Do you think SatoshiDice is blockchain spam? Drop their TX's - Solution inside

[Littleshop]

The blockchain needs to grow to be able to handle these so-called "spam" transactions that are following the rules of the protocol, even if you disagree with them from a moral/sensibility perspective.

Bitcoin is all about open access and anti-censorship. It is kind of grating to hear people say "these stupid gamblers are ruining BTC, we need to block all SD transactions!!". Go somewhere else to create your own anti-spam/anti-gambling currency. Oh and in case you are wondering, I have never used any BTC gambling site. But I believe no one should have the power to control how one utilizes his or her resources.

you're arguing that your computer resources should be used to relay gambling/spam/drug dealing/whatever activities you don't agree with just because it's "censorship"

Bitcointalk user 100x is hereby sentenced to run a Tor exit node without his approval, given that it's not a problem for him to relay stuff and it could be seen as censhorship by closed minded persons as, well, 100x.

No, your analogy would be better if I was already running a Tor exit node, and you were recommending that I block traffic to certain sites (which would be impossible, due to encryption at each step, if I recall properly).

But I'm not recommending anyone to do anything. I'm showing them they have the option, and it's something which is very possible to do. The only persons trying to convince anyone of their "righteous" view points are you guys who don't agree with this hack.
I know you guys would prefer a SD/BTC doomsday thread where I tried to convince everyone this is the right thing to do, but this one isn't it.

I even made a call to action in the thread title for the users who thought SD is blockchain spam, but you guys all flocked here en masse, not really sure why, if the message wasn't intended for you...

It seems like you fail to understand how a forum works. 

[Raoul Duke]

It seems like you fail to understand how a forum works. 

No, I understand very well how a forum works. I'm just not liking that some morons are trying to put words I didn't say on my mouth and speculating about reasons which don't even exist. And they're only doing it because they don't think it's a problem or don't agree with the solution and don't want people to do what they are free to do, not because they have a better solution for us users who consider this a problem.
Don't want to help, get out of the way.
And I'm not talking about you

[datafish]

I agree with psy's point of view.  The whole point of Bitcoin is to take control of our money away from centralized authorities and put it in our hands.  If I don't want my resources consumed by Satoshi Dice, then it is up to them to properly incentivize me.  Since I'm not a miner, I don't know how they could.  I don't care what people spend their money on, but I do care that SD is pushing me up against bandwidth limits that will soon require me to stop relaying altogether.  Who wins then?

[niko]

You want to use p2p technology, but don't want to contribute resources?

That should be being asked of SD, not of me. I give more resources to the network than I take. SD pays the miners and the winners of their game but takes more from the network than it gives overall.

Every time you or I broadcast a transaction for our own reasons, we use exactly the same resources and pay same fees as anyone sending an SD transaction. After all the noise here, I still fail to see the difference and a problem.

[Raoul Duke]

You want to use p2p technology, but don't want to contribute resources?

That should be being asked of SD, not of me. I give more resources to the network than I take. SD pays the miners and the winners of their game but takes more from the network than it gives overall.

Every time you or I broadcast a transaction for our own reasons, we use exactly the same resources and pay same fees as anyone sending an SD transaction. After all the noise here, I still fail to see the difference and a problem.

Difference is quantity.
And why should I care about fees on the transactions? I'm not a miner.
So, for these 2 reasons SD tx's aren't the same as others.

Now for some critical thinking: So some of you guys say that SD is just exploiting a "flaw" in the Bitcoin protocol design that allows them to leech resources from us for their own profit and that it's alright to do it, right?
Well, I'm exploiting a flaw on SD "protocol"(them always using the same addresses) and that should also be alright.
After all the noise here, I still fail to see the difference and a problem.

[niko]

Would it be okay if SD eliminated low-value bets, thus making gamblers play less often and place higher bets?

[Severian]

Every time you or I broadcast a transaction for our own reasons, we use exactly the same resources and pay same fees as anyone sending an SD transaction. After all the noise here, I still fail to see the difference and a problem.

My own reasons don't include using you and everyone else on the network as part of my daily business model while only paying off a small subset of the network, the miners, to get away with it.

