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Its ironic to bring up Sybil attacks since more people being able to host their own node keeps Sybil attacks at bay.
Those extra nodes are worthless because they cannot mine or combat double-spending in any real way. They do not meaningfully add to the decentralization or security of the network. The ASIC miners that actually secure the network can afford a single TB of hard disk space- it is insignificant in the total cost of their operations.
there is a large Elephant in the room that has not been brought up and its name is Lightning
The LN is not a privacy system just because it does not explicitly publicize the total transaction history, it leaks metadata to discovering parties. I don't know of a single lightning implementation that uses a separate "stealth" network that could actually facilitate private spends. Even if there is some more private mechanism for the LN that I am overlooking, everything is connected to the non-private L1: that is to say that you must fund the channels somehow, likely with KYC/AML coins.
Knowing this means attacking Monero would be a side project rather than the main goal of building such a computer that might simply be used one weekend to ensure the success of one mission and go back to what it was made to do before the mission afterwards, saving the government money.
It's largely irrelevant since the vast majority of the world's computing power is in personal computers, not supercomputers.
We also already have examples of mining pools which only mine OFAC compliant blocks. Those pools have to compete with pools who do not mine OFAC compliant blocks.
In this hypothetical scenario, the gov. is restricting the use of new ASICs, so those non-compliant miners would be using old hardware and would eventually get out-competed by complaint miners with newer hardware and higher hashrate.
Perhaps you would then payjoin and get out of the OFAC eye altogether.
PayJoin is an interesting idea though, I'll look into it.
Flashing your ASIC with a hash verified OS.
Does not work. Whoever creates the ASICs can plant whatever backdoor they want as a variant of the evil maid attack. It's not necessarily a given that you will be able to detect or counteract that. "Flashing a verified OS" is only verifying everything above ring 0, this goes deeper than ring 0.
Anyway, its weird you bring up this point and even talk about Intel, when Intel CPUs are being used to mine Monero...so its just the same situation.
And AMD CPUs, and ARM64 CPUs, and POWER9 CPUs, etc. There is enough diversity in the CPU market to avoid this type of catastrophe.
And then I linked an article which described huge structures that were spent by declaring the spend to the entire island rather than being physically moved anywhere. So we do have something to compare it to. That was my only point. That we do have something to compare it to, the rest was simply an explanation of what it is.
As far as the coinjoin thing goes, I am well aware of Wasabi, their move was very unpopular, as a result a lot of people stopped using them. Also, hey we have payjoin too: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/PayJoin
Now with the blocksize thing again. Don't forget we're talking about storing 13 years of transaction history. Thing takes up 1TB. Its ironic to bring up Sybil attacks since more people being able to host their own node keeps Sybil attacks at bay. On the topic of blocksize and privacy, there is a large Elephant in the room that has not been brought up and its name is Lightning, as in the Lightning Network. Taproot introduced the ability to make Lightning Network channel establishment transactions look the same as any other on-chain transaction.
Just to foot stomp one more time, this is more about being unwilling to accept the tradeoffs of bulletproofs than it is about how private Bitcoin actually is. That is the priority. If the ability to ensure the network is not absolutely broken can not be assured, then the privacy of those broken transactions don't really matter.
Bloat is not the only source of vulnerabilities. Cryptography itself is not forever. Just look at all the issues people have found over the years for RSA: https://www.sjoerdlangkemper.nl/2019/06/19/attacking-rsa/
Satoshi even worried that at some point SHA1 could have a mathematical method for solving for hashes in the opposite of the intended direction if mathematicians were given enough time (even if that time is 100 years) to figure it out. Auditability means that if a mathematical flaw is found, a fork to a more secure method is reasonable.
You also don't need to hard fork to remove the current features of Bitcoin. All of Bitcoin's upgrades have been soft forks and as such version 1 still works just as well as version 23 if that is the node you prefer to run.
This is worse. General purpose processing manufacturers have a limit to CPU core numbers that are worthwhile to market to the general populace, but a government military computer made for general processing could be repurposed after it gets done with its attack to do whether simulations or advisory communications cryptography cracking. Knowing this means attacking Monero would be a side project rather than the main goal of building such a computer that might simply be used one weekend to ensure the success of one mission and go back to what it was made to do before the mission afterwards, saving the government money.
When speaking about governments, you always have to ask, which government? Is there an adversarial government which might benefit from undermining the plans of another government? The answer is typically yes. Remember, you need 51% of that hash power, to either mine empty blocks, or reorder transactions (double spend). We also already have examples of mining pools which only mine OFAC compliant blocks. Those pools have to compete with pools who do not mine OFAC compliant blocks. Even if delayed, someone will mine the block with your OFAC rebellious transaction and if that transaction is a lightning network channel establishment, you don't worry about miners for a while. Perhaps you would then payjoin and get out of the OFAC eye altogether.
I would like to foot stomp again, that the priority is the unwillingness to accept the negatives of bulletproofs, than it is about privacy, which we can figure out given enough time.
Flashing your ASIC with a hash verified OS.
https://braiins.com/os/open-source
Which I'll grant you does not stop a hardware backdoor, but hardware backdoors can't be updated with the newest OFAC rules the same way software backdoors can, and if the hardware backdoor injects code into software, then it increases its chances of detection. I would love to see more tools for auditing hardware backdoors though.
Anyway, its weird you bring up this point and even talk about Intel, when Intel CPUs are being used to mine Monero...so its just the same situation.
https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/transactions-btc-xmr.html#3y
Yeah that one is Bitcoin transactions and Monero transactions on the same chart as each other. This is what I mean by no one uses it. Monero has not been tested to its limits the same way that Bitcoin has.