Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

[Thy Shizzle]

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Oh so you're talking about the criminality of one single entity? So having a quick look, it seems that the issue is they are collecting IPs and that kind of thing as well? So similar to what http://getaddr.bitnodes.io is doing but without the funding from the bitcoin foundation? If you are worried about your IP getting out you're behind a VPN. They can only collect the information made available to them. Botnets etc are completely different because you are forcing control over something you have no right to do. If companies want to sit there and collect publicly available information that you are voluntarily making available to them, why do you care? I can't see how it could be at all criminal. Remembering that most privacy laws relate to information that YOU PROVIDE to an entity during an agreement for service, payment, etc. You are providing this information publicly and they are collecting it from the public domain, not you giving it to them in an agreement, therefore the usual provisions of privacy etc don't apply. If you connect to their scraper node, of course they can log that. How could it possibly be criminal?
________________________________
From: odinn<mailto:odinn.cyberguerrilla@riseup.net>
Sent: ‎23/‎03/‎2015 4:50 PM
To: Thy Shizzle<mailto:thyshizzle@outlook.com>
Cc: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

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Hash: SHA512

Back to what is Chainalysis and country of their origin, so criminal
complaints against them would likely relate to violation of Swiss
laws, as is described here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=978088.msg10774882#msg10774882

It is fairly obvious that Chainalysis is not merely doing what
blockchain.info etc. is. Let's not delude ourselves here.

As stated, it would be advisable for such a firm to cease operations,
and it would seem that plenty of polite shots over the bow have been
given to Chainalysis, which should now fold up its operation, pack its
bags, and go back to its hole before trying to serve its masters again
in another way. Etc.

Corporations similar to Chainalysis which are domiciled in other
countries which conduct collection of information in ways that violate
countries' laws (there are many countries and each have their own ways
of interpreting user privacy and what constitutes permissible breach
and in what circumstances) can indeed be held to legal standards that
may result in minimal or severe legal penalties.  It is true that
analyzing information that is publicly available, such as that which
is in a library, is not illegal. But the act of surveillance is.
(Then there is the question of what sort of surveillance, targeted or
general, and whether it is limited to the bitcoin network or if it
moves beyond that to attempts to correlate with usernames, IDs, IPs,
and other information available on fora and apparent from services,
but I won't get into that here.)  Even if you argue that the manner in
which you are performing your actions is not actually "surveillance,"
or you argue that it is "legally permissible," someone else will
certainly come along and make a reasonable argument that you are
indeed engaging in illegal surveillance.  They may even suggest to a
judge that you are in the process of constructing a botnet and demand
that your domains be seized, and may successfully obtain an ex parte
temporary restraining order (TRO) against Chainalysis and similar
corporations to have domain(s) seized.  Any and all arguments may be
added in here, there are 196 countries in the world today - each with
their own unique laws - (maybe less by the time you read this) and a
shit-ton of possible legal arguments that can be made by creative
minds that might want to sue you if you have been surveilling people,
each different depending on where your surveillance corporation is
domiciled.  There are plenty of legal processes available for people
to do exactly that.  You are indeed subject to having that happen to
you if you continue to surveill the network even if you are doing so
on behalf of the state for the purpose of gathering information for a
state's compliance initiative.

So, don't delude yourself, and be happy if all that happens is your
little surveillance initiative has to close its doors (or gets sued if
it stays open).  Because that is the legal side of things.  The
extralegal stuff is far worse.  The community is helping you by asking
you gently to close up shop and go away. It is a helpful suggestion
and I believe also a fair warning, again, a shot off the bow.

On the development side, developers are certainly responsible for
doing what they can to resist this kind of surveillance activity.  But
I have a feeling that will be a different thread which is more
technical and so won't comment on it here, except to say it will
likely involve working toward giving the user an anonymity option
which can be exercised as part of any transaction.

