My friend Leo, I was hoping that whatever The Sceptical Chymist speculated was true. However, knowing you are a privacy-oriented person, I never doubted your skill to maintain that, and thus I sadly know it can't be the case.

To me, you stand out as one of the very small minority of people who gained their reputation and respect solely through their "content" and not by lobbying in the "right" sections or knowing the "right people." You are one of the very few people who understand BTC. Knowing that Bitcoin and cryptography, in general, is a complex science and not something you can learn in a few years, you not being involved in this field long enough and knowing what you already know simply proves you are out of this world.

You will always be missed.

Farewell.

What type of control would they want to gain? It might be beneficial to examine gold's history, as both BTC and gold share some economic attributes. Gold has always been legal to mine and own, but there was a time when it was illegal to own and mine BTC. Then, buying gold became legal, while mining was restricted and heavily regulated.

While I haven't worked for any government or held a position of high authority, I can make a safe guess about what most governments have in common:

-They want to monitor your every move, including everything related to money.
-They aim to keep you as busy as possible, making life difficult and ensuring you stay at work or in transit for as long as possible, essentially keeping you financially restrained.
-They seek to increase the labor force, possibly pushing for more people to work. This could explain certain societal shifts(feminism and shit), and the emphasis on everyone working, even at a young age.

So, how does BTC impact any of that? BTC doesn't make everyone rich; it's only a handful of early adopters who were fortunate to accumulate BTC at a low cost. The number of people who would become wealthy from simply investing in BTC won't be large enough to disrupt any government. Therefore, BTC is unlikely to significantly impact points two and three above.

Is BTC private? No, it's not. Governments understand that, and the public ledger is a valuable asset for them. What they fear is the use of privacy tools that make tracking more expensive and potentially impossible. Hence, efforts to take down privacy enhancement tools and potential future requirements for users to KYC outside of exchanges, possibly even for wallet usage, all wallets need to impose KYC or be deemed illegal.

When that time comes, what do governments expect from their citizens, or what should we expect? The majority of people will comply because they are in BTC for wealth, have no issue with KYC, and are willing to share information with the government if required. The minority valuing privacy will be treated as outlaws and potentially terrorists.

It will become a matter of who gives up first. I recall a childhood memory when people woke up to a new law declaring firearms illegal. They had 7 days to turn in their guns or face serious consequences. Most complied, standing in line to surrender their firearms while expressing frustration at the government's decision  . However, a minority held onto their weapons unlawfully for 15 years. The government eventually changed the laws, requiring a firearms permit or an offer to buy those firearms at a premium. Buying guns remained illegal for citizens, but those who didn't hand in their weapons 15 years ago were not pursued unless a gun was found under their car seat for example. Laws changed, but people are still the same, the strong ones still have their weapons at home and the government can't do shit about it, or they have sold them to the government at a very high price (I recall they paid a few years worth of average salary for small arms like pistols), the weak gained nothing and probably most of them are already dead shaming themselves under the dust.

Governments have deep pockets and long reach, but they don't possess God's power. If they decide something, it doesn't necessarily mean it must happen. Sometimes, a small group of brave citizens can bring down an entire regime. Bitcoin might face a similar fate; the weak will comply, and the strong will resist until they end up in jail or forcefully secure their right to privacy and anonymity, so ya, it's going to be a long interesting journey for everybody onboard.

@AirtelBuzz, thanks for your kind words.

The one that comes with your miner by default.

True, I believe we were discussing the matter from an angle that is irrelevant to the big picture. In my previous replies, I focused on the legal consequences for the person uploading legally protected content. However, does that even matter? I mean, anyone can do that and maintain their privacy, and nobody would go after them. I think what matters most here is the other side of the problem: users storing and rebroadcasting that shared content.

Suppose I upload a copyright-protected file obtained illegally (bypassing the discussion of whether I have the right to do so, because clearly, in this case, I don't). If that file becomes part of the files YOU own, by law, you are required to get rid of it, and there is the problem.

The blockchain, as it stands, probably contains a lot of illegal data, be it copyright violations or other illegal content like child pornography or anything deemed illegal by many countries. Now, the question arises: if enough government pressure is imposed on all node operators, how will they be able to prune all that illegal content without affecting the ability of the full node to operate properly (maintain censuses and validate transactions?).