If the Bitcoin network were a group of people in a room exchanging information, SD would be the hyper motherfucker in the room that won't ever shut up and is taking money from a small percentage of the rubes in the group by running a craps game in the corner while adults are trying to have a rational conversation.

I didn't and don't consent to having my resources used non-stop by a goddam gamebot. SD has made millions on the good graces of the entire network. Being out of good graces but also being civilized, I'm just going to figure out how to put these here earplugs on my client so it doesn't have to listen to the narcissistic spazz in the corner anymore.

[Raoul Duke]

Would it be okay if SD eliminated low-value bets, thus making gamblers play less often and place higher bets?

No. That still leaves those pesky 1 satoshi transactions.
What they have to do is their own accounting system.

[solex]

Would it be okay if SD eliminated low-value bets, thus making gamblers play less often and place higher bets?

No. That still leaves those pesky 1 satoshi transactions.

Agreed.

But, no voluntary action by SD will really help, because another site can pick up on SD's lost business...

As I suggested earlier, there needs to be an improvement to the spam-filtering which keeps SD type messaging to a controlled percentage (20%?,30%?, whatever%) of the current throughput capacity.

[Littleshop]

You want to use p2p technology, but don't want to contribute resources?

That should be being asked of SD, not of me. I give more resources to the network than I take. SD pays the miners and the winners of their game but takes more from the network than it gives overall.

Every time you or I broadcast a transaction for our own reasons, we use exactly the same resources and pay same fees as anyone sending an SD transaction. After all the noise here, I still fail to see the difference and a problem.

Difference is quantity.
And why should I care about fees on the transactions? I'm not a miner.
So, for these 2 reasons SD tx's aren't the same as others.

Now for some critical thinking: So some of you guys say that SD is just exploiting a "flaw" in the Bitcoin protocol design that allows them to leech resources from us for their own profit and that it's alright to do it, right?
Well, I'm exploiting a flaw on SD "protocol"(them always using the same addresses) and that should also be alright.
After all the noise here, I still fail to see the difference and a problem.

On top of all of the points why transaction censorship is a bad idea, your solution only starts a cat and mouse game and will even take down legitimate transactions.  Satoshi dice can first make the bet addresses random but published.  Then they can change them once a week.  Are you going to keep playing this silly game?

Also the chance of a 1dice transaction having nothing to do with SD randomly are low but real.  Even casascius had a random transaction that was 1fake. 

[fancy_pants]

this was posted on freenode:

doctor_pullfingr: GoDaddy got semi famous off the savetoby controversy.  Then got really famous off the Superbowl controversy.  I think S.Dice should milk this controversy for everything it's got.  shout S.Dice is spam from the mountaintops
[8:58pm] doctor_pullfingr: I own shares btw
[8:58pm] doctor_pullfingr: http://savetoby.com/

[nyusternie]

initially, was a little upset at the idea of filtering a p2p network. if you don't like it then simply don't use it. when i'm downloading a torrent, i always make sure that i seed as much as i receive (seems only right). but psy (and anyone else who support this patch) have every right to filter their nodes, even if its just on principle (like not wanting to support online gambling or whatever).

as much as i hate banner ads and could easily install an ad filter plug-in, i choose not to so that i can support a subscription-free internet. i do so because i can, however many others don't have that luxury. maybe they've got a slow connection (lots of people still use dial-up) or a limited data plan (with expensive overrages). there are countless more reasons.

i'm currently working on a update for bitcoinjs and i think blockchain filtering would be a terrific feature to add for those that choose/need to use it. bitcoin has lots of criteria to filter on and users have even more reasons why they'd want/need to filter.

[misterbigg]

SatoshiDICE is taking advantage of the early stage of Bitcoin, at a time when transaction volume is too low to fill the blocks and bring fees up to a level that would make up for the drop in subsidy. If Bitcoin was fully mature, it will not be vulnerable to this type of transaction spam and no one would be talking about it let alone suggest patches, because fees would make the dust spam economically unviable.

The problem is that we do not have a mature network, and we're in the bootstrapping phase. SatoshiDICE is consuming the "startup capital" (current state of low fees, high subsidy, and lots of free space in blocks) to profit without bringing a corresponding increase in growth of Bitcoin adoption. The simple fact is that a relatively small handful of gambling addicts and bots are flooding the block chain with 70%+ of its transactions.

