Bitcoin Forum

Hi I am trying to learn more about the Lightning Network and I've heard both good and negative criticisms. I am wondering why there is such a diversity of opinion on something that is supposed to help Bitcoin scale?

the issue is how well its programmed.

some are seeing one LN using economics (fees) to penalize users for extortion, DDoS, closing channels early etc.
some are seeing one LN using code to prevent users for extortion, DDoS, closing channels early etc.

so its still too early to judge the public release, and we can only talk about whats in design and try shouting out the flaws so that the public release is functional and not stupidly engrained with things that are a barrier of entry.

pro's:
a free choice to sit beside bitcoin for those doing high transaction volumes such as gambling/daytrading/faucet raiding.
not to be used as a scaling future direction. just a tool those doing high volume can use.

cons
possible prepay fes and penaltyies to use, causing barrier of entry
stupidly considered the future direction of bitcoin by shifting people away from immutable transactions.
requires dual signing (permissioned funds) which puts users back into the 'banking' managed systems

As far as i'm aware, everything still very theoretic.
is hard to predict if these "cons" against LN will happen and i'm seeing as "only pro's"... bitcoin really needs a solution like LN to help with the transactions.

The "Banks 2.0" stuff is just pure FUD. Forget it:


Yep, you send money to a 2of2 Multisig address to fund the channel. But that transaction is crafted using a clever bit of Bitcoin scripting: in the event that the other party won't co-operate with the transaction you want to make through the channel, you can trigger a refund transaction of the full amount as a part of the script. So in practice, you're in full possession of your BTC, because of that clever little mechanism.

_______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________

Now, there is a way for people to steal from you... but not very easily, it's only if you don't pay attention to whats going on in your channel. What another party can do is keep old copies of channel transactions and broadcast a refund to themselves of whatever old state is most convenient to them (i.e. maximum funds in an address that they control). But the refunds are time-locked, you will have a copy of the correct (i.e. most up to date) refund transaction (where the thief wants to use an older copy when they had more money), and that will overwrite the theft attempt. So long as you notice before the time-lock on the refund transaction expires (a few days, apparently)


The biggest problem I'm seeing right now is this: there's an even easier way to stop that attack working, pay someone to watch what's going on on the blockchain for you, and when someone tries to use an out-dated refund transaction, they do the job of kicking that transaction out of the mempool for you.

IMO the problem with this is, that it will encourage (unimaginative) people to think "hey, I don't need to run a Bitcoin node anymore, my Refund Guardian service is doing that for me, I'll use SPV for non-micro payments, and I can get my hard drive space back!" Obviously, that trend would not be good for Bitcoin.

lol oh look "pay someone to watch your channel"...

and there he was just a couple sentences before pretending its not turning it into a MANAGED system..
end of rant about that person. who i dont want or need a reply from

i will say his last paragraph about people switching off fullnodes due to prefering to just use an LN node. is a con and valid con
i will say his other paragraph about theft can happen and is a con and valid con

:D funny how i said those 2 cons to him awhile back.. but atleast he is accepting them as threats to bitcoin/LN users. the awakening has begun


anyway ontopic

strange thing is that the flaws can be coded out to not require fee's, bribes, penalties, or management, supervisor costs... but instead its just another fee based model that cares more about economics than bug fixing using code.

though in concept.. one LN dev went to the extent of making a spreadsheet about all the penalties, costs and profits. and highlighted to utilise just for 10 days required a 0.006btc (~$4) prpaid buy-in/deposit) fe just to use LN to cover possible costs of using it. where it only become 'cheap' if doing thousands-their estimate of 80,000 tx in 10 days. (i facepalmed: no average consumer would accept)

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again. if people treat LN as a SIDE SERVICE and are fully aware that funds are no long in sole discretion but instead dual signed (managed) and that fee's are involved. much like a bank.

then it gives people a clear and open minded choice to use it.

but to try suggesting it should be 'the solution' for bitcoins future and then under-admit the flaws, just to sell a utopian dream... thats where issues start to begin.

LN is good for machines, exchange, supermarket.
LN can not compet Bitcoin usual habit.

Compare LN to plastic card payment network and Bitcoin to solid gold ... at the end of the deployment.
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img911/6258/gJk1jK.gif

Follow the link below for the cons:

though it can be seen as fast 'processing'.. if the method for customer to get into a channel with <retailer>, locking in enough funds. and then only using it do a weekly shop... then i don't see so much of an advantage. (even using the multi-hop feature)


i see it having great utility for faucets, google adsense, kimDotcom, satoshidice gambling..
but the occasional spender who only does 4-42 transactions a month.. current concepts of 10day channel sessions and fee/penalties are not going to be "consumer friendly" for the retailer.

its like a retailer has and customer need to keep closing and opening a new 'bar tab' every fortnight. just so they can process payment in miliseconds. even if the customer only spends once a week..

its not really the utopian solution for everyones spending habits so should not be seen as the 'solution' for bitcoin.. just an addon service.. like BITGO have...

