Are the miner fees really the only filter we need?

[JetSeason]

Fees aren’t a spam filter, they’re a pricing mechanism. And pricing alone doesn’t define legitimacy. 

[Satofan44]

Preventing spam on Bitcoin is not censorship.

If you have to worry about your Script being blocked, then it is. Imagine you make a simple condition: "require Alice's key, or Bob's key after some time". How do you know, that your coins are safe? Maybe someone will suggest blocking OP_IF? And then, suddenly, your coins are unspendable, only because you had a simple contract: "OP_IF <pubkeyAlice> OP_ELSE <time> OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY OP_DROP <pubkeyBob> OP_ENDIF OP_CHECKSIG".

Also, if new filters are invented on a regular basis, then you never know, if your coins valid today will be valid tomorrow, or not. Which makes writing new contracts hard, because at any point in time, someone can point at your transaction, and call you a spammer, even if it was a simple locktime with two public keys, only because it used OP_IF, that you didn't expect to be banned.

It absolutely is, their proposed "BIP" that limits many kind of transactions basically does exactly that -- it makes many existing outputs unspendable, perhaps to provide an opportunity for luke-jr to propose a seizure down the road for his centralized organization.   Any kind of blocking of existing functions must be done with extreme care and only under the most gravest conditions relating to existential-level threats to the protocol. It is definitely not to be done for any kind of subjective I don't like what you are storing in Bitcoin reasons.

Fees aren’t a spam filter, they’re a pricing mechanism.

Except, that is exactly what it is. Without fees, you can easily do a DOS style spam attack on the Bitcoin network and makes it practically unusable for the most part. Things can have multiple functions, fees are the primary spam filter but they also act as a pricing mechanism because we have a fee market (and not a fixed fee for everything system).

And pricing alone doesn’t define legitimacy.  

And what does then? Arbitrary opinions of random people? Should we set up a centralized committee to define and declare which types of transactions are legitimate or more legitimate than others?  Just because you don't like my transactions containing images, that does not make them any less legitimate than your monetary transactions. It is merely your opinion and it has no impact on anything.

[PepeLapiu]

Fees aren’t a spam filter, they’re a pricing mechanism. And pricing alone doesn’t define legitimacy. 

I 100% agree. It's as stupid as saying you can burn a red light or speed above the speed limit if you have a driver's license. But you can't if you don't.

There is no magic smoke in the fees that somehow only deters spammers, but not real bitcoiners.

[Satofan44]

There is no magic smoke in the fees that somehow only deters spammers, but not real bitcoiners.

According to my definitions, I declare you to be the spammers and I want to filter all transactions made by you, Luke-jr and anyone who supports Bitcoin Knots. Please start writing a proposal about this transaction filter, thank you. It is in accordance with satoshi's past views that we can do more things regarding spam if we needed to, combined with my modern interpretation of what constitutes spam. I am a real Bitcoiner, and those that I have targeted in this group of entities are considered to be fake bitcoiners also known as spammers.

  This is the only road where this could lead to, and it would inevitably lead that way if the central CSAM-repository keeper luke-jr got his way. Luckily, there are plenty of real Bitcoiners who are never going to let that happen.  

[PepeLapiu]

And pricing alone doesn’t define legitimacy.  

And what does then? Arbitrary opinions of random people?

Nope. Allow me to use a fiat analogy here. When you look at your banking app, you should see a bank balance, and transactions coming in and out. Anything else is spam. If you see an ad for diapers, that is spam and it doesn't belong there.

Same with the bitcoin chain. You should see balances and bitcoin being moved around. If you see a jpeg or a rune, or ordinal, stamp, or anything else that is not money, that is spam.

In fact spammers know very well that the only use case of bitcoin is money. Which is why they try so hard to make their spam look like genuine monetary transactions to the network.

They do this with dust output in fake pubkeys, fake scripthash, and using the Segwit exploit and the Taproot exploit.

