When Bots Attack: The Great Bitcoin Mailing List Meltdown

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What to know:

  • The Bitcoin developers’ mailing list was briefly taken offline due to a suspected bot attack, displaying a “permanently removed” message.
  • Google flagged the group for containing “spam, malware, or other malicious content” but resolved the issue without providing a clear explanation.
  • The mailing list, crucial for discussing Bitcoin proposals and development, moved to Google in February 2024 after being hosted by several other platforms.

Alas, the digital sanctuary of Bitcoin’s artisans, the Development Mailing List, fell under siege on the fateful Wednesday—an affront delivered by faceless bots, those modern-age detritus. It was a day like any other, until a ghastly specter of a “permanently removed” message snatched away all semblance of normalcy.

Ah, and who is to blame? Google, that great arbiter of digital propriety, decided our enthusiastic band of developers was perhaps harboring “spam, malware, or other malicious content.” How charming! Their warning fluttered on screens like a badly inked note passed in class, leaving users bewildered and perhaps a tad amused, much like discovering one’s lunch mysteriously transformed into a surreal work of art.

This sacred cohort, henceforth known for their spirited debates over the emergence of Bitcoin proposals and real-time problem-solving, had migrated to Google’s embrace just last February. Cast your minds back to simpler times—when the Linux Foundation, Oregon’s Open Source Lab, and SourceForge.net were their respective homes, environments thriving with life and laughter, ever so free of Google’s overreaching gaze!

Ruben Somsen, speaking from the trenches of techno-bureaucracy on X (as if Twitter had morphed into an even darker chapter of Soviet lore), lamented, “Apparently we’re ‘permanently removed’. Our transgression? We’re ‘unwanted content.’ Really, Google? Open source development is ‘unwanted’?” 😂 Do join the guffaws, dear reader, for irony floats like Balkan vodka after unexpected cultivation!

Bitcoindev mailing list update – it’s bad.

Turns out we did get more info, but in our spam folder (ironic).

Apparently we’re “permanently removed”. Our transgression? We’re “unwanted content”.

Really Google? Open source development is “unwanted”?

Guess we’re migrating again😢

— Ruben Somsen (@SomsenRuben) April 2, 2025

But fret not, for Google’s Workspace Support, those avengers of lost digital realms, swooped in early Thursday, their capes flapping in the electronic wind. They resolved the predicament, though the cause remained a tantalizing enigma, like a mystery novel left unsolved on a rainy afternoon.

Reports swirled like a tempestuous storm suggesting that a bot invasion, reminiscent of distant historical invasions, led to this calamity, with dark actors spreading chaos faster than gossip at a tea party. In this digital age where Bitcoin’s value tumbles like a budget airline’s safety record, we can only shake our heads and laugh, for the absurdity is almost poetic in its depravity.

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2025-04-03 13:29