Re:What do you legally “own” with Bitcoin? A short introduct...
by TheDong on Saturday November 24, 2018 @04:46PM
(#18524147)
> It's clearly not _illegal_ for me to own a private key.
How is that clearly true? Under the computer-fraud-and-abuse act, it's probably illegal for you to own information on my server I don't intend you to own (if you got it from my server at least).
If I worked at a certificate authority and stole the signing key they used, quit, and began minting certificates, I can assure you I would be prosecuted and found guilty (both for damage to the company, for stealing company property, violating my contract, and probably a CFAA violation to boot).
There are plenty of numbers that you can't legally have on your computer under certain circumstances [0].
All of this relates to "the color of bits"[1], which is to say what's legal and not legal depends on more than just the number. If you steal someone's private key, that's probably illegal. If you are given it or derive it by chance, it's possibly legal. If you use it to steal their bitcoin, even if derived by chance, that's probably illegal (the law doesn't really care about the details of bitcoin, it's still a thing of value that's owned by an individual).
The law doesn't care that all those bits are the same; some of them are legal, some of them are not, and we as technical people don't like that.
> claim it's public domain, and some legalistic construct pops through a side channel and claims that in my jurisdiction public domain doesn't exist; clearly my personal attribution takes precedence.
That also doesn't seem clear to me. In reality, no one will care enough for it to be an issue, but it seems legally arguable.
I would like to again refer you to the second post I linked. As a technical person, you don't want to think about how arbitrary and situational the law is, especially in technical issues that seem like they should be clearcut. The reality is much more complicated.
How is that clearly true? Under the computer-fraud-and-abuse act, it's probably illegal for you to own information on my server I don't intend you to own (if you got it from my server at least).
If I worked at a certificate authority and stole the signing key they used, quit, and began minting certificates, I can assure you I would be prosecuted and found guilty (both for damage to the company, for stealing company property, violating my contract, and probably a CFAA violation to boot).
There are plenty of numbers that you can't legally have on your computer under certain circumstances [0].
All of this relates to "the color of bits"[1], which is to say what's legal and not legal depends on more than just the number. If you steal someone's private key, that's probably illegal. If you are given it or derive it by chance, it's possibly legal. If you use it to steal their bitcoin, even if derived by chance, that's probably illegal (the law doesn't really care about the details of bitcoin, it's still a thing of value that's owned by an individual).
The law doesn't care that all those bits are the same; some of them are legal, some of them are not, and we as technical people don't like that.
> claim it's public domain, and some legalistic construct pops through a side channel and claims that in my jurisdiction public domain doesn't exist; clearly my personal attribution takes precedence.
That also doesn't seem clear to me. In reality, no one will care enough for it to be an issue, but it seems legally arguable.
I would like to again refer you to the second post I linked. As a technical person, you don't want to think about how arbitrary and situational the law is, especially in technical issues that seem like they should be clearcut. The reality is much more complicated.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number
[1]: http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23