Authorities require students to source code js-miner Tidbit

The authors of the program Tidbit

In a few hours, hearings will begin, where four students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will try to protest a subpoena demanding to reveal the source code of the bitcoin miner created by them. The interests of 19-year-old Jeremy Rubin (Jeremy Rubin) are represented by an attorney of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

The author of the article in Wired believes that all this is reminiscent of the sad story of Aaron Schwartz. He was arrested for breaking into a computer system and “stealing” 4 million free scientific articles, after which MIT, together with the authorities, actively “pressed” the activist.

To see the corpus delicti in the actions of the four current students, you also need to especially try. They created the Tidbit program in a couple of days on the Node Knockout hackathon at the end of 2013. During the competition, the guys had an idea. And if the owner of the website offers users that will remove all advertising on the site, if they agree to mine cryptocurrency in his favor? A kind of micropayments in a modern way, an alternative to ubiquitous advertising banners.
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The idea was liked by the jury, and for the competent implementation of the micropayment system, Tidbit won the prize as the most innovative program on that hackathon. However, although the source code was published in open access, the project did not go further than the concept. But a few weeks after the hackathon, Jeremy Rubin suddenly received a subpoena to the New Jersey Consumer Affairs Division (he alone, because Tidbit was registered in his name).

Now the authorities make it clear that the program could violate any laws. The state attorney general issued a statement that Rubin with fellow students allegedly violated criminal laws in the field of computer technology and are required to present the source code of the program. Although, the case has not yet reached the official charge.

Authorities require a list of all the wallets used by the Tidbit program, the names of all the users on whose computers it started, and the names of all the sites where the code was located.

Rubin's lawyer explains that in its original form, Tidbit was a raw concept, no transactions went through their servers. Even among the commentators on the hackathon site, there is someone who actually implemented the Tidbit code on his site, and the users of the mine actually bitcoins, but the numbers have not changed on the scoreboard. Rubin promised to finish the scoreboard later.

“This case highlights a disturbing trend when authorities are pursuing researchers, innovators, developers and others who are working on advanced projects and technologies that can help the technical community,” said EFF lawyer Hanni Fakhoury. - They received a fairly broad agenda, which indicates the possibility of criminal and administrative liability. For a group of college kids who made something on the hackathon - they didn’t get any profit, they never really launched the project and now it is completely disbanded - these are quite serious consequences. ”

In an official statement, lawyer Hanni Fakhuri expressed the opinion that bullying students with subpoenas is not the best way to investigate cases of possible violation of consumer rights. He also noted that in the case of transferring the source code of their program by students, they should receive immunity. Otherwise, the possible accusation of their address under the anti-hacker law of New Jersey or the federal law of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act would violate the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which protects citizens from testifying against themselves.