Thy Shizzle:
> I don't believe that at all. Analyzing information publicly
> available is not illegal. Chainalysis or whatever you call it would
> be likened to observing who comes and feeds birds at the park
> everyday. You can sit in the park and observe who feeds the birds,
> just as you can connect to the Bitcoin P2P network and observe the
> blocks being formed into the chain and transactions etc. Unless
> there is some agreement taking place where it is specified that
> upon connecting to the Bitcoin P2P swarm you agree to a set of
> terms, however as every node is providing their own "entry" into
> the P2P swarm it becomes really up to the node providing the
> connection to uphold and enforce the terms of the agreement. If you
> allow people to connect to you without terms of agreement, you
> cannot cry foul when they record the data that passes through. To
> say Chainalysis needs to cease is silly, the whole point of the
> public blockchain is for Chainalysis, whether it be for the
> verification of transactions, research or otherwise.
>
> -----Original Message----- From: "odinn"
> <odinn.cyberguerrilla@riseup.net> Sent: ‎23/‎03/‎2015 1:48 PM To:
> "bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net"
> <bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net> Subject: Re:
> [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network
> disruption as a service" startups
>
> If you (e.g. Chainalysis) or anyone else are doing surveillance on
> the network and gathering information for later use, and whether or
> not the ultimate purpose is to divulge it to other parties for
> compliance purposes, you can bet that ultimately the tables will be
> turned on you, and you will be the one having your ass handed to
> you so to speak, before or after you are served, in legal parlance.
> Whether or not the outcome of that is meaningful and beneficial to
> any concerned parties and what is the upshot of it in the end
> depends on on what you do and just how far you decide to take your
> ill-advised enterprise.
>
> Chainalysis and similar operations would be, IMHO, well advised to
> cease operations.  This doesn't mean they will, but guess what:
>
> Shot over the bow, folks.
>
> Jan Møller:
>> What we were trying to achieve was determining the flow of funds
>> between countries by figuring out which country a transaction
>> originates from. To do that with a certain accuracy you need
>> many nodes. We chose a class C IP range as we knew that bitcoin
>> core and others only connect to one node in any class C IP range.
>> We were not aware that breadwallet didn't follow this practice.
>> Breadwallet risked getting tar-pitted, but that was not our
>> intention and we are sorry about that.
>
>> Our nodes DID respond with valid blocks and merkle-blocks and
>> allowed everyone connecting to track the blockchain. We did
>> however not relay transactions. The 'service' bit in the version
>> message is not meant for telling whether or how the node relays
>> transactions, it tells whether you can ask for block headers only
>> or full blocks.
>
>> Many implementations enforce non standard rules for handling
>> transactions; some nodes ignore transactions with address reuse,
>> some nodes happily forward double spends, and some nodes forward
>> neither blocks not transactions. We did blocks but not
>> transactions.
>
>> In hindsight we should have done two things: 1. relay
>> transactions 2. advertise address from 'foreign' nodes
>
>> Both would have fixed the problems that breadwallet experienced.
>> My understanding is that breadwallet now has the same 'class C'
>> rule as bitcoind, which would also fix it.
>
>> Getting back on the topic of this thread and whether it is
>> illegal, your guess is as good as mine. I don't think it is
>> illegal to log incoming connections and make statistical analysis
>> on it. That would more or less incriminate anyone who runs a
>> web-server and looks into the access log. At lease one Bitcoin
>> service has been collecting IP addresses for years and given them
>> to anyone visiting their web-site (you know who) and I believe
>> that this practise is very wrong. We have no intention of giving
>> IP addresses away to anyone, but we believe that you are free to
>> make statistics on connection logs when nodes connect to you.
>
>> On a side note: When you make many connections to the network
>> you see lots of strange nodes and suspicious patterns. You can
>> be certain that we were not the only ones connected to many
>> nodes.
>
>> My takeaway from this: If nodes that do not relay transactions is
>> a problem then there is stuff to fix.
>
>> /Jan
>
>> On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 10:48 PM, Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net>
>> wrote:
>
>>> That would be rather new and tricky legal territory.
>>>
>>> But even putting the legal issues to one side, there are
>>> definitional issues.
>>>
>>> For instance if the Chainalysis nodes started following the
>>> protocol specs better and became just regular nodes that
>>> happen to keep logs, would that still be a violation? If so,
>>> what about blockchain.info? It'd be shooting ourselves in the
>>> foot to try and forbid block explorers given how useful they
>>> are.
>>>
>>> If someone non-maliciously runs some nodes with debug logging
>>> turned on, and makes full system backups every night, and
>>> keeps those backups for years, are they in violation of
>>> whatever pseudo-law is involved?
>>>
>>> I think it's a bit early to think about these things right
>>> now. Michael Grønager and Jan Møller have been Bitcoin hackers
>>> for a long time. I'd be interested to know their thoughts on
>>> all of this.
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>
>
>>>
Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website,
>>> sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot
>>> Media, is your hub for all things parallel software
>>> development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news,
>>> videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join
>>> the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Bitcoin-development mailing list
>>> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>>>
>>>
>
>>>
>
>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>
>
> Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel
> Website, sponsored
>> by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is
>> your hub for all things parallel software development, from
>> weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies,
>> tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now.
>> http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/
>
>
>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Bitcoin-development mailing list
>> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website,
sponsored
> by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your
> hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly
> thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials
> and more. Take a look and join the conversation now.
> http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/
> _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development
> mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>

- --
http://abis.io ~
"a protocol concept to enable decentralization
and expansion of a giving economy, and a new social good"
https://keybase.io/odinn
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Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

[odinn]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Shizzle's opinion, it would seem, is highly important.  I'm done here.

