Matt Corallo advocating for censorship

[o_e_l_e_o]

Americans, now that lnurl is getting some adoption, if you host your own lnurl server make sure you're blocking Iranian, Cuban, North Korean, Russian, and Syrian IP addresses so that you don't wittingly accept a payment from users in those countries! Not worth jail time or fines.

So what next? All node operators should start blacklisting IP addresses from these countries to stop receiving transactions from them? In fact, don't run a node at all in case you accidentally process some illegal transaction? Since when did we start censoring ourselves and our fellow bitcoin users in order to appease the whims of national governments?

This is not the way. And to anyone affected by this, you can of course use Tor to bypass such stupidity.

Edit: Just to be clear, Matt isn't actually pro-censorship. He is making a statement against LNURL, but in a very poor way in my opinion. Even if you think LNURL is awful, using a position of influence to post instructions on how to censor people is a poor way to go about it, especially when so many people now assume this is his real position.

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[Macadonian]

1st who the fuck is Matt Corallo? Some Bitcoin Core developer who thinks being the 10th contributor is an achievement and not what he has actually done for Bitcoin. Well encouraging censorship immediately undermines his 'contributions' imo. Ok I understand he has contributed to btc it is just this attitude that I am worried about and it frustrates me that we have people who are known in the community for their contributions encouraging censorship. It worries me it could leak into development

Some day I hope people realize how disgraceful it is to limit a certain person because of political motives.

So what next? All node operators should start blacklisting IP addresses from these countries to stop receiving transactions from them? In fact, don't run a node at all in case you accidentally process some illegal transaction? Since when did we start censoring ourselves and our fellow bitcoin users in order to appease the whims of national governments?

This is not the way. And to anyone affected by this, you can of course use Tor to bypass such stupidity.

Next we will have suggestions of auditing transactions just in case you process a illegal transaction and we end up where we started. Banks controlling everything and still processing transactions. I do not know why people are obsessed with businesses and processes which censor the end user.

Any one suggesting we censor ourselves does not believe in Bitcoin for the right reasons and I think they are probably in it for other motives that are not advocating freedom.

[Hamza2424]

Haha "Jail times and Fines" Maximum times all of such people talk about transparency and user privacy and suddenly when they realize people are getting the power of spending in their hands they impose such statement on the name of misuse of power and privacy.

Just one word is enough to explain all "dual standards"

[Foxpup]

All node operators should start blacklisting IP addresses from these countries to stop receiving transactions from them?

No, only American node operators.

Since when did we start censoring ourselves and our fellow bitcoin users in order to appease the whims of national governments?

Since said national governments will arrest you for failing to comply with their latest batch of unjust laws even if said laws border on contravening both the nation's own constitution and various international human rights agreements? You're acting like this is a new problem.

[paid2]

This reminds me of a forum user who wondered if miners could be held responsible and liable, when they validate a block that includes transactions related to the drugs or weapons trade. This to me is the antithesis of what Bitcoin is supposed to offer the world.

I wonder where this kind of questioning will lead us, I also wonder if one day there will be a question of analyzing transactions in the mempool in order to cancel them (like double-spending before validation in a block) when they include blacklisted addresses. I must admit that I wouldn't be surprised if someone proposed this, but I would be extremely surprised if it was realistically feasible. As I know, only the sender can do double-spend, so it shouldn’t be possible no ?

It would clearly be harmful, if not fatal, to the decentralization of Bitcoin. I don't really know how realistic such a scenario would be, but I imagine that as long as a majority of nodes are not owned by institutions or governments, we'll be far from it.

[o_e_l_e_o]

But after reading 4th tweet chain, i'm not sure whether he actually advocate censorship or wishing people to only use more private payment protocol (i don't know what he meant though).

It's fairly clear he dislikes LNURL and wants people to use other solutions instead, but advocating censorship on LNURL is not the right way to go about expressing that.

No, only American node operators.

If one government can force all its citizen to start censoring other bitcoin users with threats of fines or prison time, then any government can do the same.

Since said national governments will arrest you for failing to comply with their latest batch of unjust laws even if said laws border on contravening both the nation's own constitution and various international human rights agreements? You're acting like this is a new problem.

Fair point. It's not a new problem for the average user who gives up their privacy, security, and sovereignty to sign up to a centralized exchange, but it's quite a different thing for a Core dev to publicly tweet instructions on how users can start censoring each other.

As I know, only the sender can do double-spend, so it shouldn’t be possible no ?

It's not possible to double spend someone else's transaction, but it is possible for miners to simply refuse to include any transactions they deem "blacklisted". There have been a couple of short lived attempts of mining pools doing this in the past, but unless such mining pools achieve 51% of the hashrate, they are powerless to stop other mining pools from picking up and mining these transactions which they are choosing to censor. And any individual miner with any shred of decency will not continue to mine for any pools which supports censorship.

