Re: <nettime> accelerating eats the world

[Carsten Agger <agger@modspil.dk>]

On 03/21/2018 07:36 PM, Morlock Elloi wrote:
> It doesn't seem likely that the Chinese (4 mints in China mainland 
> control 50+% of the hash power) will agree to such fork (even if it is 
> technically feasible, which I doubt), that is capable of removing 
> arbitrary transactions in the past - that would make everyone unsafe 
> (like while the legislature is in session :) They have already killed 
> the block size change proposal (by effectively telling 'Bitcoin core 
> developers' to go f*ck themselves.)
It's *technically* feasible, as Blockchain history is what a majority of 
computing power says it is. That's one of the weaknesses of the system, 
but the original assumption was that mining would be decentralised, so 
"a majority" would be thousands of small miners with no common interests 
in changing history. That's *not* the case today, where Bitcoin mining 
is very centralized.

Also, there's precedent - e.g., the Ethereum blockchain was forked to 
cancel the DAO heist. In general, 51% of the computing power can rewrite 
the history. The cost is another matter, which will be a practical 
impediment.

However: The laws against possession of child pornography are not likely 
to be going anywhere. Maybe it's just time to get some popcorn and sit 
down & enjoy the show - presumably, the slow burning into nothingness of 
the red Bitcoin herring.

> Brute force is out of question, as re-calculating everything would 
> mean stopping all Bitcoin transaction activity for the period roughly 
> equal to the age of the oldest incriminating insertion - who would pay 
> for those terawatt hours?
>
> There may be more to come. The currently discovered child pornography 
> was in plaintext payloads. There are thousands, if not millions, 
> encrypted non-transactional payloads in the Bitcoin blockchain. What 
> if some of these are also illegal porn or something equivalently 
> criminalized? The perpetrators may simply publish individual keys, at 
> their own pace, and make any repair attempts a bad joke. Come to think 
> of it, that would be ideal poison pill for the Bitcoin. Maybe someone 
> is on it as we speak ... it's easy: there are dozens of commercial 
> services that you can pay to insert anything in the Bitcoin blockchain 
> (like https://inthebitcoin.com )
>
> Interesting times ahead.
>
> The takeaway is that you don't want something in the loop of social 
> interactions that majority does not understand and that doesn't have 
> corrective strategy. Humans are simply not bright enough to create 
> fool-proof technologies. Just go to some Bitcoin meeting and listen to 
> blathering of CEOs and CTOs.
>
> > Or, given that a majority of stakes on the blockchain *can* change
> > history, and a majority of stakes with very strong financial interest
> > (as in who's already wasting most electricity) might want to keep their
> > toys, these images *will* be removed - along with forever removing all
> > credibility of blockchain as an "indelible" or unchangeable public 
> > ledger.
>
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