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42 sats \ 3 replies \ @Scoresby 9h \ parent \ on: Review of Jimmy Song v. Peter Todd filters debate (Plan ₿ Lugano) bitcoin
How is a bad actor free-riding on the relay network different than a person who is bidding against you for blockspace?
Wouldn't any rational noderunner refuse to relay all transactions but their own?
(My personal opinion is that the relay network was designed to benefit miners, and noderunners are willing to participate because it's in their interest for mining to be a game anyone can easily jump in to.)
Obviously correct whatever I get wrong, but the difference is that you can intentionally put in an uncompetitive bid if you just want your arbitrary data broadcast.
It's kind of to Jimmy's point about assuming good actors. There will be people who just want to take advantage of this free transmission system who have no interest in getting their transaction confirmed. I think many people would like to support the monetary network but don't want to be subsidizing the proliferation of CSAM.
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the fee they include doesn't really matter does it? it doesn't go to the noderunner in either case.
There will be people who just want to take advantage of this free transmission system who have no interest in getting their transaction confirmed.
To what end? What does it achieve to broadcast a valid bitcoin transaction that you intend not to get confirmed? Even if it's some kind of encoded image, who is scanning their mempool to look at such images? I don't understand how the broadcaster of such a transaction benefits in any way. If the goal is to attack: it's an attack a noderunner won't even notice unless they are actively looking for it.
I've been running an always-on node for years. I'm sure in that time there have been many transactions that showed up in my mempool and disappeared without getting mined. I don't really care though, because I have a limit on the total size of my mempool (so my node can't be DOS'd). But mostly I don't know because it's not like I'm sitting here analyzing the contents of my mempool. Node software itself doesn't even let you see much beyond the raw transaction data. Not like it comes with an image decoder...
The argument that people are using the Bitcoin transaction relay network to proliferate vile images is weird to me. I don't see it as any kind of serious threat to bitcoiners and I certainly don't see that we should be designing Bitcoin in reaction to it. Do we even have any evidence that it is happening?
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So, I'm not claiming it's a threat to bitcoin or that we should design bitcoin around it. I realize there are people taking those positions, though.
When you ask "to what end?", isn't it the same as whyever people broadcast this stuff over any other network. As to who is scanning for it, the answer would presumably be whoever is seeking to use the network for this purpose.
There are lots of people who consume and share child pornography already. I don't understand why they wouldn't use our network to freely broadcast it, if that's an option. Supposedly, that's exactly what happened to BSV when they increased the amount of arbitrary data that could be included.
I can't at all speak to the technical difficulties or ease of actually viewing such data as an image.
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