Currently, if an attacker puts something illegal in the UTXO set, pruning it would be difficult without affecting the full node's ability to operate as it should. However, for authorities to know whether your node has that piece of legal info or not would be complicated. In the future, if enough pressure is put on node operators in the U.S, everyone may push for a change. As of now, vjudeu's reply to my suggestion (which I read somewhere in the past) regarding using Zero Knowledge Proof so that nodes don't need to store the complete UTXO set makes perfect sense. there is no interest, especially from mining pools, as it could reduce their profits. However, if shit hits the fan, mining pools might support and even fund a similar fix to protect themselves from governments. As it stands now, it seems like we are giving authorities much more weight than we should. Perhaps, for now, we may as well continue ignoring them as if nothing is happening.

How is it different? storing something on the blockchain is not exactly "distributing" it, your UTXOs all stored on my PC, but only you can "use" them, the song you bought is stored on the same disk I use (dropbox for example) and i also can't use it.

Also, how do these things differ?

1- you upload a copy of a file you bought to google drive ( meaning you are now by default share it with google and everyone who has access to storage files in google)

2- you upload the same file to blockchain, encrypted where nobody can view it.

I believe at this point, fair use still plays out, when here is how to break it.

For google drive, you intentionally share the download link to that file.

For blockchain, you intentionally share the private key to decrypt the file.

I did some reading in regards to U.S copyright laws, and it is no where near simple, i.e, you can't just say storing a copyright protected file on the blockchain is illegal or legal, it is more complicated than that, i have read different opinions regarding to this subject, you can dive into the rabbit whole by searching for "storing encrypted copyright protected files online".


I was talking about this project itself, the team that inscribed this ninja game.

This is apples vs oranges, stealing a bike is illegal, storing a copy of a file you obtained legally and lawfully own is not illegal, if you buy a movie/song and store it on your google drive, dropbox or some random VPS that is legal as far as I know.

If I manage to access those files and use them, then it is me commiting crime not you, and I think the same will apply to these ordinals, those folks are not stupid and have probably consulted the right people given that their identities are known to the public -- they would unlikely take that risk.

Download awesomeminer app and try to flash their firmware using the app, it might work.

Are you sure you flashing it right? What size sdcard you have?Can you try Vnish firmware instead (awesomeminer of Asic.to)

Also try to reset the miner, unplug the power cable, press IP report button, keep it pressed while you power the miner, don't let go of the button for 10 seconds, release. Try to to login again.

pretty hard to follow what your problem is, but if I understand correctly, your main problem is that you don't know which miner model you actually have, and now there is a chance that you flashed the wrong firmware so whatever shows on the webpage could be inaccurate, one easy way to solve this would be to disable the gear and compare the hashboard to the other ones you have, all of these 17 series models differ in the chip count, so take one hashboard out and count the chips.

T17 has 30 chips / board
S17 pro has 48 chips / board
S17+ has 65 chips / board
S17e has 135 chips / board (ya 135 no typos)

So ya, figure out your miner type first then come back.

I think at this point purging the default trust list for a few months to "see" how things would play out is not a bad idea.

Why was the trust system initially implemented? Its primary purpose was to enhance the safety of trading on the forum. Now, let's consider the percentage of forum members utilizing the platform for trading – around 5%?. In essence, we are subjecting the remaining 95% to potential harassment by some DT members merely to safeguard this small fraction of the forum population. Keep in mind that a significant portion of this 5% (myself included) may not trust the default trust list and often opt for escrow in their trades. When factoring in these considerations, the conclusion is apparent – we are safeguarding a very small group at the expense of many other innocent users, not to mention the forum database inundated with redundant feedback and numerous topics discussing a single feedback.

Theymos probably wanted everyone to participate in the trust system, but that obviously didn't happen and will never happen, we literally have some DT members who blackmail other users for the removal of certain feedback.

