> The fact that you need to update your filters is critical and that's where it ties back to Bitcoin: Suppose you have a mempool filter for transactions with a locktime of 21 because some stupid NFT project uses that. You maybe slow them down for a few weeks, but then they notice it and change their locktime to 22. You're back at zero, the spam filter doesn't work anymore. What do you do? I'm not sure this is the right example in this case. Knots proponents want to filter out transactions that embed arbitrary data. Is there any technical summary of all the possible ways data can be embedded arbitrarily in Bitcoin transactions? The fact that protocols sitting on top of Bitcoin interpret otherwise standard transactions in alternative ways seems to be a non-issue.

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> I'm not sure this is the right example in this case. Knots proponents want to filter out transactions that embed arbitrary data. Is there any technical summary of all the possible ways data can be embedded arbitrarily in Bitcoin transactions? nope, no way to do it. People have been able to embed data into images, texts, sounds and more using codes and whatever schema they come up with.
My understanding is that there are areas that require smaller amounts of data (in any Bitcoin financial transaction), and people come up with clever ways of disguising & breaking up data into those areas. Then you are into a cat & mouse situation. And, I suppose various forms of pattern matching to exclude non-monetary data, could also be applied to matching patters within a monetary transaction... thus where the concern over monetary-censorship comes in. To me, this is still a massive distinction, and ultimately, the Bitcoin community is in control either way. We'll either resit crossing that line, or we won't. It isn't like going from arbitrary data exclusion to excluding certain financial transactions will just happen on it's own. We can do one, without the other. But, I'm more for excluding *excess* data-storage. That is quite easy. No cat & mouse. No one potentially calling a real financial transaction (because it also includes some arbitrary data) spam... though this latter ones seems more like some silly FUD.