[pooya87]

If someone is living in a dictatorship that would fine or jail people for running a bitcoin/LN node then maybe they should be the ones running their node through TOR or stop using bitcoin altogether. The number of countries US has sanctioned is far higher than just 5 and things are going to get worse the weaker US dollar gets specially as bitcoin adoption grows globally while more countries join the "dedollarization" bandwagon.

In any case, is it just me or do core devs/contributors go nuts after a while to the point that they even go against the very basic principles of Bitcoin? There certainly is a pattern here with Andresen as its pioneer. What the hell is happening behind the scenes to these guys
Has "someone" with a 3 letter name been targeting them?

[Welsh]

I'm not entirely aware of American's stand on blocking those countries to services; have they made a blanket ban on accepting the services or connections of people from those countries?

I can sort of understand the reasoning behind him being concerned. He suggests that it isn't worth risking the jail time or fines, but he doesn't necessarily support censorship, because lets face it for the majority of people they don't want to risk jail time or fines over something like this. I know there's an argument that being scared into complying, and then using his position to convince others is support censorship.

Given his position as a Core developer though, it's a odd one.

If one government can force all its citizen to start censoring other bitcoin users with threats of fines or prison time, then any government can do the same.

To be fair, most governments do censor their citizens. Whether, that's Bitcoin or something else. China, is known for censoring certain social medias, and news sources. It's no different for the US.

This reminds me of a forum user who wondered if miners could be held responsible and liable, when they validate a block that includes transactions related to the drugs or weapons trade. This to me is the antithesis of what Bitcoin is supposed to offer the world.

Technically, if mining is illegal in the country that they reside in; yeah, it would be illegal, and therefore they could be held liable for breaking the law, if they are validating blocks. Although, I'm not aware of many countries that have outright banned mining. However, it's potentially something that could happen, obviously it wouldn't be right, but usually censorship isn't anyway.

If someone is living in a dictatorship that would fine or jail people for running a bitcoin/LN node then maybe they should be the ones running their node through TOR or stop using bitcoin altogether. The number of countries US has sanctioned is far higher than just 5 and things are going to get worse the weaker US dollar gets specially as bitcoin adoption grows globally while more countries join the "dedollarization" bandwagon.

The thing is; if there isn't enough people that care, and kick up a fuss it'll likely lead to this. I don't know if the government would be threatened enough or if they'd just prefer to regulate Bitcoin so that they can profit from people using it, but tighter restrictions will likely be put in place around the majority of the world. Mainly, for them to profit from it.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Excuse me for my lack of knowledge, but why and since when is it illegal to accept payments from Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba if you live in the US?

Second, what does an IP address reveal anyway? Lots of lightning nodes don't use their local IP addresses, but go with a VPN. Hell, most nodes don't use the clear net anyway.

[pooya87]

The thing is; if there isn't enough people that care, and kick up a fuss it'll likely lead to this. I don't know if the government would be threatened enough or if they'd just prefer to regulate Bitcoin so that they can profit from people using it, but tighter restrictions will likely be put in place around the majority of the world. Mainly, for them to profit from it.

I doubt the number of people "resisting" really matters to oppressive regimes. If their perceived threat is big enough, they won't hesitate. There are already certain sanctions US government has in place involving bitcoin such as the list of bitcoin addresses that OFAC has placed under sanctions lol.
The only reason they aren't (or better say can't) enforce it is because bitcoin is decentralized so they have little to no power here. They may only put some pressure on domestic centralized exchanges.

[digaran]

Well well well, I think it's time people start dumping core nodes, because if one of them has this kind of behaviour and none of the rest are opposing and getting rid of him, could only mean they'll have no other choice to comply in the future with the same censorship mindset.

Or maybe he is acting this way intentionally to damage the rest of the team? In either way having him involved in development is no longer a good idea. I'm already a core hater just reading the comment, imagine if this gets adopted, will be the downfall of bitcoin until people start dumping such dev team and everything will go back to normal again.

It's great to have such people around, they could open our eyes before it's too late. Now chop chop Americans, listen to this man, let's do more FUD, we want cheaper coins. Lol.

[Sarah Azhari]

This is not the way. And to anyone affected by this, you can of course use Tor to bypass such stupidity.

I don't know exactly, how to run a node with tor?. are we must download the tor browser first beside the bitcoin wallet?

what I have experienced before, too many browsers rejected me just to open a website and warn me I came from a restricted country. so when I look at the TOR relay,  France as (guard), Germany, and the last one is USA (restricted country).

maybe TOR can't bypass it if always make the random relay.

[pooya87]

I don't know exactly, how to run a node with tor?

Here is a guide: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Setting_up_a_Tor_hidden_service

But you don't need to do that as I said if the US regime decides to place such restrictions, those running the nodes in US would be at risk not the rest of the world. Keep in mind that it would be trivial to get these nodes to relay certain transactions that would get them shut down by US authorities and the node operators arrested. So they either have to try so hard to hide or stop running nodes altogether.

[Cuenta Alternativa]

I don't know exactly, how to run a node with tor?

