[ck2]

Follow the lobbyists.

Figure out who was threatened enough by a bitcoin model to want the government to step in.

Because there is no way they have this kind of time on their hands to pursue this and have such in depth technical knowledge to know what to look for, without some corporate lobbyists spoon feeding it to the prosecutor.

Not that I believe tidbit could ever be profitable or useful, but still.

[gamblor956]

No conspiracy necessary. From the article:

"With a snippet of embedded code, Tidbit could enable websites to tap into visitors’ computers and borrow CPU cycles to mine Bitcoin."

Ads that take over the screen for a few seconds are bad enouogh. A website that takes over a computer to run computationally expensive tasks? With ads, at least their is the opportunity to run adblockers. With a javascript miner, visitors are left with the choice of disabling javascript, and essentially their access to the modern web, or risking a website abusing their computer.

The subpoena and accompanying interrogatories issued to Rubin demonstrate that the people working for New Jersey’s division of consumer affairs have made little effort to understand what Tidbit’s software actually does.

Based on how Tidbit has described their software, it sounds like New Jersey knows exactly what the software actually does: it runs a BTC miner on a website visitor's computer, potentially without their knowledge. And as the ESEA fiasco demonstrated, this could result in actual, physical damage to people's computers.

Is this overreaching? Maybe. Maybe not. That's what the purpose of the investigation is for.

[bhitov]

The javascript miner was not deployed anywhere. At no point was anyone in New Jersey knowingly or unknowningly served Tidbit's bitcoin mining code.

[gamblor956]

The Tidbit team claims that the miner was not deployed anywhere. The purpose of the investigation is presumably to make sure this is the case.

Unfortunately, due to the antics of many other major Bitcoin players, anyone doing something Bitcoin-related is generally deemed untrustworthy unless they prove otherwise. (And from a ideological standpoint, if one believes in the free market, this is how it should be--trust must be earned, not granted.)

[gpvos]

The mining was opt-in. Maybe derivatives of Tidbit could be a problem, but there's no evidence at all that Tidbit itself could be a problem.

[gamblor956]

there's no evidence at all that Tidbit itself could be a problem.

We don't have all the evidence. We just have Tidbit's claims. Unfortunately, no entity in the Bitcoin industry has proven itself trustworthy, so Tidbit doesn't get the benefit of the doubt. It has to prove it. (Note: it's a civil case, not a criminal case, so it's not a matter of guilt and thus the presumption of innocence doesn't apply.)

[gpvos]

Okay, I thought that you could only have subpoenas in criminal cases, but I'm not from a common law country, so this is probably different over here.