📝 Summary: The Lightning Network community is exploring reputation systems to mitigate channel jamming, but they are susceptible to sudden changes in behavior and whitewashing attacks. Nodes do not gossip about peer reputation, and data collection will inform future decisions. The proposed HTLC endorsement scheme has a vulnerability where local reputation can be abused during high routing fees, and should aim for reputational transitivity. The weekly call for gathering data on HTLC endorsement and local reputation tracking for jamming mitigation will take place on May 1st.
👥 Authors: • Christian Decker ( Christian Decker [ARCHIVE] (npub1wtx…tuyn) ) • Clara Shikhelman ( Clara Shikhelman [ARCHIVE] (npub1uyh…9vwk) ) • Antoine Riard ( Antoine Riard [ARCHIVE] (npub1vjz…x8dd) ) • Vincenzo Palazzo ( Vincenzo Palazzo [ARCHIVE] (npub1ag2…vd3v) ) • Carla Kirk-Cohen ( Carla Kirk-Cohen [ARCHIVE] (npub17xu…nw36) ) • Michael Folkson ( Michael Folkson [ARCHIVE] (npub103y…kpam) )
📅 Messages Date Range: 2023-05-06 to 2023-05-31
✉️ Message Count: 14
📚 Total Characters in Messages: 55227
Messages Summaries
✉️ Message by Antoine Riard on 06/05/2023: The Lightning Network community is exploring data gathering and local reputation tracking to mitigate channel jamming, starting with a binary endorsement field. The goal is to experiment with different algorithms for tracking local reputation and gather real-world data for future simulation work.
✉️ Message by Clara Shikhelman on 08/05/2023: The proposed HTLC endorsement scheme has a vulnerability where local reputation can be abused during high routing fees, and should aim for reputational transitivity.
✉️ Message by Christian Decker on 10/05/2023: Reputation systems in Lightning Network are susceptible to sudden behavioral changes and whitewashing attacks, making them less useful. Local-only reputation systems may work for large routing nodes, but edges are more vulnerable.
✉️ Message by Michael Folkson on 10/05/2023: Reputation data can assist in making probabilistic judgments about future behavior, but it cannot guarantee security. It is not a protocol or P2P gossiping issue, and there may be competing reputation data providers and services.
✉️ Message by Clara Shikhelman on 10/05/2023: The Lightning Network’s reputation system is susceptible to sudden behavioral changes and whitewashing attacks, but fees can put a price on having a good reputation. Nodes do not gossip about peer reputation, and data collection will inform future decisions.
✉️ Message by Vincenzo Palazzo on 11/05/2023: Gossiping about reputations can lead to unreliable information and attackers can earn positive reputations elsewhere before attacking trusted nodes.
✉️ Message by Antoine Riard on 17/05/2023: The Lightning Network’s reputation system is vulnerable to sudden changes in behavior and pricing variations between hops, potentially allowing for reputation sacrifice and loss of routing fees. Dynamic reputation windows may also affect payment reliability.
✉️ Message by Clara Shikhelman on 17/05/2023: The lack of transitivity of reputation acquisition cost between hops in a payment path raises a vulnerability issue for the endorsement scheme. Reputation revenue is used to estimate the damage an attacker can create. Dynamic reputation windows may affect payment reliability.
✉️ Message by Antoine Riard on 31/05/2023: The distinction between routing fees and reputation revenue is important in the HTLC endorsement model. Compensation for revenue lost during an attack is given to nodes with high reputation. However, there may be issues with the coupling effect between routing scoring algorithms and the introduction of endorsement schemes.
✉️ Message by Clara Shikhelman on 31/05/2023: The HTLC endorsement model introduces a coupling effect between routing scoring algorithms and channel liquidity, with potential issues of reputation systems.
✉️ Message by Carla Kirk-Cohen on 16/05/2023: A proposed reputation scheme for Lightning Network involves tracking local reputation for each node’s peers, with no gossip component. Reputation is slow and expensive to build, but sudden changes in behavior are short-lived. Good reputation is always examined relative to a node’s recent routing activity.
✉️ Message by Vincenzo Palazzo on 17/05/2023: The writer suggests implementing an extension for CLN and offers to help with implementation details. They also discuss the possibility of gathering data for lnmetrics.
✉️ Message by Christian Decker on 20/05/2023: The author is interested in the number of repeat interactions nodes receive from individual senders to determine the effectiveness of local-only reputation systems. However, they realize they were mixing two different proposals and apologize for the confusion. Nodes that forward fewer HTLCs may have difficulty building a good reputation with active routing nodes, but during an attack, small and low activity nodes can still interact with similar nodes to build a good reputation.
✉️ Message by Vincenzo Palazzo on 11/05/2023: The weekly call for gathering data on HTLC endorsement and local reputation tracking for jamming mitigation will take place on May 1st. The reputation scheme is proposed as the first step in a two-part scheme for mitigating channel jamming.
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