worried about downloading blockchain...

[mailsats]

I have been reading some news items about ordinals, and how some bad actors are using them to upload very inappropriate content to the blockchain

I was also recently thinking of starting a LN node. Now I am worried: if I download the blockchain, would that in effect mean that my hard drive would contain content that could get me in trouble?



Thanks for any help / info you can provide.

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[Macadonian]

It matters where you live and how strict your government is but this could be a problem in the future and I think a lot of governments might ban Bitcoin because of this problem. I do not agree with it but we probably need to find a solution to stop people posting inappropriate information to the Blockchain and then everyone who runs a node having a copy of it.

[mailsats]

I don't know where you live, so i don't whether you could get trouble or not. However,
1. If you use Bitcoin Core, all data would be obfuscated with random obfuscation key and XOR operation. So generic content detector won't find any inappropriate content on your HDD.
2. Lenient/flexible government should understand your intention is running Bitcoin node, not intentionally storing inappropriate content. If running Tor exit node is legal on your country, it's less likely you'll face trouble.

Thanks

I'm in Canada
I'll make sure to use tor with my node, I am pretty sure it's installed and active by default when running the node.
( thanks for the info on obfuscation key and xor operation, got to study that )

[mailsats]

It matters where you live and how strict your government is but this could be a problem in the future and I think a lot of governments might ban Bitcoin because of this problem. I do not agree with it but we probably need to find a solution to stop people posting inappropriate information to the Blockchain and then everyone who runs a node having a copy of it.

This feels like a big problem to me... Blockchain is immutable and censorship resistant, but unfortunately people can be evil, and take advantage of something meant to be a good thing

really bugs me

[HeRetiK]

While Ordinals allow for storage of larger files on the Bitcoin blockchain, be aware that this is far from being a new issue:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content

This didn't lead to a legal precedent then and is (in my opinion) unlikely to lead to legal precedent now. Keep in mind that in the end you'd have to explicitely extract and process the data in for it to turn into media, so without intention you are not able to access any of the images anyway.


...unless you are running Ordinals as well, in which case, things could get interesting, legally speaking:
https://crypto.news/bitcoin-ordinals-encounters-explicit-images-days-after-launch/

[BlackHatCoiner]

I think that should be your last concern. First and foremost, there is Tor, so initial block downloading can be obfuscated. Secondly, you can run a pruned node, and therefore avoid storing any inappropriate / illegal data.

But, in my opinion there isn't much concern anyway. If your government wants to punish you for happening to share illegal content when running Bitcoin, they're likely just punish you for running Bitcoin. But even in that case, I don't think Bitcoin nodes are seen as targets.

[Macadonian]

It matters where you live and how strict your government is but this could be a problem in the future and I think a lot of governments might ban Bitcoin because of this problem. I do not agree with it but we probably need to find a solution to stop people posting inappropriate information to the Blockchain and then everyone who runs a node having a copy of it.

This feels like a big problem to me... Blockchain is immutable and censorship resistant, but unfortunately people can be evil, and take advantage of something meant to be a good thing

really bugs me

Yes the few ruin it for the many and I think it is some thing that we will need to amend in the future especially if governments become more hostile towards Bitcoin. I do not mind complying with laws when they concern something like ordinals. ordinals have very little use cases and do more harm then good.

[ymgve2]

I don't know where you live, so i don't whether you could get trouble or not. However,
1. If you use Bitcoin Core, all data would be obfuscated with random obfuscation key and XOR operation. So generic content detector won't find any inappropriate content on your HDD.

This is not entirely correct as far as I know. The chainstate is obfuscated, but the blk*.dat files are not and contain the raw unobfuscated Bitcoin blocks.

[mailsats]

One could in a new core version,
Simply encrypted the blockchain with AES.
The own private key for the wallet would also be suitable as an AES key.
Then no government of the world could decipher its blockchain.

