates you in copyright infringement.
My non-expert conclusion is that unless a third party can prove which file was created first, there is no way of knowing who to prosecute, like having an eye witness trying to separate identical twins (which I believe has been a problem in court cases before). There is, however, the counter-argument that merely publishing large random-looking data files is evidence of a conspiracy to aid copyright infringement, although the same could be said of running a Tor node.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFFSystem
[1] https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
Let's say instead of 'copyrighted file' it's CSAM material instead. Is it 'illegal'? Maybe you can convince a judge otherwise.... after your home has been raided, you've already done at least some time in jail where all the inmates know you've been arrested for CSAM, your friends & family know you've been arrested for that, that's what comes up under a Google search for your name for all time, thus making you unemployable.....
Yes, after spending $500k-1 million on a defense attorney, it's possible that you could convince a judge that that content isn't 'illegal', sure. (How many judges- average age over 60- can learn what a 'striped raid' is?) But none of those other consequences can be reversed, even if you 'win' at trial
Yes, after spending $500k-1 million on a defense attorney, it's possible that you could convince a judge that that content isn't 'illegal', sure. (How many judges- average age over 60- can learn what a 'striped raid' is?) But none of those other consequences can be reversed, even if you 'win' at trial
The system you're describing is a system in which random policemen can arbitrarily destroy the life and legacy of whoever they want. Such a system does already exist in many countries. It doesn't depend on people actually hosting decentralized communications facilities at all; police officers can do the same to anyone who refused them free accommodations at their hotel, or declined their offer of partnership in their nightclub venture. It's irrelevant whether there's any forbidden information actually being communicated, striped or otherwise.
In other places, there does exist a "rule of law" that limits such abuses to a significant degree.
In other places, there does exist a "rule of law" that limits such abuses to a significant degree.
> In other places, there does exist a "rule of law" that limits such abuses to a significant degree.
Yes — my original point was that this is what will protect you and that's what you want to focus on strengthening. If you don't have a reasonable civil society, technology is unlikely to help and the various ways to get it wrong mean that there's a substantial risk of false confidence.
Yes — my original point was that this is what will protect you and that's what you want to focus on strengthening. If you don't have a reasonable civil society, technology is unlikely to help and the various ways to get it wrong mean that there's a substantial risk of false confidence.
In places where some degree of rule of law exists, to the extent that that's at all compatible with some knowledge being forbidden, not actually having the forbidden knowledge yourself will also protect you.
What are the countries where you can interact with a blockchain that contains CSAM, but you can avoid charges by explaining in technical detail what a 'striped raid' is to the relevant authorities? Can you name these countries? My personal guess, no offense, is that they don't exist
Nobody has any idea, but so far almost all of the Freenet, IRC, and Usenet police raids have been on end-users who originated or used forbidden information, not people who merely ran a server. In most countries running a Tor bridge is safe, and in a smaller number of countries running a Tor exit node is relatively safe, although numerous end-users of Tor have been arrested for one or another crime.
Yes. What happens is that the FBI uses the system to download the illicit content and every IP they connect to gets a letter to their ISP demanding that they identify the customer.
When they show up at your door, you get to hope they believe you saying that you had no idea your system was hosting that content and/or that you never had the decryption key. If you say anything which a judge/jury believes untrue, that’s a federal crime in its own right.
Better hope that you don’t need any of the hardware they seized as evidence (possibly for years - see Steve Jackson Games), and that your employer doesn’t hear the news and sack you.
When they show up at your door, you get to hope they believe you saying that you had no idea your system was hosting that content and/or that you never had the decryption key. If you say anything which a judge/jury believes untrue, that’s a federal crime in its own right.
Better hope that you don’t need any of the hardware they seized as evidence (possibly for years - see Steve Jackson Games), and that your employer doesn’t hear the news and sack you.
Having copyrighted works isn't the inherently illegal part. It's the act of obtaining them outside the licensed methods and then holding them. At that point, according to some, is when it becomes theft.
Hosts with unknown blobs of bytes can, and have, been taken to task by various authorities.
Maybe it's grey-area but looks more towards the illegal side to me.
Not a lawyer.
Hosts with unknown blobs of bytes can, and have, been taken to task by various authorities.
Maybe it's grey-area but looks more towards the illegal side to me.
Not a lawyer.
I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think the law is as interested in pedantic "you're technically correct" loopholes as HN is.
Yes. The law isn't naive and seeing content A appear when using innocent content B as a key is beyond a reasonable doubt.
Handshake has been co-opted by the same person who took over Freenode. That handshake has become toxic should come at no surprise.