Thy Shizzle:
> Oh so you're talking about the criminality of one single entity? So
> having a quick look, it seems that the issue is they are collecting
> IPs and that kind of thing as well? So similar to what
> http://getaddr.bitnodes.io is doing but without the funding from
> the bitcoin foundation? If you are worried about your IP getting
> out you're behind a VPN. They can only collect the information made
> available to them. Botnets etc are completely different because you
> are forcing control over something you have no right to do. If
> companies want to sit there and collect publicly available
> information that you are voluntarily making available to them, why
> do you care? I can't see how it could be at all criminal.
> Remembering that most privacy laws relate to information that YOU
> PROVIDE to an entity during an agreement for service, payment, etc.
> You are providing this information publicly and they are collecting
> it from the public domain, not you giving it to them in an
> agreement, therefore the usual provisions of privacy etc don't
> apply. If you connect to their scraper node, of course they can log
> that. How could it possibly be criminal? 
> ________________________________ From:
> odinn<mailto:odinn.cyberguerrilla@riseup.net> Sent: ‎23/‎03/‎2015
> 4:50 PM To: Thy Shizzle<mailto:thyshizzle@outlook.com> Cc:
> bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>
>
> 
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network
disruption as a service" startups
> 
> Back to what is Chainalysis and country of their origin, so
> criminal complaints against them would likely relate to violation
> of Swiss laws, as is described here: 
> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=978088.msg10774882#msg10774882
>
>  It is fairly obvious that Chainalysis is not merely doing what 
> blockchain.info etc. is. Let's not delude ourselves here.
> 
> As stated, it would be advisable for such a firm to cease
> operations, and it would seem that plenty of polite shots over the
> bow have been given to Chainalysis, which should now fold up its
> operation, pack its bags, and go back to its hole before trying to
> serve its masters again in another way. Etc.
> 
> Corporations similar to Chainalysis which are domiciled in other 
> countries which conduct collection of information in ways that
> violate countries' laws (there are many countries and each have
> their own ways of interpreting user privacy and what constitutes
> permissible breach and in what circumstances) can indeed be held to
> legal standards that may result in minimal or severe legal
> penalties.  It is true that analyzing information that is publicly
> available, such as that which is in a library, is not illegal. But
> the act of surveillance is. (Then there is the question of what
> sort of surveillance, targeted or general, and whether it is
> limited to the bitcoin network or if it moves beyond that to
> attempts to correlate with usernames, IDs, IPs, and other
> information available on fora and apparent from services, but I
> won't get into that here.)  Even if you argue that the manner in 
> which you are performing your actions is not actually
> "surveillance," or you argue that it is "legally permissible,"
> someone else will certainly come along and make a reasonable
> argument that you are indeed engaging in illegal surveillance.
> They may even suggest to a judge that you are in the process of
> constructing a botnet and demand that your domains be seized, and
> may successfully obtain an ex parte temporary restraining order
> (TRO) against Chainalysis and similar corporations to have
> domain(s) seized.  Any and all arguments may be added in here,
> there are 196 countries in the world today - each with their own
> unique laws - (maybe less by the time you read this) and a shit-ton
> of possible legal arguments that can be made by creative minds that
> might want to sue you if you have been surveilling people, each
> different depending on where your surveillance corporation is 
> domiciled.  There are plenty of legal processes available for
> people to do exactly that.  You are indeed subject to having that
> happen to you if you continue to surveill the network even if you
> are doing so on behalf of the state for the purpose of gathering
> information for a state's compliance initiative.
> 
> So, don't delude yourself, and be happy if all that happens is
> your little surveillance initiative has to close its doors (or gets
> sued if it stays open).  Because that is the legal side of things.
> The extralegal stuff is far worse.  The community is helping you by
> asking you gently to close up shop and go away. It is a helpful
> suggestion and I believe also a fair warning, again, a shot off the
> bow.
> 
> On the development side, developers are certainly responsible for 
> doing what they can to resist this kind of surveillance activity.
> But I have a feeling that will be a different thread which is more 
> technical and so won't comment on it here, except to say it will 
> likely involve working toward giving the user an anonymity option 
> which can be exercised as part of any transaction.
> 
> Thy Shizzle:
>> I don't believe that at all. Analyzing information publicly 
>> available is not illegal. Chainalysis or whatever you call it
>> would be likened to observing who comes and feeds birds at the
>> park everyday. You can sit in the park and observe who feeds the
>> birds, just as you can connect to the Bitcoin P2P network and
>> observe the blocks being formed into the chain and transactions
>> etc. Unless there is some agreement taking place where it is
>> specified that upon connecting to the Bitcoin P2P swarm you agree
>> to a set of terms, however as every node is providing their own
>> "entry" into the P2P swarm it becomes really up to the node
>> providing the connection to uphold and enforce the terms of the
>> agreement. If you allow people to connect to you without terms of
>> agreement, you cannot cry foul when they record the data that
>> passes through. To say Chainalysis needs to cease is silly, the
>> whole point of the public blockchain is for Chainalysis, whether
>> it be for the verification of transactions, research or
>> otherwise.
> 
>> -----Original Message----- From: "odinn" 
>> <odinn.cyberguerrilla@riseup.net> Sent: ‎23/‎03/‎2015 1:48 PM
>> To: "bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net" 
>> <bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net> Subject: Re: 
>> [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network 
>> disruption as a service" startups
> 
>> If you (e.g. Chainalysis) or anyone else are doing surveillance
>> on the network and gathering information for later use, and
>> whether or not the ultimate purpose is to divulge it to other
>> parties for compliance purposes, you can bet that ultimately the
>> tables will be turned on you, and you will be the one having your
>> ass handed to you so to speak, before or after you are served, in
>> legal parlance. Whether or not the outcome of that is meaningful
>> and beneficial to any concerned parties and what is the upshot of
>> it in the end depends on on what you do and just how far you
>> decide to take your ill-advised enterprise.
> 
>> Chainalysis and similar operations would be, IMHO, well advised
>> to cease operations.  This doesn't mean they will, but guess
>> what:
> 
>> Shot over the bow, folks.
> 
>> Jan Møller:
>>> What we were trying to achieve was determining the flow of
>>> funds between countries by figuring out which country a
>>> transaction originates from. To do that with a certain accuracy
>>> you need many nodes. We chose a class C IP range as we knew
>>> that bitcoin core and others only connect to one node in any
>>> class C IP range. We were not aware that breadwallet didn't
>>> follow this practice. Breadwallet risked getting tar-pitted,
>>> but that was not our intention and we are sorry about that.
> 
>>> Our nodes DID respond with valid blocks and merkle-blocks and 
>>> allowed everyone connecting to track the blockchain. We did 
>>> however not relay transactions. The 'service' bit in the
>>> version message is not meant for telling whether or how the
>>> node relays transactions, it tells whether you can ask for
>>> block headers only or full blocks.
> 
>>> Many implementations enforce non standard rules for handling 
>>> transactions; some nodes ignore transactions with address
>>> reuse, some nodes happily forward double spends, and some nodes
>>> forward neither blocks not transactions. We did blocks but not 
>>> transactions.
> 
>>> In hindsight we should have done two things: 1. relay 
>>> transactions 2. advertise address from 'foreign' nodes
> 
>>> Both would have fixed the problems that breadwallet
>>> experienced. My understanding is that breadwallet now has the
>>> same 'class C' rule as bitcoind, which would also fix it.
> 
>>> Getting back on the topic of this thread and whether it is 
>>> illegal, your guess is as good as mine. I don't think it is 
>>> illegal to log incoming connections and make statistical
>>> analysis on it. That would more or less incriminate anyone who
>>> runs a web-server and looks into the access log. At lease one
>>> Bitcoin service has been collecting IP addresses for years and
>>> given them to anyone visiting their web-site (you know who) and
>>> I believe that this practise is very wrong. We have no
>>> intention of giving IP addresses away to anyone, but we believe
>>> that you are free to make statistics on connection logs when
>>> nodes connect to you.
> 
>>> On a side note: When you make many connections to the network 
>>> you see lots of strange nodes and suspicious patterns. You can 
>>> be certain that we were not the only ones connected to many 
>>> nodes.
> 
>>> My takeaway from this: If nodes that do not relay transactions
>>> is a problem then there is stuff to fix.
> 
>>> /Jan
> 
>>> On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 10:48 PM, Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net> 
>>> wrote:
> 
>>>> That would be rather new and tricky legal territory.
>>>> 
>>>> But even putting the legal issues to one side, there are 
>>>> definitional issues.
>>>> 
>>>> For instance if the Chainalysis nodes started following the 
>>>> protocol specs better and became just regular nodes that 
>>>> happen to keep logs, would that still be a violation? If so, 
>>>> what about blockchain.info? It'd be shooting ourselves in
>>>> the foot to try and forbid block explorers given how useful
>>>> they are.
>>>> 
>>>> If someone non-maliciously runs some nodes with debug
>>>> logging turned on, and makes full system backups every night,
>>>> and keeps those backups for years, are they in violation of 
>>>> whatever pseudo-law is involved?
>>>> 
>>>> I think it's a bit early to think about these things right 
>>>> now. Michael Grønager and Jan Møller have been Bitcoin
>>>> hackers for a long time. I'd be interested to know their
>>>> thoughts on all of this.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>>
>
>>>> 
>>>> 
> Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel
> Website,
>>>> sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with
>>>> Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software 
>>>> development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, 
>>>> videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and
>>>> join the conversation now.
>>>> http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/ 
>>>> _______________________________________________ 
>>>> Bitcoin-development mailing list 
>>>> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net 
>>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>>>>
>>>>
>
>>>> 
>>>> 
> 
> 
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>> 
>>> 
> 
>> Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel 
>> Website, sponsored
>>> by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is 
>>> your hub for all things parallel software development, from 
>>> weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, 
>>> tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. 
>>> http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/
> 
> 
> 
>>> _______________________________________________ 
>>> Bitcoin-development mailing list 
>>> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net 
>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>
>>> 
> 
> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>> 
> 
> Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel
> Website, sponsored
>> by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is
>> your hub for all things parallel software development, from
>> weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies,
>> tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. 
>> http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/ 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Bitcoin-development mailing list
>> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net 
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
> 
> 
> 

