Real talk. IF there’s even one CP in opreturn, what would you do with your node?
You can bluster all you want about “fuck the State”, but there is no reality, even in the most anarcho-capitalistic, stateless society where possession isn’t illegal. Ancapistan still has “laws”.
I'm not having that shit on my node legal or not. I'll participate in the network so long as I agree with rules. I'm not relaying monkey butts but will tolerate them in the chain for the short term while the market plays out. We need to stop changing the damn code, the barrier to change is far too low.
Bitcoin is and has been used to pay for much CSAM and much worse CSA but we all still use it as money. Unfortunately reality, but it’s outside of my dichotomy of control.
If someone adds CSAM to an OP_RETURN that gets hashed that event is completely out of everyone’s control (minus the person who submitted the tx) and has nothing to do with bitcoin or me. CSAM can be hashed on-chain without an expanded OP_RETURN as well in many different ways and some say it has already happened, though I haven’t seen proof either way.
I will continue to run my node and use bitcoin as I see fit and remain stoic in the face of propaganda and attacks.
What I’m looking for is if there’s any legal liability distinction between how it’s been put on chain in the past vs in opreturn.
For what it’s worth, Adam Back has said there is solid legal precedent with TOR exit nodes and file sharing services that there is an established legal basis (in the U.S.) that would protect node runners of a public system in the event of CSAM on chain.
It is quite easily provable that a transaction and any data contained therein was submitted by a single entity and that all data hashed to the Bitcoin timechain is propagated to every node in perpetuity after submission and inclusion in a block. Demonstrably how the bitcoin protocol functions and easy to prove.
Nothing you said is an argument for a totally unasked-for 12000x increase in allowable data.
That’s a different conversation.
Every society you’re in will also have other illegal content, just differing depending on the society’s politics. Pornographic (non-CSAM) and anti-religious content in right-leaning societies, 3D-printed gun CAD and “misinformation” in left-leaning ones. My plan is to just run my node and forward transactions regardless of content people say is there. 🤷‍♂️
The difference is that there is no and never will be a society that will ever deem CP as legal.
Correct, but it’s also extremely unlikely that there will ever be a society where only CP is banned illegal digital content. There will always be politically-motivated content bans as well.
True, but we can just prevent (almost) all data storage in Bitcoin and then we don't need to discriminate.
All I see is arbitrary characters. It requires software to decode what is in your node.
What if I built software that used existing chain data to construct nothing but cp? Would you blame the chain or the software I built?
This whole discussion is retarded. It’s random letters and numbers and characters.
This is in good faith. So if you had an open server in your house, to which anyone could upload, not a blockchain just a regular server, if someone uploaded cp to it then it would still just be random letters, numbers, and characters? It’s the act of decoding that’s the problem? Does the format matter at all?
Is the open server existing to specifically transport data to me or am I participating in a decentralized protocol where the data is arbitrarily residing on my server? Intention matters greatly.
In terms of the data and encoding, if this data requires decoding to view the content how would I know what kind of content it is? How would anyone know?
Do I have the power to delete the data or is it inherently designed so that the system is immutable?
It requires software to decode the data on external hard drives as well, does that mean cp sitting on people’s hard drives should be seen as just random 1s and 0s?
The important point is, what the network views as the correct way to interpret that data. If that data can simply be dragged and dropped into image software to present cp, then the network is supporting cp.
In the case of fake pub keys etc, the bitcoin network interprets that cp (thats been split up to look like native bitcoin data) as native bitcoin data, and so the network interprets that as a standard transaction. To then view that cp you must purposely use software that then interprets those 1s and 0s differently to what the bitcoin network does.
Yes the data on the drives on people’s computers is just random 1 and 0s. The crime is the creation and the procurement of cp. if law enforcement can’t prove that data on a device was intentionally procured they have an extremely weak case. Any jury that would convict someone with no other evidence or supporting facts is insane. The Bitcoin block chain is not only a terrible method for cp distribution it is widely recognized that node runners don’t monitor the content of the transactions. The fact that you need a special software to piece together the cp vs just an image program is irrelevant.
