Storj guy here. All of the actor vectors you described are addressed in the our whitepaper or a blog post. I read the white paper last week. 1) Sybil - Bonds and unique pieces
There is no way to do proof-of-storage that is robust. The only way is to make some assumptions about latency of propagation to a centralized copy of all files, but that can be gamed. Propagation is not proof. 2) Illegal content - Greylists
The Storj FAQ confirms these are opt-in, and not forced. Thus I maintain my point that the Storj protocol can become banned (refused) by Hosts (and even ISPs). We are moving into totalitarianism and increased government control over the internet. This direction of enabling theft of copyrights is begging for your project to be attacked and fail. 3) Bandwidth vs storage - pay for both
Pay how? Micropayments for each access to bandwidth? How to pay for storage when it is decentralized with unbounded replications and can be Sybil attacked. Sorry these decentralized systems are doomed. The concept can't work. The mathematical models are right there in the paper. We are collecting live data from the network, which proves the models are correct. "Its not going to work" in face of real data showing that is working is not going to cut it. Please provide some data or mathematical models that say otherwise. Latency doesn't matter for proofs. Testnets do not prove that the Sybil attack resistance and payment model economics work (because game theory is fully incentivized in the wild). Regarding case 1) in the quote above, the fact is the math models are often myopic[1] (and again that is so in this case), because it is impossible to prove proof-of-storage/retrievability: These proof-of-storage/retrievability algorithms also employ a challenge/response to force the node to have access to the full copy of the data which should be stored, but this does not prevent the node from outsourcing the storage to a single centralized repository. So to attempt prevent that centralized repository attack (i.e. Sybil attack on the nodes) these proof-of-storage/retrievability algorithms “try to use network latency to prevent centralized outsourcing, but [that is impossible because] ubiquitously consistent network latency is not a reliable commodity”.
Of course decentralized file systems are not compatible with the 19th century business models of the MPAA and RIAA, such as placing music on Edison Cylinders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph_cylinder and then distributing the Edison Cylinders by sailing ship. That does not mean however that decentralized file systems are doomed, what it does mean is that decentralized file systems will serve to further accelerate the demise of these 19th century business models, and the corporations that promote them. The political argument is irrelevant for as long as the technology and payment (economic) models are irreparably flawed, as I explained above. |
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<snip>
“First they ignore you, then they hate you, then they join you.” <snip>
Is this the new buzz phrase to quote on this forum? Congrats TPTB, you just proved yourself a distinctly unoriginal thinker, but I'm not surprised. Most conspiracy fucknuts believe everything they read on conspiracy sites regardless of how much logic gets thrown in the lake. The phrase you quoted above used to be "...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth...". Conspiracy idiots love sounding intelligent, but they're not. That's a fucking rule. Prepare to be embarrassed. Quoting you so you can't delete this later. |
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Why are you on a technology forum? I think you want the Cave Man Hasn't Discovered Fire discussion and doesn't have a suitable weapon to fend off lions.
Bitcoin is a supposed solution to a monopolization problem. Even if Bitcoin worked flawlessly, what I just talked about above is the real monopolization gorilla in the room that dwarfs it. Like I said, even with a perfectly functioning Bitcoin that scales to infinity, it would be worthless if you're unable to opt out of a monolithic civilization at all. You have conceptualized the problem incorrectly. Refer to the Economic Devastation thread in the Economics forum. This thread it the wrong place to discuss it. In short (and please reply on the other thread), maximum division-of-labor (specialization) is a problem when Coase's Theory of the Firm is in control. But we solve this by lowering transactional costs between specialists, so the capitalists can't parasite via the Corporation. It is a more complex discussion than we should have in this thread. I am sad to see you are so pessimistic. I'd like to help you see the light (if I had more free time). I need to busy coding instead. |
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The hacking of Cortana's personality will probably end up equivalently ridiculous but in the opposing direction of attitude ("can you say bend over and ask which hole...").  |
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r0ach stated he is concerned about an insufficient supply of suitable farmland, and the information I linked to pointed out that we can grow food at 10X or more higher densities (on a yield basis) and without pesticides. Note this can be done at scale so not every person has to do it.