- -- 
http://abis.io ~
"a protocol concept to enable decentralization
and expansion of a giving economy, and a new social good"
https://keybase.io/odinn
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Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

[odinn]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Back to what is Chainalysis and country of their origin, so criminal
complaints against them would likely relate to violation of Swiss
laws, as is described here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=978088.msg10774882#msg10774882

It is fairly obvious that Chainalysis is not merely doing what
blockchain.info etc. is. Let's not delude ourselves here.

As stated, it would be advisable for such a firm to cease operations,
and it would seem that plenty of polite shots over the bow have been
given to Chainalysis, which should now fold up its operation, pack its
bags, and go back to its hole before trying to serve its masters again
in another way. Etc.

Corporations similar to Chainalysis which are domiciled in other
countries which conduct collection of information in ways that violate
countries' laws (there are many countries and each have their own ways
of interpreting user privacy and what constitutes permissible breach
and in what circumstances) can indeed be held to legal standards that
may result in minimal or severe legal penalties.  It is true that
analyzing information that is publicly available, such as that which
is in a library, is not illegal. But the act of surveillance is.
(Then there is the question of what sort of surveillance, targeted or
general, and whether it is limited to the bitcoin network or if it
moves beyond that to attempts to correlate with usernames, IDs, IPs,
and other information available on fora and apparent from services,
but I won't get into that here.)  Even if you argue that the manner in
which you are performing your actions is not actually "surveillance,"
or you argue that it is "legally permissible," someone else will
certainly come along and make a reasonable argument that you are
indeed engaging in illegal surveillance.  They may even suggest to a
judge that you are in the process of constructing a botnet and demand
that your domains be seized, and may successfully obtain an ex parte
temporary restraining order (TRO) against Chainalysis and similar
corporations to have domain(s) seized.  Any and all arguments may be
added in here, there are 196 countries in the world today - each with
their own unique laws - (maybe less by the time you read this) and a
shit-ton of possible legal arguments that can be made by creative
minds that might want to sue you if you have been surveilling people,
each different depending on where your surveillance corporation is
domiciled.  There are plenty of legal processes available for people
to do exactly that.  You are indeed subject to having that happen to
you if you continue to surveill the network even if you are doing so
on behalf of the state for the purpose of gathering information for a
state's compliance initiative.

So, don't delude yourself, and be happy if all that happens is your
little surveillance initiative has to close its doors (or gets sued if
it stays open).  Because that is the legal side of things.  The
extralegal stuff is far worse.  The community is helping you by asking
you gently to close up shop and go away. It is a helpful suggestion
and I believe also a fair warning, again, a shot off the bow.

On the development side, developers are certainly responsible for
doing what they can to resist this kind of surveillance activity.  But
I have a feeling that will be a different thread which is more
technical and so won't comment on it here, except to say it will
likely involve working toward giving the user an anonymity option
which can be exercised as part of any transaction.

