📅 Original date posted:2019-11-22
📝 Original message:
Good morning ZmnSCPxj,
> requiring a fee is equivalent to requiring proof-of-work, incentive-wise.
Not necessarily, given that
1) there is a finite bitcoin supply but an eventually infinite PoW
supply (relevant in the unlikely case fees are burned)
2) sats are transferrable, whereas PoW isn't (relevant in the case fees
are paid)
On the other hand, there exists this paper with the fancy name that
claims using PoW for spam prevention in the context of email (the
original context in which PoW was discovered) is ineffective due to the
high per-message PoW required to beat spam [0]. Therefore we have to see
whether this paper applies to LN as well before going down that road.
Spam prevention in an unauthenticated system is much more complex than
it seems at first, because it boils down to avoiding the Sybil attack,
(one of) the most difficult problem(s) in such systems. A (traditional)
reputation system in essence enables authentication (eww), per-message
PoW might be too expensive, and per-message fees seem to have incentives
issues and are kind of misaligned with LN's aims.
Maybe I've missed something, but what makes spam in LN a bigger problem
than it is in every other p2p network out there? Why won't traditional
bad activity thresholds do the job?
I don't think spam is something that will be completely wiped out, only
contained. LN should provide for many orthogonal spam prevention
measures (local tunable activity thresholds, gossipable reputation
systems (eww), per-message fees, per-message PoW) with sensible defaults
to allow users to experiment and choose what is best for them, but that
may lead to unacceptable protocol and UI complexity. What a tradeoff...
Best,
Orfeas
[0] https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/proofwork.pdf
--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
Orfeas Stefanos Thyfronitis Litos [ARCHIVE] /
npub1h9…9dv32
2023-06-09 12:57:10
in reply to nevent1q…zg7u
Author Public Key
npub1h9v94vzhwug6qdxzldyy8vfg4vyxhftwqhalec5vjwr8hfx0fnzst9dv32Published at
2023-06-09 12:57:10Event JSON
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2019-11-22\n📝 Original message:\nGood morning ZmnSCPxj,\n\n\u003e requiring a fee is equivalent to requiring proof-of-work, incentive-wise.\n\nNot necessarily, given that\n1) there is a finite bitcoin supply but an eventually infinite PoW\nsupply (relevant in the unlikely case fees are burned)\n2) sats are transferrable, whereas PoW isn't (relevant in the case fees\nare paid)\n\nOn the other hand, there exists this paper with the fancy name that\nclaims using PoW for spam prevention in the context of email (the\noriginal context in which PoW was discovered) is ineffective due to the\nhigh per-message PoW required to beat spam [0]. Therefore we have to see\nwhether this paper applies to LN as well before going down that road.\n\nSpam prevention in an unauthenticated system is much more complex than\nit seems at first, because it boils down to avoiding the Sybil attack,\n(one of) the most difficult problem(s) in such systems. A (traditional)\nreputation system in essence enables authentication (eww), per-message\nPoW might be too expensive, and per-message fees seem to have incentives\nissues and are kind of misaligned with LN's aims.\n\nMaybe I've missed something, but what makes spam in LN a bigger problem\nthan it is in every other p2p network out there? Why won't traditional\nbad activity thresholds do the job?\n\nI don't think spam is something that will be completely wiped out, only\ncontained. LN should provide for many orthogonal spam prevention\nmeasures (local tunable activity thresholds, gossipable reputation\nsystems (eww), per-message fees, per-message PoW) with sensible defaults\nto allow users to experiment and choose what is best for them, but that\nmay lead to unacceptable protocol and UI complexity. What a tradeoff...\n\nBest,\nOrfeas\n\n[0] https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/proofwork.pdf\n\n-- \nThe University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in\nScotland, with registration number SC005336.",
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