Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] The legal risks of auto-updating wallet software; custodial relationships

From: Peter Todd <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 12:15:57 -0500

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 08:43:57AM -0800, Daniel Stadulis wrote:
> Hey Peter,
> 
> What would you say to the argument: given developers have auto update
> capabilities they only have the ability to *give themselves* *the ability* to
> have custodial rights?

Heh, well, courts tend not to have the narrow-minded pedantic logic that
programmers do; quite likely that they'd see having the ability to give
themselves the ability as equivalent to simply having the ability. What
matters more is intent: the authors of an operating system had no intent
to have a custodial relationship over anyones' BTC, so they'd be off the
hook. The authors of a Bitcoin wallet on the other hand, depends on how
you go about it.

For instance Lighthouse has something called UpdateFX, which allows for
multi-signature updates. It also supports deterministic builds, and
allows users to chose whether or not they'll follow new updates
automatically, or only update on demand. In a court that could be all
brought up as examples of intent *not* to have a custodial relationship,
which may be enough to sway judge/jury, and certainly will help avoid
ending up in court in the first place by virtue of the fact that all
those protections help avoid theft, and increase the # of people that an
authority need to involve to seize funds via an update.

-- 
'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
00000000000000001a5e1dc75b28e8445c6e8a5c35c76637e33a3e96d487b74c