I feel for this dev, I had a similarly unpleasant experience with the Aragon team and decided the community was not for me.
I feel for this dev, I had a similarly unpleasant experience with the Aragon team and decided the community was not for me.
If we're talking about the same person, he was the only one who actually encouraged what I was doing and even gave me the idea for Zooko.
However, the admins on their discord, were less than encouraging.
EDIT: As per the same person's advice, I'm going to start a new discord community without the toxicity.
However, the admins on their discord, were less than encouraging.
EDIT: As per the same person's advice, I'm going to start a new discord community without the toxicity.
Have you talked to Zooko about using his name for your project? He might not appreciate you trading on his reputation this way, particularly if your designs or implementations turn out to be fundamentally flawed.
Indeed - the developer here could ask Zooko, & be open to consider other names that convey homage & inspirations without wholesale endorsement. (1st thing that comes to mind: 'Zooter', combining suggestive fragments of 'zooko' & 'twitter'.)
Even cypherpunks soured on conventional IP often believe in folk trademarks, enforced by the reputational pressures to not mislead.
Even cypherpunks soured on conventional IP often believe in folk trademarks, enforced by the reputational pressures to not mislead.
I e-mailed him about it days ago.
By the way, are you familiar with Zooko's triangle?
By the way, are you familiar with Zooko's triangle?
Are you joking? You emailed him and then launched your project with his name on it without waiting for a reply?
The dude doesn't own the name Zooko just 'cause his parents named that, if he has a problem with it the dev can remove the part of the README that mentions it's named in honor of him. That doesn't mean this Zooko person (my first time hearing of him) can demand or should demand the name of the project change.
My 2 cents but you seem a bit too incredulous over it.
My 2 cents but you seem a bit too incredulous over it.
Why are you commenting here if you don't know who Zooko is? That's like commenting on US history without knowing that the US is a country. How could your opinion possibly add anything of value?
Oh and yes obviously I'm familiar with Zooko's triangle.
I walked away from the crypto community at large, highly recommended. There are many more meaningful things to put you talents towards.
Anyone interested in this field should also check out Freenet, a distributed, encrypted and censor-resistant platform that's been around for 20 years.
https://freenetproject.org/
https://freenetproject.org/
I think this is the most interesting part:
https://github.com/publiusfederalist/why-i-quit-handshake
https://github.com/publiusfederalist/why-i-quit-handshake
I've decided to begin my own community. Those toxic admins can't control the blockchain.
Unless there's some conversation not shown here, it reads to me like they are using "garbage" to refer to random contents of people's messages and/or posts (and saying that the whitepaper is not garbage, as opposed to random messages and posts, which are not "useful" on chain). I don't think they meant to call your project garbage, just that it adds garbage to the chain.
It's been an on-going conversation that's been going on a few days.
Huh?! No one controls the blockchain.
I guess this is addressed to whoever lives in the crypto bubble. I don't understand what a handshake is, why it passes dns records and if it can be used to publish twitter like messages who is going to read them and how.
Also from the little i know about this current fad:
If you're attaching your tweets to a blockchain and 5 million users do that a couple times daily, how long till said blockchain becomes unmanageably large? Do they plan to truncate it so older tweets are lost?
Also from the little i know about this current fad:
If you're attaching your tweets to a blockchain and 5 million users do that a couple times daily, how long till said blockchain becomes unmanageably large? Do they plan to truncate it so older tweets are lost?
Handshake is a blockchain which wants to replace existing DNS registration system. So when you want to look up example.com, instead of consulting IANA's database for "who owns .com", you consult the Handshake's blockchain.
The zooko system uses a "hack": since, this is blockchain, there is entire past history on the chain. So you can keep repeatedly updating a random field (like a TXT entry for some domain) and use equivalent of "git log" to read the entire timeline.
This will need a special client, which will parse blockchain for such updates, but everything on blockchain needs a special client, so not a big deal.
Re "5 million users" -- this is a very good point, and yes, if this takes off this will be significant problem for Handshake blockchain. I suspect this is the core of disagreement between Zooko's author and designers of the Handshake blockchain ([0]).
From the point of Handshake authors, Zooko system uses blockchain resources, but does not help with main mission (make Handshake team super rich by taking over existing DNS system).
From the point of "publiush", there is this Handshake blockchain which has authentication solved, and it can be used for all sorts of fun stuff. The fact that this was not original intent just makes it more fun and exciting.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29912944
The zooko system uses a "hack": since, this is blockchain, there is entire past history on the chain. So you can keep repeatedly updating a random field (like a TXT entry for some domain) and use equivalent of "git log" to read the entire timeline.
