Bitcoiner speculates ‘massive’ bot spam briefly took down Bitcoin mailing list

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One of Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) ’s key communication tools used to discuss potential protocol changes was knocked out for several hours starting on April 2, with one moderator speculating it may have been a targeted attack assisted by bots. 

For several hours across April 2 and 3, Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) core developers and researchers were unable to interact on Google Groups after Google banned the group for spam. 

“ Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) Development Mailing List has been identified as containing spam, malware, or other malicious content,” Google’s warning stated at the time.

The Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) Development Mailing List’s warning before the ban was lifted. Source: Google

Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) Core developer Bryan Bishop told Cointelegraph that the ban may have been triggered by individuals or bots mass-reporting the Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) mailing list from multiple accounts.

It’s a common tactic by attackers looking to ban or censor a community, Bishop said, noting that similar incidents occur on YouTube, X and TikTok fairly often.

“So it’s possible that this whole thing might have been triggered through something like that. It might have just been someone clicking those links on a massive scale to report it.”

Google Workspace Support’s X account confirmed that the issue had been resolved on April 3 at 2:23 am UTC in response to one of the Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) mailing list’s other moderators, Ruben Somsen.

Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) advocate and head of Block Inc, Jack Dorsey, also called attention to the ban, urging Google CEO Sundar Pichai to investigate the issue.

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Mailing lists typically involve one moderator email sending information to subscribers in a group to discuss and collaborate on a topic or shared interest.

The Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) mailing list is used by Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) core developers and researchers to discuss potential protocol changes to Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) , which secures more than $1.6 trillion worth of value for network users around the world.

It has become one of the main Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) mailing lists since the network’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, shared Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) ’s white paper on the Cryptography Mailing List on Oct. 31, 2008.

Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) mailing list moderators plan to stay on Google Groups

Despite the incident, Bishop said the Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) mailing list moderators have no intention of moving away from communicating via email:

“The reality of the situation is that this particular mailing list has always been email, and so the contributors that discuss Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) protocol development through email, in order to provide continuity of service, you have to replace it with email.”

The Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) mailing list officially migrated to Google Groups in February 2024. 

Source: Bryan Bishop

Before that, the mailing list was hosted on the Linux Foundation, Oregon State University Open Source Lab’s infrastructure and SourceForge.net.

Bishop suggested that a Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) forum shouldn’t be limited to one particular platform, pointing out that there are several other platforms where Bitcoin ( $66,895.00 ) developments are discussed, including GitHub and the decentralized social network Nostr.

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