Bitcoin Forum

Seriously WTF is going on here:

https://twitter.com/travisgoodspeed/status/328906226572345344

If this is true (I can't find that transaction)  This cannot help our cause at all.

(moderator note: read http://garzikrants.blogspot.com/2013/04/on-bitcoin-data-spam-and-evil-data.html for an insight of this by the devs)

Now any user of Satoshi's client can be put in jail for storing CP on their computer.

Could a dev please immediately look into this claim?

No need. While ppl don't know about this they are protected against accusations in cp possession. Once they know they have to delete the blockchain. If they continue to store and especially to distribute the blockchain data they are in troubles.

Ignorance is not an affirmative defense in all courts of law. This is something that has to be addressed ASAP by a developer

It's related to "unwitting accomplice". If u don't violate rules of data handling, then u r ok. (There are no such rules yet.) U would be punished only if u violated rules set by the govt. At least in my country.

Not in all countries and it can be argued if this becomes public knowledge that we no longer have this defense. Look at Tor operators

I really don't see how a link text can be considered CP at all...

The blockchain doesn't store links or text it only stores address and stuff.  So unless they had bitcoin-qt used on an IP address of a illegal website I can't see how it can be in the blockchain.  Then all it means is an IP address has been saved.  IP addresses aren't created for any website in particular.  

If it's just a text link then it's ok. But someone can embed a low-res image...

It can store any data.

Once we have a definitive answer. Please have gavin or someone else issue a counter tweet

What a ASCII image?  

Why should they bother just because someone started rumour that's not even possible.

Yeah in binary if you gonna send millions of 0.00000001 tx's.

Base64-encoded JPG.

What's the worst that can happen?  Prosecuting this would come at a massive political cost for prosecutorial forces that would clearly validate the notion that Bitcoin works, they hate it, and they're doing anything they can to stop it... and that their stopping it must be futile if calling it "child porn" is the best they can do.

I could just see it on the news as a reporter asks: "It's widely reported that traces of cocaine can be found on over 80% of the US dollar banknotes in circulation, even among those who have never used cocaine, and yet we don't throw everybody in jail for possession of cocaine, even though they technically are.  Most of the people using Bitcoin have no interest in child porn and aren't looking at the images or clicking the links allegedly embedded in the transaction ledger.  Why is prosecuting people on this technicality so important to throw resources at it, when prosecuting people for unintentional cocaine possession is not?"

This is a pr issue involving the technology of bitcoin. Since the devs have begun deciding pr issues, it is now their job to comment. Could someone who is a dev please review this claim and issue a formal statement

There's no source for the allegation, and it seems technologically impossible.  I see no need for anyone to respond.

I could tweet that Bitcoin kills kittens, too; it wouldn't mean that everyone is going to abandon Bitcoin if the devs don't issue an official response.

It's possible to embed any text message to a transaction, as in Satoshi's famous genesis block quote "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"

Then issue a tweet saying it is impossible. Please do not assume the role of deciding the pr people and then abandon your newfound duties.

In the EU we have unambiguous regulations regarding storing third-party content: provider must delete offending content within given term (I don't remember how long it is exactly, may be 24 hours) after official notice received. He will be guilty only if fails to do this.

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2013/04/bitcoin-as-a-publishing-system-from-wikileaks-to-pedophile-links.html?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=t.co

Evidently this now exists,  and I cannot (nor do I want to) see it..  I just believe that our libertiarain FFA that we got going on here needs to allow for market forces to fix this problem.    If you want my opinion,  this justifies AS MUCH effort as the blockchain split a few months ago.

No. Take a look at https://blockchain.info/tx/b34de232518e704370da916439bd3de35b3f9a6e3b1346a2adfdcb233b7bebbf. See the text message?

Some troll claimed to do this a long time ago, when he threatened the forum with... something. I don't know if this is the same claim. Regardless, it's not possible to store an image in the blockchain unless you spend a lot of money mining many many blocks that store text that, when put together, make up an image. And even then, it's not stored in any easy-to-access way. His claim was pretty much BS, anyway. I suspect this one is too.

As for bad PR, internet is full of illegal stuff, including CP. I don't see people stopping using internet because it has bad things on it.

My god how arrogant are you people? You are just begging for a fork?

Don't want to if its CP but hey rather than ban bitcoin I've got a better idea just ban the internet that'll stop online crime.  I can see this being used to slur bitcoin but not stop it.

I don't want kiddie porn on my machine.  period.

Technically WE ALL would be violating all sorts of laws...  some idiot just spread his porn links to what...  20-30 million people?

Idiots on Reddit down voted it... thinking that if it goes away on Reddit then it's safe...  this is JUST the excuse authorities need to crash down people's doors and say "He was storing kiddie porn on his computer"  and paint bitcoin in the light just with the headlines alone.

This is so silly. Anything could be injected to the blockchain. Who cares? Noone's going to decipher it or be able to prove people other than the originator guilty.

it is possible to embed nearly anything anywhere... this is not a problem.

This is just amazing to me

Dare to explain this to a prosecutor?

Dude the second a cop breaks down your door and hauls you and your machine away,  a week later the headlines would be "Bitcoin User found with kiddie porn"

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121130/07495221185/tor-exit-node-operator-charged-with-distributing-child-porn.shtml

I think you'd be more likely to get done for using Tor.  As there is loads of CP in there and if your acting as a relay.  Plus you don't need to download the blockchain if you don't want and you can still use bitcoin just fine.  I use bitcoin every day and not had the blockchain on my computer since 2011.

Fortunately a prosecutor is not the judge or jury.  And even with how unpredictable juries can be, I can't imagine them sending Mrs. Smith the elementary school teacher to prison for possession of child porn when all she wanted to do was get a good deal on a new laptop at BitcoinStore.com and downloaded some software to help her get it.  Besides, a spammer can send child porn to your e-mail inbox any day of the week, and you might already have child porn in your junk folder right now.  How is this any different?

What happens if one embeds that same information into the DNA of a common weed like a dandelion and starts spreading the seeds around?  Does everyone with a front lawn suddenly become in possession of child porn?

Less futuristic, how about if someone starts throwing cannabis seeds by the thousands out the window of a small airplane on a rainy spring day.  Somebody could do this today.  Come summer, the news will be reporting about how there's been a mysterious crop of marijuana showing up in the yards of everyday families.  Is a jury going to send them all to jail?

Yes I recognize the legal system(s) are often unpredictable and unfair animals.  But this is how I look at it: if they want to challenge Bitcoin, there are smarter ways for them to do it than this.

Any document of size already has CP and any other nefarious data one can name embedded in it from the start.  One just needs to develop and publish a formulation to pull it out.

For instance, I could publish a formula to:

 - open public document 2013_tax_code.pdf in a hex editor.
 - take the byte at address 2398743
 - add the byte ad address 1839874
 - add the byte at addresss 82321
 - etc, etc
 - save them all as nasty_dirty.jpg
 - open your prize with an image viewer of your choice.

You're assuming that this neighborhood isn't somewhat targeted already.    As bitcoin users we are already under the wrong light...   

The headline in that case would be "Known Drug Dealing Neighborhood suddenly sprouts large crop of cannabis "

U r talking about unwitting cases. But if u downloaded that letter and did NOT delete it, then u will be put in jail.

You can (in theory) embed any information in the block chain. But you need a way to encode this into transactions. And to view the information you need a way to decode these transactions.
And there's no possible way to stop people from doing this. Everyone can send a couple of thousand transactions which, when decoded correctly, add up to an image.

No need to have an image. Propaganda of [something illegal] will work too.

Could you clarify what we're looking at here?

This text message is NOT embedded in the actual block chain. It's just additional information provided by www.blockchain.info and stored in their internal database.

Excellent idea ;D
I think someone will ever do this to prove absurdness of the laws passed by govt!

You mean the '(bitcoin foundation)' is that what we're looking at? Yes I assumed that was just blockchain.info adding a name to an address it knows, like it does with bitcoin-OTC verified users. I thought there was something else, and I was missing it.

This whole CP thing is a storm in a teacup, I mean someone could write a URL on a banknote for example, but you wouldn't reasonably be held culpable if you received it and had it in your pocket. Or someone could scratch something offensive on your car door and you wouldn't be to blame. Vandalism is down to the vandal, not the owner of the vandalised property.

That's hilarious, that's actually my message of support to the bitcoin foundation. Right on.

Ah, really? My bad.
But it's known that blockchain allows to publish arbitrary data anyway.

Luke-Jr did it with bible passages. As I understand it, those would not be considered standard transactions, and most miners would refuse them. Luke was able to accomplish it by using his own Eligius pool. So, yeah, it can be done, but you would either have to run your own pool (and I think a bunch of people dropped Eligius when they found out about this and other things it did), or spend a lot of money mining your own blocks solo.