It was actually a more complex idea than that. As long as there's abundant sea life and natural wild life (which in the context of humans are basically...resources), then you have the ability to "opt-out" of whatever system tyrannical humans establish. Smooth seems to imply that all of civilization needs to be vertically integrated for maximum efficiency, and it doesn't matter if all the oceans are empty, food is entirely synthetic in a complex chain of labor custody, and every inch of land is covered with concrete. In that instance, there is no opting out of anything, and you are in fact a permanent slave. Outcomes like this are more likely to occur the higher both population and/or technology increases, and claiming anyone who identifies this fact is a "Malthusian" is ridiculous. You will eventually not be able to opt out of anything, which is why people like Ted Kaczynski are not actually crazy. Then go back to era before antibiotics and deal with the Blubonic Plague and other nasties. The free resources life wasn't that good. Lifespan was very short. There was no electricity, etc. Why are you on a technology forum? I think you want the Cave Man Hasn't Discovered Fire discussion and doesn't have a suitable weapon to fend off lions. I don't know why you think the land with be concreted. The current trend is to further concentration of the population in the cities and abandon the rural areas. This should become more so when intensive agriculture can replace farmlands and as slower internet speeds of rural areas renders them uneconomic to habitat. There will be no shortage of land for those who want to go back to the simple life (and be very poor and have nothing to or able to trade to the mainstream economy which will be very interactive requiring fast internet).
Why are you on a technology forum? I think you want the Cave Man Hasn't Discovered Fire discussion and doesn't have a suitable weapon to fend off lions.
Bitcoin is a supposed solution to a monopolization problem. Even if Bitcoin worked flawlessly, what I just talked about above is the real monopolization gorilla in the room that dwarfs it. Like I said, even with a perfectly functioning Bitcoin that scales to infinity, it would be worthless if you're unable to opt out of a monolithic civilization at all. You have conceptualized the problem incorrectly. Refer to the Economic Devastation thread in the Economics forum. This thread it the wrong place to discuss it. In short (and please reply on the other thread), maximum division-of-labor (specialization) is a problem when Coase's Theory of the Firm is in control. But we solve this by lowering transactional costs between specialists, so the capitalists can't parasite via the Corporation. It is a more complex discussion than we should have in this thread. I am sad to see you are so pessimistic. I'd like to help you see the light (if I had more free time). I need to busy coding instead. |
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r0ach stated he is concerned about an insufficient supply of suitable farmland, and the information I linked to pointed out that we can grow food at 10X or more higher densities (on a yield basis) and without pesticides. Note this can be done at scale so not every person has to do it.
It was actually a more complex idea than that. As long as there's abundant sea life and natural wild life (which in the context of humans are basically...resources), then you have the ability to "opt-out" of whatever system tyrannical humans establish. Smooth seems to imply that all of civilization needs to be vertically integrated for maximum efficiency, and it doesn't matter if all the oceans are empty, food is entirely synthetic in a complex chain of labor custody, and every inch of land is covered with concrete. In that instance, there is no opting out of anything, and you are in fact a permanent slave. Outcomes like this are more likely to occur the higher both population and/or technology increases, and claiming anyone who identifies this fact is a "Malthusian" is ridiculous. You will eventually not be able to opt out of anything, which is why people like Ted Kaczynski are not actually crazy. Then go back to era before antibiotics and deal with the Blubonic Plague and other nasties. The free resources life wasn't that good. Lifespan was very short. There was no electricity, etc. Why are you on a technology forum? I think you want the Cave Man Hasn't Discovered Fire discussion and doesn't have a suitable weapon to fend off lions. I don't know why you think the land with be concreted. The current trend is to further concentration of the population in the cities and abandon the rural areas. This should become more so when intensive agriculture can replace farmlands and as slower internet speeds of rural areas renders them uneconomic to habitat. There will be no shortage of land for those who want to go back to the simple life (and be very poor and have nothing to or able to trade to the mainstream economy which will be very interactive requiring fast internet). |
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I don't think so - as long as both parents are provably in the hierarchy at a lower 'height' than each new transaction which gets added, there shouldn't be a problem.
edit: so, new transactions depend on the entire tree below them being present, otherwise it's not possible to determine the ancestor relationship correctly. This is akin to blockchain syncing - you cannot add a block if the parent doesn't exist yet.
another edit: I cannot take credit for this design either, it is someone else's; I am just putting together a description of how it works, which turned into a white paper
Well, with subsidy it's more profitable to keep DAG very wide, wider DAG = less secure DAG. Without reading the whole paper I don't see why miners will behave as you expect them to behave. It's similar to Selfish Mining problem. My 2 cents... The simple answer is that without a longest chain rule there is no synchrony in distributed systems, thus there is no possibility that there won't be multiple branches (partitions) that can't converge (due to double-spends). This is also why monsterer's tree design can't function without blocks (and I had explained this to him in the Decentralization thread[1] but he is hard-headed). Thus no one wants history in their parent chain that can be voided by a double-spend, so the incentive is to maximally broaden the DAG. (Notwithstanding how could a subsidy even work in a DAG when there are no blocks to win?) |
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The simple answer is that without a longest chain rule there is no synchrony in distributed systems, thus there is no possibility that there won't be multiple branches (partitions) that can't converge (due to double-spends). This is also why monsterer's tree design can't function without blocks (and I had explained this to him in the Decentralization thread[1] but he is hard-headed). Thus no one wants history in their parent chain that can be voided by a double-spend, so the incentive is to maximally broaden the DAG. (Notwithstanding how could a subsidy even work in a DAG when there are no blocks to win?) |
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Your algorithm for sameness (DRM by blockchain) will not work because for starters one simply modifies the copyrighted work ever so slightly so as to not trigger the algorithm; however in order to sell the algorithm you did have to concede my point that intellectual property rights enforcement inevitably leads to an Orwellian super state and environmental degradation.
