Please do not change MAX_BLOCK_SIZE

[amincd]

So  what if one day the requirement becomes "you must have a government issued license to run a full node"?

You really think every government in the world is going to require a license to run a Bitcoin node? There will always be many countries with no restrictions on it.

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[piotr_n]

So  what if one day the requirement becomes "you must have a government issued license to run a full node"?

You really think every government in the world is going to require a license to run a Bitcoin node? There will always be many countries with no restrictions on it.

Whether every government - this I don't know.
But I am sure the one you have over your head, would be one of the firsts..

EDIT:
But I think essentially, yes.
Because every government wants to have control over what you do with your money.
Because money is power and they surely prefer to keep the power for themselves.

[amincd]

Unless every government does it, it won't stop Bitcoin. It won't even disrupt transactions. This makes it even less likely for any given government to consider this option.

But I think essentially, yes.
Because every governments wants to have control over what you do with your money.

I would bet you a lot of money that every government will not require a license to run a Bitcoin node. There are countries where that type of restriction would be opposed by too much of the public.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

For now, they cannot even stop Bittorrent/P2P and you expect them to stop Bitcoin ?

Only because running a bittorrent client does not require you do own a data center.

WTF. Stop right there.

You clearly know nothing about anything. Have you heard of pruning ? If not, please educate yourself and come back here.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=10663.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88208.0

When pruning is implemented, the only thing you need to run full node is a fast internet connection which is ALREADY CHEAP in many countries and will be WAAAAAYY cheaper in a few years.

[caveden]

If govs are ever to attack bitcoin, they'll do it the way they're used to: banning their usage in commerce.
That's much more typical of governments, easier to enforce and more effective than trying to fight bitcoin on the technical realm.

Also, let's not forget that a single honest node can already spot fraud attempts like increasing the 21M BTC limit.

Oh, and let's not forget either that SPV has a high level of security too, even considering rogue full nodes. People speak as if SPV nodes would be completely vulnerable to rogue full nodes, but that's not the case. A rogue full node could potentially omit data to its SPV peers. But that risk can be considerably mitigated by just connecting to multiple full nodes: a single honest one in the bunch, and you'll receive your data.
A rogue full node cannot fake a transaction to a SPV node because he'd also need a fake Merkle root, what implies in a fake block header, what can only be obtained through real proof-of-work. If a node is willing to waste all that hashpower just to fake a transaction, why not do a Finney attack in the first place? That's more effective and works against other full nodes too.

[solex]

WTF. Stop right there.
You clearly know nothing about anything. Have you heard of pruning ? If not, please educate yourself and come back here.

He does know about pruning, because we were talking about it a few pages back, as well as mining optimization.

I believe the last objection raised was that a higher block size limit would make it impossible to mine anonymously, but I think that has been debunked with the notion of "read the firehose of transactions non-anonymously, then broadcast just new block header + coinbase + listof(truncated transaction hashes) anonymously."

If this 2nd change works then Bitcoin will be massively scalable and can become the success everyone wants.

You are right - if it works, then Tor mining should be easier, though the scaling issues of a home node still remain.

But, all this quickly and conveniently gets forgotten, then its 'data centres' all over again.

[piotr_n]

If govs are ever to attack bitcoin, they'll do it the way they're used to: banning their usage in commerce.

I know, but please note that it does not imply at all that the value of our bitcoins would go down then - I'd rather say that it would go up, like BTCUSD rate went up on MtGox, after they seized their Dwolla account. And like drugs got more expensive, after they had been banned.

Moreover, a theory that the commerce is very afraid of the possibility, pretty well suits to a theory that the commerce might just corrupt the devs, so they would help to make bitcoin protocol as the government requires; centralized and with a built in censorship mechanisms.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

WTF. Stop right there.
You clearly know nothing about anything. Have you heard of pruning ? If not, please educate yourself and come back here.

He does know about pruning, because we were talking about it a few pages back, as well as mining optimization.

But, all this quickly and conveniently gets forgotten, then its 'data centres' all over again.

Exactly - maybe he knows about pruning, but he chooses to forget just to keep the discussion going.

That's what i hate about some people - they choose to IGNORE SOME ARGUMENTS so they can "win" the discussion (or at least they think so).

[paraipan]

@ShadowOfHarbringer I say to you one more time, please control yourself.

We have an issue here and is quite obvious. Piotr_n is probably right thinking there is an agenda behind the actions of Gavin and his team, and I think the same thing, but let's not derail the topic here. I actually think the programmer team is doing this not to lose any control left over the network, like pushing changes with new updates, or vetting changes that aren't aligned with their view of the network.

Here is an example of a pull request that has the potential to limit the spam transactions, so MAX_BLOCK_SIZE limit won't be reached before a couple of years. This consists of passing the control of the Bitcoin network to it's users resulting to be a controversial change in the dev team. and obviously was closed without a serious reason by Gregory Maxwell. Btw Gregory, please abstain yourself from commenting, you've done enough.

Add user interface to set dust limit and filtered addresses - https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/2383

Then Gavin and team start taking it seriously and implement a fixed minimum transaction in the code - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=197414

According to Gavin himself writing code for Bitcoin, and submitting a pull request, should be quite easy - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4571.0 , but reality is quite different.

