From: Matthieu Riou <matthieu@blockcypher•com>
To: bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Significant losses by double-spending unconfirmed transactions
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:08:05 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAHUNwMowbrua=iY518SL4MBY1sszfQwoM3epCaZ-jVrb2qxghg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20150715193259.GC3064@muck>
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2125 bytes --]
On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 12:32 PM, Peter Todd <pete@petertodd•org> wrote:
>
> "In a Sybil attack the attacker subverts the reputation system of a
> peer-to-peer network by creating a large number of pseudonymous
> identities, using them to gain a disproportionately large influence."
>
Our "identities" aren't pseudonymous.
In the case of Bitcoin, there's something like 6,000 nodes, so if that
> 20% is achived via outgoing connections you'd have 600 to 1200 active
> outgoing connections using up network resources. Meanwhile, the default
> is 8 outgoing connections - you're using about two orders of magnitude
> more resources.
>
You're not talking about a Sybil attack anymore, just resource use. We do
know how to change default configurations to offer more connections.
If you are achieving that via incoming connections, you're placing a big
> part of the relay network under central control. As we've seen in the
> case of Chainalysis's sybil attack, even unintentional confirguation
> screwups can cause serious and widespread issues due to the large number
> of nodes that can fail in one go. (note how Chainalysis's actions were
> described(1) as a sybil attack by multiple Bitcoin devs, including
> Gregory Maxwell, Wladimir van der Laan, and myself)
>
We're not Chainanalysis and we do not run hundreds of distinct nodes. Just
a few well-tuned ones.
> What you are doing is inherently incompatible with decentralization.
>
That's a matter of opinion. One could argue your actions and control
attempts hurt decentralization. Either way, no one should play the
decentralization police or act as a gatekeeper.
Question: Do you have relationships with mining pools? For instance, are
> you looking at contracts to have transactions mined to guarantee
> confirmations?
>
No, we do not. We do not know anyone else having such contracts. As you
know, Coinbase also denied having such contracts in place [1]. But you seem
to have more relationships with mining pools than we do.
Thanks,
Matthieu
CTO and Founder, BlockCypher
[1]
http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-June/008864.html
[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3779 bytes --]
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2015-07-16 0:08 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 23+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2015-07-15 3:29 simongreen
2015-07-15 14:35 ` Tom Harding
2015-07-15 15:18 ` Peter Todd
2015-07-15 15:49 ` Me
2015-07-15 15:53 ` Bastiaan van den Berg
2015-07-15 15:59 ` Peter Todd
2015-07-15 16:06 ` Me
2015-07-15 16:11 ` Pieter Wuille
2015-07-15 16:41 ` Me
2015-07-15 16:12 ` Milly Bitcoin
2015-07-15 18:25 ` Matthieu Riou
2015-07-15 19:32 ` Peter Todd
2015-07-15 19:57 ` Milly Bitcoin
2015-07-16 0:08 ` Matthieu Riou [this message]
2015-07-16 5:18 ` odinn
2015-07-17 11:59 ` Peter Todd
2015-07-17 12:56 ` Milly Bitcoin
2015-07-15 17:01 ` Adrian Macneil
2015-07-16 14:30 ` Arne Brutschy
2015-07-16 14:50 ` Me
2015-07-16 15:33 ` Greg Schvey
2015-07-18 11:43 ` Mike Hearn
2015-07-18 15:09 ` Peter Todd
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to='CAHUNwMowbrua=iY518SL4MBY1sszfQwoM3epCaZ-jVrb2qxghg@mail.gmail.com' \
--to=matthieu@blockcypher$(echo .)com \
--cc=bitcoin-dev@lists$(echo .)linuxfoundation.org \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox