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Author Topic: Setting up a public Bitcoin Foundation forum mirror  (Read 5818 times)
orsana (OP)
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November 15, 2013, 12:20:43 PM
Last edit: November 15, 2013, 12:44:49 PM by orsana
 #1

Recently, a thread posted on the Bitcoin foundation forum that was 'leaked' by a member gained much popularity (Mike's comments on redlisting). Due to this, it has now become clear that we, as a community, need to be able to view all of the threads posted on the Bitcoin Foundation forum, which is closed to paying members only.

My plan is to set up a Bitcoin Foundation mirror. I would create a script that scrapes all new posts and threads on the Bitcoin Foundation forum at a regular interval, allowing us to view them but not reply or post new threads. It will use the useragent and browser fingerprint of a common web browser and would scrape at a random interval to hide the fact that it is scraping content.

I offer to set up such a website available as a clearnet website and also as a Tor hidden service in order to prevent any interference by the Bitcoin Foundation should they not approve of such a website. The website would be available to everyone free of charge with no registration required, no ads and no IP logging.

I will personally cover all costs of running the website. If in future this becomes difficult to do I will ask for donations to pay for this, and possibly add advertising similar to what BitcoinTalk currently has. I will not be running this website for a profit.

The only problem is that in order to do this I would need a Bitcoin Foundation forum account.

I do not have an account and they cost 25BTC, so if anyone likes my idea and is willing to donate their account please get in touch, you can send me a PM or preferrably use my GPG key below.
TheoryOfBitcoin
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November 15, 2013, 12:24:17 PM
 #2

See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334520.0

I am happy to mirror everything. Do NOT contribute any more money to the Bitcoin foundation.
Barek
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November 15, 2013, 12:42:14 PM
 #3

I do not have an account and they cost 25BTC, so if anyone likes my idea and is willing to donate their account please get in touch, you can send me a PM or preferrably use my GPG key below.

I'm pretty sure it does not cost 25 BTC to get forum access. That's about $11,000 at current exchange rates.

 Huh
orsana (OP)
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November 15, 2013, 12:54:04 PM
 #4

I'm pretty sure it does not cost 25 BTC to get forum access. That's about $11,000 at current exchange rates.

Yes it does unfortunately, the cost is pegged to Bitcoin and will not change with the USD exchange rate according to the website. It has been 25BTC since the Foundation launched.

To put into perspective, it is 50BTC to get VIP status on BitcoinTalk.
malevolent
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November 15, 2013, 06:15:35 PM
 #5

It's 0.06 BTC per year or 0.6 BTC for a lifetime individual membership (they update the prices occasionally to account for the BTC/USD price changes), and 2.4, 6.1, 12.2, 61.1 or 244.5 BTC for silver, gold or platinum industry memberships.





About a year ago the individual memberships were priced at 2.5 BTC (annual) / 25 BTC (lifetime)

Signature space available for rent.
qwk
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November 15, 2013, 09:54:23 PM
 #6

It's 0.06 BTC per year
Or, in other words, not much more than 2 USD a month.
But hey, yeah, we definitely need to invite Edward Snowden over to leak our secrets Roll Eyes

Yeah, well, I'm gonna go build my own blockchain. With blackjack and hookers! In fact forget the blockchain.
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November 16, 2013, 09:03:23 AM
 #7

They can just add this as a violation of their TOS, see which account is scraping, and ban your account quickly. There are a variety of techniques to determine which account is scarping that ignore user agent and number of page request but reply on fingerprinting your user account.  Using a custom honey pot post, picture, hidden ascii character,  in which each account will be severed a unique one, you can determine which user is rehosting the content. There are way to defeat this but I won't go into it.
greBit
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November 16, 2013, 09:25:03 AM
 #8

They can just add this as a violation of their TOS, see which account is scraping, and ban your account quickly. There are a variety of techniques to determine which account is scarping that ignore user agent and number of page request but reply on fingerprinting your user account.  Using a custom honey pot post, picture, hidden ascii character,  in which each account will be severed a unique one, you can determine which user is rehosting the content. There are way to defeat this but I won't go into it.


I doubt many people will care about the TOS.

To prevent any such watermarking of pages by the forum operators, simply buy a couple of accounts.

No need to provide an exact mirror, just republish the content of the forum posts.  You can easily check if they are watermarking the content (subtle differences in character spacing/punctuation) by cross checking across multiple accounts.

A Python script would do ~ couple of hours work max.
Mike Hearn
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November 16, 2013, 02:08:33 PM
 #9

I think the bigger question is what the point is? You realise that changes to the Bitcoin software are already all done out in the open, right?

If you actually get an account and go take a look around, you'll probably lose interest in this project, because it would suddenly seem kind of a waste of time.

The Foundation forums don't get that much traffic and don't have much of interest in them. Bitcointalk has 10000x more threads. What's more, no decisions are taken there and no software development does either.

But by all means, go buy an annual membership and take a look.
greBit
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November 16, 2013, 03:03:49 PM
 #10

Correct me if I am wrong, but proposals such as Redlisting would not require any changes to the Bitcoin code but could have a significant impact on Bitcoin users.
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November 16, 2013, 06:31:51 PM
 #11

The mining pools should start a foundation. Using the same filtering software, do not include any whitelisted address transactions in the block.  Good look to everyone in the USA getting confirmations.
qwk
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November 16, 2013, 07:41:43 PM
 #12

The mining pools should start a foundation. Using the same filtering software, do not include any whitelisted address transactions in the block.  Good look to everyone in the USA getting confirmations.
So, you're basically suggesting redblacklisting?

Yeah, well, I'm gonna go build my own blockchain. With blackjack and hookers! In fact forget the blockchain.
Mike Hearn
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November 17, 2013, 06:54:03 PM
 #13

Correct me if I am wrong, but proposals such as Redlisting would not require any changes to the Bitcoin code but could have a significant impact on Bitcoin users.

It would only impact people that chose to use it. That voluntary nature is very important and my previous writings on this topic (which are on bitcointalk by the way) describe some crypto protocols that can be used to achieve this.

Even if the people you're trading with all did choose to use it, there's no implication of guilt to having marked coins - there can't be, because it's so easy to send coins back to yourself a few times and then it's impossible to know how many people the coins passed through. All it can be is a clue for an investigation. So if you chose not to use it, and lots of other people decided differently, the worst case scenario is that one day some detective turns up and says "We'd like to chat to you about where you got these coins from, because we're looking for an extortionist and we think you might have information that can help". And maybe you can help or maybe you can't.

This obviously can happen to you even without Bitcoin, like if you witnessed a mugging in the street.
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November 17, 2013, 07:00:53 PM
 #14

I think the bigger question is what the point is? You realise that changes to the Bitcoin software are already all done out in the open, right?

If you actually get an account and go take a look around, you'll probably lose interest in this project, because it would suddenly seem kind of a waste of time.

The Foundation forums don't get that much traffic and don't have much of interest in them. Bitcointalk has 10000x more threads. What's more, no decisions are taken there and no software development does either.

But by all means, go buy an annual membership and take a look.
If it's not that big a deal why not have it be released by the foundation itself.  In the spirit of transparency and all.

greBit
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November 17, 2013, 07:07:44 PM
 #15

It would only impact people that chose to use it. That voluntary nature is very important and my previous writings on this topic (which are on bitcointalk by the way) describe some crypto protocols that can be used to achieve this.

Even if the people you're trading with all did choose to use it, there's no implication of guilt to having marked coins - there can't be, because it's so easy to send coins back to yourself a few times and then it's impossible to know how many people the coins passed through. All it can be is a clue for an investigation. So if you chose not to use it, and lots of other people decided differently, the worst case scenario is that one day some detective turns up and says "We'd like to chat to you about where you got these coins from, because we're looking for an extortionist and we think you might have information that can help". And maybe you can help or maybe you can't.