I would recommend Gavin take small vacancy so he can recover his strength.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

@ShadowOfHarbringer I say to you one more time, please control yourself.

We are back to the essential/contentwise discussion already (I'm done insulting piotr_n), so i don't understand what are you talking about.

[amincd]

Moreover, a theory that the commerce is very afraid of the possibility, pretty well suits to a theory that the commerce might just corrupt the devs, so they would help to make bitcoin protocol as the government requires; centralized and with a built in censorship mechanisms.

You simply ignored me after I pointed out how silly your theory is. Here's my challenge once again:

I would bet you a lot of money that every government will not require a license to run a Bitcoin node.

So do you want to bet me?

The only way Bitcoin can be censored is if every government in the world requires a license to run a Bitcoin node. If this is wrong, then everything you're arguing is wrong.

[paraipan]

@ShadowOfHarbringer I say to you one more time, please control yourself.

We are back to the essential/contentwise discussion already (I'm done insulting piotr_n), so i don't understand what are you talking about.

Glad to hear that, probably I missed your latest posts so I wasn't aware you guys have settled down.


Would you be so kind to comment on the solution I presented on MAX_BLOCK_SIZE issue?

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Would you be so kind to comment on the solution I presented on MAX_BLOCK_SIZE issue?

Wery well, but first i need to find it...

EDIT:
I checked all of your posts in this topic and it is not there. Please point me in the right direction.

[piotr_n]

Moreover, a theory that the commerce is very afraid of the possibility, pretty well suits to a theory that the commerce might just corrupt the devs, so they would help to make bitcoin protocol as the government requires; centralized and with a built in censorship mechanisms.

You simply ignored me after I pointed out how silly your theory is. Here's my challenge once again:

I would bet you a lot of money that every government will not require a license to run a Bitcoin node.

No. Because if I win, you won't be able to pay up anymore.

Plus, I don't bet on things which I am against, because this would create a conflict of interests inside me, and unlike some people, I do have problems with such.

[amincd]

We can put dollars in escrow, so I can pay you even if BTC goes to 0, which is very unlikely to happen even if all governments required node operators to be licensed.

Anyway, the idea that every government in the world would make laws against running a node without a license is preposterous. That really ends this debate. You're worrying about something that is barely any more likely than every government banning Tor exit nodes and encrypted traffic.

[paraipan]

Would you be so kind to comment on the solution I presented on MAX_BLOCK_SIZE issue?

Wery well, but first i need to find it...

EDIT:
I checked all of your posts in this topic and it is not there. Please point me in the right direction.

Sorry about that, it was my previous post.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=221111.msg2377152#msg2377152

[piotr_n]

We can put dollars in escrow, so I can pay you even if BTC goes to 0, which is very unlikely to happen even if all governments required node operators to be licensed.

Anyway, the idea that every government in the world would make laws against running a node without a license is preposterous. That really ends this debate. You're worrying about something that is barely any more likely than every government banning Tor exit nodes and encrypted traffic.

Please, for your own sake, stop proving to us how incompetent you are in predicting governments' intentions.

Obviously they wont call it "a law against running a node" - they will just shut down your node saying that it was being a part of a global money laundering syndicate, or whatever terrorism sponsoring related, and so if you are lucky, you will be able to leave the prison yet before you die.

They won't even need to change a single law in order to shut you down; their interpretation of what kind of evil you are doing running a node without exporting an API for their censorship app, will be just enough.

[amincd]

Please, for your own sake, stop proving to us how incompetent you are in predicting governments' intentions.

Obviously they wont call it "a law against running a node" - they will just shut down your node saying that it was being a part of a global money laundering syndicate, or whatever terrorism sponsoring related.

Every government in the world will not do that. As I said, you might as well be worrying about every government in the world making encrypted traffic and Tor exit nodes illegal.

Governments that want to censor Bitcoin will punish businesses that accept BTC, and those that exchange it. It's futile to censor BTC data, since it needs EVERY OTHER GOVERNMENT in the world to cooperate to be successful.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Please, for your own sake, stop proving to us how incompetent you are in predicting governments' intentions.

Obviously they wont call it "a law against running a node" - they will just shut down your node saying that it was being a part of a global money laundering syndicate, or whatever terrorism sponsoring related.

Every government in the world will not do that. As I said, you might as well be worrying about every government in the world making encrypted traffic and Tor exit nodes illegal.

Governments that want to censor Bitcoin will punish businesses that accept BTC, and those that exchange it. It's futile to censor BTC data, since it needs EVERY OTHER GOVERNMENT in the world to cooperate to be successful.

Quite correct.

Exactly as it is wit Bittorrent, creating an effective law against Bitcoin connections/nodes will require cooperation of EVERY GOVERNMENT IN THE DAMN WORLD (because internet is by its nature decentralized).

And that will never happen and has never, ever happened in history. So yes, amincd's argument is correct.
The only other thing that can be done technically is shutting down the Internet.

Actually "they" would like very much to shut down the Internet, as this video shows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct9xzXUQLuY

But "they" CAN'T. Too bad, I almost feel sorry for "them".

[piotr_n]

It's funny how people believe that it is not possible for all the governments to do it, though they have no question whatsoever whether their own government (the one that they elected) would do it, as soon as it gets a chance