pull down to refresh
84 sats \ 36 replies \ @Scoresby 30 Oct \ on: Review of Jimmy Song v. Peter Todd filters debate (Plan ₿ Lugano) bitcoin
Thanks for writing this up! I was going to watch this debate, but I much more enjoyed reading your recap + thoughts. You did a very nice job.
I realize that bringing up OFAC and censorship can be a straw man, but I do think there is a logical argument there. Here is how I would make it:
IF filters are effective at reducing and/or preventing certain kinds of valid transactions from making being confirmed in blocks
THEN a filter that is designed to reduce and / or prevent transactions involving OFAC sanctioned addresses would also be effective
AND we (the good Bitcoiners) would be powerless to fight it if even a single actor deployed a lot of nodes
BECAUSE the cost of deploying nodes is near zero
HOWEVER: I think proof of work mechanism in Bitcoin was developed to solve exactly this problem:
See this from the whitepaper: "If the majority were based on one-IP-address-one-vote, it could be subverted by anyone able to allocate many IPs" is Satoshi explaining why node filtering doesn't work. He introduced proof of work to fix this.
One of the reasons someone can only add new transactions to the chain is by demonstrating proof of work is to avoid relying on a central authority or relying on whoever has the most nodes.
What do you think? (I hope I'm not running off on some tangent that actually has nothing to do with how Todd used the OFAC argument. Personally, I've tried to make the case I made here and had people claim I was diverting or straw manning.)
I'm just going to braindump something I've been worried about for a while now:
IF filters are effective at reducing and/or preventing certain kinds of valid transactions from making being confirmed in blocks THEN[cut]
[paste] CSW was right that devs have a meaningful role in the network and the courts will fuck up devs.reply
I mentioned that here.
Because you don't want regulatory bodies to get the impression you are just allowing something to happen.I don't want to give regulatory bodies the impression developers are responsible for what happens on the networkThey wouldn’t take that path. […]
reply
Yeah it's been on my mind for a while now.
They wouldn’t take that path. […]
Imagine being wrong in that assessment when dealing with published, signed commits. Or not seeing the full spectrum of potential damage that can be done by concern trolling, predatory litigation and "modern activism" 1. And how that influences politicians, who then direct functionaries and enforcement, who then fuck you up because they hold the guns.
Perhaps, the only feasible path out of this is to break the monopoly deployment in the field of Bitcoin Core. I thought that that's exactly what knots was supposed to be doing? No need for a consensus change, just run knots if you wanna run knots. But the past couple of weeks I've been thinking that maybe the greatest favor we can do to Bitcoin Core maintainers is to fork their software and offer a viable alternative, perhaps optimized for watchtower functionality, which is the opposite of knots. I'm not sold on this yet, but it may be worth the effort if it means they get less shit and can focus on building important features.
Footnotes
-
I had written 6 paragraphs lamenting the misuse of the wonderful direct borderless communication the internet has given us, where instead of organizing to do things, humanity organizes to tell other people what to do, as if we're all little dictators in our own right... but I'm going to save that one for later. ↩
reply
But the past couple of weeks I've been thinking that maybe the greatest favor we can do to Bitcoin Core maintainers is to fork their software and offer a viable alternative
I think most of what @justin_shocknet talks about is wrapped in a lot of BS but this is def one of his better ideas
reply
Haha. I'm fearful of labeling what Justin says as bs, even when it feels counter-intuitive, because he's been right in hindsight too often for that; I'm keeping an open mind. In the spirit of not telling other people what to do, I'd not pursue telling someone else to archive their repo though. If that comes, it comes through success of other efforts.
reply
I'm fearful of labeling what Justin says as bs
To be clear, I didn't say his ideas are BS, but he wraps them in a lot of BS aka trying to sell them in a disingenuous way so it's hard to listen to him or take him serious.
That's IMO an important difference.
reply
Example?
reply
CLINK, BOLT12, mobile nodes, "routing nodes don't exist"
Momentum is such that I would think a competing implementation will need to offer something new or interesting to attract users. Super configurable relay policies is a tough way to go about this because most users don't actually seem to care to configure very much (plug n play is way more attractive). If libbitcoin is able to ship their new version with some kind of really fast IBD, that might be enough to attract new users.
Could a new node implementation compete on development process or review? That might also be attractive, but it's not like Core has a shabby record there. My non dev feeling is that they've done better than most Bitcoin projects in attracting reviewers and contributors.
reply
Momentum is such that I would think a competing implementation will need to offer something new or interesting to attract users.
Yes, this is why I said
perhaps optimized for watchtower functionality. Currently this is what you'd use Core for, but is the reference implementation the best place? Should Bitcoin Core be optimized for LN? Can you truly optimize for it if you're supposed to serve all? btcd could be that but it's insufficiently used.If libbitcoin is able to ship their new version with some kind of really fast IBD, that might be enough to attract new users.
You only do IBD once though. So although that's been Eric's selling point, and it's super useful if you find yourself with some half-custodial wallet that suddenly doesn't work and you need a full chain to recover all your stuff, it's way more interesting for most people to know how this works in day-to-day operation. For this we need a final implementation.
Could a new node implementation compete on development process or review?
No, but it could at least be on-par. Knots isn't.
reply
ok, yeah, I follow.
Doesn't look like the courts will, so far, but rather cough cough, BIP-444, delusional clowns
Hmm, yes we've had some of this conversation before.
The part I'm most unsure about is this: "powerless to fight it if even a single actor deployed a lot of nodes". I'm not sure how effective deploying a lot of nodes is, I think network topology matters and I don't know the peering rules governing the protocol.
reply
I think network topology matters and I don't know the peering rules governing the protocol.
- Network protocol selection (optional / depends on what you're offering it)
- Disconnect underperforming and misbehaving peers (automatic)
- Network topology based on asmap (optional)
- Your curation (optional, manual)
reply
Sure, but then isn't this also true for filters? It's not so much the filter that matters as who you peer with. Well, no matter that cat and mouse filter game, the people being filtered will always just circumvent via network topology.
Result: filters always end up being useless in the face of sustained demand.
reply
Result: filters always end up being useless in the face of sustained demand.
Yeah, I basically agree with that. That's why I say that filters work in a "narrow sense". You can filter out OFAC sanctioned addresses for example, but not necessarily OFAC sanctioned people, know what I mean?
So you can filter out >83 byte op_returns, but you can't filter out JPEGs
But you do increase the cost. Just, is it worth the collateral damage caused by mempool segmentation, side channels, unreliable fee rate estimation, etc.
reply
reply
I guess in the end it doesn't really matter what we believe will happen, what matters more is what we think people should do. I'm personally not too interested in doing anything regarding this debate. I think I have a solid enough grasp of the clash points already. I'm more interested in talking about how people can use bitcoin more in their everyday lives haha
I will say, though, that I think the people spouting off about CSAM are playing a very dangerous game. I think they should stop. @theariard's post today (#1269237) I think makes good points about this.
Thanks for writing this up! I was going to watch this debate, but I much more enjoyed reading your recap + thoughts. You did a very nice job.
indeed he did. Nice little snippets but also accurately and fairly portraying both sides
reply