This is p2p bitcoin not HSBC.

Is this actually in the blockchain though?  I think it's just in blockchain.info's servers.  I looked at the blockexplorer version at http://blockexplorer.com/tx/b34de232518e704370da916439bd3de35b3f9a6e3b1346a2adfdcb233b7bebbf, and the message isn't obvious if it's there.  Nothing out of the ordinary in scriptSig or scriptPubKeys.


If you hack up your client a bit, you can get a non-standard transaction into Eligius and they'll mine it for you if they believe the fees to be fair.  See here (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Free_transaction_relay_policy).

Edit: Here's (http://pastebin.com/cAGK57Hv) a bunch of stuff I found.  I'm working on using the included script to get a better decoding.  In general, it looks like they've used multisig outputs and put their text into the pubkeys.  This seems like a pretty good "bang for your buck" and is completely acceptable to all current miners.

Im watching the news a little more closely, in 3 months time!  ;)

That's a filthy lie! The Bitcoin Community Censoring Committee demands an immediate retraction!

How can you access the links using the qt client ?

"WTF SUM RANDOM GUY THAT HAS ABSOLUTELY NO RELATION TO BITCOIN TWEETED "CP in blockchain?!?!""

"OMG!"

"WHERE IS IT"

"I DONT KNOW!"

"CAN WE DO IT?"

"I DONT KNOW!"

"IS THERE REALLY CP IN BLOCKCHAIN?"

"No."

This thread is fucking stupid and is the spawn of a troll tweet. Until a Blockchain TXN URL is posted that contains said information.

You are idiots for even taking it slightly seriously without proof.

Dear Abby,

I have been struggling for years to find a way to preserve the cover art of my favorite 50 albums. I thought I had found a solution in the Bitcoin block chain, but now this thread about "kiddy porn" has come up, and I wonder... will I not be able to store the cover to my #1 fave, the Scorpions 1976 Virgin Killer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_killer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_killer)) on the block chain?

Thanks as always for your great advice!
Strugging in Stuttgart

http://assets.diylol.com/hfs/43e/ef3/d5c/resized/emperor-meme-generator-good-good-i-can-feel-your-anger-e57d09.jpg

Now about that dev tweet...

And now we hit this stage.

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/3961492480/h8B3C8C0F/

What do you mean the "dev tweet".  No dev or groups of dev's rule or own the bitcoin protocol.  Massively increased bitcoin adoption this spring rally has had its toll on this forum.

Alright I'm out

So bitcoin will be demonised because of graffiti?

Yes, it is possible to store arbitrary data in the block chain. The block chain can store text, which in turn can be used to represent various forms of data.

You have to understand that data is just data. It only means something when put together a certain way, sometimes for intentional meaning, sometimes hidden meaning. Also understand that because binary (1's and 0's) can be represented many ways (like tapping your feet timely, or etching tick marks somewhere) it's possible to store information on basically anything in almost any medium.

There is in fact ascii art hidden in the block chain of Ben Bernanke and Len Sassaman:

http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=BUB3dygQ

You can also put more nefarious text there too, but there are many ways to be nefarious.

If you don't want people to be able to store possibly nefarious data with you then you have to do much more than stop running a full Bitcoin node (note you can use Bitcoin without storing the block chain, e.g. blockchain.info).

Most Internet users accept browser cookies, which are files that allow sites to store text info on your computer. You can put links to child pornography, ascii art, encoded picture files etc. in cookie files just as you can in the block chain. The usual size limit on cookie files is 4KB. The image below is 2KB:

http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/6669/paypaliconw.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/202/paypaliconw.png/)

So if you want to be sure you're not inadvertently storing information in a form you're not aware of you better stop using any cookies (or check every one in countless formulaic ways). But the fun doesn't stop there. Most browsers also store a history of sites you've visited. Guess what? The Internet runs on text as in Hyper TEXT Markup Language. Any web address you visit can append an arbitrary amount of text data to the URL after the ? as in goodsite.com?arbitraryhiddenchildpornencodedtext so you have to also stop letting your browser store any information on sites you visit.

Your browser also downloads Javascript, Java, and Flash files to name a few things often downloaded while viewing ordinary Web pages. Any of these can be used to store arbitrary data on your computer.

Just as there is cocaine on physical cash many people are unaware of, so to are there ways to "dirty" things people usually consider clean without them even being aware of it. That didn't start and won't end with Bitcoin.

Gregory Maxwell posted a very good long-term solution to the problem of arbitrary data in the blockchain a few weeks ago on the bitcoin-development email list: To prevent arbitrary data storage in txouts — The Ultimate Solution (http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.bitcoin.devel/1996)

It's not something that can be implemented overnight, but it is there if needed in the future.

EDIT: Also in the short term dust outputs less than 54uBTC in value will probably soon be banned making dumping data in the block chain a lot more expensive: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/2577

I've dumped the stuff I could find.  It's about as benign as it can be, just a dump ostensibly from some Hidden Wiki pages ("Jailbait", "Hard Candy") with links to pedo communities and stuff.  There are several other files, including the original bitcoin whitepaper and some DRM encryption keys; I may catalog them if I can.  (A connected address is 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa, you can pretty easily spot the large embedding transactions on blockchain.info.)  Here's a partial dump, BE CAREFUL if you feel downloading plain-text URLs to pedo/CP sites could endanger you: http://pastebin.com/09WdxDiJ

For the skeptical ones unwilling or unable to verify, you can look at the transactions below.  I can't think of many real reasons to send dozens of satoshis, one at a time, to random multisig addresses, so it's not that far of a stretch to imagine this is a way to embed data, even if you can't personally verify.  BE AWARE that viewing the transaction is, in a way, viewing this stuff, just in an encoded form.  It will just look like bitcoin addresses, though.  dde7cd8e8f073a525c16c5ee4e4a254f847b7ad6babef257231813166fbef551 (http://blockchain.info/tx/dde7cd8e8f073a525c16c5ee4e4a254f847b7ad6babef257231813166fbef551), 4a0088a249e9099d205fb4760c28275d4b8965ac9fd56f5ddf6771cdb0d94f38 (http://blockchain.info/tx/4a0088a249e9099d205fb4760c28275d4b8965ac9fd56f5ddf6771cdb0d94f38).

This is unfortunate, but I am surprised it hadn't already happened, and for all we know there already has been some encoded/encrypted actual contraband in the blockchain.

See this thread about illegal content on the blockchain:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=11381.0

Also, I have added the following porn to the blockchain:

80085

For those that want to verify and have a Linux/BSD OS:

In .bitcoin/blocks do strings -20 blk00053.dat | less
It's a few pages down.

There is also a file encoded in hex in blk00052.dat (unrelated to the CP links in blk00053.dat) and there is lots of spam in many blk*.dat.

Personally I think this needs to be fixed, I don't feel comfortable having CP links, Bernanke/Sassaman, or Luke-Jr's prayers on my computer.

Which pool is responsible for blk00053.dat?

bitparking is mined dde7cd8e8f073a525c16c5ee4e4a254f847b7ad6babef257231813166fbef551 and BTC Pool 4a0088a249e9099d205fb4760c28275d4b8965ac9fd56f5ddf6771cdb0d94f38

The former is pays just under the 5mBTC/KB that the reference client requires as a minimum fee, so bitparking is probably using either non-standard fee rules, or the new 1mBTC/KB minimum that will be part of the upcoming 0.8.2 That said, I also noticed BTC Guild mined most of the recent PGP strong set timestamping (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=186264.msg1967993#msg1967993), and many of those transactions were also just under the 5mBTC/KB minimum - makes me wonder if the latter re-used the code from the former.

Fees are not required for high enough priority transactions.  BTC Guild uses default bitcoind (0.8 with 0.8.1 patches) transaction selection, other than providing more than 17 kb per block to high-priority/low fee{or no fee} transactions since we also mine larger than the 250 KB default max size.  (blockmaxsize=475000, blockminsize=250000, blockprioritysize=50000 are the arguments used with BTC Guild's bitcoind instances for most servers)

Those transactions aren't high priority because they have dust outputs, their inputs are very recent coins, and they are over the 10KB limit for priority transactions.

You can also paste CP on IRC. Does that mean that everyone in the chatroom is breaking the law and the servers need to be shut down now?

(Deja vu, hasn't this topic been covered feverishly already in 2010 and 2011?)

ewwww

Yep, but at least it's actually happened now.  Not that it changes the theoretical answers that were already discussed back then.