Thy Shizzle:
> I don't believe that at all. Analyzing information publicly
> available is not illegal. Chainalysis or whatever you call it would
> be likened to observing who comes and feeds birds at the park
> everyday. You can sit in the park and observe who feeds the birds,
> just as you can connect to the Bitcoin P2P network and observe the
> blocks being formed into the chain and transactions etc. Unless
> there is some agreement taking place where it is specified that
> upon connecting to the Bitcoin P2P swarm you agree to a set of
> terms, however as every node is providing their own "entry" into
> the P2P swarm it becomes really up to the node providing the
> connection to uphold and enforce the terms of the agreement. If you
> allow people to connect to you without terms of agreement, you
> cannot cry foul when they record the data that passes through. To
> say Chainalysis needs to cease is silly, the whole point of the
> public blockchain is for Chainalysis, whether it be for the
> verification of transactions, research or otherwise.
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: "odinn"
> <odinn.cyberguerrilla@riseup.net> Sent: ‎23/‎03/‎2015 1:48 PM To:
> "bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net"
> <bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net> Subject: Re:
> [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network
> disruption as a service" startups
> 
> If you (e.g. Chainalysis) or anyone else are doing surveillance on
> the network and gathering information for later use, and whether or
> not the ultimate purpose is to divulge it to other parties for
> compliance purposes, you can bet that ultimately the tables will be
> turned on you, and you will be the one having your ass handed to
> you so to speak, before or after you are served, in legal parlance.
> Whether or not the outcome of that is meaningful and beneficial to
> any concerned parties and what is the upshot of it in the end
> depends on on what you do and just how far you decide to take your
> ill-advised enterprise.
> 
> Chainalysis and similar operations would be, IMHO, well advised to 
> cease operations.  This doesn't mean they will, but guess what:
> 
> Shot over the bow, folks.
> 
> Jan Møller:
>> What we were trying to achieve was determining the flow of funds 
>> between countries by figuring out which country a transaction 
>> originates from. To do that with a certain accuracy you need
>> many nodes. We chose a class C IP range as we knew that bitcoin
>> core and others only connect to one node in any class C IP range.
>> We were not aware that breadwallet didn't follow this practice.
>> Breadwallet risked getting tar-pitted, but that was not our
>> intention and we are sorry about that.
> 
>> Our nodes DID respond with valid blocks and merkle-blocks and 
>> allowed everyone connecting to track the blockchain. We did
>> however not relay transactions. The 'service' bit in the version
>> message is not meant for telling whether or how the node relays
>> transactions, it tells whether you can ask for block headers only
>> or full blocks.
> 
>> Many implementations enforce non standard rules for handling 
>> transactions; some nodes ignore transactions with address reuse, 
>> some nodes happily forward double spends, and some nodes forward 
>> neither blocks not transactions. We did blocks but not 
>> transactions.
> 
>> In hindsight we should have done two things: 1. relay
>> transactions 2. advertise address from 'foreign' nodes
> 
>> Both would have fixed the problems that breadwallet experienced. 
>> My understanding is that breadwallet now has the same 'class C' 
>> rule as bitcoind, which would also fix it.
> 
>> Getting back on the topic of this thread and whether it is
>> illegal, your guess is as good as mine. I don't think it is
>> illegal to log incoming connections and make statistical analysis
>> on it. That would more or less incriminate anyone who runs a
>> web-server and looks into the access log. At lease one Bitcoin
>> service has been collecting IP addresses for years and given them
>> to anyone visiting their web-site (you know who) and I believe
>> that this practise is very wrong. We have no intention of giving
>> IP addresses away to anyone, but we believe that you are free to
>> make statistics on connection logs when nodes connect to you.
> 
>> On a side note: When you make many connections to the network
>> you see lots of strange nodes and suspicious patterns. You can
>> be certain that we were not the only ones connected to many
>> nodes.
> 
>> My takeaway from this: If nodes that do not relay transactions is
>> a problem then there is stuff to fix.
> 
>> /Jan
> 
>> On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 10:48 PM, Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net> 
>> wrote:
> 
>>> That would be rather new and tricky legal territory.
>>> 
>>> But even putting the legal issues to one side, there are 
>>> definitional issues.
>>> 
>>> For instance if the Chainalysis nodes started following the 
>>> protocol specs better and became just regular nodes that
>>> happen to keep logs, would that still be a violation? If so,
>>> what about blockchain.info? It'd be shooting ourselves in the
>>> foot to try and forbid block explorers given how useful they
>>> are.
>>> 
>>> If someone non-maliciously runs some nodes with debug logging 
>>> turned on, and makes full system backups every night, and
>>> keeps those backups for years, are they in violation of
>>> whatever pseudo-law is involved?
>>> 
>>> I think it's a bit early to think about these things right
>>> now. Michael Grønager and Jan Møller have been Bitcoin hackers
>>> for a long time. I'd be interested to know their thoughts on
>>> all of this.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>
>
>>> 
Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website,
>>> sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot 
>>> Media, is your hub for all things parallel software
>>> development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news,
>>> videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join
>>> the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/ 
>>> _______________________________________________ 
>>> Bitcoin-development mailing list 
>>> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net 
>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>>>
>>>
>
>>> 
> 
> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>> 
> 
> Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel
> Website, sponsored
>> by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is
>> your hub for all things parallel software development, from
>> weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies,
>> tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. 
>> http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/
> 
> 
> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Bitcoin-development mailing list
>> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net 
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 
Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website,
sponsored
> by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your
> hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly
> thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials
> and more. Take a look and join the conversation now.
> http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/ 
> _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development
> mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net 
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
> 

- -- 
http://abis.io ~
"a protocol concept to enable decentralization
and expansion of a giving economy, and a new social good"
https://keybase.io/odinn
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Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

[Thy Shizzle]

I don't believe that at all. Analyzing information publicly available is not illegal. Chainalysis or whatever you call it would be likened to observing who comes and feeds birds at the park everyday. You can sit in the park and observe who feeds the birds, just as you can connect to the Bitcoin P2P network and observe the blocks being formed into the chain and transactions etc. Unless there is some agreement taking place where it is specified that upon connecting to the Bitcoin P2P swarm you agree to a set of terms, however as every node is providing their own "entry" into the P2P swarm it becomes really up to the node providing the connection to uphold and enforce the terms of the agreement. If you allow people to connect to you without terms of agreement, you cannot cry foul when they record the data that passes through. To say Chainalysis needs to cease is silly, the whole point of the public blockchain is for Chainalysis, whether it be for the verification of transactions, research or otherwise.

-----Original Message-----
From: "odinn" <odinn.cyberguerrilla@riseup.net>
Sent: ‎23/‎03/‎2015 1:48 PM
To: "bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net" <bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

If you (e.g. Chainalysis) or anyone else are doing surveillance on the
network and gathering information for later use, and whether or not
the ultimate purpose is to divulge it to other parties for compliance
purposes, you can bet that ultimately the tables will be turned on
you, and you will be the one having your ass handed to you so to
speak, before or after you are served, in legal parlance.  Whether or
not the outcome of that is meaningful and beneficial to any concerned
parties and what is the upshot of it in the end depends on on what you
do and just how far you decide to take your ill-advised enterprise.

Chainalysis and similar operations would be, IMHO, well advised to
cease operations.  This doesn't mean they will, but guess what:

Shot over the bow, folks.