This will need a special client, which will parse blockchain for such updates, but everything on blockchain needs a special client, so not a big deal.
Re "5 million users" -- this is a very good point, and yes, if this takes off this will be significant problem for Handshake blockchain. I suspect this is the core of disagreement between Zooko's author and designers of the Handshake blockchain ([0]).
From the point of Handshake authors, Zooko system uses blockchain resources, but does not help with main mission (make Handshake team super rich by taking over existing DNS system).
From the point of "publiush", there is this Handshake blockchain which has authentication solved, and it can be used for all sorts of fun stuff. The fact that this was not original intent just makes it more fun and exciting.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29912944
> From the point of Handshake authors, Zooko system uses blockchain resources, but does not help with main mission (make Handshake team super rich by taking over existing DNS system).
Actually, I gave the idea to publius for this as he had mentioned. I'm myself excited by the no-censor DNS root system, but I'm passionate about the ownership of your own 'namespace' generically much more so than the DNS. That's why I made a pull request [1] to Bob Extension for example which later enabled publius (in his own words) to make applause [2].
I did also see what happened between publius and the admins of that discord, which is just another Handshake discord as there is no official Handshake discord, and I don't agree with what happened either to be fair. Political discussions can occur in much more mature ways on both ends of the spectrum.
[1] https://github.com/kyokan/bob-extension/pull/15
[2] https://github.com/publiusfederalist/applause (very cool)
Actually, I gave the idea to publius for this as he had mentioned. I'm myself excited by the no-censor DNS root system, but I'm passionate about the ownership of your own 'namespace' generically much more so than the DNS. That's why I made a pull request [1] to Bob Extension for example which later enabled publius (in his own words) to make applause [2].
I did also see what happened between publius and the admins of that discord, which is just another Handshake discord as there is no official Handshake discord, and I don't agree with what happened either to be fair. Political discussions can occur in much more mature ways on both ends of the spectrum.
[1] https://github.com/kyokan/bob-extension/pull/15
[2] https://github.com/publiusfederalist/applause (very cool)
Handshake is a blockchain based alternative for ICANN. DNS resolvers still work the same, and HNS could play nice with ICANN, but largely seem to want to replace it rather than be peers with it.
The general idea is that you can do some pretty interesting things with DNS records beyond domain name lookup and verification.
The general idea is that you can do some pretty interesting things with DNS records beyond domain name lookup and verification.
I could attach TXT records to my own domain and publish "tweets" like that couldn't I?
That's roughly how people used to use Unix .plan files, with finger being a convenient way to check out what someone else was up to.
Which reminds me of a story. At Google in the mid-2000s, we used a corporate version of Google Chat, embedded in Gmail, much as it is today. One key difference in the UI was that your status appeared as text right below your name in other people's contact lists. Your status could be active, idle, away, or any freeform text that you set it to. The status lines in the contacts list updated in real time (ordinary today but remarkable back then). So people figured out that they could have an odd kind of one-to-many chat conversation by frequently updating their statuses. Not everyone was in everyone else's contacts list, so it was actually one-to-who-knows-how-many. And people used it accordingly, as if they were shouting stuff in a large room -- "does anyone know what's for lunch today?" "I heard it's lasagna" "beef or vegetarian?" etc.
Anyway, Evan Williams worked at Google back then, and I assume he saw these ephemeral messages flickering across his screen, same as I did. I wonder whether that planted the seed for Twitter.
Which reminds me of a story. At Google in the mid-2000s, we used a corporate version of Google Chat, embedded in Gmail, much as it is today. One key difference in the UI was that your status appeared as text right below your name in other people's contact lists. Your status could be active, idle, away, or any freeform text that you set it to. The status lines in the contacts list updated in real time (ordinary today but remarkable back then). So people figured out that they could have an odd kind of one-to-many chat conversation by frequently updating their statuses. Not everyone was in everyone else's contacts list, so it was actually one-to-who-knows-how-many. And people used it accordingly, as if they were shouting stuff in a large room -- "does anyone know what's for lunch today?" "I heard it's lasagna" "beef or vegetarian?" etc.
Anyway, Evan Williams worked at Google back then, and I assume he saw these ephemeral messages flickering across his screen, same as I did. I wonder whether that planted the seed for Twitter.
That's a neat story that highlights the hacker mindset and what's cool about this little Handshake hack. Sure, it seems useless in a way, who cares about sharing a few characters on a blockchain or finding out what's for lunch. But there's something novel in it that sparks ideas.
