On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 08:43:57AM -0800, Daniel Stadulis wrote: > Hey Peter, > > What would you say to the argument: given developers have auto update > capabilities they only have the ability to *give themselves* *the ability* to > have custodial rights?
Heh, well, courts tend not to have the narrow-minded pedantic logic that programmers do; quite likely that they'd see having the ability to give themselves the ability as equivalent to simply having the ability. What matters more is intent: the authors of an operating system had no intent to have a custodial relationship over anyones' BTC, so they'd be off the hook. The authors of a Bitcoin wallet on the other hand, depends on how you go about it. For instance Lighthouse has something called UpdateFX, which allows for multi-signature updates. It also supports deterministic builds, and allows users to chose whether or not they'll follow new updates automatically, or only update on demand. In a court that could be all brought up as examples of intent *not* to have a custodial relationship, which may be enough to sway judge/jury, and certainly will help avoid ending up in court in the first place by virtue of the fact that all those protections help avoid theft, and increase the # of people that an authority need to involve to seize funds via an update. -- 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org 00000000000000001a5e1dc75b28e8445c6e8a5c35c76637e33a3e96d487b74c
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