Actually the Bank 2.0 is Very Very Accurate.  :)
Considering it adds fractional reserve economics to BTC.  :P

Nothing you've posted or linked proves your claim. None of that is an accurate description of how Lightning is designed to work.

Oh, but your imagined superiority gives you greater insight than all others.   :D

In the weight of trust, I posted multiple articles from different authors from different sources and you think the weight of your word alone , carries more weight?  :D

http://ct.fra.bz/ol/fz/sw/i59/2/7/12/frabz-Youve-been-weighed-Youve-been-measured-And-you-have-been-found-w-6b14d0.jpg

 8)

ignoring kiklo's endless attempts to try selling his zeit altcoin as something better by shaming bitcoin..

LN can be considered a bank network.
afterall.. what is a bank

a system where your not in full control of your funds.
the bank can put limits on your spending habits by refusing to authorise transactions
customers require the banks authorisation/agreement.
the only recourse in a disagreement is to close the account

although LN is not a central bank. it is a next gen localised bank. where LN hubs become the new bank branch managers

you can glorify LN as being linked to the open bitcoin network should a customer want to close channel.

but thats just like saying a bank manager of a local bank branch is a glorified accountant supervisor who has no control of SWIFT/cheque clearing house should a customer wish to close their account and take funds elsewhere.

accepting what LN is.. a side option/service. rather then an endgoal solution to bitcoin.. is the way to think about it.
LN has utility for fast action users like satoshidice, faucets, etc. but its not the solution for everyone

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oh and as i was saying about the 'concepts' the LN devs are coming up with that are CONS

if anyone wants to know about one of the ECONOMIC methods or thwarting DDoS (rather than code)
if anyone wants to know about one of the ECONOMIC methods or thwarting extortion/deceit (rather than code)
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2016-November/000648.html
half way down it says "results" where you can download their open office spreadsheet that displays the prepay buy in and all the penalty fee's

yea i facepalmed reading it
conclusion was the buy-in fee of 0.006(~$4) was not high enough to impact an attacker. (2nd facepalm: the whole posted didnt mention using CODE to fix risk)

Only guy I know, that wants to argue with me even when we agree on the same point.  :D
Nice to see you too Frank.  :)

 8)

without having a perfect knwledge and live demonstation of it, it is really hard to judge it but still if we analyse the runers then the pros do knew everyone. like it will make the bitcoin network faster with some amount of fees and on addition it will increase thw security amd stabiloty of the network but all i think is will the privacy and the irriversable feature still be like now?

Nope, you're putting words in my mouth.

It's very simple: nothing you posted or linked proves your claim. Cherry picking uninformed opinion only confirms your bias.

It will not make BTC any faster, when using LN, you will be on the LN network which can exchange account balances faster, because it is not a standard crypto coin.
You are basically trusting the LN network like you trust (wait for it Frank)................... A Bank.   :D

 8)

I sorry, I don't resort to mind control. Those ramblings are yours alone.  ;)

Again your words are weightless, are you in outer space with no gravity?  :D
Lack of oxygen might explain why your debate skillz are so bad.   :P

http://preprod-img.planet.fr/files/images/article/8/1/2/291218/1341840-inline.jpg

 8)

Privacy will be enhanced: the individual Lightning transactions are not recorded in the blockchain, so the ledger will be more opaque than before. Surveilling all Lightning transactions would be difficult, you'd need a surveillance node in a majority of channels

Irreversibility is, in a limited way, compromised. There's an attack possible if you go offline. Some malicious user in your channel that notices you're offline can try to close the channel using out of date transactions from the channel you're both in, stealing whatever BTC they spent later back from the people they sent it to. It doesn't seem like a very easy attack to pull off with bi-directional channels, as all the other users in the same extended channel may be online to notice, even if you're not (because some of their money might be at risk from the same attempt, they're incentivised to keep watch). There's a separate protocol that's been developed to allow a third party to watch the channel for you, in the event that you're offline (or if you're not running a Bitcoin node at all), so it's not much of a risk, providing you understand it.

IMO where LN shines most is when large centralized wallets providers say Bitstamps and Every_Other_Exchange want to allow users to move funds to and from any exchange. there can be LN channels opened connecting all these echanges together, the channels are almost never closed, it is simply a trustless way for all the exchanges to track the movements of user funds back and forth.
from the user point of view he logs into bitstamps and request XBTC to be moved to MtGox, and in 3 seconds flat his account( or any other account he wants to send funds to ) on Mtgox is credited.
user doesn't need to worry about operating the channel, the exchanges do that behind the covers.

if your brain is saying " RED ALERT! " after reading this, congratulations you "get it", but you'll probably still use this killer app yourself... admit it!