Common sense dictates that if you wish to engage in trading, you should put in effort in selecting members whose judgment aligns with your own. If trading isn't your focus, the entire trust system becomes irrelevant. Therefore, providing the community with the option to use or not use the trust system would be a good experiment IMO. This way, nobody would have the right to complain about any feedback since each individual's feedback would hold precisely the value assigned by that particular person.


That is indeed a fantastic idea, and it would certainly be effective if Theymos had a superhuman ability with a 100% success rate. Unfortunately, he does not possess such capabilities, so the idea won't work.


You don't understand what decentralization means. Imagine a scenario where your household spending is centralized—in other words, your father receives all the money and then distributes it among all the family members as they see fit (centralized). Now, contrast that with a decentralized system where the person who receives the most votes manages the family spending, and it so happens that your little brother wins (because he is good at persuading and managed to persuade your other siblings). Do you think he'd be fairer to you than your centralized father?

It's like people confusing democracy with fairness. Fairness would involve allowing your broke ass to run for president with the same chances and exposure as the current president. Democracy means your broke ass decides to vote for this powerful person or the next one. It's very easy to confuse reality with terms.

The DT system is indeed decentralized, but decentralization has nothing to do with fairness. What you want is a fair system, whether it's centralized or decentralized makes no difference.

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F2pool is the worst pool anyone could use, it practices censorship at its finest, currently, they are the only known pool to implement OFAC blacklist, something that nobody asked them to do, Chun just wants to lick the government's boots.

He clearly stated the following:


So ya, Chun can take his acceleration service and shove it up his censorship arse.

Phill, you could use poolflare.net for that miner, it's cheaper and has almost the same hashrate as this anti-bitcoin pool.

---

OP, there is no free lunch, why would anyone replace a good paying transaction for one that pays less? it makes no sense, if you want your transactions to be confirmed you have to pay enough for them, there is no workaround to battle a free market.

I think JollyGood is following Lauda's footsteps. I have been watching his feedback for a while, and he indeed does a great job in tagging scammers. However, he has become pretty heavy-handed, and his use of the trust system goes against what I believe should be. Thus, I had to sadly exclude him from my trust list.

I don't necessarily think he is not fit for DT; I just think I would rather let five scammers slip than be unfair to a single innocent person. I also disagree with how some DT members use the trust system to enforce the forum rules, or even worse, their own rules for posting criteria, political agenda, and I think many DT members agree with this but are just selfish. As long as it doesn't affect them, they remain in their DT seat and don't personally dislike the person; they would just let it be. Maybe some would say something politically nice like "I don't agree with the tag, but I understand why" and move on with their lives.

I hope JollyGood starts rethinking such feedback and focuses only on tagging users who are either proven scammers or very likely to be scammers with somewhat valid evidence at hand.

Not a lawyer either, but as long as you don't intentionally expose the private key then how would anyone know the content?  besides the law explicitly says according to what NFW posted above


The blockchain is no different than a VPS you rent from someone in this regard if I archive a copy of a video game I bought legally on a VPS "even without encrypting it" and then the actual VPS owner finds his way in (which they can easily), or even a hacker for that matter, how would I be held responsible? I don't know how countries that have copy-right laws go about enforcing these laws because they are as complicated as fudge.

I am certainly not advising anyone to post illegal content on the blockchain (or any content for that matter), but I can see how some of those folks who want to play games on the blockchain would go about encrypting their copies of the game as a measurement of protection.




And the size of inputs is 4x the size of outputs.

If you put it on the blockchain in plain text then it becomes accessible by everyone, which i suppose is illegal based on what you posted above.

Maybe you can encrypt the content using your private key, this way nobody else can retrieve the content of the file you inscribed.

And then, as a node operator, you would only worry about your country's law (assuming your node sits there too).


Well making attacks more costly is indeed better than doing nothing, but the kind of attack we talking about here does not require redundancy, an attacker would only need one transaction to "infect" the blockchain and then take you to court, so if it costs $10 or $1000 when done only once, it won't make any difference.

For other attacks that depend on frequency, this indeed would help reduce them, we just need to evaluate what could be broken along the way of doing it.

This isn't going to cut it if you want to protect BTC from illegal content, making something more expensive doesn't stop an attacker from doing it, especially if they need to do it only once.