Jan Møller:
> What we were trying to achieve was determining the flow of funds
> between countries by figuring out which country a transaction
> originates from. To do that with a certain accuracy you need many
> nodes. We chose a class C IP range as we knew that bitcoin core and
> others only connect to one node in any class C IP range. We were
> not aware that breadwallet didn't follow this practice. Breadwallet
> risked getting tar-pitted, but that was not our intention and we
> are sorry about that.
> 
> Our nodes DID respond with valid blocks and merkle-blocks and
> allowed everyone connecting to track the blockchain. We did however
> not relay transactions. The 'service' bit in the version message is
> not meant for telling whether or how the node relays transactions,
> it tells whether you can ask for block headers only or full
> blocks.
> 
> Many implementations enforce non standard rules for handling
> transactions; some nodes ignore transactions with address reuse,
> some nodes happily forward double spends, and some nodes forward
> neither blocks not transactions. We did blocks but not
> transactions.
> 
> In hindsight we should have done two things: 1. relay transactions 
> 2. advertise address from 'foreign' nodes
> 
> Both would have fixed the problems that breadwallet experienced.
> My understanding is that breadwallet now has the same 'class C'
> rule as bitcoind, which would also fix it.
> 
> Getting back on the topic of this thread and whether it is illegal,
> your guess is as good as mine. I don't think it is illegal to log
> incoming connections and make statistical analysis on it. That
> would more or less incriminate anyone who runs a web-server and
> looks into the access log. At lease one Bitcoin service has been
> collecting IP addresses for years and given them to anyone visiting
> their web-site (you know who) and I believe that this practise is
> very wrong. We have no intention of giving IP addresses away to
> anyone, but we believe that you are free to make statistics on
> connection logs when nodes connect to you.
> 
> On a side note: When you make many connections to the network you
> see lots of strange nodes and suspicious patterns. You can be
> certain that we were not the only ones connected to many nodes.
> 
> My takeaway from this: If nodes that do not relay transactions is a
> problem then there is stuff to fix.
> 
> /Jan
> 
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 10:48 PM, Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net>
> wrote:
> 
>> That would be rather new and tricky legal territory.
>> 
>> But even putting the legal issues to one side, there are
>> definitional issues.
>> 
>> For instance if the Chainalysis nodes started following the
>> protocol specs better and became just regular nodes that happen
>> to keep logs, would that still be a violation? If so, what about
>> blockchain.info? It'd be shooting ourselves in the foot to try
>> and forbid block explorers given how useful they are.
>> 
>> If someone non-maliciously runs some nodes with debug logging
>> turned on, and makes full system backups every night, and keeps
>> those backups for years, are they in violation of whatever
>> pseudo-law is involved?
>> 
>> I think it's a bit early to think about these things right now.
>> Michael Grønager and Jan Møller have been Bitcoin hackers for a
>> long time. I'd be interested to know their thoughts on all of
>> this.
>> 
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> 
Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website,
>> sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot
>> Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development,
>> from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case
>> studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the 
>> conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/ 
>> _______________________________________________ 
>> Bitcoin-development mailing list 
>> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net 
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 
Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website,
sponsored
> by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your
> hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly
> thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials
> and more. Take a look and join the conversation now.
> http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development
> mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net 
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
> 

- -- 
http://abis.io ~
"a protocol concept to enable decentralization
and expansion of a giving economy, and a new social good"
https://keybase.io/odinn
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website, sponsored
by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all
things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to
news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the 
conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/
_______________________________________________
Bitcoin-development mailing list
Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

[odinn]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

If you (e.g. Chainalysis) or anyone else are doing surveillance on the
network and gathering information for later use, and whether or not
the ultimate purpose is to divulge it to other parties for compliance
purposes, you can bet that ultimately the tables will be turned on
you, and you will be the one having your ass handed to you so to
speak, before or after you are served, in legal parlance.  Whether or
not the outcome of that is meaningful and beneficial to any concerned
parties and what is the upshot of it in the end depends on on what you
do and just how far you decide to take your ill-advised enterprise.

Chainalysis and similar operations would be, IMHO, well advised to
cease operations.  This doesn't mean they will, but guess what:

Shot over the bow, folks.

Jan Møller:
> What we were trying to achieve was determining the flow of funds
> between countries by figuring out which country a transaction
> originates from. To do that with a certain accuracy you need many
> nodes. We chose a class C IP range as we knew that bitcoin core and
> others only connect to one node in any class C IP range. We were
> not aware that breadwallet didn't follow this practice. Breadwallet
> risked getting tar-pitted, but that was not our intention and we
> are sorry about that.
> 
> Our nodes DID respond with valid blocks and merkle-blocks and
> allowed everyone connecting to track the blockchain. We did however
> not relay transactions. The 'service' bit in the version message is
> not meant for telling whether or how the node relays transactions,
> it tells whether you can ask for block headers only or full
> blocks.
> 
> Many implementations enforce non standard rules for handling
> transactions; some nodes ignore transactions with address reuse,
> some nodes happily forward double spends, and some nodes forward
> neither blocks not transactions. We did blocks but not
> transactions.
> 
> In hindsight we should have done two things: 1. relay transactions 
> 2. advertise address from 'foreign' nodes
> 
> Both would have fixed the problems that breadwallet experienced.
> My understanding is that breadwallet now has the same 'class C'
> rule as bitcoind, which would also fix it.
> 
> Getting back on the topic of this thread and whether it is illegal,
> your guess is as good as mine. I don't think it is illegal to log
> incoming connections and make statistical analysis on it. That
> would more or less incriminate anyone who runs a web-server and
> looks into the access log. At lease one Bitcoin service has been
> collecting IP addresses for years and given them to anyone visiting
> their web-site (you know who) and I believe that this practise is
> very wrong. We have no intention of giving IP addresses away to
> anyone, but we believe that you are free to make statistics on
> connection logs when nodes connect to you.
> 
> On a side note: When you make many connections to the network you
> see lots of strange nodes and suspicious patterns. You can be
> certain that we were not the only ones connected to many nodes.
> 
> My takeaway from this: If nodes that do not relay transactions is a
> problem then there is stuff to fix.
> 
> /Jan
> 
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 10:48 PM, Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net>
> wrote:
> 
>> That would be rather new and tricky legal territory.
>> 
>> But even putting the legal issues to one side, there are
>> definitional issues.
>> 
>> For instance if the Chainalysis nodes started following the
>> protocol specs better and became just regular nodes that happen
>> to keep logs, would that still be a violation? If so, what about
>> blockchain.info? It'd be shooting ourselves in the foot to try
>> and forbid block explorers given how useful they are.
>> 
>> If someone non-maliciously runs some nodes with debug logging
>> turned on, and makes full system backups every night, and keeps
>> those backups for years, are they in violation of whatever
>> pseudo-law is involved?
>> 
>> I think it's a bit early to think about these things right now.
>> Michael Grønager and Jan Møller have been Bitcoin hackers for a
>> long time. I'd be interested to know their thoughts on all of
>> this.
>> 
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> 
Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website,
>> sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot
>> Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development,
>> from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case
>> studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the 
>> conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/ 
>> _______________________________________________ 
>> Bitcoin-development mailing list 
>> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net 
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 
Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website,
sponsored
> by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your
> hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly
> thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials
> and more. Take a look and join the conversation now.
> http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development
> mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net 
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
> 