Apart from that, everyone who is afraid can simply encrypt their hard drive.

good idea

[NotATether]

It matters where you live and how strict your government is but this could be a problem in the future and I think a lot of governments might ban Bitcoin because of this problem. I do not agree with it but we probably need to find a solution to stop people posting inappropriate information to the Blockchain and then everyone who runs a node having a copy of it.

This feels like a big problem to me... Blockchain is immutable and censorship resistant, but unfortunately people can be evil, and take advantage of something meant to be a good thing

really bugs me

Well they take advantage of everything: social media, AI, Web3...

So you should not be surprised that people are intentionally trying to wreck it. But being a decentralized network, Bitcoin node operators can simply ignore it and move on, and not face any legal trouble for hosting that kinds of content (unless they live in a truly incompetent government that holds operators responsible for the actions of "its users").

[Wind_FURY]

I don't know where you live, so i don't whether you could get trouble or not. However,
1. If you use Bitcoin Core, all data would be obfuscated with random obfuscation key and XOR operation. So generic content detector won't find any inappropriate content on your HDD.

2. Lenient/flexible government should understand your intention is running Bitcoin node, not intentionally storing inappropriate content. If running Tor exit node is legal on your country, it's less likely you'll face trouble.

But the question, can Ordinals, if used to inscribe child-porn in the blockchain and build a Darknet market place for it, be used as an attack vector by State-Attackers to give them a reason to order users to shut down their nodes because "aiding and abetting the child-porn market"?

[mailsats]

It matters where you live and how strict your government is but this could be a problem in the future and I think a lot of governments might ban Bitcoin because of this problem. I do not agree with it but we probably need to find a solution to stop people posting inappropriate information to the Blockchain and then everyone who runs a node having a copy of it.

This feels like a big problem to me... Blockchain is immutable and censorship resistant, but unfortunately people can be evil, and take advantage of something meant to be a good thing

really bugs me

Well they take advantage of everything: social media, AI, Web3...

So you should not be surprised that people are intentionally trying to wreck it. But being a decentralized network, Bitcoin node operators can simply ignore it and move on, and not face any legal trouble for hosting that kinds of content (unless they live in a truly incompetent government that holds operators responsible for the actions of "its users").

Yes, but if you run a node, then you have the blockchain downloaded onto your harddrive, which includes any nasty ordinal content

[dkbit98]

I was also recently thinking of starting a LN node. Now I am worried: if I download the blockchain, would that in effect mean that my hard drive would contain content that could get me in trouble?

Chances of someone checking your hard drive for content is very low, but you can protect yourself with running bitcoin node with Tor, and having your hard drive encrypted by default (that can easily be done with Linux OS).
I wouldn't worry so much about that because running a node is not illegal anywhere, but it's always good to be ready to protect all files on your computer, not just bitcoin related.
Minimum you can do is adding strong login password and use separate device for node, not your everyday computer.

[digaran]

One could in a new core version,
Simply encrypted the blockchain with AES.
The own private key for the wallet would also be suitable as an AES key.
Then no government of the world could decipher its blockchain.

Apart from that, everyone who is afraid can simply encrypt their hard drive.

Encrypt the blockchain data on your hard drive, how would other nodes read your encrypted data? If it's accessible for other nodes, it will be accessible to everyone, you can't hide/ lock the data if you want to maintain a node.
If a "government" wants to limit the non-transactional data on nodes in their country, they should limit the miners not to mine them in the first place, and one government knows they don't have the power to limit all the miners, and no power to actually control individual node's behavior, but they do have the power to limit services such as block explorers and other online services engaging in the distribution and exchange of such data.

They can't censor nodes just because of some garbage which you could get even without running a node.

And no dark web trader wants that much attention, they wouldn't touch ordinal/ whatever else as their advertisement medium. If you see such data there, it's not the usual illegal traders, it's the opposition trying to fight the junk.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Encrypt the blockchain data on your hard drive

What? Why such fuss? Just go pruned or disable the sharing of your blocks manually.

If a "government" wants to limit the non-transactional data on nodes in their country, they should limit the miners not to mine them in the first place, and one government knows they don't have the power to limit all the miners, and no power to actually control individual node's behavior, but they do have the power to limit services such as block explorers and other online services engaging in the distribution and exchange of such data.

