LegalFling – Explicit sexual consensus backed by Blockchain | Hacker News Reader

LegalFling – Explicit sexual consensus backed by Blockchain

legalfling.io

21 pointsdsr1223 comments

This is actually an interesting idea in theory. However, from the looks of it (and I may be wrong), pressing an "I consent" button only proves that you pressed the button. If somebody can be coerced into having sex, why can't they be coerced into pressing a button on an app?

As a corollary: if two parties did have consensual intercourse, and also consent via the app, then what's stopping anybody from falsely accusing the other of rape, AND falsely stating that they were coerced into pressing the button? Since there's a hard paper trail, this could actually lower the barrier to making a false rape claim.

I think the blockchain is super interesting and will lead to many useful implementations. But advocates sure like to get all whacky over it.

If your partner can prove you consented at 1 am, it doesn't mean you stopped consenting 30 seconds later. This is a total non-solution for a non-problem. If you want a "paper trail" have your partner text you "I want to have sex with you right now" before removing undergarments.

Still doesn't remove the ambiguity of whether the consent is real consent. Look at the Louis CK cases, those women "consented" but only because they felt unable not to consent.

So in cases like the Louis CK and Harvey Weinstein scenarios, the women would take out their smartphone and inform the other party to look at the app?

Yea, neither blockchain or texting or verbal consent can solve that problem.

Exactly. I think as a society we are at a stage where we are trying to guarantee justice without the need for discretion and wisdom. And it's simply not going to work. I mean, maybe when we have nanotechnology embedded in our brains recording our every action. May as well through free will out the window while we're at it -- no autonomy = no crime.

> I think the blockchain is super interesting and will lead to many useful implementations. But advocates sure like to get all whacky over it.

The Internet and World Wide Web has been filled with spam and junk since the beginning. It even had its naysayers, like this one: https://thenextweb.com/shareables/2010/02/27/newsweek-1995-b...

> "What the Internet hucksters won’t tell you is tht the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don’t know what to ignore and what’s worth reading."

Sounds a lot like the large number of useless blockchain-based projects these days. The web also had a fundraising bubble too, a few years after it came about.

Essentially it has the same issue as any other "smart contract" — the interface between the contract and the rest of the world cannot be monitored by the contract, and so must fall back on the existing legal system. This makes the "smart" part of the contract a lot less useful, so it's easier to just set up a normal contract.

Yes and no. Normal contracts of a small dollar amount are not worth litigating. I have on a couple of occasions done a couple of consulting arrangements for small amounts of money, and wasn't paid for the work I did, even when the contract was signed.

Smart contracts can have arbitration arrangements built into the contract, where neutral parties (a middle man with a reputation/trust rating) can make a ruling on a dispute. There are platforms in development for this very thing, with mechanisms in place to mitigate against malicious arbiters.

At least you have some proof of consent instead of just he said/she said.

From the FAQ:

Can I still change my mind?

Absolutely. "No" means "no" at any time. Being passed out means "no" at any time. This is explicitly described in the agreement. Additionally you can withdraw consent through the LegalFling app with a single click.

So, Yes means Yes except when it means No, which is a state that by definition cannot be reliably updated into the "smart contract" (because the party involved is unconscious).

"Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch!"

Congratulations, you've created a system with the surface appearance of trust but is in fact entirely undefined, and used it to reflect state of a highly fraught and complicated social situation.

I haven’t looked at this yet, but my gut reaction is that this is absolutely ludicrous… I’m answering you because your gut reaction seems to be similar to mine.

What happens if somebody consents and then decides to toggle the status later? What if somebody is coerced into it? What if while raping somebody also gets their phone stolen and the ‘contract’ toggled?

What if somebody is OK with some activities but not OK with others and they get forced onto them?!

Not that I support this but… what if somebody wants to remain anonymous? What if somebody doesn’t want their blockchain litany of conquests and trysts to be totalled up?!