The all data is 1s and 0s argument is flawed because it implies that all data is equal. Whilst this is true from a technical standpoint it is not true from any other standpoint (moral, legal, social, etc). Just like you can see letters on a page, there is a correct and intended way to interpret those letters, and whilst you can technically interpret them differently, there is a correct meaning that everyone else will see them as.
For argument’s sake, let’s just say that you’re correct in that there is no legal problem for node runners if cp starts getting relayed around, many people are still going to have a problem contributing to the relaying and storing of this cp from a moral point of view, meaning fewer people will run nodes. There is no reality where cp has a positive impact on bitcoin, only negative. Which means any change that widens the avenue / facilitation of cp should not be undertaken.
I would argue that bitcoin could potentially be the best cp distribution protocol in the world. Anonymous upload of arbitrary data, to thousands of people all around the world in seconds without having to pay anything because this distribution can happen only at the mempool level and does not have to get mined. When 99%+ of nodes filtered out these large op_returns the p2p network was not efficient at distributing large data files because 999 in 1000 nodes were not going to relay it. As less and less nodes filter, suddenly the p2p network becomes much more effective at relaying around these large data blobs.
“The fact that you need a special software to piece together the cp vs just an image program is irrelevant.”
This is relevant because in the case of inscriptions etc, bitcoin clearly interprets them as native bitcoin data and is why there has been large increase in utxos recently. Whereas op_return’s only purpose is as a place to store arbitrary data, meaning any data put there bitcoin sees as the correct way to interpret that data.
I can read language or numbers on a page, I can’t decode jpegs in on chain data.
You could be relaying small op returns currently that contain pieces of cp. As you stated it’s free so does it really matter how many transactions one has to make or monitor? You could have been relaying cp everyday since genesis. There is no practical difference between a process that takes 100 instances in the meme pool pieced together or just 1.
The only person religiously looking at op_returns is Luke jr trying to
Get his rocks off. No one else examines this data while node running.
The best cp distribution would be a high bandwidth encrypted connection. Bitcoin is a very shitty file transport protocol regardless of what the op return size is…you have to see that. You think people want 100kb images when they can just get material in ultra high def through an unlimited pipe? I realize pedos are sick fucks but they aren’t retarded.
Your arguments are similar to the money laundering crime line of reasoning. Sure people can use bitcoin for crime but the reality is the is dollar is the preferred vehicle for criminals.
The page is the blockchain, the letters are the data, your brain is the decoder. The paper doesn’t allow for the decoding of that data, you need an external decoder. That’s why I cant get the meaning when it’s Chinese characters written on the paper without the use of an external decoder (translator). I guess your point is because there is no file viewer included in a blockchain explorer, until that data is decoded in an external decoder, that data is just 1s and 0s. In reality that data IS its correct interpretation, whether it needs a standard decoder for that data format or not. If I have some illicit message written in Chinese on a piece of paper which I technically can’t decode myself doesn’t mean it’s just random characters.
Maybe I have been relaying 80byte cp op_return data forever, but that was clearly not the intended use case. The intended use case was obviously 80 bytes of arbitrary data. If someone wants to exploit that by splitting up cp into tiny chunks across many transitions, fine, yes it’s pretty hard to stop that, but it is clearly not a supported and/or facilitated use case of the protocol. And then if that data ever gets into chain, the correct way (supported by btc network) to decode that data is individually decoding them as if they were each whole chunks. So yes, from a technical standpoint 1 vs 100 split up op_return transactions are very similar. The difference is that one is the correct way to store and send arbitrary data, whereas the other is using an exploit. There are huge social, moral and legal differences between people relaying around cp split up into chunks because it has to use an exploit that’s certainly not supported by the network, vs people relaying around whole data in a field of a transaction specifically designed for arbitrary data which is clearly the intended use case.
Technically everything you’re saying is correct, but the important distinction for this whole debate is what the bitcoin network supports. Because of the removal of op_return bitcoin now supports large 100kb files, simple as that, but that opens a can of worms and is why there is push back.
