Re: [bitcoin-dev] Bitcoin-NG whitepaper.

From: "Emin Gün Sirer" <el33th4x0r@gmail•com>
To: Bob McElrath <bob@mcelrath•org>
Cc: bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org,
	Ittay Eyal <ittay.eyal@cornell•edu>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Bitcoin-NG whitepaper.
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2015 14:39:08 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAPkFh0uQjTijLdG=eicaotKYvPEcKqNZhqC5BmY45pYcRyhALQ@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20151014182055.GC23875@mcelrath.org>

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>So it seems to me that all I need to do is figure out who the current
leader is,
>and DDoS him off the network to shut Bitcoin-NG down.

Good point. If NG is layered on top of Bitcoin, we'd retain all of Bitcoin
as is. This would confer all the benefits of Bitcoin's retrospective
blocks, as well as add the ability to mint microblocks with low latency in
between. And despite the phrase "the leader," the actual leader in NG is a
key, not a specific node. That makes it possible to deter DDoS attacks by
dynamically migrating where in the network the leader is operating in
response to an attack. Finally, DDoS attacks against miners are already
possible, but they seem rare, and I suspect it's at least partly because of
the success of Matt Corallo's high speed bitcoin relay network. Similar
defenses can apply here.

- egs

On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 2:20 PM, Bob McElrath <bob@mcelrath•org> wrote:

> So it seems to me that all I need to do is figure out who the current
> leader is,
> and DDoS him off the network to shut Bitcoin-NG down.
>
> This is a significant advantage to bitcoin's ex-post-facto blocks: no one
> knows
> where the next one will come from.  The only way to shut the network down
> is to
> shut all nodes down.
>
> Emin Gün Sirer via bitcoin-dev [bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org]
> wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > We just released the whitepaper describing Bitcoin-NG, a new technique
> for
> > addressing some of the scalability challenges faced by Bitcoin.
> Surprisingly,
> > Bitcoin-NG can simultaneously increase throughput while reducing
> latency, and
> > do so without impacting Bitcoin's open architecture or changing its trust
> > model. This post illustrates the core technique:
> >      http://hackingdistributed.com/2015/10/14/bitcoin-ng/
> > while the whitepaper has all the nitty gritty details:
> >      http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.02037
> >
> > Fitting NG on top of the current Bitcoin blockchain is future work that
> we
> > think is quite possible. NG is compatible with both Bitcoin as is, as
> well as
> > Blockstream-like sidechains, and we currently are not planning to compete
> > commercially with either technology -- we see NG as being complementary
> to both
> > efforts. This is pure science, published and shared with the community to
> > advance the state of blockchains and to help them reach throughputs and
> > latencies required of cutting edge fintech applications. Perhaps it can
> be
> > adopted, or perhaps it can provide the spark of inspiration for someone
> else to
> > come up with even better solutions.
> >
> > We would be delighted to hear your feedback.
> > - Ittay Eyal and E. Gün Sirer.
> >
> > !DSPAM:561e98cd301391127216946!
>
> > _______________________________________________
> > bitcoin-dev mailing list
> > bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
> > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
> >
> >
> > !DSPAM:561e98cd301391127216946!
>
> --
> Cheers, Bob McElrath
>
> "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and
> wrong."
>     -- H. L. Mencken
>
>

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