They can't do shit, in my opinion, for if they could, they would already have. Bitcoin nodes? They are not targets in the first place. Miners? They can't detect who's mining practically. Block explorers / SPV servers / Users? Tor.

[digaran]

Encrypt the blockchain data on your hard drive

What? Why such fuss? Just go pruned or disable the sharing of your blocks manually.

If a "government" wants to limit the non-transactional data on nodes in their country, they should limit the miners not to mine them in the first place, and one government knows they don't have the power to limit all the miners, and no power to actually control individual node's behavior, but they do have the power to limit services such as block explorers and other online services engaging in the distribution and exchange of such data.

They can't do shit, in my opinion, for if they could, they would already have. Bitcoin nodes? They are not targets in the first place. Miners? They can't detect who's mining practically. Block explorers / SPV servers / Users? Tor.

Never suggested encrypting the data, that was a question.
I was also speaking generally, if there is a global ban on services related to ordinal/image/ garbage content creators on blockchain, they can't use clear net, so they will have to go deep in the dark net, where they belong.

[HmmMAA]

Miners? They can't detect who's mining practically.

I'd disagree . Mining activity is the easiest to be detected and by using VPN you mess with profitability , so no serious miner will try to connect through VPN .
Mining is more and more concentrated as the time pass . Currently US miners are the majority and most of the hashrate is in countries that regulations for miners can be applied .
Mining pools are big entities , so easy to control and regulate .
In a few words , the most important part of the network can be controlled . It wouldn't be an easy task , but not impossible .

[BlackHatCoiner]

I'd disagree . Mining activity is the easiest to be detected and by using VPN you mess with profitability , so no serious miner will try to connect through VPN .

I presume you believe the detection comes from the Internet packages the miners send. But you can't detect miners who just mine block headers and send it to the pool this way. I'm not quite sure if you could detect an anonymous pool either, just from Internet packages. You need to rely on the fact that big pools are known.

Mining is more and more concentrated as the time pass . Currently US miners are the majority and most of the hashrate is in countries that regulations for miners can be applied .

As far as I know, the most invested mining infrastructure is located in countries with the least hostile regulation.

In a few words , the most important part of the network can be controlled . It wouldn't be an easy task , but not impossible .

Depends. There are farms who moved onto other places, just because the government started being very hostile. Lots moved to Texas for example.

[HmmMAA]

I presume you believe the detection comes from the Internet packages the miners send. But you can't detect miners who just mine block headers and send it to the pool this way. I'm not quite sure if you could detect an anonymous pool either, just from Internet packages. You need to rely on the fact that big pools are known.

The key point here are the pools . You don't have to control the pyramid's base but just the top . And as long as the pools exist behind a domain , control is possible .
Pools can be forced for example to accept work from specific IP regions . I'm not certain what else regulators can think but as the backbone is depended on the internet access and there's financial incentive from miners , i see many possible scenarios .
I'm not certain what you mean by an anonymous pool . Pools need to be honest and i don't think people that want to profit will trust a non identified entity .    

As far as I know, the most invested mining infrastructure is located in countries with the least hostile regulation.

Least hostile atm , you never know what tomorrow brings to the scene .

Depends. There are farms who moved onto other places, just because the government started being very hostile. Lots moved to Texas for example.

These farms lost months of profit and places in the mining race . When you buy equipment and you lose the advantage of new equipment ( as the newer generations are much more profitable ) , it's not the best move to mess with your profitability because you don't agree with the politics . Maybe you can do as being a small miner but it's not that easy ( and certainly unprofitable ) for big mining farms .

[BlackHatCoiner]

I'm not certain what you mean by an anonymous pool .

I mean either centralized pools with owner being unknown, or decentralized pools like p2pool.

Least hostile atm , you never know what tomorrow brings to the scene .

You don't, but you can guess the consequences. Bitcoin is a decentralized currency, in a world of centralized currencies. A country being hostile towards bitcoin, is a country that pushes itself away from it.