They are not users, they are attackers, grifters, spammers.

[Satofan44]

Nope. Allow me to use a fiat analogy here. When you look at your banking app, you should see a bank balance, and transactions coming in and out. Anything else is spam. If you see an ad for diapers, that is spam and it doesn't belong there.

That does not make the faintest logical sense whatsoever. You made an arbitrary definition of what the app is supposed to be, what you do not want to see in there and you declared it as spam. The bank may come with ads and all kinds of secondary feature. You don't get to dictate what "spam" is in this case, except only for yourself. If you want to be a mentally deranged person, you could even consider transactions coming in as spam. Nothing stops you from doing that, but it won't mean anything to anyone else. Neither the diaper ads thing is correct, these ads may be very useful for someone else.

Same with the bitcoin chain. You should see balances and bitcoin being moved around. If you see a jpeg or a rune, or ordinal, stamp, or anything else that is not money, that is spam.

Anything can be money, including jpegs, runes, stamps, ordinals, whatever. You do not get to dictate the definition of money nor of spam. It would be easier for everyone involved if you just admitted that all you really want to do is look at CSAM footage. Your kind is not so smart with concealing yourselves. After all, it is the key part of luke-jr's proposals.

In fact spammers know very well that the only use case of bitcoin is money. Which is why they try so hard to make their spam look like genuine monetary transactions to the network.

They do this with dust output in fake pubkeys, fake scripthash, and using the Segwit exploit and the Taproot exploit.

They are not users, they are attackers, grifters, spammers.

They are not trying hard at all, just because some methods exist or have been used occasionally that does not mean that someone is trying something. Most of what you consider "spam" is obvious in terms of how it looks like on the network. The "attackers" do not yet have an incentive to utilize advanced methods of covering up their data, but if you start applying filters they will.  

[PepeLapiu]

Nope. Allow me to use a fiat analogy here. When you look at your banking app, you should see a bank balance, and transactions coming in and out. Anything else is spam. If you see an ad for diapers, that is spam and it doesn't belong there.

That does not make the faintest logical sense whatsoever. You made an arbitrary definition of what the app is supposed to be, what you do not want to see in there and you declared it as spam.

Bitcoin is money. See the white paper title:
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

And here is what Satoshi had to say when confronted with the idea of anything else getting on chain. In this specific case, Lady Gaga videos:

That's one of the reasons for transaction fees.  There are other things we can do if necessary.

Nobody at the time though it was censorship to prevent Lady Gaga videos from getting on the bitcoin chain. But spammers have infiltrated the community and you are now poisoning the culture with the idea that not accepting your shit on chain is censorship. It's not. You are free to use bitcoin to buy your precious jpeg or your pancake or anything else. But neither your jpeg nor your pancake belong on the bitcoin chain.

Same with the bitcoin chain. You should see balances and bitcoin being moved around. If you see a jpeg or a rune, or ordinal, stamp, or anything else that is not money, that is spam.

Anything can be money, including jpegs, runes, stamps, ordinals, whatever.

On the bitcoin chain, only bitcoin is money. Feel free to trade your jpegs on ETH which welcomes your spam. We don't welcome your spammy jpegs here.

Yes, anything can be money. Jpegs and tobacco and sea shells can be money. But none of those belong on the bitcoin blockchain. If you think your jpeg is money, go ask your bank to deposit your jpeg in your bank account.

You do not get to dictate the definition of money nor of spam.

Bitcoin is money. Bitcoin is not a redundant file sharing network for your scammy jpegs. Learn the lesson now or learn it later on. It's up to you.

[Satofan44]

Bitcoin is money. See the white paper title:
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

And here is what Satoshi had to say when confronted with the idea of anything else getting on chain.

