Subject: Re: [bitcoindev] A Free-Relay Attack Exploiting RBF Rule #6

From: Peter Todd <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2024 20:30:34 +0000

On Wed, Mar 27, 2024 at 09:50:20AM -1000, David A. Harding wrote:
> On 2024-03-27 08:04, Peter Todd wrote:
> > I was able to verify independently that the relevant people had seen
> > the email and weren't planning on replying.
> 
> Can you provide detail on this?

I'm not going because I don't want anyone else subject to harassment over this.

> > You're just harassing me here; I highly
> > suspect you'd have said nothing at all if I hadn't brought up
> > disclosure.
> 
> I think I would have said something.  Any time I'm writing a description for
> Optech about an attack that affects existing Bitcoin software and was
> responsibly disclosed, I back link to it from a special page [1].  In cases
> of ambiguity about whether or not an attack was responsibly disclosed, I
> investigate.
> 
> I'm sorry this feels to you like harassment.  To me it feels like whiplash:
> I inferred responsible disclosure based on your original text, learned it
> might not have been, and now am being told by you that it was indeed
> responsible.

I'm not the only person who thinks this looks like harassment. The fact is you
started this conversation with: "I'm especially concerned given your past
history of publicly revealing vulnerabilities before they could be quietly
patched and the conflict of interest of you using this disclosure to advocate
for a policy change you are championing."

You haven't substantiated any of this. Nor have you even tried to argue that my
take on the vulnerability is incorrect: it's just an interesting variation of
well-known attacks that doesn't substantially change the situation.

Anyway, this conversation is just wasting everyones' time. If this actually is
a deal-breaking exploit that must be fixed quickly and quietly - the type of
exploit for which responsible disclosure is necessary - what we should be
talking about is how to fix it. I proposed two different design changes that
mitigates it. One of which fixes other issues too. Antoine Riard also proposed
potential mitigations.

Do you have a useful comment on these proposals?

-- 
https://petertodd.org 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org

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