Child Abuse Imagery Found Within Bitcoin's Blockchain (theguardian.com) 321
German researchers have discovered unknown persons are using bitcoin's blockchain to store and link to child abuse imagery, potentially putting the cryptocurrency in jeopardy. From a report: The blockchain is the open-source, distributed ledger that records every bitcoin transaction, but can also store small bits of non-financial data. This data is typically notes about the trade of bitcoin, recording what it was for or other metadata. But it can also be used to store links and files. Researchers from the RWTH Aachen University, Germany found that around 1,600 files were currently stored in bitcoin's blockchain. Of the files least eight were of sexual content, including one thought to be an image of child abuse and two that contain 274 links to child abuse content, 142 of which link to dark web services. "Our analysis shows that certain content, eg, illegal pornography, can render the mere possession of a blockchain illegal," the researchers wrote. "Although court rulings do not yet exist, legislative texts from countries such as Germany, the UK, or the USA suggest that illegal content such as [child abuse imagery] can make the blockchain illegal to possess for all users. This especially endangers the multi-billion dollar markets powering cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin."
Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
So -- someone is going to declare that hundreds of millions of people world wide woke up this morning and are suddenly prosecute-able criminals and have been ever since that content was added to the blockchain? That should interesting to see how they work that out.
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p.s. I don't own any bitcoins so please correct me
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I'd like to see the US government try and prosecute some folks... then maybe society will finally realize that the whole "crime without intent" thing is bullshit, and we can go back to having an at least half-assed functioning due process.
Or the government will succeed and we'll all be totally fucked
Summary is false statement of law. *Knowingly* (Score:4, Informative)
The federal law on the matter is 18 U.S. Code  2252A. It says it's illegal to KNOWINGLY send and receive child porn. Anyone who doesn't know it's there has not committed a crime. Even having read the summary, I know that the chain contains a) porn and b) links to child porn. I don't know/remember if it contains child porn, so it's not illegal for me to send or receive it.
Also, as confirmed in ELONIS, mens rea (guilty mind) is still required. To be criminally responsible for any action, one would have to intend to do something bad. That's true by default unless the statute for a particular crime specifically lays out a different treatment of mens rea for the elements of that particular crime. Since 2252 doesn't specify otherwise, the standard mens rea rule applies and one is not guilty unless they were they had guilty intent, unless they were trying to do a bad thing.
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The federal law on the matter is 18 U.S. Code  2252A. It says it's illegal to KNOWINGLY send and receive child porn. Anyone who doesn't know it's there has not committed a crime.
Now that it's been made public knowledge that the Bitcoin blockchain contains illegal child abuse images, if you continue to maintain a copy on your computer you won't be able to claim that you didn't know it contained illegal child abuse images. So yes, now that you are fully aware of the presence of illegal material in the blockchain, you cannot claim ignorance in regard to sending or receiving that material.
I get that there's a way the law is supposed to work; I hate to break this to you, but it doesn't
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unique users of what? crytocurrencies in general? Because not all are bitcoin with this blockchain. bitcoin users? you can use it without having a local copy of the blockchain itself. So, now, how many actual users currently have a local copy of the blockchain itself?
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Almost everyone that uses Bitcoin needs lots of other people to have a copy of the blockchain or their Bitcoin is useless.
Probably nothing to worry about (Score:3)
Does possession of a blockchain count as "possession of every possible image that could be derived from it"?
Probably not. To get the "file" or "image data" you need the Blockchain PLUS some 3rd party tool, which is not part of the core implementation of the BTC protocol.
If you've never used the tool, then there is no way you could produce the image.
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you need the Blockchain PLUS some 3rd party tool
Like a web browser? Now who would have one of those?
Re:Probably nothing to worry about (Score:5, Funny)
you need the Blockchain PLUS some 3rd party tool
Like a web browser? Now who would have one of those?
I view all my porn on Lynx. I can't really tell if it's kiddie porn, gay porn, or fluffy kittens. I just assume it's hot women with big breasts though.
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Like a web browser? Now who would have one of those?
Every major OS includes a web browser these days, BUT a web browser cannot on its own extract any usable data from the raw blockchain binary blobs.
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Does possession of a blockchain count as "possession of every possible image that could be derived from it"?
Better make deriving pi illegal, you can derive every possible numerical combination from it.
Think of the children! (Score:5, Interesting)
Ban Cryptocurrency! ...
I guess some academic nobody needed attention.
Well, he did get his 5 minutes.
