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I would say that as long as there is a communication channel provided to a person, they can interact with the bitcoin network. That is the great invention, a bo

I would say that as long as there is a communication channel provided to a person, they can interact with the bitcoin network. That is the great invention, a boring grey (digital) metal that can be transmitted over a communication channel. Plaintext channel level censorship can be circumvented by encryption and steganography. The blocks can be received by satellite today. Sending Transactions over SMS is a thing. This may exist today, but I assume in the future bots on WhatsApp will broadcast raw hex/base64 encoded transactions to the network for peers in restricted countries. Policing WhatsApp content is extremely difficult, we have seen in the recent years. One can restrict the centralized exchanges. One cannot control every communication channel, or prevent every ECDSA signature from being signed.

littlestymaar 5y ago
Having full node connected to the chain through some whatsapp proxy is making exchange-less bitcoin usage even more cumbersome and dangerous than it already is. And it assume you can get this whatsapp proxy from a reliable source because it would be a pity if it was in fact a honeypot run by the government to find you (EncroChat-like).
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
> Sending Transactions over SMS is a thing. This may exist today, but I assume in the future bots on WhatsApp will broadcast raw hex/base64 encoded transactions to the network for peers in restricted countries. Policing WhatsApp content is extremely difficult, we have seen in the recent years. If someone trusts a WhatsApp bot with their bitcoins, they brought it upon themselves.
- reginold 5y ago
  It sounds like you may be missing some parts of how it works. A "transaction" is just a short string that includes a signature. It's impossible to manipulate or change. Therefore the only adversarial things the WhatsApp bot can do are 1. Not forward the transaction (I can tell relatively quickly by checking the mempool) 2. Doxx me/report me/etc by observing my IP, Whatsapp account name, and what wallet it is connected to. Besides that, I can put my transactions up on a billboard for all I care.
  - littlestymaar 5y ago
    > 1. Not forward the transaction (I can tell relatively quickly by checking the mempool) You mixing things up here, the mempool won't help you since your whatsapp proxy could tamper it. The only reliable thing is the chain itself once your transaction has been inserted in a mined block. > 2. Doxx me/report me/etc by observing my IP, Whatsapp account name, and what wallet it is connected to. But when doing direct crypto transaction is a crime in your country, this is a more serious threat than “tampering the transaction” or anything. Going to jail, or being tortured by some gang who want your private key, or both depending how corrupt the police is in that country.
    - reginold 5y ago
      How can Whatsapp tamper with my transaction without my private key?
      - littlestymaar 5y ago
        Not Whatsapp themselves, the proxying bot. And I'm not talking about tampering the transaction but the mempool (or at least the view you have about it) to make you believe they've forwarded the transaction. But as I said, this is not what matters: the doxxing part is the deadly threat.
        reginold 5y ago
        Re #1: Not forwarding the transaction. You can tell within about 15 seconds or so if a transaction hasn't hit the memepool. Just look up you wallet on blockchain.com/etherscan etc. It's a standard step that nearly every send/receive UI offers a link after submitting a transaction. These services mark mempool transactions as "pending" before they are inserted into a block. For example, here's a wallet for Gemini, you can see pending transactions under the "Age" column as they hit the mempool [0]. They are "pending" while in the mempool and then are labeled with a time as they are added to blocks. I'm continually impressed with how resilient the system is, even more-so after our thread about a hypothetical adversary. (Again you can run your own mempool service on your own node, and publish transactions to it, but in our hypothetical situation you need to instead issue it out through a Whatsapp channel manually.) [0] https://etherscan.io/address/0x056fd409e1d7a124bd7017459dfea2f387b6d5cd https://etherscan.io/address/0x056fd409e1d7a124bd7017459dfea...

littlestymaar 5y ago

Having full node connected to the chain through some whatsapp proxy is making exchange-less bitcoin usage even more cumbersome and dangerous than it already is. And it assume you can get this whatsapp proxy from a reliable source because it would be a pity if it was in fact a honeypot run by the government to find you (EncroChat-like).

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago

> Sending Transactions over SMS is a thing. This may exist today, but I assume in the future bots on WhatsApp will broadcast raw hex/base64 encoded transactions to the network for peers in restricted countries. Policing WhatsApp content is extremely difficult, we have seen in the recent years. If someone trusts a WhatsApp bot with their bitcoins, they brought it upon themselves.

reginold 5y ago
It sounds like you may be missing some parts of how it works. A "transaction" is just a short string that includes a signature. It's impossible to manipulate or change. Therefore the only adversarial things the WhatsApp bot can do are 1. Not forward the transaction (I can tell relatively quickly by checking the mempool) 2. Doxx me/report me/etc by observing my IP, Whatsapp account name, and what wallet it is connected to. Besides that, I can put my transactions up on a billboard for all I care.
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  > 1. Not forward the transaction (I can tell relatively quickly by checking the mempool) You mixing things up here, the mempool won't help you since your whatsapp proxy could tamper it. The only reliable thing is the chain itself once your transaction has been inserted in a mined block. > 2. Doxx me/report me/etc by observing my IP, Whatsapp account name, and what wallet it is connected to. But when doing direct crypto transaction is a crime in your country, this is a more serious threat than “tampering the transaction” or anything. Going to jail, or being tortured by some gang who want your private key, or both depending how corrupt the police is in that country.
  - reginold 5y ago
    How can Whatsapp tamper with my transaction without my private key?
    - littlestymaar 5y ago
      Not Whatsapp themselves, the proxying bot. And I'm not talking about tampering the transaction but the mempool (or at least the view you have about it) to make you believe they've forwarded the transaction. But as I said, this is not what matters: the doxxing part is the deadly threat.
      - reginold 5y ago
        Re #1: Not forwarding the transaction. You can tell within about 15 seconds or so if a transaction hasn't hit the memepool. Just look up you wallet on blockchain.com/etherscan etc. It's a standard step that nearly every send/receive UI offers a link after submitting a transaction. These services mark mempool transactions as "pending" before they are inserted into a block. For example, here's a wallet for Gemini, you can see pending transactions under the "Age" column as they hit the mempool [0]. They are "pending" while in the mempool and then are labeled with a time as they are added to blocks. I'm continually impressed with how resilient the system is, even more-so after our thread about a hypothetical adversary. (Again you can run your own mempool service on your own node, and publish transactions to it, but in our hypothetical situation you need to instead issue it out through a Whatsapp channel manually.) [0] https://etherscan.io/address/0x056fd409e1d7a124bd7017459dfea2f387b6d5cd https://etherscan.io/address/0x056fd409e1d7a124bd7017459dfea...