- -- 
http://abis.io ~
"a protocol concept to enable decentralization
and expansion of a giving economy, and a new social good"
https://keybase.io/odinn
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Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

[Aaron Voisine]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5396 bytes --]

Thanks Jan, we added several additional checks for non-standard protocol
responses, and also made the client revert to DNS seeding more quickly if
it runs into trouble, so it's now more robust against sybil/DOS attack. I
mentioned in the coindesk article that I didn't think what your nodes were
doing was intended to be malicious with respect to network disruption. It's
our job to better handle non-standard or even malicious behavior from
random p2p nodes.


Aaron Voisine
co-founder and CEO
breadwallet.com

On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 1:44 AM, Jan Møller <jan.moller@gmail.com> wrote:

> What we were trying to achieve was determining the flow of funds between
> countries by figuring out which country a transaction originates from.
> To do that with a certain accuracy you need many nodes. We chose a class C
> IP range as we knew that bitcoin core and others only connect to one node
> in any class C IP range. We were not aware that breadwallet didn't follow
> this practice. Breadwallet risked getting tar-pitted, but that was not our
> intention and we are sorry about that.
>
> Our nodes DID respond with valid blocks and merkle-blocks and allowed
> everyone connecting to track the blockchain. We did however not relay
> transactions. The 'service' bit in the version message is not meant for
> telling whether or how the node relays transactions, it tells whether you
> can ask for block headers only or full blocks.
>
> Many implementations enforce non standard rules for handling transactions;
> some nodes ignore transactions with address reuse, some nodes happily
> forward double spends, and some nodes forward neither blocks not
> transactions. We did blocks but not transactions.
>
> In hindsight we should have done two things:
> 1. relay transactions
> 2. advertise address from 'foreign' nodes
>
> Both would have fixed the problems that breadwallet experienced. My
> understanding is that breadwallet now has the same 'class C' rule as
> bitcoind, which would also fix it.
>
> Getting back on the topic of this thread and whether it is illegal, your
> guess is as good as mine. I don't think it is illegal to log incoming
> connections and make statistical analysis on it. That would more or less
> incriminate anyone who runs a web-server and looks into the access log.
> At lease one Bitcoin service has been collecting IP addresses for years
> and given them to anyone visiting their web-site (you know who) and I
> believe that this practise is very wrong. We have no intention of giving IP
> addresses away to anyone, but we believe that you are free to make
> statistics on connection logs when nodes connect to you.
>
> On a side note: When you make many connections to the network you see lots
> of strange nodes and suspicious patterns. You can be certain that we were
> not the only ones connected to many nodes.
>
> My takeaway from this: If nodes that do not relay transactions is a
> problem then there is stuff to fix.
>
> /Jan
>
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 10:48 PM, Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net> wrote:
>
>> That would be rather new and tricky legal territory.
>>
>> But even putting the legal issues to one side, there are definitional
>> issues.
>>
>> For instance if the Chainalysis nodes started following the protocol
>> specs better and became just regular nodes that happen to keep logs, would
>> that still be a violation? If so, what about blockchain.info? It'd be
>> shooting ourselves in the foot to try and forbid block explorers given how
>> useful they are.
>>
>> If someone non-maliciously runs some nodes with debug logging turned on,
>> and makes full system backups every night, and keeps those backups for
>> years, are they in violation of whatever pseudo-law is involved?
>>
>> I think it's a bit early to think about these things right now. Michael
>> Grønager and Jan Møller have been Bitcoin hackers for a long time. I'd be
>> interested to know their thoughts on all of this.
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website,
>> sponsored
>> by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub
>> for all
>> things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership
>> blogs to
>> news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the
>> conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/
>> _______________________________________________
>> Bitcoin-development mailing list
>> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>>
>>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website,
> sponsored
> by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for
> all
> things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs
> to
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Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

[Jan Møller]

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What we were trying to achieve was determining the flow of funds between
countries by figuring out which country a transaction originates from.
To do that with a certain accuracy you need many nodes. We chose a class C
IP range as we knew that bitcoin core and others only connect to one node
in any class C IP range. We were not aware that breadwallet didn't follow
this practice. Breadwallet risked getting tar-pitted, but that was not our
intention and we are sorry about that.

Our nodes DID respond with valid blocks and merkle-blocks and allowed
everyone connecting to track the blockchain. We did however not relay
transactions. The 'service' bit in the version message is not meant for
telling whether or how the node relays transactions, it tells whether you
can ask for block headers only or full blocks.

Many implementations enforce non standard rules for handling transactions;
some nodes ignore transactions with address reuse, some nodes happily
forward double spends, and some nodes forward neither blocks not
transactions. We did blocks but not transactions.

In hindsight we should have done two things:
1. relay transactions
2. advertise address from 'foreign' nodes

Both would have fixed the problems that breadwallet experienced. My
understanding is that breadwallet now has the same 'class C' rule as
bitcoind, which would also fix it.

Getting back on the topic of this thread and whether it is illegal, your
guess is as good as mine. I don't think it is illegal to log incoming
connections and make statistical analysis on it. That would more or less
incriminate anyone who runs a web-server and looks into the access log.
At lease one Bitcoin service has been collecting IP addresses for years and
given them to anyone visiting their web-site (you know who) and I believe
that this practise is very wrong. We have no intention of giving IP
addresses away to anyone, but we believe that you are free to make
statistics on connection logs when nodes connect to you.