This obviously can happen to you even without Bitcoin, like if you witnessed a mugging in the street.

Yeah I think I understand where you are coming from. But surely a criminal would just use a mixing service straight away?

Also I am confused because you stated on the private forum that mixing services such as Blockchain.info should *refuse* redlisted coins. To me this harms fungibility.

And of course P2P mixing services are unlikely to care about redlists.

TLDR; Criminals will use mixing services so what is the benefit of this proposal?
Phinnaeus Gage
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November 17, 2013, 07:10:02 PM
 #16

I do not have an account and they cost 25BTC, so if anyone likes my idea and is willing to donate their account please get in touch, you can send me a PM or preferrably use my GPG key below.

I'm pretty sure it does not cost 25 BTC to get forum access. That's about $11,000 at current exchange rates.

 Huh

It cost only $25 USD to join for a yearly membership. A drop in the bucket for most.
Mike Hearn
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November 17, 2013, 07:16:47 PM
 #17

If it's not that big a deal why not have it be released by the foundation itself.  In the spirit of transparency and all.

I'd be OK with that actually - as this whole incident shows, a forum anyone can join and copy/paste stuff out of isn't really a private forum anyway - but it's not my decision to make. Other people prefer it that way. I don't care enough to argue about it.

Quote
Also I am confused because you stated on the private forum that mixing services such as Blockchain.info should *refuse* redlisted coins. To me this harms fungibility.

Remember that the forum thread is basically a giant brainstorming session, not a design document or real plan. And my own thoughts on it evolved during the thread as I read things written by other people, and thought about it more myself.

Actually the way blockchain.info coinjoin works it could just propagate marks. So that specific implementation would be "compatible" if you want to call it that.

What if there are lots of mixer services that aren't? Well, because it's just about gathering clues, it turns out that marking can still be somewhat useful. Let's say you propagate the mark to all the outputs of a mix. Obviously that reduces the information value of the mark. However, if you keep doing this, then let's say 3 people turn up at an exchange or some other place where their identity is known:

Alice deposits 1 marked coin and 10 unmarked.
Bob deposits 2 marked coins and 12 unmarked.
Chris deposits 10 marked coins and 1 unmarked.

Where do you focus your investigation? On Chris, of course. Assuming you get good at finding victims and most of them help you, you'd expect most of the extorted coins to get marked. Even if some people end up with marked coins due to taking part in a mix with Chris, most of their other mixes would be with other innocent people.

The reason I switched to using the term "marking" and "mark lists" later in the thread is to try and reinforce this notion that having marked coins doesn't imply any kind of guilt or loss of spendability, it's just a way to gather clues that could point a detective in the right direction. The information is expected to be noisy and contain a bunch of dead ends, just like any real investigation does.
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November 17, 2013, 07:53:17 PM
 #18

Who are the others that prefer it to not be open? 
Also your example reveals a problem.  You say focus on Chris of course but why?  If Chris is innocent but simply unlucky because he had a transaction that took the bulk of marked coins he now is in the unenviable position of being forced into revealing his private dealings while Bob and Alice are possible accomplices simply slowly leaking out marked coins.  So now everyone is worried about it but if the % of marked coins above which suspicion is cast is known and eventually it will leak out the bad guys will simply stay under that % and the marking is useless except to the innocent parties who make the mistake of not checking.

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November 17, 2013, 07:55:55 PM
 #19

The reason I switched to using the term "marking" and "mark lists" later in the thread is to try and reinforce this notion that having marked coins doesn't imply any kind of guilt or loss of spendability, it's just a way to gather clues that could point a detective in the right direction. The information is expected to be noisy and contain a bunch of dead ends, just like any real investigation does.

Sounds like you're just using an even more softened up, euphemistic expression than "red".

Whatever was wrong with calling it "black" in the first place?

What happened to "Taint"?