This is not good.

[Severian]

transaction censorship

Filtering is the more appropriate word. My choosing to ignore someone doesn't censor your voice.

[AbsoluteZero]

STOP THE CENSORSHIP!

Lets make sure Bitcoin is transaction neutral!

[misterbigg]

Lets make sure Bitcoin is transaction neutral!

Bitcoin was never transaction-neutral. Transactions with the highest fees per kilobyte will always "win", while transactions with no fees and new coins will always "lose". The rules exist to protect the network

[dirtycat]

As per my request, Gmaxwell wrote a patch to apply to the Bitcoin client that will drop all transactions to SatoshiDice and simply not relay or verify them. It will also drop all transactions that are less than 10,000 satoshis in value, so you might want to change that value to 1 or 2 satoshis, to only drop SD's losing bets tx's.

Let's show them how the free market works and that not only miners have a say on this subject!

Code:

diff --git a/src/main.cpp b/src/main.cpp
index 9a06dbf..d3fba73 100644
--- a/src/main.cpp
+++ b/src/main.cpp
@@ -384,8 +384,16 @@ bool CTransaction::IsStandard() const
     BOOST_FOREACH(const CTxOut& txout, vout) {
         if (!::IsStandard(txout.scriptPubKey))
             return false;
+        if (txout.scriptPubKey.size() > 6
+         && txout.scriptPubKey[0] == OP_DUP
+         && txout.scriptPubKey[3] == 0x06
+         && txout.scriptPubKey[4] == 0xf1
+         && txout.scriptPubKey[5] == 0xb6)
+            return error("CTransaction::IsStandard : ignoring transaction with 1dice output");
         if (txout.nValue == 0)
-            return false;
+            return error("CTransaction::IsStandard : ignoring transaction with 0 value output");
+        if (txout.nValue <= 10000)
+            return error("CTransaction::IsStandard : ignoring transaction with dust output");
     }
     return true;
 }

You may not be interested in the if (txout.nValue <= 10000)  test, though it also gets the dice you-lost transactions and other UXTO set bloating flood.

This will make the node not relay or mine these transactions. It will, of course, still accept them in blocks.

Thanks!

[oOoOo]

SatoshiDICE is taking advantage of the early stage of Bitcoin, at a time when transaction volume is too low to fill the blocks and bring fees up to a level that would make up for the drop in subsidy. If Bitcoin was fully mature, it will not be vulnerable to this type of transaction spam and no one would be talking about it let alone suggest patches, because fees would make the dust spam un-economical.

The problem is that we do not have a mature network, and we're in the bootstrapping phase. SatoshiDICE is consuming the "startup capital" (current state of low fees, high subsidy, and lots of free space in blocks) to profit without bringing a corresponding increase in growth of Bitcoin adoption. The simple fact is that a relatively small handful of gambling addicts and bots are flooding the block chain with 70%+ of its transactions.

This is not good.

You are exactly right! Applying the patch today, will report back!

[solex]

SatoshiDICE is taking advantage of the early stage of Bitcoin, at a time when transaction volume is too low to fill the blocks and bring fees up to a level that would make up for the drop in subsidy. If Bitcoin was fully mature, it will not be vulnerable to this type of transaction spam and no one would be talking about it let alone suggest patches, because fees would make the dust spam un-economical.

The problem is that we do not have a mature network, and we're in the bootstrapping phase. SatoshiDICE is consuming the "startup capital" (current state of low fees, high subsidy, and lots of free space in blocks) to profit without bringing a corresponding increase in growth of Bitcoin adoption. The simple fact is that a relatively small handful of gambling addicts and bots are flooding the block chain with 70%+ of its transactions.

This is not good.

Ah. Nice being in agreement on this.

You are exactly right! Applying the patch today, will report back!

Unfortunately, the patch is not much more effective than turning the radio up to drown out a strange noise from the car.

[misterbigg]

Unfortunately, the patch is not much more effective than turning the radio up to drown out a strange noise from the car.

I wouldn't be so sure. Having Bitcoin users get into the habit of understanding and applying client changes is a good way to raise awareness. Ultimately, it is only through informed decisions about what changes to accept or reject that we can have a healthy network of decentralized nodes.