Better stop using Bitcoin then, because the ASCII tributes and prayers are tens of thousands of blocks back and if you want to have a secure blockchain you'll have to keep them to be able to properly verify it.  It's possible after you've synced up the blockchain and the offending material is far enough back, you could scrub it in a hex editor and still run fine.  If any transactions you care about are tainted by the ones you censored, there might be problems, not sure.  And you might temporarily screw up anyone trying to download those blocks from you because the hash won't match.

And if you're hoping to censor stuff like this in the future, think again: these transactions are just sending coins to addresses whose hash/publickey happens to contain offensive ASCII data.  There's no way to stop that without a probability of breaking legitimate transactions that just happen to have "bad" data.  "Sorry sir, the system is telling us the ASCII value for your address contains the word "TITS", so we can't give you your withdrawal."

I don’t understand why anyone today would ever run a full node like Bitcoind or Bitcoin-Qt. Do you just like waiting hours for the catch up every time you fire up your computer to send coins? The block chain porn pollution issue is nonexistent for users running an SPV node like MultiBit or no node at all, like blockchain.info or Electrum.

Either the problem of objectionably data in the block chain is non-existent for you if you were a peer, or it's a problem that when attacked will impact everyone relying on the infrastructure which are peers.  It may be a valid assumption that people with the wherewithal to be peers are more prepared to protect themselves against harassment than 'amateurs' though.  At least for now.

Accd to Hearn you don't need an up-to-date blockchain to send BTC.  It makes some sense that that would be the case, but I've not tried it first hand.  Accd to Garzik users can help the network by being peers.

The average users (especially new users) do not need to run a full node. I think there are enough full nodes worldwide to protect against a 50% attack. If you have any fear over what's in the blockchain then don’t run a full node. This will all be solved eventually with tx pruning. What happened with ultraprune? I thought Pieter Wuille was going to implement that a while back anyway.

51% attacks are about mining, not full nodes. Ultraprune will be implemented, but more work needs to be done on working out how blockchain data will be distributed. Give it a few more months at least.

Running a full node is safer and more anonymous than SPV nodes, let alone web wallets and similar. For example when you run a SPV node you have to tell your peers what addresses you are interested in. Those addresses are obscured with bloom filters, kinda like telling your peer "tell me about addresses starting with 1bk, 1y4, 1z2 etc." but it will always be less anonymous than running a full node directly and will become even less anonymous as transaction volume increases and the specificity of your bloom filter increases.

But if you’re worried about porn would it not be better to have a web wallet? New users that see things like this might be dissuaded from using Bitcoin because they think they are required to take all the baggage that comes with it if they decide to use Bitcoin and that’s not true.

Seems just the opposite to me.  If that were a problem (which I doubt) then the wallet service is likely to be frozen along with your ability to use it for as long as the investigation takes.

Of course a well designed wallet service like blockchain.info will have work-arounds for that problem.  OTOH, some of the workarounds may be responsible for the rash of thefts that have plagued them lately.

I guess it’s better than having the porn at your house. I didn’t know about the blockchain.info thefts. I don’t use that service. Everything I read lately seems designed to keep new people from ever wanting to try Bitcoin.

That is a prescient and sad observation actually.  I had not really thought of it, but you are probably right.

I've been interested in the solution for years and a lot of my friends know of my interest.  Historically I've been a little bi-polar on whether people should get involved at all.  Lately a lot of my friends have been asking me about getting started, and now I feel it Bitcoin more likely to 'succeed' so I am usually inclined to be encouraging these days.  At least to the 'right' people.

I am, as you might have detected, strongly in favor of the 'full peer' approach, but pretty frustrated about how impractical that is in a lot of cases.  When I introduce people I usually use an on-line wallet, but with all kinds of warnings about how the dangers.  For people who are doing non-trivial amounts, I do go ahead and encourage a full node and Armory so they can do flexible paper wallets and generally get a handle on the system.  It only really would be a good idea for people who are pretty technical though as my most interested friends tend to be.

I consider it something of a duty to advise people to be prepared for a total loss.  I've always felt, however, that if Bitcoin 'goes', it will probably go so big that a pretty modest footprint now will pay off well.  Thus there is no good reason to sink a lot of money into it.

Aluminum Falcon?

This is a really profound issue. E.g., I am not sure what the implications will be for Chinese Bitcoin users If someone includes a link to "the reality of Tiananmen incident" somewhere in the blockchain.

EDIT: On second thought, I think this is essentially a network neutrality problem.

Bitcoin is already illegal in China.

And what is the big deal about Tiananmen?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dWvCCxOUsM8

Most of the times, "illegal" and "China"can only coexist in a sentence if you are trying to be sarcastic, do you think we really didn't break the "Chinese law" on a daily basis?

The big deal about Tiananmen is: if you openly talk about the bonus army thing in the U.S, most likely nobody will give a damn. If you openly talk about the Tiananmen Massacre in China, mostly like you will be in for some big problems.

I believe what was inserted was links to Tor sites, actually, not actual images.

Most jurisdictions with due process have a principle called mens rea:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea

It means to be found guilty of something you actually had to want to do it. This comes up in CP cases sometimes where, eg, someone was found to have CP in their browser cache and they said they have no idea why it was there, and they didn't intend it to be there. Courts go both ways on grey-area cases like that, but for something like the block chain where there's an obvious explanation why it's on your computer and special tools are needed to extract any data, it's hard to imagine a judge finding mens rea in such case.

Regardless, if it bothers you, you can use an SPV client like MultiBit or the Android app which only download chain headers, or a client like Electrum where the chain is managed by a server.

Outputs which are pure data can never be spent and in theory, once bitcoind starts pruning then new versions of the software can just delete the tx outs and the data will eventually go away.

My take:

There is nothing on the transaction log except transactions.

The only way CP, or any other non-transaction information, can be produced using data from the transaction log is to take transaction information at a point in the transaction log, and use a particular code on it to convert it to CP.

If someone informs you that a particular transaction has information that, with a particular code, can be decoded to produce CP, and informs you of which code it is that will convert it to CP, then they are disseminating CP. Without the code and the information on where in the transaction log the encoded information exists, someone cannot produce CP.

In other words, without the additional information, which is the code and the location of the transaction which the code will convert to CP, the transaction log is just transactions. It's the dissemination of the additional information that is the sharing of CP, not the transferring of transaction data.

Thanks Mike. That's exactly what I said. If it bothers you don't run a full node!

With the proper code even the USA flag can "contain" illegal contents. So now i suppose usa and every usa citizen is illegal, am i right?  :)

As a practical matter at this time, it is highly unlikely that an individual is going to be attacked on the basis of this threat.  There is simply not enough bang for the buck since it would be a large and expensive effort due to the dispersed nature of the infrastructure and the incentive for individuals to protect their own interests.  That is, if I have $250,000 worth of BTC there is a big incentive for me to do whatever it takes to realize continued utilization of it.  (Of course in this particular case there is also the obvious absurdity of the attack rational.)

Now, on the other hand, attacking a single service provider is a whole different set of calculations.  Once strike could wipe out an entire swath of the userbase.  It may be slightly more challenging since a provider likely has more resources to fight back legally, but ultimately the state controls the legal system and it would be a simple matter to disrupt the service for a significant period of time even if a legal struggle is ultimately destined to lose.  We saw this it Kim Dotcom's case.

Ummm... I don't know if anyone pointed it out yet, but the transactions (at least the ones scintill mentions (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=191039.msg1980099#msg1980099)) were included in blocks #230229 and 230231, more than three weeks ago, about a day before the crash. (coincidence?)

Also, since I'm here, might as well link my own thread on the subject
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128171.0


edit: quote from my OP there

What is the maximum length of text message that can be embedded with a btc transaction?

None of those are found in the blockchain. They had to be created by converting blockchain data into the text messages using a code.

Wrong again again. A lot of them can be found with a simple string search on the database file. See:



Is there any safe way to remove these strings from your blockchain files without destroying the integrity?

Maybe because the Chinese people would actually give a damn.

A string search is converting the data into strings using a code, and then searching the converted data that it generated. If you think it's in the blockchain as plaintext, then please show me where in the raw blockchain data:

http://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/[block-hash]


Which is exactly my point: the only way someone can re-create the information is if they're informed of where the encoded data is, and what code to use to convert it to human-readable form.

ANY information can be converted to ANY other information with a code. The person disseminating information on how to convert inoffensive data into CP is the one disseminating CP, not people propagating transaction data.

No, the string search is not converting anything. It is only converting the database file from raw binary, which if that were your definition, everything you see and do on your PC is converted. Yes, there is a file encoded in hex, this does not mean all the messages are encoded in hex, but the nastly links are in plain text.

Ding Ding Ding a winnar is you!

Now let's stop setting our hair on fire and learn about "Common Carriers."


