{"id":179324,"date":"2018-03-21T19:39:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-22T00:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/03\/21\/there-is-symmetry-here\/"},"modified":"2018-03-21T19:39:00","modified_gmt":"2018-03-22T00:39:00","slug":"there-is-symmetry-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/03\/21\/there-is-symmetry-here\/","title":{"rendered":"There is Symmetry Here"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>It appears that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2018\/mar\/20\/child-abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content\">pedophiles are concealing child pornography within the blockchain ledger that accompanies bitcoin<\/a>, which means that if you have bitcoin, you may also have possession of kiddie porn:<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">German researchers have discovered unknown persons are using bitcoin\u2019s blockchain to store and link to child abuse imagery, potentially putting the cryptocurrency in jeopardy. <\/p>\n<p>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. <\/p>\n<p>Researchers from the RWTH Aachen University, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/germany\">Germany<\/a> found that around 1,600 files were currently stored in bitcoin\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur analysis shows that certain content, eg, illegal pornography, can render the mere possession of a blockchain illegal,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/fc18.ifca.ai\/preproceedings\/6.pdf\">the researchers wrote<\/a>. \u201cAlthough 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When the crypto currency was invented by &#8220;Satoshi Nakamoto&#8221;, it was seen as a step toward a mythical Libertarian paradise.<\/p>\n<p>Now it appears to be a step toward a libertarian reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that pedophiles are concealing child pornography within the blockchain ledger that accompanies bitcoin, which means that if you have bitcoin, you may also have possession of kiddie porn: German researchers have discovered unknown persons are using bitcoin\u2019s blockchain to store and link to child abuse imagery, potentially putting the cryptocurrency in jeopardy. The &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[368,435,426,364],"class_list":["post-179324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-corruption","tag-crimes","tag-currency","tag-evil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179324"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}