Edit: The fact that this algorithm does not work does not mean that there may not be a market for this technology starting of course with the MPAA.
I envisioned a smarter algorithm that can detect likeness the way a human can. No I have to concede that such an ambitious algorithm (if it worked) could render copyright infringement administration much more efficient (as you admit in your edit). |
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Actually, I'd like to see a separate altcoin subforum for technical discussion, that would make it easier.
It has been brought up often in the past and fell to deaf ears. I just took a trip up to where the "big boys" play with a topic....after that experience, please, give me a TPTB section haha  You don't mean Bitcoin Development and Technical Discussion do ya? Seems the forum Gods would never give us (altcoins) the legitimacy of our own Technical Discussion session. “ First they ignore you, then they hate you, then they join you.” <--- this applies to the intent of the OP to hate on me and to the "big boys" who ignore us (altcoins). Ah don't worry about me dominating (excessive posting) in such a Technical Discussion subforum, because I need to quit foruming and (re-)start codering. I would hope the technical threads I contributed to would be moved to such a subforum as my legacy from 3 years of foruming. |
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monsterer is on Ignore for repeating his same failed argument redundantly after it has already been refuted. Sorry I don't have time to argue with an idiot. I've been patient enough and I can't allow those who are incapable to steal all my time. Sorry. I was planning to write some code this afternoon and instead I had to expend the afternoon explaining an issue that should have been clear when I posted the first reply to smooth. Instead those incapable people that take me on a whirlwind of their misunderstandings. I am patient for those who can finally get it. But monsterer has proven that he is so hard-headed that he can't learn new concepts. In smooth's case, please understand that he hasn't been spending all his time researching the specific area I have been, so this should be no reflection on his abilities. I've just spent more time in this area than he has. I am just joking him about Bill Clinton. |
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Whereas, with a quantified probability of traitors (e.g. hardware MTBF), the risk of Byzantine fault is computed. Which was the intent of Lamport et al's paper.
That's not really the case. Read the paper more carefully. Simple probabilistic hardware failure is easy to cope with using redundancy and majority voting. The hard problem is failures that are more subtle and complex, which can mimic deception and collusion. The algorithm becomes a tool in a toolbox which is used to improve robustness against certain types of failures, but the robustness is still never absolute, and in real systems the actual probability of failure is still not known. I suggest you also read the paper more carefully. Specifically Section "6. Reliable Systems" which we are referring to. What it says is that as the hardware fails the outputs can become like traitor inputs to other hardware components causing the cascade to lie, which is precisely the BGP problem and what the solution is modeling by a count of traitors ( passing along a traitor's lie doesn't create a new traitor). Even in the case where the derivative computation is corrupted due to the corrupted input, this is still a quantified probability of cascade of traitors obtainable from engineering and math/models applied from hardware MTBF rates. It is more exact science or estimation than not knowing. There is no decentralization, Sybil attacked introduced which otherwise makes the estimation highly unknowable and unmeasurable (science requires measurement to validate that models are predictive). The examples in the paper are toy examples. Now consider a real system with many interconnected computers each running million or billions of lines of code. Passing along a lie does not create a new traitor, but responding incorrectly to an unexpected input does create new traitors. So it is very difficult to ever know how many Manchurian Candidate traitors exist, ready to be triggered. Of course you are not omniscient to know this can't be modeled in any applications of the solution. I am quite confident models apply in real world use cases. Obviously Turing complete (unbounded recursion) outcomes can't be decidable, but dependently typed systems do exist. Perhaps mission critical hardware controllers, routers, etc.. Byzantine fault tolerance is used because it allows robustness against complex failures to a greater degree than simple majority voting, even when the components are not simple bits of hardware with an easily-quantifiable MTBF (which are often bullshit, BTW).
