Re: [bitcoin-dev] Thoughts on Forks, Scalability, and other Bitcoin inconveniences.

From: Eric Lombrozo <elombrozo@gmail•com>
To: Justus Ranvier <justus@openbitcoinprivacyproject•org>
Cc: bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Thoughts on Forks, Scalability, and other Bitcoin inconveniences.
Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2015 13:53:51 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CABr1YTd5Tv5QPq3-W=1a4V2hTaOhg_0PBW5wdWD5G8jfkdKM=A@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <559994A4.5010401@openbitcoinprivacyproject.org>

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Perhaps I didn't write that so well if I gave that impression. Perhaps
taking a look at some of my work in this space would make you think
otherwise. (yes, I've implemented an entire SPV stack from scratch...look
it up.)

But all patronizing aside, your claim that "the reason an attacker can fool
SPV clients into accepting invalid blocks is because there exists no
mechanism via which honest nodes can prove the invalidity of blocks" is
exactly to the point...and building such a mechanism would address the
first of the two options I give: make it cheap to securely validate or take
trust into account.

- Eric Lombrozo

On Jul 5, 2015 1:34 PM, "Justus Ranvier" <
justus@openbitcoinprivacyproject•org> wrote:

> On 07/05/2015 01:50 PM, Eric Lombrozo wrote:
> > The only practical way for the network to function at present (and what
> has
> > essentially ended up happening, if often tacitly) is by introducing
> trust,
> > in validators, miners, relayers, explorer websites, online wallets,
> > etc...which in and of itself wouldn't be the end of the world were it not
> > for the fact that the raison d'etre of bitcoin is trustlessness - and the
> > security model is very much based on this idea. Because of this, there's
> > been a tendency to deny that bitcoin cannot presently scale without
> trust.
> > This is horrible because our entire security model has gone out the
> > window...and has been replaced with something that isn't specified at
> all!
>
> When I read this, I get the impression that you (and possibly many
> others) never actually understood the Bitcoin security model in the
> first place.
>
> Bitcoin is a digital cash system that prevents double spending without
> using a trusted third party.
>
> More specifically, successful double spending in Bitcoin requires an
> attacker to pay a proof of work cost that exceeds the cumulative proof
> of work paid by all non-attackers since the original spend.
>
> The security model holds for any user who has access to the complete
> blockchain, and currently does not hold for all users who do not. An
> attacker can double spend without paying the full PoW cost the security
> model requires if users do not have a full copy of the blockchain which
> which to verify the attacker's blocks.
>
> That's a problem, but it's not an unfixable problem.
>
> The reason an attacker can fool SPV clients into accepting invalid
> blocks is because there exists no mechanism via which honest nodes can
> prove the invalidity of blocks.
>
> Implement that mechanism, and the security of SPV clients will far more
> closely resemble the security of full nodes.
>
>
> --
> Justus Ranvier
> Open Bitcoin Privacy Project
> http://www.openbitcoinprivacyproject.org/
> justus@openbitcoinprivacyproject•org
> E7AD 8215 8497 3673 6D9E 61C4 2A5F DA70 EAD9 E623
>
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