Best. Prank. Ever. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Best. Prank. Ever. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Of course there are perverts out there that would do this sort of thing, but one of my first thoughts was : Maybe it was someone in the banking industry trying to discredit a competitor. And I'm not even a bitcoin fanboy!
I don't think banks are the ones with the most to gain by manipulating the price of bitcoin right now.
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The US Bank industry is worth (Score:3)
This is probably just an offshoot of the illegal activity bitcoins are used for. Folks think (wrongly) that BTC is untraceable. So they do dumb things with it.
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My bet? Even the guy who found this called in the cops to say "holy hell, I found this, I need you to be clear that I found this and immediately called you, and I need you to tell me the proper thing to do here so that I'm not in legal peril .. keep the computer, my complements, here's my backups too".
You don't want to be the one caught with that shit. Because the problem is as soon as you have it, you're guilty of the crime of having it.
True. And imagine a situation arises where you have a legitimate need to view the arbitrary data stored to the blockchain. You have to acquire the tools for viewing that data, and you have to do it now, after news of this data becomes public. How hard will it be to explain to a judge or jury that you really need it, and the timing is simply a coincidence.
Re:Best. Prank. Ever. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is one of the best long-con trolls that I think I have ever heard of. I wish I could claim responsibility for this masterpiece, and I don't even hate Bitcoin!
It would be interesting to know how far back in the blockchain it goes. Was it added in before bitcoin blew up? If so, then it sounds like someone was hoping they found a new way to disseminate or sell/buy CP. IF it's more recent, then it possibly could be an attempt to discredit bitcoin or, as you say, a troll from an anti-bitcoin person.
Prank, or overt act by the NSA? (Score:2)
With a quick stroke of the "think of the children" brush, they can marginalise Bitcoin and, by extension, all other crypto-currencies, and be seen to be doing so for the highest, "moral" reasons.
now the feds can pull the CP line on any bitcoin u (Score:5, Insightful)
now the feds can pull the CP line on any bitcoin user and force them into any plea deal that is good for the FEDS.
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now the feds can pull the CP line on any bitcoin user and force them into any plea deal that is good for the FEDS.
Makes you wonder who put it there in the first place....
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I had to scroll a long way to find this post, but it seems so obvious. Literally, what, one day after the US tries to make Venezuela's cryptocurrency illegal?
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And now we know!
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No, Child Porn conviction requires "knowingly possessing."
And now they know. If, after they know, they keep their copy of the blockchain, then they are knowingly possessing.
Bedobear coin ICO (Score:5, Funny)
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Wikileaks? (Score:5, Interesting)
Surprised they wouldn't have considered this (Score:5, Interesting)
For a moment a few years ago I was interested in some kind of crypto messaging system loosely based on the concept of BitTorrent (I forget the name, like BitMessage or something) but your PC, acting as a node, basically got a copy of every message, encrypted, and your client could only decrypt the messages that were encrypted with your public key, so you could only read your mail. So far so good... if your PC had a copy of a message with illegal material in it, you'd have plausible deniability - there's no way you could read it without the recipient's key so no (sane) court would convict you for possession.
The problem is the system also supported broadcast messages. So I could write a message encrypted with my private key, and everyone who had my public key could decrypt it. It offers a way of authenticating that a certain person sent a message. The problem is, now I've potentially got illegal content on my PC and since the key to decrypt it is public, I can no longer claim I can't read it. Any forensic group could grab my PC and "prove" that it had illegal content on it very easily. In fact, it allows someone to plant easily provable illegal content on everyone's PC. Bad idea.
I brought up this issue, but nobody on the forums took it seriously. I gave up on the whole idea after that. Seems to me the idea of allowing random text into the blockchain is an obviously bad idea. I didn't even realize that was possible.
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So I could write a message encrypted with my private key, and everyone who had my public key could decrypt it.
That's just not how public-private key cryptography works. You can sign it with your private key and others can verify that signature, but it doesn't take any key to read the contents. In any case, it looks like this could be trivially solved by adding some kind of symmetric encryption key to the "public" feed that you may share only with friends or some closed group. Those who want can just post it publicly like here's my feed: keyId = 123 & accessKey = "abc", but it wouldn't be reasonable to ask you t
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It is _precisely_ how such cryptography can work. It would be unusual: It's much more common to simply sign such messages with the private key, so that the public key can be used to authenticate it. But there's nothing preventing the requirement of a separate, public key to decrypt it. Think of it as swapping the normal private and public key usage of the receiving party.