Here is a guide: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Setting_up_a_Tor_hidden_service

Can't the use of Tor somehow be detected? In my experience accessing casinos, it can. Couldn't the same thing happen in this case?

what I have experienced before, too many browsers rejected me just to open a website and warn me I came from a restricted country. so when I look at the TOR relay,  France as (guard), Germany, and the last one is USA (restricted country).

maybe TOR can't bypass it if always make the random relay.

You can set it up so that it looks like your connection comes from only one country. Let's say from Colombia you can access the site you want, be it a casino or whatever, but they seem to detect that you are using Tor in some cases.

[franky1]

Excuse me for my lack of knowledge, but why and since when is it illegal to accept payments from Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba if you live in the US?

turn on the news. or google "sanctions"

firstly bitcoin  has not needed to ban ip's of any country. however when it comes to lightning routing.
a lightning router is a payment facilitator/money service thus has to abide by money service business rules and payment facilitator rules

if you dont know things. learn them

[Upgrade00]

Can't the use of Tor somehow be detected? In my experience accessing casinos, it can. Couldn't the same thing happen in this case?

AFAIK, that would be possible, just as coin mixed and joined transactions can be detected. But, you would not have any trouble running a node through Tor, Bitcoin is privacy inclined and encourages users to resist censorship of any form.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I'm not entirely aware of American's stand on blocking those countries to services; have they made a blanket ban on accepting the services or connections of people from those countries?

Excuse me for my lack of knowledge, but why and since when is it illegal to accept payments from Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba if you live in the US?

This document provides a good summary of ongoing US sanctions against other nations (in particular, from the bottom of page 3): https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/-/media/files/nrf/nrfweb/knowledge-pdfs/220606-overview-of-us-sanctions-laws-and-regulations.pdf
For full details you can use this site: https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/sanctions-programs-and-country-information

Although if you click through all the links in the sidebar of the above link and take a look at the SDN and non-SDN lists, you can rapidly see just how impossible it would be for a Lightning node operator to comply with it all.

I know there's an argument that being scared into complying, and then using his position to convince others is support censorship.

If bitcoin is going to be forced in to submitting to the rules and control of whatever government happens to be the most powerful at the time, then is it really any better than fiat? If the US government decided all bitcoin must only be held in wallets under their control with full KYC (i.e. a bank), do all US citizens just roll over and say "Well OK then, I don't want to risk a fine."?

To be fair, most governments do censor their citizens.

Absolutely. Which is part of what makes bitcoin so powerful. We absolutely cannot lose that.

Or maybe he is acting this way intentionally to damage the rest of the team?

No, he is making a statement against LNURL. As I pointed out above, he isn't actually pro-censorship.

[Fiatless]

Americans, now that lnurl is getting some adoption, if you host your own lnurl server make sure you're blocking Iranian, Cuban, North Korean, Russian, and Syrian IP addresses so that you don't wittingly accept a payment from users in those countries! Not worth jail time or fines.

So what next? All node operators should start blacklisting IP addresses from these countries to stop receiving transactions from them? In fact, don't run a node at all in case you accidentally process some illegal transaction? Since when did we start censoring ourselves and our fellow bitcoin users in order to appease the whims of national governments?

This is not the way. And to anyone affected by this, you can of course use Tor to bypass such stupidity.

Edit: Just to be clear, Matt isn't actually pro-censorship. He is making a statement against LNURL, but in a very poor way in my opinion. Even if you think LNURL is awful, using a position of influence to post instructions on how to censor people is a poor way to go about it, especially when so many people now assume this is his real position.

This advice is pure bullshit. It might be slip of the tongue or speaking without reasoning but it is a big blunder. Bitcoiners should not pay the price for the poor judgment of politicians. I think bitcoin forbids censorship because it promotes freedom. This censorship will have so many negative consequences on small businesses and individuals as they rely on bitcoin to invade economic sanctions. The politicians are just a few persons but this censorship will affect thousands if not millions of people. Government should tackle their problems and leave bitcoin out of their punitive alternatives.

[buwaytress]

Yeah, I think you can block whomever you want, deny what your principles deny, but then advocating others do the same and blanketing everyone from there (yeah, depending on my ToR or VPN, I'm even some days Iranian, or Russian, or whatever, I don't check) is poor judgment, at the very least ignorant.

When do "unlawful" people ever go through straight channels anyway? That non-blacklist IP connecting to you, do you ever really know who's behind it?

[Merit.s]

Edit: Just to be clear, Matt isn't actually pro-censorship. He is making a statement against LNURL, but in a very poor way in my opinion. Even if you think LNURL is awful, using a position of influence to post instructions on how to censor people is a poor way to go about it, especially when so many people now assume this is his real position.

Who is he to make such conclusion, bitcoin shouldn't be limited to some countries due to whatever is the problem. Soon, the government might come in and think they can change bitcoin to a centralized system, but they will get it wrong. I call this injustice.

This is not the way. And to anyone affected by this, you can of course use Tor to bypass such stupidity.

Thank heaven that there is Tor which will make his point or judgment useless because with Tor,you can become invisible and not scared of any threat of jail sentence and bla bla bla. Bitcoin is a censorship free project.