So, Knots is about to fork in a couple of months because they want to mess with Bitcoin Script to filter transactions better. Once that happens, it's probably smart to cut ties with Knots peers since they'll just hog bandwidth without offering anything useful. But hey, disconnecting sooner could save us some headaches.
Got any numbers on how many nodes run blocksonly mode? If the average data size barely differs from Knots nodes, then compact blocks won't really help if we're connected to them.
I say just block all Knots nodes. Seriously, who needs that headache? And honestly, who knows what Luke's next update is gonna do? It's better to be safe than sorry. Plus, he’s out of the DNS seeds, so let’s exclude him from everything.
Not sure there are many of those nodes anyway. Running blocksonly mode can actually mess with privacy since it makes you easier to spot. If you want to hide your transactions, blending in is way better than standing out. Maybe it's worth using blocksonly just during initial sync and then dropping it later.
If a node doesn’t have any mempool transactions, it won’t bother with compact blocks. I think I’ve seen very few blockonly peers. Most of those fRelay=false nodes are just from the two blocksonly connections.
I bet not many people actually choose to use blocksonly mode to save bandwidth. Isn’t it the default? Like, the syncing node can’t even check if TX is using valid UTXOs. A lot of recent TX count is non-monetary, so it kinda fits with the idea that Knots nodes don’t relay the right stuff.
Seems a bit of a stretch, honestly. Last time I checked, I had quite a few connections to Knots nodes. It was around 15% of my total connections, which really drains resources. You can always send transactions through third-party services and keep a low profile using VPNs or TOR.
When you say straightforward, do you mean no code changes at all? There’s a GitHub repo with a banlist that was made using bitnodes, but it hasn’t been updated since April since the site is down.
Banning peers can backfire, you might end up blocking the wrong ones. Better to monitor traffic and make decisions based on that, rather than just blacklisting clients blindly. I think using RPC commands could help track the resource usage and target peers better.
Just tell your favorite AI to write a Python script that connects to Bitcoin Core RPC with cookie auth. It can run getpeerinfo, find all the Knots peers, then disconnect them. A little ASCII art of Luke crying would be a nice touch too.
Hey, I like the sound of that. Making things newb-friendly is key. There are a lot of node runners who aren't super tech-savvy. It’d be cool to have someone manage a Knots banlist. But we definitely need a solid baseline to know what’s too much bandwidth use.
Funny how this thread picked up steam just as a Knots user decided to peek in. Three days later, still no response from their end. Guess they really think Knots is still a legit project instead of just one person’s delusion.