> That's roughly how people used to use Unix .plan files, with finger being a convenient way to check out what someone else was up to.
I wanted to mention Carmack's .plan but I thought it's too old for blockchain...
I wanted to mention Carmack's .plan but I thought it's too old for blockchain...
Yes, but as the author points out, these can be blocked.
Typically one sets up their handshake node with a DNS resolver to serve records, so in theory, if everyone used handshake node ups for DNS, this could be uncensorable
Typically one sets up their handshake node with a DNS resolver to serve records, so in theory, if everyone used handshake node ups for DNS, this could be uncensorable
Ah an immutable blog! A feature literally no one wants and no one has asked for!
Maybe not directly, but I actually see plenty of complaints about link rot and news publications silently editing or removing old articles.
Nothing about "put it on a blockchain" helps that.
If you are actually putting the page contents onto the blockchain, you have basically constructed an append-only, replicated database. Which will almost certainly become unmanageably large over time. (Why would a user want to maintain a local archive of this content? There's no incentive for them to keep it on their machine, aside from wanting a copy of the content for themselves, which they could achieve in any number of other ways. Like just... saving it to disk.)
If you aren't actually putting the content into the blockchain itself, but are really just storing a URL that points to the content, you haven't solved the linkrot problem at all. You've just created a very roundabout way to send people URLs. You could put something like a PURL in there, or a DOI, but that just moves the problem around. Again, the blockchain isn't solving anything.
Here's an easier solution, if you want to try and ensure the availability of a piece of content into the future: strip it down to its most minimal, plaintext version, and post that to a well-known (and subject-appropriate) Usenet group. It will immediately be archived in several places across the world, which have a pretty good track record of keeping ahead of the flow of incoming content and keeping it available. No, you don't get a guaranteed URL, but the Message-ID is a very unique search string that can be used later on to find it.
If you are actually putting the page contents onto the blockchain, you have basically constructed an append-only, replicated database. Which will almost certainly become unmanageably large over time. (Why would a user want to maintain a local archive of this content? There's no incentive for them to keep it on their machine, aside from wanting a copy of the content for themselves, which they could achieve in any number of other ways. Like just... saving it to disk.)
If you aren't actually putting the content into the blockchain itself, but are really just storing a URL that points to the content, you haven't solved the linkrot problem at all. You've just created a very roundabout way to send people URLs. You could put something like a PURL in there, or a DOI, but that just moves the problem around. Again, the blockchain isn't solving anything.
Here's an easier solution, if you want to try and ensure the availability of a piece of content into the future: strip it down to its most minimal, plaintext version, and post that to a well-known (and subject-appropriate) Usenet group. It will immediately be archived in several places across the world, which have a pretty good track record of keeping ahead of the flow of incoming content and keeping it available. No, you don't get a guaranteed URL, but the Message-ID is a very unique search string that can be used later on to find it.
You are arguing against a point I didn't make, but I do want to clarify the problem a little bit more since it is pretty interesting. I agree that storing images or even articles on a blockchain does not scale; that level of data redundancy is a humongous waste for something like a tweet.
There's two issues at play here, immutability and availability. Immutability is not too hard to solve with a blockchain. You can hash pretty much any piece of digital content, store the hash on-chain, and prove that the content (hosted elsewhere) is identical to the original content (assuming the chain is not susceptible to massive block re orgs).
Availability is trickier. There are blockchain-related projects that claim to solve it in a decentralized manner by incentivizing a group of nodes to store it, and then periodically submit proofs that they have it stored, but I'm pretty fuzzy on the details there.
edit: Want to make it clear that I don't think blockchains are the only potential solution to these immutability and availability problems. That being said I'm pretty optimistic that crypto can solve these problems in a decentralized way, sounds like you feel the opposite, but let's try to not let it devolve into the stereotypical HN crypto flame war..
There's two issues at play here, immutability and availability. Immutability is not too hard to solve with a blockchain. You can hash pretty much any piece of digital content, store the hash on-chain, and prove that the content (hosted elsewhere) is identical to the original content (assuming the chain is not susceptible to massive block re orgs).
Availability is trickier. There are blockchain-related projects that claim to solve it in a decentralized manner by incentivizing a group of nodes to store it, and then periodically submit proofs that they have it stored, but I'm pretty fuzzy on the details there.
edit: Want to make it clear that I don't think blockchains are the only potential solution to these immutability and availability problems. That being said I'm pretty optimistic that crypto can solve these problems in a decentralized way, sounds like you feel the opposite, but let's try to not let it devolve into the stereotypical HN crypto flame war..