On a side note: When you make many connections to the network you see lots
of strange nodes and suspicious patterns. You can be certain that we were
not the only ones connected to many nodes.

My takeaway from this: If nodes that do not relay transactions is a problem
then there is stuff to fix.

/Jan

On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 10:48 PM, Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net> wrote:

> That would be rather new and tricky legal territory.
>
> But even putting the legal issues to one side, there are definitional
> issues.
>
> For instance if the Chainalysis nodes started following the protocol specs
> better and became just regular nodes that happen to keep logs, would that
> still be a violation? If so, what about blockchain.info? It'd be shooting
> ourselves in the foot to try and forbid block explorers given how useful
> they are.
>
> If someone non-maliciously runs some nodes with debug logging turned on,
> and makes full system backups every night, and keeps those backups for
> years, are they in violation of whatever pseudo-law is involved?
>
> I think it's a bit early to think about these things right now. Michael
> Grønager and Jan Møller have been Bitcoin hackers for a long time. I'd be
> interested to know their thoughts on all of this.
>
>
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Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

[Justus Ranvier]

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On 03/13/2015 05:24 PM, Mike Hearn wrote:
> Well they don't set NODE_NETWORK, so they don't claim to be
> providing network services. But then I guess the Chainalysis nodes
> could easily just clear that bit flag too.

If a peer claims to provide network services, and does not do so while
consuming another node's resources, that might be considered exceeding
authorized access.

bitcoind should probably have more fine-grained control over how it
allocates connection resources between peers vs clients.
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Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

[Mike Hearn]

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>
> Don't SPV clients announce their intentions by the act of uploading a
> filter?
>

Well they don't set NODE_NETWORK, so they don't claim to be providing
network services. But then I guess the Chainalysis nodes could easily just
clear that bit flag too.


> What I'd actually like to see is for network users to pay for the node
> resources that they consume


It's not quite pay-as-you-go, but I just posted a scheme for funding of
network resources using crowdfunding contracts here:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/5783#issuecomment-79460064

That comment doesn't have any kind of provision for access control, but
group signatures could be extended in both directions: the server proves it
was a part of the group that was funded by the contract, and the client
proves it was in group that funded the contract, but it's done in a
(relatively) anonymous way. Then any client can use any node it funded, or
at least, buy priority access.

But it's rather complicated. I'd hope that nodes can be like email
accounts: yes they have a cost but in practice people everyone gets one for
free because of random commercial cross-subsidisation, self hosting and
other things.

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Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

[Justus Ranvier]

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On 03/13/2015 05:08 PM, Mike Hearn wrote:
> 
> That definition would include all SPV clients?

Don't SPV clients announce their intentions by the act of uploading a
filter?

> I get what you are trying to do. It just seems extremely tricky.

Certainly the protocol could be designed in a way that provides
finer-grained access controls and connection limits, which would make
the situation more clear.

What I'd actually like to see is for network users to pay for the node
resources that they consume, so that anyone who wants to place
increased load on the network would compensate node operators for the
burden:

http://bitcoinism.liberty.me/2015/02/09/economic-fallacies-and-the-block-size-limit-part-2-price-discovery/

Absent that kind of comprehensive solution, problems like this will
continue to recur.
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Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

[Mike Hearn]

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>
> I'm not talking about keeping logs, I mean purporting to be a network
> peer in order to gain a connection slot and then not behaving as one
> (not relaying transactions)


That definition would include all SPV clients?

I get what you are trying to do. It just seems extremely tricky.

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Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

[Justus Ranvier]

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On 03/13/2015 04:48 PM, Mike Hearn wrote:
> That would be rather new and tricky legal territory.
> 
> But even putting the legal issues to one side, there are
> definitional issues.
> 
> For instance if the Chainalysis nodes started following the
> protocol specs better and became just regular nodes that happen to
> keep logs, would that still be a violation? If so, what about
> blockchain.info? It'd be shooting ourselves in the foot to try and
> forbid block explorers given how useful they are.

I'm not talking about keeping logs, I mean purporting to be a network
peer in order to gain a connection slot and then not behaving as one
(not relaying transactions), thereby depriving the peers to which
operator actually intends to offer service of the ability to connect.

That someone wants to run a large number of nodes in order to make
their own logs more saleable, does not mean they are entitled to break
the protocol to make other node operators subsidize their log collection.

Especially if a data collection company is deploying nodes that do not
relay and aggressively reconnect after a ban, it seems like they'd
have a hard time arguing that they were not knowingly exceeding
authorized access.
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Re: [Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

[Mike Hearn]

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That would be rather new and tricky legal territory.

But even putting the legal issues to one side, there are definitional
issues.

For instance if the Chainalysis nodes started following the protocol specs
better and became just regular nodes that happen to keep logs, would that
still be a violation? If so, what about blockchain.info? It'd be shooting
ourselves in the foot to try and forbid block explorers given how useful
they are.

If someone non-maliciously runs some nodes with debug logging turned on,
and makes full system backups every night, and keeps those backups for
years, are they in violation of whatever pseudo-law is involved?

I think it's a bit early to think about these things right now. Michael
Grønager and Jan Møller have been Bitcoin hackers for a long time. I'd be
interested to know their thoughts on all of this.

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[Bitcoin-development] Criminal complaints against "network disruption as a service" startups

[Justus Ranvier]

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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Given the recent news about Chainanalysis
(https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2yvy6b/a_regulatory_compliance_service_is_sybil/),
and other companies who are disrupting the Bitcoin network
(https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2we0d9/in_an_unrelated_thread_a_bitcoin_dev_claimed/copzt3x)
it might be worth reviewing the terms of the Computer Fraud and Abuse
Act and similar legislation in other countries.

Although it's not possible to stop network attacks by making them
illegal, it's certainly possible to stop traditionally funded
companies from engaging in that activity. Note there exist no
VC-funded DDoS as a service companies operating openly.

It's also worth discussing ways to make the responsibilities of
network peers more explicit in the protocol, so that when an entity
decides to access the network for purposes other than for what full
node operators made connection slots available that behavior will be a
more obvious violation of various anti-hacking laws.
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