Hub Owners could sell your Private transactions data to marketing firms , just like banks sell your credit card transactions data.
This means all a hacker has to do is compromise a Hub to access your info.
Easier for courts to subpoena a hub to get your records.
Hire someone on the inside of a hub to funnel information. (How the Mob does it)

It will be less private, by far because LN will have more data to Cross Reference.   :P

 8)

firstly. LN was envisioned due to your exact theory.. a background mechanism for exchanges.. blockstream made a private "liquid" network using multisigs. and then realised it could be used more broadly.. and thus LN concepts came to fruition.

it must be noted that channels need to be closed because the locktimes expire due to time and utilizing the time to make old 'payments' irrelevant, thus it runs out of time sooner to keep latest relevant and needs to close to secure a most relevant mutually agreed 'payment' before older LN payments become relevant.

EG imagine now its 02:00:00 26th Nov 2016 that the 'deposit' is paid.
with a locktime of say 03:01:00 26th Nov 2016 (1h1m) for simple explanation
first payment in LN you set and agreed to make it more relevant but unspendable until 03:00:59
next payment in LN you set and agreed to make it more relevant but unspendable until 03:00:58
next payment in LN you set and agreed to make it more relevant but unspendable until 03:00:57
and so on

obviously it doesnt mean you can do 3660 transactions(1h1m).
because:
you may not transact for 10 minutes. meaning you missed out on 600 possible alterations to the locks by doing nothing.
EG time is 02:10:00 - you cant write a tx locked to be unspendable until 02:00:01 because that time has passed.
you can only alter the locks while available locktimes exist ahead of realtime meaning doing nothing for 10 minutes leaves you only 3060 possible tx's

you may not transact for 40 minutes. meaning you missed out on 2400 possible alterations to the locks by doing nothing.
EG time is 02:40:00 - you cant write a tx locked to be unspendable until 02:00:01 because that time has passed.
you can only alter the locks while available locktimes exist ahead of realtime meaning doing nothing for 40 minutes leaves you only 1260 possible tx's

also because
if you opened the channel at 02:00:00 and instantly done 3659 tx's in milliseconds. the altered locktimes have now got to 02:00:01. so you have to close the channel to broadcast that most relevant 02:00:01 tx before older transactions become relevant/spendable

Is that implementation final? I believe it can change to the needs of the users over time. At best I do not think there is a final implementation of LN. Some might even say it is "vaporware" at this point.


How is it shifting people away from immutable transactions? Are the transactions inside LN made to be deliberately changeable? Also remember that LN is a choice for the user whether he or she wants to use it or not. But everything gets validated in the blockchain when the channels are closed.


Please tell us how LN puts us back into the "banking managed systems", and please explain how this is bad and not simply a creation of choice for the users?

though code is not finalised. the mindset and concepts are becoming established. by atleast talking about it and making people aware of the concepts being stupid, may tempt the devs to change it before its locked into code..
rather than staying quiet with a wait and see and then have to put up with their code because they were not told what users want and dont want early on.

LN so far, are focused more on incentivizing nodes to stay active by making them profitable.

seems like your asking the big question about why bitcoin is such a big invention, and why immutability is important.

yes, thats the whole point. able to change who deserves what and how much they deserve. done in seconds rather but not secured by bitcoins PoW.
if funds were as secure as bitcoins blockchain while in LN. then we wouldnt need miners..


also remember bank accounts is a choice for the user, whether he or she wants to use it or not. but users can verify thieir balance when they count out the bank notes when closing a bank account

thats very loose logic.. thats like saying dont worry about bank accounts you can always ask them to write you a cheque and get your account closed. and use the cheque to buy gold

yes as a choice, i see its utility for gambling, exchanges, faucets, advertisers.
as for what they are choosing. people atleast have to be aware of the choice. and some people need to be reminded it is just a choice and not try pushing it as bitcoins only future solution.

as for how its deemed banking managed system
DUAL SIGNING. imagine a hub as a local bank branch. lets say there is a walmark bank2.0, starbucks bank 2.0, etc. where the funds are not exactly yours because you need permission from a separate entity to change how much you deserve and permission to separate yourself from their control to go back to the open network (bitcoin mainnet).

shying away from negatives and sitting on hands not even talking about issues solves nothing and doesnt help to make people aware of the whole picture.

having a sit back, shut up and wait and see attitude is something that lets a small group decide the direction of the masses because they are not told anything different. we as a community should be active and part of deciding "what users want". because we are the users, we are all bitcoin and we all should not put "trust" in a small group of people.