📅 Original date posted:2015-02-12
📝 Original message:On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 3:15 PM, Mike Hearn <mike at plan99.net> wrote:
> Peter argues that this is stable and makes unconfirmed transactions safe
>> because a fraudster can buy something, walk out of the shop, and broadcast
>> a double spend with a higher fee. But then the merchant can re-spend the
>> original payment back to themselves with an *even* higher fee than that.
>> Then the fraudster can re-spend their double spend with an *even* higher
>> fee than that, and so on back and forth, until *all* the money has been
>> spent to miner fees. Thus the merchant loses their goods but the fraudster
>> has still "paid" in some sense because they don't get the money either.
>>
>
> This argument makes no sense for two reasons.
>
> The first is that this setup means miners can steal arbitrary payments if
> they work together with the sender of the money. The model assumes this
> collaboration won't happen, but it will. Because no existing wallet has a
> "double spend this" button, to make the scheme work the dishonest miners
> must create and distribute such a wallet that implements the whole
> scorched-earth protocol. At that point it's easy for miners to reward the
> payment fraudster with some of the stolen money the merchant lost, meaning
> it now makes sense for the fraudster to always do this. The situation isn't
> stable at all.
>
> The second is that it incentivises competitors to engage in payment fraud
> against each other. A big rich coffee shop chain that is facing competition
> from a small, scrappy newcomer can simply walk into the new shop and buy
> things, then trigger the "scorched earth". Even with no miner
> collaboration, this means the big company is down the cost of the product
> *but* so is the little company who lost everything. Whoever can outspend
> the other wins.
>
I think that is a misdirection on your part. The point of replace-by-fee is
to make 0-confirms reliably unreliable. Currently people can "get away"
with 0-confirms but it's only because most people arent actively double
spending, and when they do it is for higher value targets. Double spend
attacks *are* happening a lot more frequently than is being admitted here,
according to Peter from work with various clients.
Like single address reuse, people have gotten used to something which is
bad. Generally accepting 0-conf is also a bad idea(tm) and instant
confirmation solutions should be sought elsewhere. There are already
interesting solutions and concepts: greenaddress for example, and
CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY micropayment channels for example. Rather than
supporting and promoting risky 0-confirms, we need to spend time on better
alternative solutions that will work for everyone and not during the
honeymoon phase where attackers are fewer.
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Btc Drak [ARCHIVE] /
npub1lh…zg7ed
2023-06-07 15:30:14
in reply to nevent1q…qxzm
Author Public Key
npub1lhe3qfx2q5m7mq5d39waepf9lzhsy0cdey66svn63fyk6rt6n7ps7zg7edPublished at
2023-06-07 15:30:14Event JSON
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2015-02-12\n📝 Original message:On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 3:15 PM, Mike Hearn \u003cmike at plan99.net\u003e wrote:\n\n\u003e Peter argues that this is stable and makes unconfirmed transactions safe\n\u003e\u003e because a fraudster can buy something, walk out of the shop, and broadcast\n\u003e\u003e a double spend with a higher fee. But then the merchant can re-spend the\n\u003e\u003e original payment back to themselves with an *even* higher fee than that.\n\u003e\u003e Then the fraudster can re-spend their double spend with an *even* higher\n\u003e\u003e fee than that, and so on back and forth, until *all* the money has been\n\u003e\u003e spent to miner fees. Thus the merchant loses their goods but the fraudster\n\u003e\u003e has still \"paid\" in some sense because they don't get the money either.\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e This argument makes no sense for two reasons.\n\u003e\n\u003e The first is that this setup means miners can steal arbitrary payments if\n\u003e they work together with the sender of the money. The model assumes this\n\u003e collaboration won't happen, but it will. Because no existing wallet has a\n\u003e \"double spend this\" button, to make the scheme work the dishonest miners\n\u003e must create and distribute such a wallet that implements the whole\n\u003e scorched-earth protocol. At that point it's easy for miners to reward the\n\u003e payment fraudster with some of the stolen money the merchant lost, meaning\n\u003e it now makes sense for the fraudster to always do this. The situation isn't\n\u003e stable at all.\n\u003e\n\u003e The second is that it incentivises competitors to engage in payment fraud\n\u003e against each other. A big rich coffee shop chain that is facing competition\n\u003e from a small, scrappy newcomer can simply walk into the new shop and buy\n\u003e things, then trigger the \"scorched earth\". Even with no miner\n\u003e collaboration, this means the big company is down the cost of the product\n\u003e *but* so is the little company who lost everything. Whoever can outspend\n\u003e the other wins.\n\u003e\n\nI think that is a misdirection on your part. The point of replace-by-fee is\nto make 0-confirms reliably unreliable. Currently people can \"get away\"\nwith 0-confirms but it's only because most people arent actively double\nspending, and when they do it is for higher value targets. Double spend\nattacks *are* happening a lot more frequently than is being admitted here,\naccording to Peter from work with various clients.\n\nLike single address reuse, people have gotten used to something which is\nbad. Generally accepting 0-conf is also a bad idea(tm) and instant\nconfirmation solutions should be sought elsewhere. There are already\ninteresting solutions and concepts: greenaddress for example, and\nCHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY micropayment channels for example. Rather than\nsupporting and promoting risky 0-confirms, we need to spend time on better\nalternative solutions that will work for everyone and not during the\nhoneymoon phase where attackers are fewer.\n-------------- next part --------------\nAn HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20150212/13ef9edc/attachment.html\u003e",
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