On 03/21/2018 07:36 PM, Morlock Elloi wrote:
It doesn't seem likely that the Chinese (4 mints in China mainland
control 50+% of the hash power) will agree to such fork (even if it is
technically feasible, which I doubt), that is capable of removing
arbitrary transactions in the past - that would make everyone unsafe
(like while the legislature is in session :) They have already killed
the block size change proposal (by effectively telling 'Bitcoin core
developers' to go f*ck themselves.)
It's *technically* feasible, as Blockchain history is what a majority of
computing power says it is. That's one of the weaknesses of the system,
but the original assumption was that mining would be decentralised, so
"a majority" would be thousands of small miners with no common interests
in changing history. That's *not* the case today, where Bitcoin mining
is very centralized.
Also, there's precedent - e.g., the Ethereum blockchain was forked to
cancel the DAO heist. In general, 51% of the computing power can rewrite
the history. The cost is another matter, which will be a practical
impediment.
However: The laws against possession of child pornography are not likely
to be going anywhere. Maybe it's just time to get some popcorn and sit
down & enjoy the show - presumably, the slow burning into nothingness of
the red Bitcoin herring.
Brute force is out of question, as re-calculating everything would
mean stopping all Bitcoin transaction activity for the period roughly
equal to the age of the oldest incriminating insertion - who would pay
for those terawatt hours?
There may be more to come. The currently discovered child pornography
was in plaintext payloads. There are thousands, if not millions,
encrypted non-transactional payloads in the Bitcoin blockchain. What
if some of these are also illegal porn or something equivalently
criminalized? The perpetrators may simply publish individual keys, at
their own pace, and make any repair attempts a bad joke. Come to think
of it, that would be ideal poison pill for the Bitcoin. Maybe someone
is on it as we speak ... it's easy: there are dozens of commercial
services that you can pay to insert anything in the Bitcoin blockchain
(like https://inthebitcoin.com )
Interesting times ahead.
The takeaway is that you don't want something in the loop of social
interactions that majority does not understand and that doesn't have
corrective strategy. Humans are simply not bright enough to create
fool-proof technologies. Just go to some Bitcoin meeting and listen to
blathering of CEOs and CTOs.
Or, given that a majority of stakes on the blockchain *can* change
history, and a majority of stakes with very strong financial interest
(as in who's already wasting most electricity) might want to keep their
toys, these images *will* be removed - along with forever removing all
credibility of blockchain as an "indelible" or unchangeable public
ledger.
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