/Drama

The string search is converting a collection of printable and unprintable characters into a collection of only human readable printable characters by taking out the unprintable characters.

Also, any thing that can be put in plain text cannot be illegal in most jurisdictions. It's only images and videos that can be illegal, and those require a code to convert the data to create.

Filtering the printable strings is only for convenience, you can also find the strings inside the file with a simple hexdump to make the binary readable:


All files are stored in binary. If you save a link to an illegal website on your PC it's not illegal since it has to be "converted" from binary?

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/8483a5f36283bc827432

This is cherry-picking data from the file, what's your point?

Does that include e.g. a base64 encoding of an illegal image/video?

My point is pretty clear, you run a script that uses data and you get an illegal thing: what is illegal?
Script? Data? Nothing? Obi-Wan Kenobi?

The thing that is illegal is a group of 1's and 0's in a very specific order. Therefore, the resulting data inside "It-s_a_kind_of_magic.html" would be.

The groups of 1's and 0's are already in specific order inside of the blockchain database files, no cherry-picking or sorting necessary.

Filtering has to be done, either manually, or with a command, to make it readable. Otherwise, it's not human language.



It's not simply base64 encoding. They need to splice a very particular certain segment of the transaction data out, chain it together in a particular order, and decode it using base64. This requires a very specific program that is not included with any standard bitcoin client, and specific information on which transaction data to apply this program to. Any one transmitting the specific information required to generate CP from inoffensive transaction data is the one disseminating CP, not people transferring transaction data.

Nothing stored on computers are in human language without any of this. What are you even saying anymore?

There is CP as images, but there is also CP as text. Just pick any sex story on the web and replace the age with something less than 18 and there you go, child porn in text form. It's illegal where I live, I know other countries where it's illegal, and there is really no reason why more countries wouldn't make it illegal.

So with this new trend among lawmakers of strict liability laws and the illegality of possessing "text", this may turn out to be a highly toxic combination endangering anyone who happens to store the blockchain on their computer. Imagine if the government decided it's time to "crack down" on bitcoin. This would be the pefect excuse to do so, what doesn't the public hate more than terrorist and pedophiles? It's a god sent. With a blockchain filled with cp I wouldn't be too surprised to see bitcoiners busted and newspaper headlines such as "pedophile ring shutdown" appearing left and right. The IP addresses of all the bitcoin nodes are so easily available that cracking down would be like christmas eve for law enforcement.

It does sound silly, but the government never cease to amase me. Time to boot up Tor and load your encrypted HDDs folks, soon we'll all be pedophiles.

good job building up the bitcoin + kiddie porn seo with this thread, guys.

There's a difference between opening a text file and having a standard text editor convert it to human language, and using 'strings -20 blk00053.dat | less' in terminal to filter out a secret encoded message inserted in a non-text file.

Bitcoin only shows the blockchain data as a series of transactions in the client. You would need specially made software, or a terminal command, to convert transaction data to other types of information, to see any thing else. To generate CP from transaction data, you would also need information on which transaction or transactions to apply this special software or command to.

This should have absolutely nothing to do with bitcoin users, and if any one were to be held responsible for disseminating CP, it's those linking to a transaction and giving instructions on how it can be converted to CP IMO.

So puting a \x00 in the middle of a CP pic would make it legal again?

this whole issue reminds me of when people deface paper money. I've seen some fairly NSFW stuff written on bills before, most people ignore it and simply "pass the buck" It's just vandalism after all. Some butthurt is jealous they weren't very early to adoption so now they want to smash out the windows. ignore and will go away.

I think you have a misunderstanding about how computers, and the bitcoin protocal, actually work. Text files are stored in binary also, your HDD doesn't stamp the alphabet on the platter like a typewriter. Hex viewers are just as common as text viewers. These aren't some "secret encoded message", they're in plain text. You can open the file right up and see "Hi from 50BTC.com" in plain text.


Would change the specific order of the 1's and 0's? No. Want to stop playing dumb?

And likewise, you've done some great work by bumping the thread.   :P

Oh. Wow.
Sorry to have to tell you that, but yeah, actually puting a 00000000 in 011110 to make it 01100000000110 will change the order of 0/1's
And you're asking if I am playing dumb?

Sorry, I was certain that I read "\x00 in the front" before quoting it. You'd still only be putting black space into the picture and the rest of the data would still be in order, just fragmented. (12  34 instead of 1234)

Sounds like a bit of a non-story. The danger will be if any news outlets pick this up.

Headline now:   Bitcoin = Drugs
Headline tomorrow: Bitcoin = Drugs and Child porn.

NOT good.

So \x01 would work? \x01\x02? \x21\xf4\xe4\xa9? \x21\xf4\xe4\xa9\x84\x45\xc5?
If not, you're basically saying that the 70Gpx (200GB) picture of Budapest is illegal because I can extract a 10kB CP picture from it. Which would be 'just fragmented'

Did I ever suggest otherwise? One more time:

There's a difference between opening a text file and having a standard text editor convert it to human language, and using 'strings -20 blk00053.dat | less' in terminal to filter out a secret encoded message inserted in a non-text file.


It requires more steps than just opening blockchain data with a hex viewer to generate an image from transaction data. Your comparison to opening a text file with a standard text editor is poor one.


They're not in plain text. If they are, show me where using http://blockexplorer.com.

Just had a thought: wouldn't embedding a bit of code that comes from well known viruses be an even bigger annoyance in the blockchain than links to CP? Not because they can execute in memory, but because AntiVirus scanners will stumble on them and mark your whole blockchain file as infected  :P

We're not talking about images here, we're talking about links to CP, which do exist in the blockchain currently. It doesn't require any more steps that opening an ordinary text file to see that these links exist. If you're running the standard bitcoin client you have these links on your computer.

Blockexplorer does not show you the raw database files, they only display the block information in JSON format.

That would be hilarious!

It's not just Bitcoin, but number theory is illegal too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime

Obviously you can compute prime of illegal link as well.

Legal system which does prosecute innocent bystanders (blockchain users) while whomever created the initial tx (or computed and published the prime, for that matter) is at large, is ultimately flawed.

quote-party!

Can it not be prevented? maybe not for old records, but isn't there a way to block text from being stored in the chain?

A blog post on this crapola: http://garzikrants.blogspot.com/2013/04/on-bitcoin-data-spam-and-evil-data.html

I was wrong when I said this needs to be fixed.

As for running a full node, there are no delays if you run it 24/7. Anyone who is able should run a full node, otherwise Bitcoin will stop being P2P.

There is no problem with they way Bitcoin works, the problem are the laws. Laws that protect child abuse and sex trafficking, by sheltering the public from the truth through censorship. This also prevents investigation by third parties.

It seems politicians are concerned with people accidentally stumbling upon a web site, rather than punishing slavers and child abusers. I do believe that those who profit from CP should be punished, though less than those who produce it.

Another problem is that recently (it wasn't like this when I was a child), nudity = porn, which is just stupid.

I'm not really convinced by this. I'm sure that if someone looked hard enough in the blockchain they would be able to find objectionable words, even without them having being injected intentionally. Also, any irrational number(let's take pi) contains your phone number, address, and any picture concievable if the right software is used for interpretation simply because it's an infinite random non-repeating string of data. As the blockchain increases in size this is bound to happen. Nobody's going to ban pi for storing porn. I doubt it could have implications for the blockchain.

Why don't prosecute ISP for routing kid porn, or electrical company ???

Chinese? Possibly an inside joke about BFL?
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hhtt

Or perhaps it's the Horrible Horrendous Terrible Tremendous Mining Pool?

Child porn links can also be encoded into bank transactions. 

Does that mean that banks are legally obliged to delete such transactions from their database, once they find out about them?

Somehow I doubt it.

Not as long as the text is being stored steganographically. Example: If someone sends a transaction of 1.495438 BTC, there is no way of proving whether the digits after the 1 are being used to encode text.

I'm really sorry that no one who is attached with the physical development of bitcoin sees no wisdom in issuing a statement about this tweet. You guys seem to enjoy deciding who should represent Bitcoin for official press inquiries, but when media bate tweets appear, it's not worth your time.

Please be consistent. Either stay out of media decisions or stay completely involved.

You need to pay attention and stop dwelling on plus spreading FUD.

I asked about tweeter. A blog post is not tweeter. You can link to one. It is easy and simply to do. Instead of calling me a FUD troll, why don't you just tweet something? Jesus man

Well why don't you just tweet the blog posts link  ::)  Bitcoin is not a corporation or a business its a p2p opensource project.  Yes there is a charitable foundation but why should they start making announcements about CP.  I feel the blog post covered it well and anyone interested in the matter can be sent to that blog post IMO.

