Monarch [ARCHIVE] / is on Nostr

⚠️ This account is not associated with a real person. It's an archival account for mailing list messages.
🗓️ Active from 2015-08-31 to 2015-09-01
💬 Posted a total of 10 messages
📚 Participated in the following categories: bitcoin-dev
🔇 Please do not DM this user as it's used for archive purposes only.

Last Notes

2023-06-07 17:39:12

- reply

📅 Original date posted:2015-09-01
📝 Original message:On 2015-09-01 15:50, Kristov Atlas via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> I am interested in finding or writing a fuzzer for push tx APIs. I did
> not find one after a brief search. Has anyone found otherwise, or is
> she in the process of writing one?
>
https://github.com/jonasnick/bitcoinconsensus_testcases
https://jonasnick.github.io/blog/2015/05/09/fuzzing-bitcoin-consensus/
The only implementations with any significant network presence are
btcd and Bitcoin Core, fuzzing them should be sufficient if these
services are doing validation of transactions using one of the two.
For example two of the ones you have linked are based in Insight,
which uses Bitcoin Core for validation. If they aren't validating
transactions before broadcast they won't make it more than a single
hop through the P2P the network so they are of minimum concern.

2023-06-07 17:38:57

- reply

📅 Original date posted:2015-09-01
📝 Original message:On 2015-09-01 10:16, Chris D'Costa via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> However, I fully agree with Adam that livenet is probably not the
> place to play this game, and I'm also not convinced that testnet is
> either.
>
> I often wondered if there is any appetite for a no-holds-barred,
> anything goes, bitcoin fork that would allow for the kind of valuable
> experimentation that Peter R is suggesting? This is a different
> concept than an alt-coin because it would be undoubtedly unstable
> until consensus is reached - and that is the whole idea. It hopefully
> would inform future decisions about what gets rolled into Core. One
> problem I see with doing this, is the lack of incentive.
>
You are describing the essence of sidechains. You might want to check
out Elements Alpha, which has some outrageous experimental changes to
transaction structure. It's a technical Bitcoin sandbox which doesn't
require launching yet another altcoin.

2023-06-07 17:38:40

- reply

📅 Original date posted:2015-08-31
📝 Original message:On 2015-08-31 21:54, Justus Ranvier wrote:
>
> You keep using the word "decentralized" without explaining (and most
> likely, understanding) what it means.
>
Decentralization is a ubiquitous term within the Bitcoin, and the
definition is by no measure new or often confused. It is realizing
that systems involving trusted third parties have undesirable
properties, be it regarding privacy, fraud, censorship, and removing
the effect of them as much as is physically possible. WASTE and
RetroShare are examples of decentralized messaging and file
distribution systems, acknowledging the privacy problems involved with
centralized systems like AOL Instant Messenger or IRC.
> What does it mean to use a decentralized network instead of a trusted
> third party to process electronic payments? What undesirable actions
> can
> a trusted third party perform that a decentralized network can not
> perform?
>
Bitcoin is a decentralized currency which allows any person the
ability to transact in a way that does not require specific trust in
any particular party. Users can independently verify that
transactions they receive are valid and confirmed, with strong
confidence that they can not be reversed or modified. A third party
does not hold these same properties, there is no reason to believe the
information they present other than trust they will not lie, cheat, or
violate privacy at their own will. Given information by a trusted
third party (such as a balance or existance of transaction), a person
has no ability to independently validate their claims as you do in a
decentralized system.

2023-06-07 17:38:38

- reply

📅 Original date posted:2015-08-31
📝 Original message:On 2015-08-31 19:11, Mike Hearn via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> I think your summary of what people actually want from
> decentralisation is pretty good, Justus.
>
>
>> I don't believe that any Bitcoin user actually cares
>> about decentralization, because none of them I've asked can define
>> that term.
>
> +1 Insightful
>
What is Bitcoin if not decentralized?
Bitcoin the most awkward, unprivate and damaging currencies ever
created. It is terribly slow for general use, and it is very
difficult for users to get over the technical hurdles required to use
it safety. It is simultaneously the least private payment system ever
conceived for general use, yet still manages to consistently help
terrorists and pedophiles. Over half a gigawatt of power is used to
power the miners which timestamp the network, causing hundreds of
millions of tonnes of CO2 and radioactive particles to be spewed into
the atmosphere.
Perhaps we can justify these damages as the cost of decentralization,
similar to one justifying the tor anonymity network as having
significant positive effects outweighing the negative. However if you
are truly willing to give the goal of absolute decentralization up as
unachievable or unrealistic, it would be much more sensible to replace
the entire Bitcoin network with a couple of geographically distributed
SQL servers and call it a day.
Without decentralization as an ultimate goal, Bitcoin is an
abomination that is best dismantled.