Of course hidden fork crunched at high speed in shadow is unlikely, and maybe checkpoints do not harm due to low probability of such fork.
But they harm in other way - they compromise Bitcoin decentralization, which is in my opinion is the biggest attractive feature of Bitcoin.
Today they add checkpoints (this effectively changes protocol specification), tomorrow they could freeze BTC on your address, by adding small tweaks to validation routine (just like checkpoints validation).
Nonsense, every word.Unbeatable arguments, thank you.
root@linuxcoin:/home/user# bitcoind --help
Bitcoin version v0.8.6.0-g03a7d67-beta
-checkpoints Only accept block chain matching built-in checkpoints (default: 1)
Do you understand that this option is protocol specification change? It effectively forks blockchain.