I'm just some guy. A dev tweeting gives creditability and also will reach a proper audience. It really isn't much to ask.

Stop asking for leaders and governors. You are the P in P2P. Act like it  :)

Actually I was talking with a couple of journalists who are writing about this yesterday.

You want one of us to address the issue publicly? Well, wait a day or two and you'll get your wish.

Thank you. That's all I asked for. There has to be rapid response to issues like these.

Can some core devs please make fools of themselves on this issue ASAP? 

I'd like to hear something like "we really care about making other people think we believe certain numbers should be illegal to speak, write down, or even think about".  Or perhaps just some blogs that contain the phrase "blah blah MY_NAME blah blah SOCIETAL_TABOO".     

In the meantime, some of you anonymous lurkers could please release a mathematical function f(x) such that when x is the source of whitehouse.gov returns f(x) which is a copyrighted song with steganographically injected pictures of you know what.   

Thanks :)

Remember folks, the Integers look like nice enough things to use, but it's a slippery slope!  There are some really bad ones out there!  Best to avoid them all. 

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Tee hee you're all criminals now

GOD DAMN! Rickrolled again....

This thread now is so illegal  :o

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=186573.msg1932955#msg1932955



The Founder has made himself worthy of a hiatus from this forum. Also, the fact that somebody could arbitrarily put something in the block-chain, thus incriminating Bitcoin as a whole is a complete and utterly stupid concept. It's the same as saying that roads must be removed, vehicles be barred from driving on the road, and all pedestrians be prosecuted if someone plastered some kiddieporn pics on the sidewalk.

The founder is spreading FUD, and this is not the first time he does so.

+1

That's been tried on testnet; nothing happens. Anti-virus tools seem to ignore data in the middle of large unexecutable binary files.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/02/technology/security/bitcoin-porn/?source=cnn_bin

"The U.S. Justice Department wouldn't comment on this specific case, but an agency spokesman pointed CNNMoney to the exact wording of the law, which states that the issue becomes a crime when a person "knowingly possesses, or knowingly accesses with intent to view" child porn. It doesn't appear that an unsuspecting user with these coded links sitting on their hard drive has much to worry about. "

Downloading the blockchain to look at some porn? No? Then no crime.

Exactly. Now some mod put this thread to the thrash bin where it belongs.

I think this thread belongs where it is because it raises many valid questions. This is actually one of my theoretical attack vectors against the Bitcoin network. If you can make storing the block chain illegal you can effectively make Bitcoin illegal. Does anyone know which idiot did this entry? I can't be bothered to dig through all the links but if its not known it could be some government agent as part of a wider spread campaign against Bitcoin.

The same muppet that posted this thread recently asked how he could inject data in the blockchain. Then shortly thereafter he mysteriously found someone on twitter claiming that kiddiepornlinks was injected in the block-chain.

No, this is not an attack vector, this is sheer lunacy.

OK so we can concluded the following:
http://i1286.photobucket.com/albums/a613/Charles_Hoskinson/20859609_zps2a25276f.jpg

Discussion over

Kind of like how he had found an exploit for instawallet and then asked what would happen, then told everyone that coins were stolen long before instawallet had even announced that coins were stolen?

Not exactly.  In that case, the offending images would simply be removed from the sidewalk.  In the case of the blockchain, it can't be removed.  

Try this:

A strip mine is used as a repository for undesired fill dirt.  Eventually a nice set of vegetation grows and it's a decent place be and is obtained as a public green-space.

Years later, it is found that someone dumped a stash of offending material in the pit before it was filled.  Everyone who uses the park comes within 300 feet of the stuff, and it would be possible for someone to dig a tunnel and actually look at it.

What to do?  Make the park off-limits and prosecute anyone who walks in it?  Tear out the park to find and destroy the offending material?  Ignore what is obviously a non-issue?

I suspect that if occupy-wallstreet started using the park it would be obvious to the authorities, media, etc, that making the park off-limits would be the thing to do.

I think I agree with charles. There is an attempt to create bad pr for bitcoins, the foundation should try and counteract such attempt.

Until I read this thread I thought there were actual proper images on the blockchain. In fact what seems to be the case is that there are encoded links. That's a non issue. Why should anyone care that in a code there are some links. I mean links themselves are not porn to begin with. Then, you need to decode the code.

However, this should be explained. The CNN article for example (http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/02/technology/security/bitcoin-porn/index.html) should contain a quote from someone on the bitcoin side stating, hey guys this is just giberish code which would need to be decoded and even then it only shows some links, so it is not porn.

...and why can't somebody get a takedown on the stupid CP link?  Or do the feds want to keep the link up as a honeypot?

It's a Tor link. It's impossible to know where it actually is, and thus is impossible to take down, let alone find out whom to contact to have it be taken down. For all anyone knows, those files could actually be stored, hidden in an encrypted form, on your own computer, and are being served to everyone using a computer virus based web server.

Finding where it's hosted shouldn't be that hard - you would need a compromised Tor exit node. I doubt you'd even need to decrypt the traffic, just trace the packets?

I think this could be a kin to two people beaming data through the air and that beam happens to cross your property.  Yes if you went out and got an antenna you could intercept, but if you don't are you liable for someone putting CP into thin air that crosses your property?  Or are the Internet line carriers at risk if someone transmits illegal data across their network?

How did the dude posting the info on twtr knew what and where to look at if it was not easy to stumble upon it?

Ask any average person to extract the links from the blockchain.

Answer.  They can't.

Couldn't then mean there could be a strong (not proof) suspicions both the twtrt link and the source of CP be from the same person?

I am not trying to play fake boston detective on reddit but the light should focus back on that twtr dude and less on bitcoin, that is if this community is immune from social group manipulation.

I believe it is to a way to destroy bitcoin. The challenge is huge people. Don't forget the target date: 2140.

Devil's advocate:  being a 'peer' in the 'p2p' network is analogous to putting up an antenna.

Internet carriers seems rational and potentially covered by the law.  Careful what you wish for, though, because it could be formed into an argument to force carriers to actively monitor and filter traffic.

Because it was planted by him or someone he knows, and it's a deliberate attempt of making Bitcoin look bad. It's a complete non-issue however.

have the boston bombers been found to be big into bitcoin yet?

it's getting ridiculous at this stage. I'm fairly new. I bought at about $60 and since then we've had the bubble, the bust then just about every bitcoin site ddosed and now we're getting the guilt by association tactic. It'll be bitcoin funds terrorism next.

Yes, there will be a no-fly zone over the conference in May. 'just in case' in good'ol american tradition.  ;D

Complete non-issue FUD.

Unless someone points out how and where to extract this data, which would be a pain in the ass to do anyways, it is not relevant.

This means that someone pointing it out is the problem, not the data itself.

With (im)proper directions, any large set of data can form an illegal picture. This does not mean that an infinite amount of monkeys typing on an infinite amount of typewriters would eventually be child pornograhphers, but simply that with the right (wrong!) directions, a large enougn data sample will be able to contain ANYTHING.

all they need is proof of concept and the media will lap it up. there's a concerted effort to destroy bitcoin by any means necessary going on here. the terror angle will be next now that they've done drugs and child porn. in a lot of ways it looks like the death throes not of bitcoin but the attackers.

the attackers are clever people though but nothing will ever be as clever as the free market and they are the opposite of that.

My guess would be he put it there himself.  Maybe the feds should be investigating him and see what they can find on his computer.  I bet it wouldn't be pretty.

probably is a fed.


oh hai you were caught for child porn so do us a favor plz and we'll reduce your sentence

We need to have a zero tolerance policy for this kind of crap as a community. Anonymous has exposed child pornographers on TOR before and I think its something that should be done more often. I'm not sure on the legalities of it but I think it would be a good idea to offer rewards via Bitcoin for every child pornographer exposed and arrested. I for one would be glad to donate to such a fund. Let's use Bitcoin to fight child pornography and help purge the earth of this scum.

If I operated a part of a crypto-currency infrastructure and someone could demonstrate conclusively that a targeted amount of data from my logs would help expose a person (or group) who was clearly engauged in activities which I strongly disagreed with (CP being a good example) I would very likely cooperate.

It would not surprise me of real criminals actually found it more difficult to operate reliably within a p2p infrastructure than to operate in today's corp/gov controlled one.

I'm more worried about Luke-Jr's prayers in blockchain than childporn.

Compared all the goodness imaginable stored on my full disk encrypted harddrives the obscured links to hard candy or pedo archive are silly.

What ya got there?  A BFL mining rig prototype?

Right, modeled after Inabas mighty miner!

All the "uncomfortable" and "something must be done" people are extremely overreacting.

It's my deep hole miner; it hashs like a mofo.

