What would the effect be if ISPs are asked to block Bitcoin protocol traffic?

[Bitcopia]

And why (after 4 years and counting) have they not done so anywhere at all?

Because Bitcoin can't compete with VISA, MasterCard, etc. due to scalability issues. THEY just do not worry.

Can't may not be the right word choice here. BitPay already has more than 8,000 merchants paying a fee far lower than traditional payment processors. Bitcoin will only become more and more simple to use with time and acceptance. Remember we are still in Beta and "real" infrastructure is still very limited.

[elor70]

im glad i dont live in america....

[gmaxwell]

What about Namecoin? The .bit domain may be censorship resistant, would the ISPs be able to block transactions by refusing connections if you already have the addresses?
I just recently found out about Namecoin and am quite intreagued by the possibilities of a distributed DNS system.

At the moment, the design of namecoin means that a secure "lite" node resolver is not really possible.

So in order to resolve namecoin names you need the whole namecoin blockchain & history.  If you ask someone to resolve one for you they can give you a undetectable fake NXDOMAIN or a stale result.

This is fixable, along with other challenges... but namecoin isn't getting a ton of active development. (Last I checked it also had a pile of serious vulnerabilities inherited from, and now fixed in, Bitcoin— but they've been working on forward porting the codebase to be v0.8 based).

[Bitcoinpro]

What about Namecoin? The .bit domain may be censorship resistant, would the ISPs be able to block transactions by refusing connections if you already have the addresses?

I just recently found out about Namecoin and am quite intreagued by the possibilities of a distributed DNS system.

and its dual node so apparently you can mine both Namecoin and Bitcoin simultaneously at the same rate as one

[antiycda]

i don't think bitcoin will use a lots of bandwidth

[Cryddit]

Couple good things about Namecoin.

First, is something you can buy with at relatively fixed prices (domain names in .bit fake-tld) so has value supported by particular good.  This kind of like "trade money" sellers used to make say, "Redeem for 50-lb bag of flour at Ivan's Grocery" or similar.  So has minimum value as trading commodity, better than Bitcoin.  Bitcoin value is self intrinsic commodity due scarcity, but has not intrinsic redemption value.

Second, has primary use clearly legitimate.  So has Bitcoin, but must argue about because so much crooks use Bitcoin on silk road etc.  "Ebay for Maniacs" and "Most Brazen Illicit Drug Market on Earth" has been called, also first time many legal beagles hear Bitcoin.  They think like Paypal and Ebay, same underlying provider, same purpose.  Requires argument and education teach otherwise.

[auweia]

apparently Sonic.net (isp) is blocking Bitmit.net. They said it was reported as a phishing site and I couldn't finalize an order for 3 days

I'm trying to find out if other sonic users also can't access it. I could get to it through a proxy tho, but not directly. weird stuff

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r28733662-Sonic-blocking-Bitmit.net-