These farms lost months of profit and places in the mining race . When you buy equipment and you lose the advantage of new equipment ( as the newer generations are much more profitable ) , it's not the best move to mess with your profitability because you don't agree with the politics

But you do follow profitability. Moving your equipment to another country (due to either politics or costs) is a decision based on pure profit. If this decision is too costly, you don't move, but if a government official comes out and makes Bitcoin mining illegal, it doesn't leave you with lots of choices.

[Macadonian]

If you plan on running the a node 24/7 you could run it on Tails but if it ever crashed or you turned it off the blockchain would not be saved on the next boot because of how tails works and if you are doing it in a location where running a node is illegal it would still be illegal to do it.

[Wind_FURY]

2. Lenient/flexible government should understand your intention is running Bitcoin node, not intentionally storing inappropriate content. If running Tor exit node is legal on your country, it's less likely you'll face trouble.

But the question, can Ordinals, if used to inscribe child-porn in the blockchain and build a Darknet market place for it, be used as an attack vector by State-Attackers to give them a reason to order users to shut down their nodes because "aiding and abetting the child-porn market"?

Yes, any government (especially authoritarian ones) could use any kind of excuse to justify their action. Although if they're not stupid, they should realize they only waste their resource since user can use VPN/Tor or even host it elsewhere.

OK, then the State-Attackers should find easier targets who are publicly known to run full nodes = Miners and Mining Pools.

I have been playing the Devil's Advocate against those who hate Ordinals, I don't like it too, and I believe Casey Rodarmor's "hack", although remarkable, has opened attack vectors that WILL be used against the participants of the network.

[ABCbits]

One could in a new core version,
Simply encrypted the blockchain with AES.
The own private key for the wallet would also be suitable as an AES key.
Then no government of the world could decipher its blockchain.

Apart from that, everyone who is afraid can simply encrypt their hard drive.

Does upcoming Bitcoin Core have such feature? Could you point link to discussion or pull request?

Not that I know of.
But I would welcome it if someone submits such a proposal and he is discussed.

I see. But it's hard to imagine such proposal would be accepted when it reduce performance (especially on HDD) and increase maintenance burden when they could just suggest user to use encrypted provided by OS or certain software.

One could in a new core version,
Simply encrypted the blockchain with AES.
The own private key for the wallet would also be suitable as an AES key.
Then no government of the world could decipher its blockchain.

Apart from that, everyone who is afraid can simply encrypt their hard drive.

Encrypt the blockchain data on your hard drive, how would other nodes read your encrypted data? If it's accessible for other nodes, it will be accessible to everyone, you can't hide/ lock the data if you want to maintain a node.

The data would be decrypted by full node software before it's being used for any purpose. So in practice other node doesn't even know your node store blockchain data in encrypted manner.

Yes, any government (especially authoritarian ones) could use any kind of excuse to justify their action. Although if they're not stupid, they should realize they only waste their resource since user can use VPN/Tor or even host it elsewhere.

OK, then the State-Attackers should find easier targets who are publicly known to run full nodes = Miners and Mining Pools.

Users above us already mention pool usually run on least hostile country while most miner don't run full node.

[ABCbits]

Ok, I understand your point of view that is correct with the performacne. But I still think that it would be a good idea, at least if it is implemented correctly.
The encryption on HDD would always be optional, so that the user can decide whether to encrypt or not.
There should then be a switch in the settings.

In principle, it would be an optional additional function, which is even switched off via dafault.
The update would therefore not change anything for those who do not switch it on. You could even implement these things by plugIn.
Is there a plugIn API for the core?

Nothing would change the protocol. So it would be a simple change that would contain very few risk.

I agree it's good idea and would be nice if such feature is available. But looking at few old discussion[1-2], Bitcoin user/Bitcoin Core contributor had similar thought with mine. As for plugin, AFAIK such feature/API isn't exist.

[1] https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/46
[2] https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/9844

[Wind_FURY]

Yes, any government (especially authoritarian ones) could use any kind of excuse to justify their action. Although if they're not stupid, they should realize they only waste their resource since user can use VPN/Tor or even host it elsewhere.