If we create a law which defines "speeding" as "murder". Does that result in more killings? No, it doesn't. You just altered the perceived reality by changing the meaning of words, but reality stays the same even though the media now can report massive amounts of murderers on the loose.

Do you remember the guy who created liberty dollar, now why is it that he was labeled a terrorist? Is he a terrorist? or is this a form of altering the meaning of words to fit some twisted political belief?

Let me just say this. If you actually want to do something good in this world you may want to ask yourself why there is such a mass hysteria, and why we now have a majority willing to give up all their rights to fight this apparently ever increasing crime. It's important to think this through before you act. Can you think of other mass hysterias throughout history and their consequences?

Witch hunt of this kind has, and will, continue to destroy the life of innocent men, women and children. If you let yourself be fooled by the elite and fall for the lies of the majority, you will unconsciously be part of the mob that stones "terrorists" such as the creator of bitcoin to death (and this is exactly why he will always be in hiding). And while doing it, you will feel pride, you will feel that you did the right thing, that you fought the good fight, just as the people who burned witches fought evil, you will join them in their fight for a "better world".

I may be wrong, you might have thought this through, but I sense lack of knowledge and unjustified anger.

How does the first part of your post have anything at all to do with mine? Child pornography is the exploitation of children which will emotionally scar them forever even if they never tell anyone. Anyone participating in this is just as bad as the ones committing the crimes in the first place. Creating and allowing a market for it to be bought and sold to exist is directly causing more children to be exploited. Anyone in denial of this needs to re-examine the reality of the situation. This is why a zero tolerance policy and an aggressive campaign against them is 100% necessary. Comparing this to the "terrorist" label is disingenuous at best and makes me question what your stance on the matter really is.

Now onto the second part which is somewhat relevant. I would only want those exposed those who can be definitively proven. Even if its a tip to law enforcement to look into someones activities charges can only be pressed if evidence is found. The person may be innocent in which case their name is cleared but if they are not then many children's innocence might be spared. These images come from somewhere and finding the source is important to identify the victims and prosecute the criminals. If anonymous poisons a tor exit node to catch child predators how does that have anything at all to do with rights? There is no right to view illegal content on the internet and suggesting there is destroys any validity to the point you were trying to make. Of course there needs to be discretion when outing someone doing this type of activity but to suggest we shouldn't go after these criminals is absurd.

Please explain to me. How is anger against this type of activity unjustified?

Witches≠Child Pornographers

The first part is very important because it explains the core issue with the child pornography that most people simply don't understand. And whats that? The fact that child porn has nothing to with child porn anymore. The definition is now so wide that it includes simpsons cartoons in sexualized positions. That's why I'm asking you if I start defining speeding as murder does it become true? No it doesn't. Now that child porn can equal everything from real abusive images to sexy cartoons, or even stories (pure text) of persons who are older than 18 (don't believe me? Just checkout this interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDrHfuLC4H8) about a guy who was about to end up in prison for 20 years, but got saved moments before the sentence when the "child" turns up in court, proving her age. If this happened in my country he would still be sent to jail), we suddenly have a completely new type of crime. I recommend reading this (http://falkvinge.net/2012/09/11/child-porn-laws-arent-as-bad-as-you-think-theyre-much-much-worse/) by Rick Falkvinge.

I could go in great depth about this, but I will leave it there as you clearly have never thought of this issue and will need some time to study it.

The point I'm trying to make is:
1. Definitions are widened to include perfectly legimitate activities where there are no victims (tell me who exactly is the victim in a cartoon, or in a fantasy story?)
2. Real abusive images and fantasy books are mixed together into one group. Honestly, how can you compare a funny cartoon to raping a baby?
3. Now, thanks to these new definition of child porn we have a lot more child pornographers, hence we have a lot more pedophiles, hence the problem appears to be much greater than it really is. And people still believe that child porn is all about raping babies when it's absolutely not, the vast majority of child porn is now completely victimless.

Just like if they where to edit the definition of "speeding" to "murder", we would have a LOT of killers. Then the government can use that as an argument to steal your privacy, your freedom and your money. And I'm sick of that bullshit.

simple question... if it was just some url links to porn, couldn't the sites hosting those pictures just be shut down? To me that seems to be the most logical action to take.


Another question, what if one day child molesters used block chain to store links to child porn and it became a very common thing. How serious would that be for bitcoin coming under attack from government ?  I know CNN just did an article basically explaining that unless it's your intent to look at illegal porn you personally can't get in trouble for it being stored on your computer (blockchain for example) , but what if the blockchain suddenly became full of links to illegal porn. I can't imagine that would be good for bitcoin.

It was Tor links, it would be like trying to shutdown silk road.

I just realized that when I take the first letter from every 5th song on my MP3 list, then reverse the letters then take the 2nd letter of every 10th MP3 and then multiple it by 2...then add http:// at the beginning IT POSSIBLY LEADS TO A CHILD PORN INTERNET!

Shit, I'm just waiting for the SWAT team to kick in my door.

Please bittenbob take it easy on me while your lynching me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3KPSyNxnL8

Now that it has child porn the catholic church will embrace it  :P

Quoted so you can't remove it later.

I remember some anime community bitching about a new US law a few years back that went after people who watch anime because some of the porn showed girls whose age was up to question. I think that whole grey area is a bit weird to defend, but I do think it's a bit over the line (kind of like making murder in movies illegal). Anyway, that may be what TheKoziTwo is referring to-- hentai.

Thanks for clarifying

What's the difference between hentai of an underage anime girl and a dwarf? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavinia_Warren)  All you gotta do is include a disclaimer that all the characters in your anime are over the age of 18 and some are suffering from Benjamin Button syndrome :P

 If you need special software to decode the porn I would think that software would be a target rather than bitcoin. Someone should ask that guy why he installed such software on his pc in the first place.

You're basically highlighting the point of the anime group-- how the hell are you supposed to argue intent and age with a cartoon? As with all things though, it always depends on the judge. If a judge sees this thread and someone posting "fuck the government, I do what I want", it will probably make it harder for a judge to be impartial.

Judge smudge!  Fuck the government, I do what I want!  ;D

But the thing is, kiddy porn is bad because there's a victim: the kid.  Anime kiddy porn has no victim.  It's a classic case of "Stop liking what I don't like."  Like the sodomy law: if two consenting adults want to do things to their butts in a sexual manner, what does the government care?  Yes, there are naturally born pedophiles in our societies.  There's nothing a law can do to change that; it only eases the minds of people who demand order and control, that they go to bed at night knowing people who aren't like them can't be happy.  It's tragic, in the case of the pedophile, for nobody really wants him to be happy that way, but at least let him have his cartoon lolitas.

If you think this is bad for publicity wait till people start selling their children on blackmarket reloaded etc.

Do you like watching videos of store robberies? You should be prosecuted for robbery. Because by watching videos of store robberies, you are contributing to store robberies.

P.S. I'm not into CP, but the laws around it are just plain ridiculous at this point, and they can only get more stupid, because "think of the children"  ::)

It's an emotional topic for anyone who has worked in law enforcement and actually seen the sickos involved and what they do. Anyone who has will read what you said as condoning it. *That* is the real problem behind that law and any other-- emotional backing versus logical backing.

Ironic considering the whole problem is people who "think of the kids" a wee bit too much.

I'm glad to see you quote the truth. It means we are making progress.

To be fair. If people wants to see cartoons with children having sex why put them in prison? It's not hurting anyone. We can't morally justify to put people in prison no matter how much we dislike something. If there are no victims there is no crime.

I'll add that you make a very valid point about the judge, not only are these laws completely over the top, they also tend to be subjective, making it arbitrary who should be sent to jail and who shouldn't. It's pretty clear who benefits from such massive power.

What's interesting to me, is that, at least in the US, it seems you will get longer prison sentences for watching than for actually doing. Like they guy who never hurt a child, but was sent to prison for 150 years.

And you are allowed to have sex with a 17 year old, but if you take a picture of her you are suddenly a child pornographer. If you send her the picture you just took you now have committed the crime of "producing and distributing child pornography" even though it was completely consensual.

There is so much ignorance around this topic it's ridiculous. It's weird to be standing on the outside looking at this moral mass hysteria in action. Kind of makes you think the human kind hasn't really progressed all that much after all since back when "witches" where burned.

Heck I'm even feeling it myself, kind of like I'm obliged to add a "PS: I'm not into CP"  disclaimer just to voice my opinion. That shit proves my point right there.

That is not true. Onionland is filled with real CP, both soft/hardcore, and if you dig deeply into Onionland you will find sites with some gruesome pictures/videos. There are also forums dedicated to discussions how to kidnap, rape/torture children.

It is true that in clearnet, most of the sites are hentai, 3d, jailbait, and child modeling. This is because of different laws in different countries, and even Encyclopedia Dramatica violates some of these laws.

