ARC Spam Note Transaction Filter

ARCs
1

Hello,

There are several unwanted transactions sent to wallets that contain Scam/Links.

My first idea to prevent that is, to create an ARC for wallets that ask them to not display those transactions. (Or at least the note)

What I have in mind right now:

  • Txn with a note that is not ARC compliant, should not be displayed
  • No url inside Note

If you have more ideas, feel free to share them!

2

Here my 2 cents,

I think we should differentiate the note-filed filter ARC in two classes:

  • Regular Payment transactions (ALGO): I agree that Wallet should display only ARC compliant note-fields with no URL. Since users can no opt-out ALGO, Wallets should proactively comply with this ARC to protect users from spam/fishing;
  • Asset transactions (ASA): if the user has consciously opted-in an ASA than no filter should be applied by Wallets on those transactions note-fields. Note that since 0 ASA transactions are always possible, even towards not opted-in accounts, the opt-in requirement for no filter on note-filed should be enough.
1 Like
3

My gut feeling for this idea is that no one obliges me to “subscribe” to a given ASA while I have no mean to opt-out ALGO. Although ASAs users are always a voluntarily subset of ALGO users, I recognise that this second point could be exploited to circumvent the first one in case of widely adopted ASAs (e.g. stablecoins), so my opinion is not so strong on this.

4

Although I agree, I think it would be hard to enforce it and prevent bad actors from creatively circumvent this requirement.

5

We can at least enforce no clickable URL.

I like the idea, “wallets should only display the note field for assets txn”.
But are there cases where PayTxn notes are needed for a user?

6

Adding a note on a payment is bread-and-butter stuff, just like Venmo’s model or writing in the memo field of a paper check. I am working on an app where users may opt to provide a note with arbitrary text that would appear on the payment to give the recipient context.

I do not support any blanket rule to hide/block all notes, but it does make sense to solicit feedback for a standard around filtering.

Some unstructured thoughts I had:

  1. A user-configurable wallet setting to hide transactions and/or their notes if the amount is under a threshold

  2. Extensions of the address book concept to filter transactions from known vs. unknown accounts (which might go into some version of a “spam” folder for dust transactions

  3. Protective filtering of or warning about clickable links

  4. More granular settings around notifications, in particular. Maybe the transactions still appear in your history, but push notifications don’t fire for amounts under a threshold.

2 Likes
7

Pull request opened here: ARC-29 Convention for wallets to prevent spam inside notes by SudoWeezy · Pull Request #137 · algorandfoundation/ARCs · GitHub