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I brought up this issue, but nobody on the forums took it seriously. I gave up on the whole idea after that. Seems to me the idea of allowing random text into the blockchain is an obviously bad idea. I didn't even realize that was possible.
Let me guess, some jobless pedantic nazi took issue with "forums" and argued for "fora" to be the correct word. Right?
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Jesus, that shit spreads like a virii.
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I brought up this issue, but nobody on the forums took it seriously.
Cryptography forums or legal forums? You could get vastly different results between the two.
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This is not the first time warnings over the ability to store non-financial data within the blockchain have been issued. Interpol sent out an alert in 2015 saying that “the design of the blockchain means there is the possibility of malware being injected and permanently hosted with no methods currently available to wipe this data”. The agency warned that the technology could be used in the “sharing of child sexual abuse images where the blockchain could become a safe haven for hosting such data”.
This is the problem with blockchain (Score:2)
Re:This is the problem with blockchain (Score:5, Informative)
There still needs to be a method for correcting or removing data.
Just. No.
The whole system is based on the fact that you can't do that.
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Then, the whole system is deeply and truly fucked.
You're not wrong. A lot of people saw and understood this at the beginning.
They are probably the ones that made the most money.
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Sure, it's transparent and immutable, but once data is added -- correct or not -- it's there permanently. There still needs to be a method for correcting or removing data.
This goes against the whole idea of having a decentralized universally-verifiable trustless ledger.
Even if Bitcoin did not provide any way for future extensibility or to add extra data to a transaction: You could embed arbitrary databits using Vanity addresses, SegWit transactions, and some of the integer fields --- or even use c
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Non-ledger data shouldn't have been allowed in the first place, but then you have the problem with steganography as a way of embedding secret data in there.
Isn't this traceable? (Score:2)
Re:Isn't this traceable? (Score:5, Interesting)
Shouldn't it be fairly simple to determine when this was added to the blockchain? My assumption was this was injected early on, when single systems still had a decent chance to write a block. If we know when it was injected, we should know the wallet to which coins were issued to, then there's a decent probability this could be traced back to the individual running the system, who may (or may not) be responsible.
It doesn't matter if you find who did it, the--likely intentional--damage is done. This is was likely done to manipulate the value of bitcoin by demonstrating a very real problem with the technology. If you really want to find out who injected some of this content, look into why the university performed this research. Maybe somebody tipped them off.
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The persons who injected these files likely would've publicized the fact, if it was done to demonstrate a flaw with the ability to post arbitrary data to blockchain. That we're only hearing about it now suggests not.
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The persons who injected these files likely would've publicized the fact, if it was done to demonstrate a flaw with the ability to post arbitrary data to blockchain. That we're only hearing about it now suggests not.
It's called a poison pill. For it to work, you need the patient/victim to swallow the pill first. If they publicized this when they first did it, people would have been on the lookout, updated the tools to make it visible, and adopted a policy of rolling back "bad" commits. Now the blockchain is irrevocably (probably) tainted.
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The Blockchain is a 152 Gigabyte file.
While anyone could technically download it --- automatically extracting data from it would be quite a chore.
Well this is scary (Score:2)
This needs to be nipped in the bud fast, but I'm not sure how. Once the feds come down it'll be too late. The time to self regulate is before then.
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Might not incidents like this one, become part of the reason for a change? Imagine you were on a jury tomorrow.
Some people point out that this shatters the dream that Bitcoin could be a way to move finances beyond the law. But where did that dream come from? It came from the ridiculous assumption that people have freedom of speech. Embedding CP in the blockchain doesn't so much expose the blo
Just look at the article above this one (Score:2)
Who added the links? (Score:2)
That's the beauty of blockchains, isn't it? You can trace transactions back through the chain. OK, so the source is an anonymous wallet address. But one can find other occurrences of that address and eventually trace it back to something that occurred in meatspace.
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But one can find other occurrences of that address and eventually trace it back to something that occurred in meatspace.
Unless no other activity was conducted with that wallet, in which case it's untraceable.
Or if lots of other activity was conducted with that wallet but none of that activity is traceable.
Basically a wallet is only traceable if the person using it doesn't put any effort into protecting their anonymity.
Mens Rea (Score:2)
I imagine in some jurisdictions, Mens Rea will apply to the local CP possession law. So people there will be able to possess the blockchain so long as they're unaware of what's in it; likely, even then, it'd be excusable so long as one is plausibly only interested in the blockchain for necessary administrative reasons.
