📅 Original date posted:2015-05-13
📝 Original message:> With POW, a new node only needs to know the genesis block (and network
> rules) to fully determine which of two chains is the strongest.
>
But this matters if a new node has access to the globally strongest chain.
If attacker is able to block connections to legitimate nodes, a new node
will happily accept attacker's chain.
So PoW, by itself, doesn't give strong security guarantees. This problem is
so fundamental people avoid talking about it.
In practice, Bitcoin already embraces "weak subjectivity" e.g. in form of
checkpoints embedded into the source code. So it's hard to take PoW purists
seriously.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20150513/39177196/attachment.html>;
Alex Mizrahi [ARCHIVE] /
npub1sw…pul5t
2023-06-07 15:34:52
in reply to nevent1q…v4j6
Author Public Key
npub1swfeusu3ua9trup00qcnrgc2yndksyvgku4epk5tec7u4fmrez6qxpul5tPublished at
2023-06-07 15:34:52Event JSON
{
"id": "7fb9404a92169e8b92c8a88009cc7c477db1271b8557a1df32e6eedd056f98fa",
"pubkey": "83939e4391e74ab1f02f783131a30a24db681188b72b90da8bce3dcaa763c8b4",
"created_at": 1686152092,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"4fca8766cb3622944ad3338913b2eaab58533c317983b04a538d878303c3c989",
"",
"root"
],
[
"e",
"de3e5d503d9443d39bbcf5ba0f62f3c7990db9ba245aefb4da995367367f60ad",
"",
"reply"
],
[
"p",
"46986f86b97cc97829a031b03209644d134b939d0163375467f0b1363e0d875e"
]
],
"content": "📅 Original date posted:2015-05-13\n📝 Original message:\u003e With POW, a new node only needs to know the genesis block (and network\n\u003e rules) to fully determine which of two chains is the strongest.\n\u003e\n\nBut this matters if a new node has access to the globally strongest chain.\nIf attacker is able to block connections to legitimate nodes, a new node\nwill happily accept attacker's chain.\n\nSo PoW, by itself, doesn't give strong security guarantees. This problem is\nso fundamental people avoid talking about it.\n\nIn practice, Bitcoin already embraces \"weak subjectivity\" e.g. in form of\ncheckpoints embedded into the source code. So it's hard to take PoW purists\nseriously.\n-------------- next part --------------\nAn HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20150513/39177196/attachment.html\u003e",
"sig": "e25f1cd31f07187a33cc84d90dae32746b8b1c5010469b538a5f63b125c3c273a9ac70b0a4f54b3fb0c8843d0d2b755266650897d0e90f2c6ed4f7614335cd9e"
}