But there is plenty of real CP on Tor and Freenet. I haven't explored I2P, so I don't know what is the situation there.

Of course it's stupid to equate cartoons, stories, and nudes to CP under law. And some of the laws described here are extremely stupid. Perhaps the purpose of these laws is to protect child abusers, by forcing them into a safe haven in the darknets, and out of public sight.


This one of the reason why I'm against censorship of CP. Another because I think it interferes with investigation. I think is better for the dirt of humanity to be in the open, so that it can be fixed.

Since I mentioned the stuff above, I will add: I'm not into CP, nor am I attracted to people under 30.

Don't even get me started on how the femi-nazis who put out these laws are blatantly biased against men, as if men or boys can't be victims of this sort of thing as well, it must have been this thread but lately I've been getting angry again at what you correctly describe as mass hysteria, the people who make these laws love using innocent and naive girls to give these laws legitimacy.

I was around 13 when I started thinking about women in a sexual way, to think girls don't get the same feelings and desire at that age as well is just fucking naive.

13? Jesus. I remember being 9 and being obsessed with T&A, kissing girls, etc.

Disclaimer: I thought CP meant "copy/paste" until I stumbled upon 4chan.

lmfao :D

Edit: To be fair, that was when I was properly aware of women rather than just noticing they had boobs.... Tera Patrick fapfaffafpafpafpafpapfapfapfapfapfapfap :P

No, it is true, because the definition of CP has been expanded to include things such as cartoons, text and fully clothed pictures of 17-year olds posing in what can be subjectivly interpreted as "sexual suggestive positions". That's not CP. No matter how many times you repeat it to yourself it's not CP. Simply open the word definition book and you will realize that.

Sure there exist CP, I never denied that. I'm just saying that the numbers are vastely inflated by things that have no relation to CP. Jailbait isn't CP yet it's what people go to jail for. Cartoons and anime is not CP yet it's what people go to jail for. The real definition of CP differes from the definition in the law, yet the media uses the law book definition and this is what fools people. Again, I recommend reading the article (http://falkvinge.net/2012/09/11/child-porn-laws-arent-as-bad-as-you-think-theyre-much-much-worse/) by rick falkvinge that exposes some of this.

And let's not forget that there are also places in Tor where you can apparently hire an assassin as well, don't fall for all the trolling. I doubt there are very many (if any) who actually is into that shit.

Only a fool would hire an assassin who, for all he knows, is a fed.  If you read cases about people hiring hit men, they almost always turn out to be undercover cops trolling for this kind of idiot.  The kind of people who actually use hit men know them professionally through personal contacts.  The kind of people who try to hire someone they know nothing about to commit a murder are idiots.

No, not going to happen. Also obviously impractical

Can this thread stop begin bumped or maybe even deleted?

Seriously.. I come on this forum and the first thread I see has kiddy porn in the title.

And you clicked it, scanned the entire thread for content, then responded, and yet *we* have a problem for discussing this topic openly? Interesting.

To be honest the thread has really run its course. My only goal was to get a response from someone in the dev community to address this issue. It was done and everyone should be clear by now what can be put in the blockchain. This thread should be closed by a mod.

your goal?! this is not your thread.

The Founder of a sock-puppet army?

I wonder how many other kilopost accounts here are him? :P

I lol'ed

I think implementation of IP addresses should be required for bitcoin transactions, it would look good all the way around for bitcoin users, and on the side for governments as well, especially since the big negative about bitcoin is that silkroad site. It would be a win-win for everyone

That would mean that all law-abiding people will have their IPs tracked, and all criminals will still stay private by using Tor. Why do you want to spy only on the law abiding people?

Because he's a self-righteous scumbag who thinks it's okay to spy on everyone else as long as it isn't him, but honestly, if people want to make all these horrible ideas why don't they go and make their own altcoin that supports it and get government sponsorship? Or are they not intelligent enough to do that?

Ugh, this is a real kick to the stomach.

Also it really kills me to see how many of these websites exist. =( 

Think of it this way, the easier it is to find evidence of the abuses, the easier it is to catch the true criminals.

This should teach everyone how absurd it is to make data illegal

Information does not commit crimes

There is a password that is going to be sent across a network that activates a bomb that will wipe out civilization as you know it. Everyone knows the password and anyone can destroy the world at any moment if anyone is allowed to send that password in an email, instant message, etc.

Do you:

A) Keep to your beliefs and count your remaining seconds on earth; or
B) Agree to make that password illegal (and block it across the internet) to save everyone's lives.

Hurry up!

You must be new to the Internet...

C) Hurry up and use the password because all these stupid people don't deserve to live.

I dont know why the big ruckus about this, yes child porn is in the blockchain if you know how to interpret the data.. Im sure theres a ton of weird shit in the blockchain if you change every number for a letter... Lol

C) Disable the fucking bomb, because something that dangerous with such an easy hair trigger shouldn't exist in the first place!

Why are we comparing child porn to bombs? Obviously child porn is a bad thing because those children are harmed against their will, but if the video already exists, no more harm can be done with it (unlike the bomb, which will explode in any moment).

And in case you didn't got it from my previous msg, i'll spell it out for you, think of how many other things have been made illegal to transfer over the internet, and how often people have still done it...




And besides, what is the point of making destroying the world illegal if there won't be any law enforcement to enforce the law after the world is destroyed...



Like with Child Abuse, the password is the wrong thing to be made illegal.

Psychological trauma from seeing pictures? That's bullshit *waaah*. You don't have the right not to be offended and all that.

The child is already affected. And any person watching child porn most probably has decided that way.

You're right. However, that doesn't compare with destroying the entire world, the metaphor that was proposed earlier.

The extreme example was meant to prove a point that under some emotional circumstances, people are willing to change their "beliefs" to a more socially geared one for the greater good (and potentially greater personal inconvenience). When that stops being true, credit card companies will stop offering chargebacks.

Uh please, please keep posting! Just think about children...... fap fap fap fap.... Yes!  :P Just trolling.

And the problem is not CP. The problem is censorship. First persecute people for sharing childporn. Then catch all those granny porn lovers. When the laws, technology and population mindset is ready, catch all those people sharing photos of Tianmen square massacare or disliking nigger as USA president in e-mails to his friend.

While it is still legal to do:

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-prn1/71175_96962183712_1019593_n.jpg

I could not find real CP to link here in 15 sec google search, this means the censorship already is in action.

This is the kind of crap that makes me want to stop using BTC altogether in case I get arrested for unwittingly distributing offensive content under UK laws (I don't wish to get jailed for using BTC just because some idiot decided to post CP messages in the blockchain).The only thing I like about BTC is the easy way of sending money to and from other people (using only an address rather than typing in IBANS,card details,giving my address,etc with normal banks)

If this is true (and not just a rumour) then I'll have to stop using BTC in UK which is a shame.

I have questions about this:
Does the code actually load the offensive sites?
If this code can load these sites,how could the developers fail to see this happening and apply appropriate measures to remedy this issue?
How is it possible to post messages in the blockchain as I'm rather confused as to how this can work?

You take English alphabet A to Z, just pickup 9 letters, that too only once & arrange it, you will get "C" "H" "I" "L" "D" "P" "O" "R" "N".

Is that mean English have to be banned worldwide & people using English(Including this forum) have to be banned & put in jail?

There, now you've witnessed CP and must be punished even harder than the people that physicly abused kids.

---

Anything can be decoded into anything with the right algorithm.

From what i've heard, all they put in the blockchain were URLs; and i'm not even sure if they are in plaintext.

The fact that it's URLs means that I can get arrested for unwittingly distributing or relaying CP content simply because of what some person thought was funny to put in there.Whether it's plain text or not,it'll still be enough to get me in trouble if I continue to use BTC simply because of the CP message in the blockchain.

Thanks for clearing that up.I think it's time to finish earning BTC (by working or selling things off),then cashout for good and delete all my BTC clients/accounts to stay out of trouble then.

Do that.
Since CP is viewed as pictures & videos, throw all the cameras you have for taking pictures & videos.
Also throw all the money you made so far using pictures & videos, coz the money you got from being "Professional filmmaker" is somewhat related to CP.
Also you have to kill yourself, coz you have the nickname "film2240", it has the word film, which can be used to capture images or videos of CP.

I'm not a lawyer, but the URLs themselves are just directions, they aren't the actual child abuse images. Though i guess some countries are really fucked up and might make even directions to where criminals can be found be a crime...


Btw, if you're leaving Bitcoin, please send me your coins before you delete your wallet.