More relevantly, one can use/own Bitcoin or other cryptocoins without downloading the entire blockchain, it just might cause problems for miners or exchanges in certain places. That said, the
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I imagine in some jurisdictions, Mens Rea will apply to the local CP possession law. So people there will be able to possess the blockchain so long as they're unaware of what's in it; likely, even then, it'd be excusable so long as one is plausibly only interested in the blockchain for necessary administrative reasons.
While a good theory, all rationality tends to go out the window when CP is involved. And even if you were found innocent, your life would still be irrevocably ruined just because you were accused in the first place.
Happened in my library too (Score:5, Funny)
But I found someone has underlined strange and apparently random letter in page 33. When I transcribed all those underlined letters, it revealed links fo dark web, illegal porno content etc. I hurriedly returned the book. Anyone caught with that book is in for it ....
Only news because it's Bitcoin (Score:2)
Stenography has long been used to hide information within other files. ( text files, video, audio and static imagery )
I can hide entire images or links to whatever I want within any carrier file I want ( and even encrypt it ) and the world hasn't stopped spinning because of it. . . . .
So the only reason this gets any attention at all is because crypto-currency is pretty much the buzzword of the day.
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Reminds me of Samuel Jhonson. (Score:4, Funny)
Got downvoted for pointing this out years ago (Score:2)
Now it's a story on Slashdot. I mean, come on. It's a PERMISSIONLESS distributed database. That anything other than a transaction amount was even allowed to be written was pure fucking lunacy and a vulnerability in and of itself.
You can view the strings.. (Score:2)
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Old news... From the actual block chain itself:
"http://cointelegraph.com/news/113806/warning-kaspersky-alerts-users-of-malware-and-blockchain-abuse
Warning! Kaspersky Alerts Users of Malware and 'Blockchain Abuse'
Kaspersky Labs warns users of a possible exploit in cryptocurrency blockchains
that would allow malicious actors to distribute malware or even images
depicting child abuse.
The warning is the result of research of INTERPOL Cyber threat experts, a group
that includes a Kaspersky employee.
They warn that t
Link to? (Score:3)
A link, something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ [youtube.com]?
A link is a pointer. It can point to anything - it could even change after the fact.
If there's a link to something bad, then go after what's linked to, not the link itself.
And 99% of banknotes have traces of cocaine (Score:2)
You can't tax or confiscate cash if you don't know who's got it or how much there is.
THAT is the problem.
The same people that decided not to print US denominations larger than $100 would like to see crypto currency disappear, and for the same reasons.
Hiding the most offensive possible data in the currency then deeming it "illegal" is *exactly* the same tactic as testing the money for dope and confiscating the money.
"An old lady calls the police, saying ..." (Score:3)
An old lady calls the police, complaining that her neighbors parade around, naked, in plain view, putting on lewd displays, even having sex.
The cops come, she leads them to a tall fence, and says: "there".
The cops says, "All I can see is a fence".
The old lady says, "Well, you a have to stand on this chair to actually see them."
-------
It's a terrible joke, but it has a kernel of truth.
No one would know about these images, or care.
You really have to go out of your way to be offended.
Toy Story (Score:2)
"Somebody's poisoned the waterhole!" -- Sheriff Woody
Logic (Score:3)
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IDGAF what the "original intent" of networks and The Internet in general was, it has since the beginning been used by criminals for criminal activities, and this is just one more example of that. So-called "The Internet" should be outlawed. By all means use network technology for legitimate, legal purposes, but The Internet clearly and objectively needs to go.
Re:It has been and always will be used by CRIMINAL (Score:5, Insightful)
The Internet in general was, it has since the beginning been used by criminals for criminal activities, and this is just one more example of that. So-called "The Internet" should be outlawed.
s/The Internet/Guns
s/The Internet/telephones
s/The Internet/cars
s/The Internet/money
Need I go on?
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To be extra pedantic...
The input of
The Internet The Internet The Internet The Internet The Internet
Would become
Guns telephones cars money The Internet
without the /g ...
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Feel free to widen it further to telephones, roads, cars, the postal service, horseback, boats, shoes. All of these things have been used in the commission of a crime in the past. If we start banning shit because it was used at some point to commit a crime, pretty much everything gets banned.
If Slashdot had it's way... this is why we can't have nice things.
Re:It has been and always will be used by CRIMINAL (Score:4, Insightful)
just widening his extreme claim, to show how bad it was in the first place.
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If it's criminal when I think that it's nobody's business what my business is, then I'm gladly a criminal. If you have already created a prison for my mind, you can as well lock up my body.
