Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on December 09, 2010, 1:51:20 PM UTCJust wait until somebody encodes kiddie porn into the chain - it would stay there forever.
It is impossible to completely prevent that kind of abuse unfortunately. For example, someone could encode information in the decimal figures of amount sent, or in a “vanity plate” Bitcoin address.
Of course, but that is not my point. The point is that if would possible to store extra data in Bitcoin protocol by design, then government would have the argument like “you can store extra data (including kiddie porn) - protocol is designed that way and default client allows it”.
Taking this possibility away in the default client takes that argument away and makes Bitcoin much more resistant to kiddie-porn-propaganda-attack.