> Why would a user want to maintain a local archive of this content?
When I think of all the things that once existed and have now vanished forever for all sorts of reasons it is very appealing to imagine having a local archive.
When I think of all the things that once existed and have now vanished forever for all sorts of reasons it is very appealing to imagine having a local archive.
While at the same time, people are still receiving consequences after the discovery of things they said and did a long time ago. What a world!
> Ah an immutable blog! A feature literally no one wants and no one has asked for!
Must be the solution to some important problem, then! Let's try to apply it everywhere and strongly insist that it's the future.
Must be the solution to some important problem, then! Let's try to apply it everywhere and strongly insist that it's the future.
ummm. government censorship is real
So are laws like the Right to be Forgotten. [0]
Which, as soon as one of them is violated, the entire system will be torn down to stop it.
[0] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1562/right-to-be-fo...
Which, as soon as one of them is violated, the entire system will be torn down to stop it.
[0] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1562/right-to-be-fo...
Sure, just like laws against mind-altering drugs have erased them from society.
As your link notes, there is no "right to be forgotten" in the US, & any attempt to bootstrap one would seem to require a partial repeal of the still-mostly-popular 1st Amendment.
A hilarious collision between US standards of free speech (& its implied right-to-remember) with the EU's 'right to be forgotten' can be seen in this NYT story about two convicted German murderers, Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber, who sued Wikipedia. The closing paragraph, especially, gave me an audible chuckle when I first read it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/13wiki.html
As your link notes, there is no "right to be forgotten" in the US, & any attempt to bootstrap one would seem to require a partial repeal of the still-mostly-popular 1st Amendment.
A hilarious collision between US standards of free speech (& its implied right-to-remember) with the EU's 'right to be forgotten' can be seen in this NYT story about two convicted German murderers, Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber, who sued Wikipedia. The closing paragraph, especially, gave me an audible chuckle when I first read it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/13wiki.html
There's a clear kind of "ubergovernment" tone in the responses to this thread that assumes governments are an omnipotent force. Is there a name for this, or is it common in discussions about blockchain? I suppose it's simply the other side of the coin on "uncensorable". To me the better argument against this is "no one will want to use it" vs "it's impossible to beat the government"
> Zooko was named after Zooko Wilcox O'Hearn, one of the few remaining, original, Cypherpunks.
It's super weird to name a project after someone who's not dead, and in this case not even that old (Wikipedia says he's 47).
It's super weird to name a project after someone who's not dead, and in this case not even that old (Wikipedia says he's 47).
It's extra weird when you know Zooko. One of his kids shared a kindergarten class with my oldest and I used to hang out with him.
Clicked on this to see if it was something he'd done.
Clicked on this to see if it was something he'd done.
And most importantly, seemingly not involved in the project at all.
No; but quite involved in running another blockchain...
Right...but the issue is that this project is trading on his extremely unique nickname and reputation. It's nice that is inspired by him, and maybe it is the case that he would agree with its purpose and direction (or maybe he wouldn't, I have no idea). But what happens if down the line it goes in a direction he doesn't agree with?
It's not weird (is there anything wrong with being weird?), but if it's done without his consent, it's bad.
Since it isn't really clear, Handshake protocol is an attempt to create an alternative DNS without authoritative root name servers, where instead users auction names priced in Handshake coins, the initial bulk of which were gifted to various FOSS developers and organizations to try and keep rich people from hoarding everything. Instead of querying root servers for TLDs, you query a blockchain to get the records.
This guy figured out you can stuff Tweets into DNS TXT records, and chose to do it on Handshake DNS instead of regular DNS, since this one is on a blockchain, which I guess means even when a name record is sold to someone else and the current record is changed, the old record is still there in the blockchain history, so you can now never delete or edit a Tweet.
This guy figured out you can stuff Tweets into DNS TXT records, and chose to do it on Handshake DNS instead of regular DNS, since this one is on a blockchain, which I guess means even when a name record is sold to someone else and the current record is changed, the old record is still there in the blockchain history, so you can now never delete or edit a Tweet.
I stopped reading after
"Handshake is an incredibly secure blockchain. While many other chains are easy to abuse, Handshake is not one of them."
The claim that Handshake isn't easy to abuse lacks proof.
"Handshake is an incredibly secure blockchain. While many other chains are easy to abuse, Handshake is not one of them."
The claim that Handshake isn't easy to abuse lacks proof.
"Uncensorable" if all nodes go down it's down. It's like that torrent/magnet you really want to have but it's at 0/0.