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You* can dream about sexually abusing children all you want - nobody is disputing that. You can even scribble pictures of whatever you like in that regard - the rest of the planet generally has no legitimate reason to care (unless you're being evaluated as a potential babysitter, youth leader/coach, or suchlike). It's your brain; do whatever you want with it. As long as you're not harming anyone else in the process (or actively supporting such harm to others), do whatever you want in the privacy of your own
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Of course - but unless you're advocating for the decriminalization of child porn, I fail to see where our thoughts or words conflict. As for that bit of it (the porn), it shouldn't be impossible to de-porn a blockchain if these files are where TFA says they are, and if TFA is sufficient accurate. The only issue will be in keeping the integrity and trust of the blockchain itself (or at least its perception) intact after doing so.
(...and who the hell was dumb enough to leave such a facility in place anyway?)
A
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Actual child porn, and the possession thereof, has always (at least for the past few decades) been illegal, because it is legally akin to aiding and abetting the act which produced it (doubly so if you straight-up paid for the stuff.)
Soon, child porn, (or any other video depicting various kinds of victimization), won't necessarily be evidence of an actual crime. CG animation and video editing are already at the point where it's hard to differentiate between records of actual events, and images that only ever existed as digital data. It will be interesting to see how lawmakers and LEO's respond to this in the coming years.
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On that point, I agree (I mess with CG as a fun little hobby.)
This will likely cross into privacy territory, though (for a non-child-based instance, making a visually perfect CG-based revenge porn, starring your ex, and splattering it online.) After all, everyone has (I think?) a right to their own persona and likeness. If the 'characters' don't look like anyone in particular, then it's going to be interesting, as you've said.
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> Actual child porn, and the possession thereof, has always (at least for the past few decades) been illegal,
Nude beach photos of children are considered by some to be child porn. This has included family nudist outings. The definitions have often been quite vague, to avoid criminalizing art and medical records.
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Why logically is it legal to think about child porn but illegal to store it on a hard drive? Isn't the brain just another storage device? We humans draw weird little lines in the sand about what is right and what is wrong. In the future if you could externally read some one else's mind would it then be illegal to think about child porn? What if they were actively sharing these thoughts with others? Logically I find myself rejecting most child porn laws as being unjust but emotionally I find child porn disturbing and accept these laws. How should we as a society decide laws? Emotionally or logically?
Possession of child porn effectively makes one an accessory after the fact to the crime of child sexual abuse. Paying for child porn probably makes one an accessory before the fact, because it funds and encourages additional abuse. So I have no problem at all with most child porn laws. But as I mentioned in an earlier post, given the rapid advances in creating realistic computer-generated images, it's going to get harder and harder to differentiate between porn that documents a crime, and porn that simply d
Cars always will be used by CRIMINALS (Score:2)
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or perhaps we shouldn't make criminals out of people acting as a node with no control over the data flowing over that node.
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Otherwise, by the same logic ISPs will become criminals for receiving and transmitting illegal data, thus killing the Internet.
The same logic would also apply to cellphone carriers, gun companies, car companies, camera companies, cellphone manufacturers, computer makers, operating system companies, etc.
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It has been and always will be used by CRIMINALS
What, like money has, you mean? And cars? And hammers? And cheese graters? Okay maybe not cheese graters.
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"If they can prove to the authorities there is no way to put child pornography in the coin, I see no foul done."
Why would they have to prove that, isn't it like asking for a vendor to prove their encryption software can't be used to encrypt child pornography.
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I think it would be more important that one prove that any such illegal content can be purged from the network. If files, programs, or data unrelated to the use of the crypto currency as a currency and distributed ledger can be inserted, then there needs to be a way to remove it to prevent further distribution of potentially illegal content.
If any extraneous data cannot be removed, then ban the currency (hopefully merely leading to a fork that is compliant.)
If dangerous top secret information were to be di
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Traceability.
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Then how is gun crime on the rise in Britain? Oh, wait, because criminals don't obey the law.
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But why is there so much more criminal gun use in the US.
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Then how is gun crime on the rise in Britain? Oh, wait, because criminals don't obey the law.
It is still extremely rare. Your average Joe the criminal can't get a gun in the UK.
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They'd buy the illegal ones anyway to better hide their actions.
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A few generations?
The mitosis generation - When saying "go screw yourself" is actually a good thing. :)
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The number referring to the particular sequence of pi is going to be, on average, larger than the sequence itself.