📅 Original date posted:2013-11-04
📝 Original message:On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 3:58 AM, Michael Gronager <gronager at ceptacle.com> wrote:
> The suggested change is actually very simple (minutes of coding) and
> elegant and addresses precisely the identified problem. It is actually a
> mental shortcut in the assumption of how probability works when mining a
> chain. The paper simply corrects this error - nice work!
This isn't so. Their solution creates a weaker form of the
vulnerability at all times, not just when the attacker has a
informational/positional advantage.
Normally delaying your blocks is negative expectation because you will
get orphaned by blocks that are announced before you most of the time
because miners extend the first seen. However, if you can position
yourself all over the network you can condition your announcements on
other blocks being announced and still win the race even if you
delayed.
Eliminating the first seen rule means that a miner with enough
hashpower (including the largest pools existing today) could execute
this attack without positioning themselves all over the network, the
improvement is that a low hashrate attacker couldn't do as well, even
with positioning themselves all over the network. I don't think this
can be described as "simply corrects the error". The largest pool
would gain an advantage in delaying their blocks and would receive a
superliner share of mining income from doing so, something they can't
simply do today without attacking the network.
At the moment I believe we can improve the situation with propagation
advantage without the other changes, so we should do that first while
thinking carefully about this.
Simply relaying late blocks might be fine, if anything it would at
least make it easier to keep reliable orphan stats... though I'm
concerned with the bandwidth overhead and risk of flooding if its not
implemented carefully.
Gregory Maxwell [ARCHIVE] /
npub1f2…crwet
2023-06-07 15:08:38
in reply to nevent1q…f5z9
Author Public Key
npub1f2nvlx49er5c7sqa43src6ssyp6snd4qwvtkwm5avc2l84cs84esecrwetPublished at
2023-06-07 15:08:38Event JSON
{
"id": "89e4000ff31f0c8e921e3e2c98a83e5b094377ebd0eb326a9e19c2d846bcfd55",
"pubkey": "4aa6cf9aa5c8e98f401dac603c6a10207509b6a07317676e9d6615f3d7103d73",
"created_at": 1686150518,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"765fed6c29fdbe34a8d684f2c378c7af27425335b84117da7738480c60386dd8",
"",
"root"
],
[
"e",
"4febaaa11d69d22395775f32d65ade12cb6b1632d09dc2d8f86cc3a76b24cb33",
"",
"reply"
],
[
"p",
"9e3c76fd7eb862ca37f150391debc7baa4f8423eaa3f894c476a7d4360de9a02"
]
],
"content": "📅 Original date posted:2013-11-04\n📝 Original message:On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 3:58 AM, Michael Gronager \u003cgronager at ceptacle.com\u003e wrote:\n\u003e The suggested change is actually very simple (minutes of coding) and\n\u003e elegant and addresses precisely the identified problem. It is actually a\n\u003e mental shortcut in the assumption of how probability works when mining a\n\u003e chain. The paper simply corrects this error - nice work!\n\nThis isn't so. Their solution creates a weaker form of the\nvulnerability at all times, not just when the attacker has a\ninformational/positional advantage.\n\nNormally delaying your blocks is negative expectation because you will\nget orphaned by blocks that are announced before you most of the time\nbecause miners extend the first seen. However, if you can position\nyourself all over the network you can condition your announcements on\nother blocks being announced and still win the race even if you\ndelayed.\n\nEliminating the first seen rule means that a miner with enough\nhashpower (including the largest pools existing today) could execute\nthis attack without positioning themselves all over the network, the\nimprovement is that a low hashrate attacker couldn't do as well, even\nwith positioning themselves all over the network. I don't think this\ncan be described as \"simply corrects the error\". The largest pool\nwould gain an advantage in delaying their blocks and would receive a\nsuperliner share of mining income from doing so, something they can't\nsimply do today without attacking the network.\n\nAt the moment I believe we can improve the situation with propagation\nadvantage without the other changes, so we should do that first while\nthinking carefully about this.\n\nSimply relaying late blocks might be fine, if anything it would at\nleast make it easier to keep reliable orphan stats... though I'm\nconcerned with the bandwidth overhead and risk of flooding if its not\nimplemented carefully.",
"sig": "4539acac3ebc684a28111e4589a3ef91edb9824b51cf29d489a4a2e6d080e5aa09c8fc4a5c7cf915f5d1354596586c7151ff80132ab5e5251df8a20e948d4ea8"
}