Recent and presumably related:
Show HN: Decentralized, Mutable, Serverless Torrent Swarm Websites - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29513547 - Dec 2021 (186 comments)
Show HN: Decentralized, Mutable, Serverless Torrent Swarm Websites - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29513547 - Dec 2021 (186 comments)
I'm excited to try this out, I was toying with the idea of creating something similar.
I see a strong need for a microblogging framework where users have control of their data. Mastadon is great, but I think Zooko goes farther in the right direction.
I see a strong need for a microblogging framework where users have control of their data. Mastadon is great, but I think Zooko goes farther in the right direction.
This seems like a different definition of "control"- sure, your posts can't be deleted by anyone else, but they can't be deleted or edited by you. They are preserved and public forever.
I'm not sure that's what people think of when they think of having control of their data?
I'm not sure that's what people think of when they think of having control of their data?
Seems analogous to the discussion of which licensing type gives the developer more freedom: GPL or BSD. The answer depends on how you define freedom.
Yes, like it or not that's practically how the internet works.
You don't believe Facebook actually deletes your messages, do you?
You don't believe Facebook actually deletes your messages, do you?
Right. But that's what I mean by this thing not giving you "control over your data."
If I post something on Facebook and regret it, I have some control over it- sure, I can't delete it off Facebook's internal tape archives, but that's really going to be one of a handful of places it will stick around after I delete it.
If I embed something in plaintext on a blockchain it will be public, to everyone, forever. This seems like having less control, or at least no more control.
If I post something on Facebook and regret it, I have some control over it- sure, I can't delete it off Facebook's internal tape archives, but that's really going to be one of a handful of places it will stick around after I delete it.
If I embed something in plaintext on a blockchain it will be public, to everyone, forever. This seems like having less control, or at least no more control.
Interesting point about what "control" means. If I can put up a message that can never be taken down, is that control?
The case here is "yes", that's a certain type of control: the ability to put something up and never take it down. Kind of permissions on a disk where you can only write subsequent files but no one (including you) can delete old files. That is more control compared to someone who can write files but an admin can delete them.
The case here is "yes", that's a certain type of control: the ability to put something up and never take it down. Kind of permissions on a disk where you can only write subsequent files but no one (including you) can delete old files. That is more control compared to someone who can write files but an admin can delete them.
But still, publish and lost control. No one has control now even the author.
Edit: my point is that it is control-less environment. So it is not answer to "where users do not have control of their data" problem.
Edit: my point is that it is control-less environment. So it is not answer to "where users do not have control of their data" problem.
If the solution that the blockchain offers is "oh, all your data is irreversibly public forever", then that's not a solution to the problem as commonly understood. For example, wikipedia describes the European GDPR like this: "The GDPR's primary aim is to enhance individuals' control and rights over their personal data" (emphasis mine).
If the GDPR (which regulates stuff around controlling who can even hold and retain data) is generally considered an attempt to enhance personal control over data, it seems to be using a totally different definition of control than one where it means "it's irreversibly public forever." A lot of blockchain projects seem to sell "control over data" when they mean the latter but allow people to believe it's the former.
If the GDPR (which regulates stuff around controlling who can even hold and retain data) is generally considered an attempt to enhance personal control over data, it seems to be using a totally different definition of control than one where it means "it's irreversibly public forever." A lot of blockchain projects seem to sell "control over data" when they mean the latter but allow people to believe it's the former.
Well said! I like how you spelled that out. "There are different elements of control, what's important for humans?"
This is a neat hack. I've always been curious about these type of "publish right on the block" schemes like the picture of Len Sassman or the Bitcoin whitepaper.
Bitcoin addresses are up to 35 characters, so you could think about doing something like this on the Bitcoin chain as well. Example: "zooko:hi hackernews".
In this case, my understanding is they're updating the TXT record of your Handshake address (at least that's how it could work on ENS, but that's on the Ethereum blockchain) rather than the block itself.
Has anyone had a chance to test it out?
Bitcoin addresses are up to 35 characters, so you could think about doing something like this on the Bitcoin chain as well. Example: "zooko:hi hackernews".
In this case, my understanding is they're updating the TXT record of your Handshake address (at least that's how it could work on ENS, but that's on the Ethereum blockchain) rather than the block itself.
Has anyone had a chance to test it out?
I don’t understand the popularity of immutability and uncensor- ability.
What if someone posts naked photos of their girlfriend on this?
Furthermore it says you can block access to the chain completely do it doesn’t even do what it claims.