It's not about the gathering of this information, it's about how it gets used. You're making irresponsible suggestions that can be used to reduce the spendability of coins. It doesn't matter how optimistically you choose to present the potential use of address listing; when a usable listing system is available and adding to it is encouraged, the public have no recourse to whatever their national regulators choose to do with it.

China is seeing a huge upswing in Bitcoin right now, which benefits everyone else as well. What makes you, Mike Hearn, think that this type of authoritarian regime might choose a more repressive use for your "marks", hurting not just the value of the Bitcoin system for Chinese users, but also for worldwide exchange rates as a consequence?



I think you're not considering the implications in an imaginative enough way. Not every government is as liberal as the one you live under.

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November 17, 2013, 08:21:17 PM
 #20

Sounds like you're just using an even more softened up, euphemistic expression than "red".

Whatever was wrong with calling it "black" in the first place?

Because the word "blacklist" implies that you're supposed to reject or not touch something. People dislike the idea that coins would be harder to spend, I get that (I don't want to receive unspendable coins or "hassle coins" either). So the point is, go ahead and accept marked coins. It's no big deal. Worst case, someone gets in touch and wants to ask you some questions.

Quote
the public have no recourse to whatever their national regulators choose to do with it.

That's probably true in some parts of the world, but not all (there are even a couple of states in the USA that don't have any kind of licensing requirement to be a money transmitter).

But even in, say, New York, how would a regulator enforce that someone use such a list? If the assumption is we get to design the system and then they mandate it, OK, they're mandating a system we designed. And the designs I've been thinking about involve private set intersection protocols, Tor, and other things that prevent a list operator from knowing who is checking the list or whether they found a match.

So there would be no centralised way to know if someone wasn't using the system like they were supposed to, or if someone found some marked coins and didn't report them. It'd be unenforceable. A regulator/police force would have to wait until someone did report them and then work backwards finding people who should have filed some report, but it's very very likely that those people are not in New York. They could easily be not even in the USA. So that approach seems like a ton of work and it'd yield a dead end very often.

Now you can say, "well they would just insist all those things would be taken out". But again, how do they enforce that? How can they make you use one wallet app vs another? How can they even know if you have a wallet app installed on your phone or laptop? The USA doesn't have any kind of infrastructure in place to know what you've got installed on your computer (at least ... not that we know of).

As we work through these questions there's always an answer of the form, "the government could do X" but each time it gets harder and takes more effort to enforce their rules, compliance goes down and the risk of constitutional/legal challenges goes up.

If you don't believe in any of those limits on government power then you might as well give up now - you believe you are living in a totalitarian state, at which point they can make you do anything and it doesn't matter what software or ideas the bitcoin community has.

Quote
China is seeing a huge upswing in Bitcoin right now, which benefits everyone else as well.

I would love to see Bitcoin thrive long term in China. We have to remember though that China has capital controls. They don't allow you to send more than $50,000 abroad (I think that's the limit), unless you get a special license etc etc. Obviously Bitcoin circumvents that. So this places the Chinese government in a very interesting position, because on one hand they want the dollar to become less dominant, but on the other hand they want to stop their citizens exiting their economy. We'll have to wait and see what they do. I have no idea what they regard as more important.

However, also remember that China implements widespread internet surveillance and interferes with or automatically disconnects encrypted connections. They don't need any kind of marking scheme to tightly control who uses Bitcoin for what. They have the tools they need already.

Quote
I think you're not considering the implications in an imaginative enough way. Not every government is as liberal as the one you live under.

I know, I get that. I'm frequently appalled by some of the things some governments do (thinking of China and the US here). At the same time, this cuts both ways - people who live in Iceland or Switzerland have criminals to deal with too, but they maybe aren't quite so afraid of their governments going going full Orwell. Even if you feel it seems unstable and problematic in some parts of the world, in other parts it might be just what's needed to convince the local government to take a hands off approach, especially if their local police forces start saying "actually the community has been great to work with and we're not seeing Bitcoin get abused so much these days".
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