This is just so wrongheaded I am stunned.

This has to be a joke? I have no idea where to start. Just learn how to interact with other humans properly.

Alas I fear it is serious. I’m almost lost for words.

From the FAQ:

Is this legally binding?

The application generates a Live Contract, which is a legally binding agreement. Just remember, the point of app is about setting clear rules and boundries, not breaking them. To which extend the contract holds up in court, depends on your country of residence.

Can I still change my mind?

Having expected more blockchain based proof-of-record applications, I don’t think we’ve seen courts support blockchain proof-of-record and I’m looking forward to how this will play out. Surely court decisions will not be swayed by just any blockchain implementation. Most of these so far (TRON, PO.ET, both still in development) are storing proofs on the Bitcoin or Ethereum network. Will this be upholdable in court? Will governments settle on a network or collection of networks to use for legally defensible proofs? Will this be more a matter of attorney legwork? It seems the market could be enormous for these sorts of applications.

Having expected more blockchain based proof-of-record applications, I don’t think we’ve seen courts support blockchain proof-of-record and I’m looking forward to how this will play out.

I know for a fact that South Carolina has a law making a row in a SQL database a legal representation for a contract for Property and Casualty insurance. I bet there are tons of laws on the books like this. Why aren't tech types like us lobbying legislators at the state and national level to modify such laws to include such records on the blockchain?

Perhaps we can start with reflecting our societal beliefs w'r't' this stuff via our media to reinforce peoples logical deductions of how to act in these areas. E.g. I think a friend showed me one of the 'revenge of the nerds' movies when I was fairly young, which, if you think of from a perspective this post is advocating, is basically just a movie about people being completely terrible, I guess. I mean, our brains are maybe basically similar to high capacity neural nets, especially before they gain the ability for logical reasoning (or if lost this ability for whatever reason via old age or idk, but seems possible), and thus gain an idea of 'what is acceptable' through the sum total of all relevant situations put in. This would be sort of an application of HN style tech to improving such situations on a more statistical level (I guess), rather than rigidly coding human behavior into a blockchain.

I mean, it would be nice, for the sake of all the people growing up today, if you took something like 'Total Recall' at 5:00 minutes and had them explicitly and robotically ask each other for consent. I think that would do a whole lot more good than having your tinder fling download a 20 gb blockchain onto their cellphone before the date. (Sorry to slightly make fun of this - I think the idea is good actually, and haven't played with it enough, but just wanted to make a point in this direction).

To address this app specifically though- wouldn't such an app not really matter in the direction of: you can always say 'no' during the course, and then the required behavior is to stop. I'm not sure if that would be reflected very well in the app, since the person could point to the consent and say it was given, when in fact, it may have initially been given, but the more important point was that it was (maybe the word is ) rescinded .

How can this be [flagged] for no obvious reason? If it is real it should be valid to discuss apps like this and the inherent flaws of blockchain contracts that come with it. If it is satire, its even more appropriate to discuss it (since that was the obvious goal of it).

I think flagging articles is being done sometimes for the same reasons as good comments are downvoted--"I don't like this article, therefore flagged."

New Black Mirror season anyone ? It's only been like 2 weeks and this it is already coming to life. Can't wait for 2018...

Blockchain does nothing to solve a malicious publisher submitting incorrect data.

In this case, someone could be druged against their will and coerced into installing this app. In the case of other similar supply chain verification blockchains, the publisher could simply lie.

As somebody else pointed out in the comments, this is a “standard problem” with all systems of “smart contracts”. There’s no equivalent of a Notary Public to assess that your identity is accurate, you’re not being impersonated, you’re not obviously subject to undue duress or coercion, and are not out of your mind. I think that makes this application in particular pretty pointless (if you can get somebody drunk enough to get them into your bed, you can probably cajole them into swiping something on their phone’s screen beforehand).

Is it just me or does the guy on the front look a bit like Kevin Spacey?

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