What if someone posts naked photos of their girlfriend on this?
Furthermore it says you can block access to the chain completely do it doesn’t even do what it claims.
Every technology has pros and cons. The pro here is that some blog about corruption can't be knocked offline by some government authority lest they block the entire network, which would be a problem if any businesses use such a decentralized network for their own means. The con is that everything is immutable and unchangeable, and that has consequences - for reference, despite that the story about CP being on Bitcoin is false[0], it's definitely possible if anyone ever wanted to spend a few hundred thousands in gas fees to store an arbitrary jpeg on ethereum.
0: https://news.bitcoin.com/no-isnt-child-porn-bitcoin-blockcha...
0: https://news.bitcoin.com/no-isnt-child-porn-bitcoin-blockcha...
> The pro here is that some blog about corruption can't be knocked offline by some government authority lest they block the entire network...
Let's not kid ourselves with the idea that's even likely to happen. The main use case of stuff like this is for people to say stuff that would get them banned on Twitter, and most of that consists of being an asshole or spreading lies.
The blog about corruption will be put up on real Twitter, where the eyeballs are, and preserved by getting scraped by some organization like the Archive Team and uploaded to the Internet Archive.
Let's not kid ourselves with the idea that's even likely to happen. The main use case of stuff like this is for people to say stuff that would get them banned on Twitter, and most of that consists of being an asshole or spreading lies.
The blog about corruption will be put up on real Twitter, where the eyeballs are, and preserved by getting scraped by some organization like the Archive Team and uploaded to the Internet Archive.
some people believe information should be free, period.
There's am argument to be made that the drawbacks of revenge porn are outweighed by the benefits of free access to information.
There's am argument to be made that the drawbacks of revenge porn are outweighed by the benefits of free access to information.
> some people believe information should be free, period.
There is nothing wrong believing some ideology.
However, enforcing your beliefs without caring about consequences is called extremism.
You can believe information must be free but acknowledge that it don’t include revenge porn. Or you can act like it doesn’t matter but then, you are a danger for the society.
There is nothing wrong believing some ideology.
However, enforcing your beliefs without caring about consequences is called extremism.
You can believe information must be free but acknowledge that it don’t include revenge porn. Or you can act like it doesn’t matter but then, you are a danger for the society.
Dystopia is created when context and adaptation is not considered while implementing the Utopia.
you don't need this to have free access to info tho.
I was thinking about the children™, personally. I wouldn't touch this technology with a 10 foot pole.
Maybe all these projects that have typical Discord chats talking about blockchains, DAOs, NFTs, etc are full of kids given that some users can get easily upset and hate your pet project and they don't give any reasons other than character attacks. I always see this when someone attaches their own identity to a technology or project that once someone criticises the project (but not you directly) they feel 'personally attacked'.
Unfortunately they gave reasons and that is somehow toxic? At the end of the day, if you cannot prove them wrong with a counter argument, then it is difficult to side with the merits of this project. I don't see any character attacks on the user from the project devs.
In fact it is the other way round, and by quitting they seem to have 'won'.
Unfortunately they gave reasons and that is somehow toxic? At the end of the day, if you cannot prove them wrong with a counter argument, then it is difficult to side with the merits of this project. I don't see any character attacks on the user from the project devs.
In fact it is the other way round, and by quitting they seem to have 'won'.
> These children remind of me of Lord of the Flies.
I think most people in blockchain Discord "servers" are actually children. There are no other forums that I go to, where I get the same palpable feeling that I'm talking to teenagers. It's odd.
I think most people in blockchain Discord "servers" are actually children. There are no other forums that I go to, where I get the same palpable feeling that I'm talking to teenagers. It's odd.
A lot of dopey young people who have medium-sized inheritances/trust funds that they're gambling with in the hope that they'll never have to work, mixed with overpaid tech workers fresh out of college hoping to buy Bay Area homes.
possibly adults who have not matured intellectually beyond teen levels.
People keep using immutable like it’s a good thing. Any of y’all who still want to fully stand by the things you said, did, and thought 20 years ago might need to reflect a bit.
How much does this cost to use yourself as it is on a blockchain?
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Naming this after Zooko is a nice hat tip. I remember back when he was interleaving his last names to form O'Whielacronx.
I understand the very basics of blockchain technology, but I guess I'm missing some context or background that would allow me to make the mental connection between "blockchain" and "unblockable microblog". Does anyone have a good pointer to something that would explain this more in-depth/like I'm 5?
Eventually a company providing a UI layer will be the central access point for all the content coming from the block chain. The central point will then be able to censor posts. This is no different from OpenSea, or Coinbase.
