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.
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.
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.
It's largely irrelevant since the vast majority of the world's computing power is in personal computers, not supercomputers.
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.
PayJoin is an interesting idea though, I'll look into it.
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.
And AMD CPUs, and ARM64 CPUs, and POWER9 CPUs, etc. There is enough diversity in the CPU market to avoid this type of catastrophe.