What about using Zero Knowledge Proof to make pruning the UTXO set possible? I recall reading about something like that in the past. I mean, my node would keep only block headers and UTXO commitments, and your node would provide a valid ZKP that certain parts of the UTXO set that I am checking are valid. I think Zcash operates in a similar manner.


In another thread discussion about the "ban of Ordinals," I did mention that contrary to what many people believe, changing any part of the code is like playing with fire. Anyone with enough real-world application experience would always be hesitant when applying any fix to anything. There is a reason why many billion-dollar companies still use old code that could be optimized. Some people think it's a matter of adding a simple if statement that would automatically ban all BRC-20 transactions without damaging anything.

Lawmaking is difficult in the real world, and so is in BTC. You try to fix something, like making transactions cheaper for the good lads, and you end up making potential attacks like flooding the UTXO set easier and cheaper. There is a huge fundamental issue with BTC, and that is its security is directly related to its value. The higher the value, the more difficult it is to attack, whether that is in terms of 51% attacks, spamming, or UTXO set flooding.

It is like saying someone will trade the oxygen in their lungs for another chemical element that "might" be more efficient, it either works great or you die.

This might be a bad exaggeration but as someone who has spent almost everything I have on my mining business, I would not take the smallest risk for burning that down, reflect that on others who invested more than I did and probably have debt to pay, nobody in their right mind would risk damaging bitcoin in the way you describing, ya a little more profit for some thing "unethical" is always expected, aside from that, it won't happen.

The main major aspect of Bitcoin POW security is that miners will always try to protect BTC from such attacks that could deem bitcoin worthless.

How fast is too fast? Also, what miner types are we talking? whatsminers can change power limit by sending a simple command using their API, but then booting up takes a few mins.


But he needs to use a saved-profile for that, not just a random profile or freq/voltage settings which the miner doesn't know, no?

But is it even technically possible to prevent such an attack on Bitcoin? I am not talking about witness data or OP-RETURN, but speaking of the UTXO set where even pruning is not an option. This "exploit" has been there since the inception of BTC. It's impossible to stop people from putting ALL types of data that we don't want. Of course, it gets easier and cheaper with the current implementation, but what has changed in that regard?

From an attacker's standpoint, wouldn't it be cheaper to just insert illegal or copyright content into the UTXO set and spend all these millions that are otherwise going to the miners in suing wallets and exchanges, forcing them to shut down their nodes?

Also, to what extent is such an attack even feasible? Where I live, by law, I am only obliged not to sell illegal content. If my PC was searched by the authorities and they found some copyright violation, there is nothing they can do to me. It's perfectly legal as long as I am not making money out of it. I can put some cracked software on a pen drive and send it to anyone, and I would still be operating within the legal boundaries of the law. Many countries don't deal with copyrights the way the U.S. deals with it. Is it feasible for Nintendo to go after everyone who runs a full node? Do the attackers really think they stand a chance to kill BTC taking that route?

I personally don't think that is doable. I also don't think that Ordinals/BRC-20 are an attack "by design". It's possible that the attack is a probable byproduct, but the main purpose is profit. I think calling them scammers would fit more than calling them attackers (speaking of the devs behind all of this nonsense NFTs/Ordinals/BRC-20 on all platforms), and they feed off the greed that many people think they can sell the scam to someone else at a higher price sometime in the future.


Most members here are against Ordinals and BRC-20, not sure why you think they deserve what they get.


Well then, maybe "save us now" before it's too late? what do you 'as a former core dev' think the solution should be, what would the average Joe in this forum do to stop this?



I believe the reason why other algorithms have a better earning ratio in terms of both power and cost is the fact that a tight equilibrium is hard to reach on them. Simply put, not enough investors trust those coins. In contrast, with BTC, it's the exact opposite. If your $1,000 investment in a BTC ASIC miner makes you $100 a month in profit, you know it would take way too long for that $100 to turn into 0. On the other hand, if that same $1,000 investment makes you $200 a month on another algorithm, you know that it won't take too long to get to $0. It's basically the higher the risk, the greater the reward. I think of mining altcoins as bond class B and BTC as bond class AA. The former is likely to net you more profit but is also more likely to make you lose more.