Look I apologise if my response seemed offensive in anyway but I'm anxious to clarify my position.I was only anxious earlier because of lack of full information on this subject.It's understandable to have anxiety with things you don't fully understand at first.The thing is yes I'm not happy with certain aspects with BTC but the same can be said about certain tools/methods used in the filmmaking world either but sometimes I'm forced to tolerate those short comings simply because it's not feasible to make them 100%.Whether I like it or not CP will continue to exist in other forms.

With most other things like camera equipment,images/videos,money and my nickname film2240,I can still conciously choose not to have any involvement with CP (never had,never will) even though these pieces of equipment can sometimes be used for nefarious purposes by others.All things have a certain level of risk in life and trying to eliminate risk altogether will only complicate things further.

The whole idea of leaving BTC altogether is simply fallout from living in a country with difficult laws regarding unwitting distributing CP (UK),If it's clear that this whole thing is just codes,that don't even direct or show CP,then there's no need to stop using BTC and I can continue business as usual :)

This?:


Because this:

https://blockchain.info/tx/2d305be3de9b20502a6962b140f446d85469d530f2c210896f6bc2ba7c3b9083

...does not have the yellow table with a message.

I think there is little room for free speech when commenting on such a problem on a public forum nowadays, just like there was little room for expressing your opinion on religion at the time of the Inquisition. So why "debate" on CP? Pointless. And off-topic, IMO.

So I won't debate. Linking anything to CP, even illegitimately, generally means "express shutdown under any circumstances", at least in Western countries. So yes, it could be a threat IF the problem was real.

However, as it has been said already, the block chain does not *easily* allow for embedded messages, and having CP related URLs in it would be an anecdote at most: how long do you really think it would last before those URLs lead to nowhere and/or are blocked, censored, blacklisted, whatever you want to call it?

Want to encode CP images as base64 bitmaps or whatever more sophisticated? Or ASCII-art them? Good luck with the spam. So silly... and again, what's the point? Just to mislead a naive prosecutor and/or judge/jury? I'm convinced it wouldn't pass the reality check.

I remember a couple of awful stories back in 199x when ISP managers where put in jail because some clueless prosecutor found something illegal on their USENET servers (coming from upstream of course). I was young and emotional, and I was horrified. Now I still find it silly, but (hopefully) prosecutors in 2013 can differentiate between merely carrying a message or endorsing it.

By the way, it looks like the block chain is full of shit already:


Shame and scandal! Additionnaly it is full of 0xFFD8 occurences, so I suspect I will eventually find a CP JPEG hidden inside....  ::)

If I ever end up in jail as a pedo because I was running bitcoind, I'd probably feel like Galileo or Turing at the end of their lives.

Witch hunters 2.0...

http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/02/technology/security/bitcoin-porn/?source=cnn_bin

"The U.S. Justice Department wouldn't comment on this specific case, but an agency spokesman pointed CNNMoney to the exact wording of the law, which states that the issue becomes a crime when a person "knowingly possesses, or knowingly accesses with intent to view" child porn. It doesn't appear that an unsuspecting user with these coded links sitting on their hard drive has much to worry about. "

Downloading the blockchain to look at some porn? No? Then no crime.

In theory, "knowingly possesses" means about the same as it does in the drug context:  possessing it long enough to know what it is, and yet choosing not to get rid of it.  In practice, that kind of case is not prosecuted, or every Usenet provider would have been raided long ago.  So in theory, simply having a copy of the blockchain is sufficient, if the blockchain actually contains the illegal content.  In practice, I'm not worried about it.  I do not believe the blockchain, itself, contains content that it is illegal to possess.

This topic has been with discussed with clarity on Lets Talk Bitcoin! radio show. I recommend listening to this episode beginning at the 36:25 mark.

Andreas and Adam discuss what actually was posted on the blockchain along with its implications. Enjoy!

http://letstalkbitcoin.com/post/50105902110/lets-talk-bitcoin-episode-006-cyprus

Sorry but the itw is wrong about the mythical "comment" field. It has been explained times and again that this is a Blockchain.info internal feature, although public, and it is NOT stored in the blockchain. But this myth seems very persistent.

The rest is OK (though I stopped listening after that)

omg

Yeah send them here too.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number
Thank you for using the term child abuse images. Associating media containing evidence of inhumane violence.and rape can't be fairly called pornography by a level headed person.
Seems this is successfully alerting people to specific evidence. Being able to expose human trafficking and child abuse without implicating yourself is probably not very easy.
One might idly wonder about whether the content we're all blindly ranting about is actually objectionable or blown out of proportion.

It's probably the literal string "Child porn".

Nope, it's URLs to and descriptions of sites for child abuse and pedophilia, or at the least porn (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=191039.msg1980099#msg1980099) (you can run "strings" on your block files -- I am also assuming the URLs are what they claim they are.  I guess that would be a pretty epic trolling, making legit-looking but nonexistent links that everyone freaks out about.  Still, I'm sure an eager prosecutor could contort the law to find something illegal about the text itself.)

Not to tempt fate/trolls, but when you all say "guys, it's just text, no big deal", I'm wondering what happens when images go in.  I can think of ways to embed fairly long unbroken streams of arbitrary bytes, which at the data structure level is exactly like having a file in the data structures of your file system (legally, I imagine you could argue the blockchain is not designed for storing files, therefore it is not as damning as having a file in your filesystem.)  According to my non-lawyer understanding of US law, even then Americans would be fine if we didn't know the file was there and didn't intend to access it.  Just to be safe, I plan on making sure I never again KNOW (first-hand) about anything that's in the blockchain other than how my client presents it.

Just to let you know what I jack-off to when I take a break from researching.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/-BP76RZXpLjU/TlPZYaLc69I/AAAAAAAAD1w/tw7gLIfBKbQ/w700/alpaca_1.gif

Done! Now, I need to do some more reading:

pedo links in the bitcoin blockchain http://pastebin.com/09WdxDiJ


Looks like some sects of the LGBT have been pretty busy since the advent of Bitcoin, eh. Coincidentally, Brock "I'm-not-gay!" Pierce stumbles upon (or least first shows his face) Bitcoin during this time frame, via associates of his LGBT friends already active in the Bitcoin community to one degree or another.

Yes, make that password illegal. That'll stop someone who doesn't care about blowing up the world from sending it.

Oh dear lord.

This is a reminder why being a 'Hero' member means little more than a lot of posts.

IP addresses are not stored in the blockchain. However there are several places in a transaction you can put text, some of them making it unspendable but that is not the point.

Hell, the first transaction made by Satoshi was a newspaper headline.

5 year later the UK press finally picked up on this story: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content

This usually does not happen in other countries and it is hoped that programmers can handle this quickly

I can see it on the news as a reporter asks: "It is widely reported that traces of cocaine can be found on more than 80% of US dollar paper money being circulating, even among those People never use cocaine, but we do not '

This is very serious.  We are all going to be in trouble.  Don't download the blockchain - it is poison.

It's not that I'm satisfied with some aspects of the BTC, but I can talk about some of the tools / methods used in the world of filmmaking, but sometimes I have to endure those short-lived events. Simple because it is not 100% feasible. With most other things like camera, image / video, money and nickname film2240, I can still choose not to have any involvement with the CP though these devices can sometimes be used. For unjust purposes by others. The whole idea of ​​leaving the MOF is simply not a life in a country with difficult laws about not distributing CP. Theoretically, "inherent possession" means the same as in the drug context: possessing it long enough to know what it is, and yet choose not to remove it. So in theory, just having a copy of blockchain is enough, if the blockchain actually contains illegal content. I do not believe that blockchain, itself, contains content that it is illegal to own.

at least fix this bot... I mean random comments that you know have just been inserted anywhere to boost post count are bad enough but ones that repeat a sentence twice before going off spamming other threads is too much.

Sometimes I have to endure these short facts simply because it is not 100% feasible. With most other things like camera equipment, image / video, money and nickname film2240, I can still choose not to have any involvement with the CP (never had, never will) though. These devices can sometimes be used for nefarious purposes by others. The whole idea of ​​leaving the BTC is simply not a life in a country with difficult laws about not distributing CP. "The US Department of Justice will not comment on this particular case, but a spokesman for the agency has pointed out CNNMoney for the exact wording of the law, saying that the problem becomes a crime when a person" Owning or knowingly visiting with the intention of watching "child porn. Download blockchain for some pornographic content?

This is a pr issue involving the technology of bitcoin. Since the devs have begun deciding pr issues, it is now their job to comment. Could someone who is a dev please review this claim and issue a formal statement

I believe this is an issue that has to do with programming. I believe some of these acts such as Kiddy porn should not be encouraged in blockchain teachnology, there should be sanity in blockchain technology.  Programming is really dynamic, other interesting texts  can be easily inserted in blockchain but not this poison.