By Bitcoin Magasin - 6 måneder siden - Læsetid: 5 minutter
Nogen indskriver alle WikiLeaks berygtede afghanske krig logger på Bitcoin
Julian Assange holds up a copy of the Guardian newspaper during a press conference in London on July 26, 2010.Andrew Winning / Reuters-fil
What's started with a mystisk indskrift on October 7 may end up turning into the latest global protest in support of journalist and activist Julian Assange.
Som afsløret af Bitcoin Magazine, an unknown "Projekt Spartacus" has formed in an attempt to immortalize on bitcoin the classified information that the U.S. government has long alleged Julian Assange illegally provided to journalists in the infamous Afghan War Diary.
Following the inscription, an anonymous individual has contacted Bitcoin Magazine claiming responsibility for the project, which aims to inscribe the tens of thousands of logs from the Afghan War published by Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks in July 2010 into the bitcoin blockchain.
These logs created a big upheaval in U.S. media at time they were published, and elicited strong reactions from the country's government. Notably, the content of the logs not only differed from what had been presented in mainstream media but also offered troubling insights into what actually happened in Afghanistan. At times, the logs raised questions about the conduct of some U.S. military operations.
Offentliggørelsen af krigsloggene, som blev koordineret med The Guardian, The New York Times og andre, forårsagede en ansporing i regeringen. Den første anklage mod Assange fokuserede på en påstået sammensværgelse mellem ham og Chelsea Manning om at knække en konto på en computer i hendes militærbase. Ifølge anklagerne var "det primære formål med sammensværgelsen at lette Mannings erhvervelse og transmission af klassificerede oplysninger."
Men som rapporteret by The Intercept, it later became clear that the alleged hacking not only didn’t happen, but it also couldn’t have happened. New testimony, rapporteret by investigative news site Shadowproof, also showed that Manning already had authorized access to, and the ability to exfiltrate, all of the documents that she was accused of leaking — without receiving any technical help from WikiLeaks.
I sandhed beskriver anklageskriftet den slags aktiviteter, der udføres af mange nyhedsorganisationer og journalister hver dag, herunder indhentning og offentliggørelse af sand information af offentlig interesse, kommunikation mellem en udgiver og en kilde og brug af krypteringsværktøjer.
Ud over logfilerne fra den afghanske krig offentliggjorde WikiLeaks også logfilerne fra Irak-krigen. Dette billede viser en såret iraker, der bliver læsset på en varevogn under et angreb fra Apache-helikoptere, der dræbte et dusin mennesker i Bagdad, inklusive to Reuters-nyhedsmedarbejdere den 12. juli 2007.Ho Ny / Reuters fil
It seems this backdrop is the context through which Project Spartacus attempts to take a foothold in the bitcoin ecosystem. The project leverages the Ordinals protocol, a metaprotocol for bitcoin that lets anyone add arbitrary data to the original cryptocurrency's blokchain. Given the properties of bitcoin and its decentralized network of nodes, once data is added to its blockchain it can never be removed or altered.
Sådanne egenskaber er tilsyneladende gode til brug for at bekæmpe censur af information. Under dette lys ser det ud til, at Project Spartacus sigter mod at tage stilling til informations- og vidensfrihed, hvilket gør det umuligt for nogen at rode med de data, som Assange satte sit liv på spil for at offentliggøre. Journalisten står i øjeblikket over for potentiel udlevering til USA, på trods af at han er australsk statsborger og ikke har begået påståede lovovertrædelser på amerikansk jord. Resultatet af udleveringsprocessen er fortsat usikkert, og bekymringerne vokser fortsat med hensyn til hans fremtid, og om han nogensinde vil genvinde sin frihed.
Project Spartacus's website provides a public interface through which any person can “inscribe” –– Ordinals jargon for adding data to bitcoin –– a war log. There seem to be no fees associated with this action apart from network fees, a necessary component to any transaction submitted to the bitcoin network. The page also features a "donate" button, which opens up a panel through which users can optionally send bitcoin to Assange's cause. Donations are said to go towards supporting the following organizations: Freedom of the Press Foundation, The Information Rights Project and Reporters Without Borders.
A huge rectangular button appears on the main page, reading "Publish War Log." Upon clicking, the process of inscribing a war log is triggered. The user is given the option to choose how many logs to inscribe, with a maximum of 300 war logs per transaction. The user can then select the transaction fee, based on which a total amount for payment is calculated. Upon hitting "continue," the user then is presumably redirected for payment.
Bitcoin: More Than Money?
Commonly seen as a monetary network, bitcoin can also serve as a decentralized and unstoppable publishing technology thanks to the Ordinals protocol. Created last year by bitcoin developer Casey Rodarmor, Ordinals aims to make it easy for anyone to add data to bitcoin –– be it text, image, video, HTML or Markdown.
The development saw a parabolic surge in activity within a short few months. The amount of inscriptions added to bitcoin in the first 200 days following the launch of Ordinals was greater than the number of Ethereum NFTs created in the same 200-day period after nonfungible tokens went live on ETH.
This rise in popularity caused a big fee spike on the bitcoin blockchain, leading some users to complain about the perceived “uselessness” of adding arbitrary data to what should arguably be a monetary network. Since bitcoin is ruled by rules, not rulers, and Ordinals transactions abide by the protocol’s rules, the activity was able to continue and thrive for months, leading to a plethora of applications and new developments being built on the original cryptocurrency.
Projekt Spartacus tager et spin på Ordinals' populære brugssag om at lave NFT'er på moderkæden for tilsyneladende at fokusere på fuldstændig datafinalitet på en decentraliseret informationskæde, som drives af titusindvis af noder i hundredvis af forskellige jurisdiktioner rundt om i verden.
I denne forstand kan Ordinals meget vel være det ultimative publiceringsværktøj, som mange i verden har ledt efter for at bekæmpe informationscensur og manipulation.
Oprindelig kilde: Bitcoin magasin