My guess is that because blockchain is decentralized, in theory nobody could censor or block it, because nobody “controls” the blockchain.
Compared with any modern social media site which is mutable and controlled by an organization who gets to police content
Edit: a good example of this is that folks have put malicious content into the various blockchains (ascii images of child harm material, or strings of data that trigger antivirus). You can’t stop it being added, and once it’s there you cannot remove it.
Compared with any modern social media site which is mutable and controlled by an organization who gets to police content
Edit: a good example of this is that folks have put malicious content into the various blockchains (ascii images of child harm material, or strings of data that trigger antivirus). You can’t stop it being added, and once it’s there you cannot remove it.
> You can’t stop it being added
It really depends what you mean by “you”, of course I can't, but miners can since they are the one actively adding stuff to the chain. In fact, they may even be legally responsible for what they add to a blockchain (IANAL though), and since miners are physical entities most of whom have a publicly known IP address, it may even be realistically enforceable.
It really depends what you mean by “you”, of course I can't, but miners can since they are the one actively adding stuff to the chain. In fact, they may even be legally responsible for what they add to a blockchain (IANAL though), and since miners are physical entities most of whom have a publicly known IP address, it may even be realistically enforceable.
I think it's embedding posts directly into the chain, so if you can sync the chain then you can access everyone's posts. Since these posts are cryptographically embedded in the chain you can't block any of them without blocking access to the entire chain, or attacking the chain and rewriting history.
Thanks, this was the piece I was missing. Their comment about using a chain that is too popular to easily block makes more sense now, but that still seems like the weak link, right? You're still depending on authority figures being too afraid of opinion to take action against a particular chain.
i wonder how the handshake protocol compares with the hypercore protocol or scuttlebut and if there are other similar suitable protocols for social media. for example iris.to uses hypercore https://hypercore-protocol.org/
Something I always like to figure out in any decentralized system
is where it is stored.
Here it is stored on a blockchain. (yay) But where is this actually stored?
Is it expected that N users will store it for everyone else?
Will everyone have a copy of the entire thing?
If this were to become popular I presume it would grow pretty big.
Here it is stored on a blockchain. (yay) But where is this actually stored?
Is it expected that N users will store it for everyone else?
Will everyone have a copy of the entire thing?
If this were to become popular I presume it would grow pretty big.
So you pay to post, otherwise who will pay miners to post blocks? That will surely disincentivize too much posting and solve inherent scalability issues. This service is a no go.
This already exists. It's called Usenet.
Oh dear. Another allegedly censorship resistant platform, and where do they put their code? On the most censored and censorable place possible, github. It's just one DMCA complaint away from being taken down, or Microsoft may decide to just lock out some or all of the developers.
There you go.
It is no wonder that these projects that claim to be 'decentralised' still relying on using centralised services like Discord, GitHub, Etherscan, Coinmarketcap, Coinbase, Binance and Twitter, and they scream about 'web3'. Whatever that means.
On your point towards Github there is a solution and that is to self-host the source code via using something like GitLab, cgit, gerrit, etc in which many free and open source projects already do this.
It is no wonder that these projects that claim to be 'decentralised' still relying on using centralised services like Discord, GitHub, Etherscan, Coinmarketcap, Coinbase, Binance and Twitter, and they scream about 'web3'. Whatever that means.
On your point towards Github there is a solution and that is to self-host the source code via using something like GitLab, cgit, gerrit, etc in which many free and open source projects already do this.
Exactly. The platform is only as decentralized as the codebase. Most people are going to blindly download and run whatever the developers put out. Decentralization and immutability are illusions. See: Ethereum DAO fork.
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Nothing stops a developer from putting their code elsewhere, should it be taken off github.
Choosing a different host than GitHub to begin with is basically self-censorship (as fewer will see it).
Choosing a different host than GitHub to begin with is basically self-censorship (as fewer will see it).
The underlying mistake is thinking about this like a game where you can make up rules for the government to follow. What actually happens is one of two paths:
1. You’re outside their jurisdiction, so anything will work because your local police don’t care. Maybe you have to avoid traveling to certain places or doing business with certain companies but you can almost certainly live a full life with minimal impact unless you’re doing something like leaking the secrets of a drug cartel or Russian oligarch.
2. You’re subject to their authority, which gives them a rich suite of tools ranging from arresting you, having ISPs filter DNS or network connections, launching denial of service attacks on your infrastructure, etc. How much effort they’ll expend depends on exactly what you’re doing and how authoritarian the government is, not the technology.