Don't you guys realise that you are doing a better job at undermining peoples trust on Bitcoin by discussing this non-issue relentlessly than "mystery jerk miner" is by not including tx's on the blocks he mines?
Very true. +100
The same can be said about the accusation of operating a "botnet", while the facts do not support that theory.
People here speculate about how not processing transactions would benefit a botnet, and then conclude that it must be a botnet.
This lacks both facts and logic. For the lack of facts, consider this:
The node at 88.6.216.9 did have a complete blockchain and did verify transactions, and also relay them. It just did not include them into new blocks. For an example of a relayed transaction, see
http://www.blockchain.info/tx-index/3091519/ca264af6271cc40bf8b297e13fc2489bd9564dd18b9e60a1bd4d19046086995bWhen it was still operating at 95.120.241.167, it even did include transactions into blocks. Both free and paid. For an example, see
https://www.blockchain.info/block-height/166667 (the last transaction is a free one).
It stopped including transactions in March.
The decision to not include transactions was made after support for transactions was already in place. It is a political decision, not a technical necessity.
For the lack of logic, just think about how your own mining client works. Most of you readers (yes, not all, but most), are mining at a traditional pool. You consume very little bandwidth, you dont need to store the blockchain and you dont need to know or verify any TXs. Yet your mining effort works towards blocks with transactions included.
You work successfully under exactly the same conditions, as (some of) you claim would force a botnet to exclude transactions. (Some of) you say, that downloading the blockchain would make botnet victims suspicious, yet you do not need to download it yourself! (Some of) you say, the steady influx of transactions would need lots of extra CPU processing and extra network bandwidth, yet you do not need to do that yourself! (Some of) you even say that a full bitcoind must be in place, yet you do not need it on your own miners!
Your own mining client shows how the technical "problems" can be solved, and source code is available for everyhing (both mining client and pool service).
The assumption of the technical benefit is just plain false. The
only thing that supports the idea of a botnet, is the ever repeating posts here on bitcointalk. Those who jump to early conclusions and keep reinstating this false idea, are the ones who do damage to bitcoin.
I wonder if you stand up as quick to apologize as you do to condemn.