Wrong, that was only Satoshi's opinion and limited view of what Bitcoin can be. Satoshi does not dictate what Bitcoin was, is, or will be. That is not how decentralization works. Some of his views were accurate, others were completely false for a variety of reasons depending on case. Enough of this religious cultist approach to Bitcoin, that is completely contrary to what Bitcoin is about. Quoting Satoshi arbitrarily where it suites you, regardless of relevance and accuracy, and then simultaneously dismissing Satoshi quotes that are objectively true simply because they don't suit you.

Nobody at the time though it was censorship to prevent Lady Gaga videos from getting on the bitcoin chain. But spammers have infiltrated the community and you are now poisoning the culture with the idea that not accepting your shit on chain is censorship. It's not. You are free to use bitcoin to buy your precious jpeg or your pancake or anything else. But neither your jpeg nor your pancake belong on the bitcoin chain.

You are not going to prevent anything at all, and I will store all the things that you do not like in any quantity that I want. There is not a proposal in the world that you could imagine and that I could not bypass.

On the bitcoin chain, only bitcoin is money. Feel free to trade your jpegs on ETH which welcomes your spam. We don't welcome your spammy jpegs here.

Nope, everything can money and no amount of rejection by anyone can change anything about that.

Bitcoin is money. Bitcoin is not a redundant file sharing network for your scammy jpegs. Learn the lesson now or learn it later on. It's up to you.

No, and these transactions are not going anywhere -- they will stay with us and be doable even long after you die. How about that, that is a nice thought?  

It would be easier for everyone involved if you just admitted that all you really want to do is look at CSAM footage. Your kind is not so smart with concealing yourselves. After all, it is the key part of luke-jr's proposals.

Repeat after me: I, PepeLapiu, want to view CSAM footage as part of the CSAM review committee. This is the real reason why I am arguing for these things. Unburden your soul.

[PepeLapiu]

There is no magic smoke in the fees that somehow only deters spammers, but not real bitcoiners.

According to my definitions, I declare you to be the spammers and I want to filter all transactions made by you, Luke-jr and anyone who supports Bitcoin Knots.
[.quote]

That would be the textbook definition of censorship. You can write your BIP and see how that goes.  But I bet you the 90,000 nodes will not go for it.

Unlike you, the 90,000 nodes know the difference between spam and censorship.

This is the only road where this could lead to, and it would inevitably lead that way if the central CSAM-repository keeper luke-jr got his way. Luckily, there are plenty of real Bitcoiners who are never going to let that happen.  

Exactly! Real bitcoiers know the difference between a bitcoin transaction and and a stoopit dickbutt.jpeg.

an't differentiate spam from normal transactions using any mechanism that involves fees. I can easily update my protocol to make my "spam" look like normal transactions (whatever this is supposed to mean). What idiotic proposal will people who support these stupid ideas come up with then? Limit the number of transactions per address? Limit per 24 hours? As a last and desperate proposal, KYC per address to allow "normal transactions" from "real users"?  

All that is ridiculous and the nodes would reject any and all of those proposals.

The first "spam filter" is the culture itself.

If some spammer comes on here or on X and he thinks he has a "new interesting use case" (aka spam) he is not likely to keep going if he is meet with an hostile community. Vitalik is a prime example of this. When he tried to pitch his ideas on bitcoin he was replies to aggressively and he basically decided he didn't want to build on a platform where the community would be fighting him non-stop.

The spammers investors are likely to get nervous if we get aggressive against them.

But the culture has changed a great deal. Nowadays spammers attend bitcoin meetups and core caters to them and blow up filters for them.

On the email list and on Github, known spammers cry censorship whenever anyone suggests an anti-spam idea.

The second "spam filter" is the fees. But that's been turned on it's head with Segwit and Taproot as spammdrd get a bigger discount on fees than the rest of us.

Filters like the ones in Knots would be effective if more people ran Knots.

BIP110 is also an other step forward. Once we fork into less spam, the network will have established we are anti-spam and more proposals will be adopted, more anti-spam measures will come along.