Guaranteed blockchain will not suffer from illegal content with 100kb op_return

With future lifting limited to 100kB in core V30 of OP_Return data, one of the main concerns of the change is the risk of appearing in adjoining data up to 100kb within OP_Return’s adjoining data. This has been dismissed as fearful by the core Bitcoin community, calling for many names that interact between the two camps, and elevated feelings. The specific concern cited by opponents was the precedent for Bitcoin SV, suffering from illegal content on the blockchain shortly after making this same change to Op_return.

I would like to look at the core side of Bitcoin in discussion. Perhaps they don’t want more illegal content than the knot people do.

Some Bitcoin core supporters say it doesn’t matter whether such material will appear on the blockchain, as it will require special tools for Bitcoin nodes to see such illegal material. This post:

https://x.com/dopemind10/status/1967691600475373989

I am not very relieved by this discussion. I am currently planning on setting up my own Bitcoin node, but I am not satisfied with the presence of such illegal material on any computer in my home, even in obfuscated form. I do not guarantee how law enforcement interprets such content, and I don’t particularly want to test them.

I’ve heard the argument that illegal materials can already be put into the blockchain via Taproot or fake Pubkeys, and cannot be stopped, but the Op_return method is much less data than those methods, and is data in adjacent 100kb blocks. This is a big step towards getting closer to a host of illegal material, and at this day and age, it is impossible to imagine anyone wanting to take such a step. Even the slightest hint of connection to certain types of illegal substances, even a completely false accusation, can be sufficient to ruin someone’s reputation and even put them at risk.

One thing that gives you peace of mind is that major miners will not mine blocks containing illegal materials in OP_Return. But what happens to the scenario when a small, unknown anonymous miner who can be placed anywhere in the world can mine a block, and within it can contain illegal material in OP_RETURN? This can happen every few months, and the “mining lottery” wins. I guessed that the main miners are always checking the blocks they’re building, and if it contains bad material they’ll mint on top of the blocks below it instead. Therefore, this logic means that if most of the major miners adopt that policy, the chances that bad blocks will enter the chain in the most accumulated chain work would be infinitely small. But do you ensure that most of the major miners adopt such policies? Once several blocks are built on bad blocks, it is very difficult to build an alternative chain with larger chainwork.

Along with the actual blockchain itself, other concerns lie in the illegal material that appears within the memo pool on individual nodes. People who haven’t used it -datacarriersize The option to reduce the OP_RETURN data cap on a node to a low level and not use knots can potentially have illegal content in RAM. Again, I don’t want to explain to law enforcement how that material reached. Also, who knows that modern computer operating systems may have been created, and what it can report as telemetry data, and how to interpret the suspicious material that AI components within that OS detect in RAM? Again, everything we absolutely do electronically is analyzed and tracked by increasingly sophisticated systems, carrying out the risk that law enforcement is increasingly being used in “pre-crimes” and more. What safeguards do you take to avoid being exposed to this risk of RAM under Core V30 nodes?

To me, conservative policies regarding illegal substances within Bitcoin make the most sense. I don’t think the “Que Sera” approach will work well for Bitcoin. However, if you disagree with that statement, a more “liberal” or “rais-fail” approach may be appropriate and should provide evidence or case studies to support, if possible. This is an era of major social change and I think people across the spectrum need to adapt to new environments. We need to have a concrete discussion of all issues of concern. The devastating inflation bug of 2018 CVE-2018-17144 indicates that we need to be very careful about all changes to Bitcoin, as it was caused by technical surveillance within the Bitcoin core team. A sudden 1250x increase in OP_Return capacity has led to an increase in alarm bells across the community, and knot adoption has increased by 10x this year, despite much less developer support than cores. The only thing that’s best for Bitcoin is important. It doesn’t matter who’s right or who’s wrong.