Whether you think the p2p network is good for relaying cp or not doesn’t really matter. The point is this change has widened the avenue for these sorts of activities and actually now facilitates them.
A new break through in video compression allows an hour of ultra high def video to be encoded into 20 bytes. Now you are relaying full movies of cp hidden in fake pubkeys meaning you can’t even run a pruned node.
Do you abandon bitcoin because criminals are using it? Or do you recognize that freedom is messy and that intentions matter and you donate some bitcoin to the vigilante squad who hunt down human traffickers and call it enough?
Tbh I don’t really have problem with criminals using bitcoin as money. Money should be neutral and if that means criminals will use it for monetary purposes, so be it.
I think it will always be possible for people to store and relay arbitrary data using the bitcoin network through exploits or unintended use cases but as long as bitcoin’s only intended function remains as neutral money then I think a lot of the social, moral, legal potential issues to do with arbitrary data will subside. In the case of the expansion of op_return, it is expanding bitcoins use case from just neutral money to also arbitrary data relay and storage.
Touching on the case where basically any data can be compressed into 20 bytes, this sort of tech would affect not just bitcoin but basically everything else, and so cp could be encoded in basically any transfer of data.
I agree in general. Bitcoin is a neutral network and is not responsible for criminals using it as money.
My broader point though is that bitcoin even with a larger op_return is not a realistic way to transmit images and is certainly one of the worst ways to do so. With throughput maxing out at 4mb per block and between $6000 and $10000 per block. That’s an absurd system for file sharing. The changes with core 30 are not signally anything regarding non monetary uses of the chain they are only signally that there is a garbage can to put stuff to keep the utxo set as clean as possible.
My opinion is if you don’t like the idea that your node might be hosting undesirable content you should run a pruned node. For 99% of people this is completely fine. 20gb runs a pruned node, as long as the utxos aren’t raped that number won’t change too much.
I don’t think we are going to agree on your first point so let’s agree to disagree.
The issue with the garbage can analogy is that the garbage can is 4x more expensive. There is no economic incentive for spammers to use op_return. However, it still allows bad actors to relay illicit data through an officially supported method. Even if everyone still uses inscriptions, this change still widens the attack surface.
The issue with pruned nodes is that if I ran a pruned node I can’t run a transaction indexer such as an electrum indexer which is important for running an electrum server. Without this it makes it very hard to connect my sparrow wallet to my node. If 99% of people run pruned nodes then anyone doing an IBD would have to get the blockchain data from the 1%.
I agree that the cost of the garbage can is an issue. But I can’t imagine the outrage there would be if people suggested changes to make op return cheaper. However it is not an attack vector. Illegal data in the block chain isn’t an attack because running a node does not make you responsible for the encoded data in your node. Living in Any jurisdiction that says otherwise and you probably have bigger issues than the size of op_return and you should probably spend your time gathering guns and explosives and do some house cleaning. The tree of liberty isn’t going to water itself.
I would say if you care about self custody you run a full node. If you feel like this is a moral bridge too far I’d suggest you grow up. There is a lot of disagreeable shit in this world and a few low res images you have to go out of your way to see in a world drowning in HD smut is a pretty lame hill to die on.
We live in states. These states have laws. These laws universally ban CP, either transmitting or possessing. Intent often does not matter.
You may not like these facts, but they're likely to be true for the foreseeable future. And then it's retarded to make Bitcoin capable of transmitting CP.
Once illegal material is on the blockchain it can only be removed with a fork. You will be obligated by law to shut your node down, rather than continuing to possess CP and send it to anybody who asks for it over an API.
Furthermore, the public abhors content like this, so it's a go-to reason for governments to censure anything they don't like. This definitely includes Bitcoin.
For example the UK just finished banning social media use for minors. Do you honestly think they can't ban "crypto for pedophiles" in the current environment?
I could not come up with a better attack vector to hand to our enemies if I tried. We need to think more adversarially.
#knots