OK, then the State-Attackers should find easier targets who are publicly known to run full nodes = Miners and Mining Pools.

Users above us already mention pool usually run on least hostile country while most miner don't run full node.

That's not the point, and running a node in a "least hostile country" isn't really the technical solution. The point is, is it another attack vector that State-Attackers could/would use to stop Bitcoin? Because obviously it is. Ordinals is just starting to be an issue, and if it generates something that will bring Bitcoin down, the name that that will be remembered is Casey Roarmor. It will be unfair to him, because the "feature" found in Taproot would have been found by any other developer, sooner or later.

[Wind_FURY]

--snip--

That's not the point, and running a node in a "least hostile country" isn't really the technical solution. The point is, is it another attack vector that State-Attackers could/would use to stop Bitcoin? Because obviously it is.

I get your point. But just like pirating, usually it'll turn into cat and mouse problem where government only reduce total hashrate and occasionally temporary disrupt it's service. Besides if that happens on many country, i expect P2Pool could be revived.

Ordinals is just starting to be an issue, and if it generates something that will bring Bitcoin down, the name that that will be remembered is Casey Roarmor. It will be unfair to him, because the "feature" found in Taproot would have been found by any other developer, sooner or later.

Ordinals by itself cannot generate anything. It requires human intervention to put arbitrary data into Bitcoin blockchain using Ordinals protocol.

I never said Ordinals is "evil/bad", I merely said in other topics that it could be used as an attack vector to disrupt/congest the network. It's a remarkable "hack" from a technical viewpoint, but dangerous. Plus I never said Casey Rodarmor is also evil/bad for discovering a feature in software that could be used than what it was built for, but if the network was brought down because of something developed from Ordinals I'm merely saying, we will remember the name Casey Rodarmor.

[Jason Brendon]

Simply encrypted the blockchain with AES.

How do you encrypt this 500gb data?

[Wind_FURY]

--snip--

Ordinals by itself cannot generate anything. It requires human intervention to put arbitrary data into Bitcoin blockchain using Ordinals protocol.

I never said Ordinals is "evil/bad", I merely said in other topics that it could be used as an attack vector to disrupt/congest the network. It's a remarkable "hack" from a technical viewpoint, but dangerous. Plus I never said Casey Rodarmor is also evil/bad for discovering a feature in software that could be used than what it was built for, but if the network was brought down because of something developed from Ordinals I'm merely saying, we will remember the name Casey Rodarmor.

My previous reply only mention technical inaccuracy though. I didn't assume/accuse you said something "bad" about Ordinal/Casey Rodarmor.

Of course, and OK, I will go with the thinking that "Ordinals itself is not the problem" - because I AGREE/I have debated for it, and "it requires human invervention to put arbitrary data into the Bitcoin blockchain", then if the "human intervention" comes through the State-Attackers themselves, and with a plan on which mining-pools/miners to target then obviously Ordinals has made it easier to target participants of the network. Perhaps exchanges could be another possible target? Full nodes that matter.

[larry_vw_1955]

I have been reading some news items about ordinals, and how some bad actors are using them to upload very inappropriate content to the blockchain

where did you read that and did they provide a list of the inscription numbers? if not then they are probably just making it up. most of the ordinals are just monkeys...

[mailsats]

I have been reading some news items about ordinals, and how some bad actors are using them to upload very inappropriate content to the blockchain

where did you read that and did they provide a list of the inscription numbers? if not then they are probably just making it up. most of the ordinals are just monkeys...

I didn't see any inscription numbers quoted... I was referring to this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGA1mJm4tQk&t=1s

[larry_vw_1955]

I didn't see any inscription numbers quoted... I was referring to this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGA1mJm4tQk&t=1s

his video sounded reasonable until he got on a bit of a soapbox and chided people for wanting to get out of bitcoin and use fedcoin instead. no need to beat people over the head if they don't want to have the liability of storing imagines of monkeys...