The Byzantine use case applies when ever there is redundancy of components that form a circuit, but the MTBF of those nodes of the circuit still applies to models of cascaded failure. Byzantine analysis tells us limits on this cascaded failure w.r.t. to the redundancy. Manufacturer MTBF may be marketing BS but ConsumerLabs (i.e. independent verification) can compile third party stats. |
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Well they are indication, just not conclusive evidence, since they can be natural or faked (at a cost)
smooth in Bill Clinton mode. They can also be an indication of deception to confuse when there are actually attacks ongoing, which was CfB's correct point. But lack of ephemeral forks is conclusive evidence of lack of an attack, subject to the (reasonable) conditions I stated above.
Wrong again. Example, Finney attack. Example, a double-spend that falls within the expected number of confirmations of normal orphan rate. And censored transactions with ongoing 51% attack where there are no forks other than normal ones with the expected number of confirmations of normal orphan rate. |
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Why can't you read? Mempools only prove nothing if nodes are also conspiring
Are you still blind? Here is what I taught monsterer before. Here was some other discussion that linked back to that: As I explained to monsterer upthread, it is not possible to objectively prove (with cryptography and math) which chain is the honest one and which one is the dishonest one when there are censored transactions. [...] Note however that this minority chain is unprovable to a full node that wasn't online as it was occurring (which was my point to monsterer)... Are you blind? Orphaned chains (not sustained forks!) are a natural and can't be proven to be an attack. Even those longer-con chains which orphan another chain which do not fall within the expected variance due to natural orphan rate can't be distinguished from natural (non-attack) network connectivity issues. Also I already explained upthread that an emphemeral fork (which orphans another chain) can't be blamed for a double-spend or censored transaction, because there is no provable correlation. Seems you've forgotten where I had to teach you in my Decentralized thread why it is impossible for a minority chain to prove anything (because the state of the chain is never absolute w.r.t. to any external chain/clock and is always moving forward). Which is the same analogous mistake enet made upthread. |
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Mempools only prove nothing if nodes are also conspiring
Are you still blind? Here is what I taught monsterer before. Here was some other discussion that linked back to that: As I explained to monsterer upthread, it is not possible to objectively prove (with cryptography and math) which chain is the honest one and which one is the dishonest one when there are censored transactions. [...] Note however that this minority chain is unprovable to a full node that wasn't online as it was occurring (which was my point to monsterer)... Are you blind? Orphaned chains (not sustained forks!) are a natural and can't be proven to be an attack. Even those longer-con chains which orphan another chain which do not fall within the expected variance due to natural orphan rate can't be distinguished from natural (non-attack) network connectivity issues. Also I already explained upthread that an emphemeral fork (which orphans another chain) can't be blamed for a double-spend or censored transaction, because there is no provable correlation. Seems you've forgotten where I had to teach you in my Decentralized thread why it is impossible for a minority chain to prove anything (because the state of the chain is never absolute w.r.t. to any external chain/clock and is always moving forward). Which is the same analogous mistake enet made upthread. How many times do I have to say that ephemeral forks are not an indication of an attack. And proving correctness of block chain state between ephemeral forks is impossible. The longest chain rule wins. Period! Damn it! |
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Here is what I taught monsterer before. Here was some other discussion that linked back to that: As I explained to monsterer upthread, it is not possible to objectively prove (with cryptography and math) which chain is the honest one and which one is the dishonest one when there are censored transactions. [...] Note however that this minority chain is unprovable to a full node that wasn't online as it was occurring (which was my point to monsterer)...
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To censor, he has to orphan other miners' blocks that do include the transactions. That is visible.
This requires to assume that we all see and believe this. Right now chinese speculators can bribe a small pool to generate 10 consecutive orphaned blocks and start spreading FUD that someone tried to attack Bitcoin. With intention to buy cheap coins. Wow, such horrible logic. You can not know an attack did take place, because the forks could be a ruse, yes. But you can know that an attack did not take place because there is no such fork anywhere in existence. Unless you believe that all miners are colluding. I don't believe that. Even then, censorship would leave the censored transactions in the mempool. @TPTB you are falling into the same logic trap as CfB. Proving an attack is not the same as proving the lack of an attack. But...we certainly can't know there won't be an attack tomorrow, or the day after, or any other time. That is not only true, but clearly implied by the wording of the white paper. People need to decide whether they can live with that risk or not. Sorry smooth. You are going to be embarrassed this time. Get ready. Hint: mempools prove nothing. You should have read my Decentralization thread. Obviously you did not. |
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I didn't read that but the point is that you can't engage in an attack without creating forks, as monsterer said. The forks are visible. They would exceed those explainable by propagation delays, and would be selective against miners who include the banned transactions. Are you blind? Orphaned chains (not sustained forks!) are a natural and can't be proven to be an attack. Even those longer-con chains which orphan another chain which do not fall within the expected variance due to natural orphan rate can't be distinguished from natural (non-attack) network connectivity issues. Also I already explained upthread that an emphemeral fork (which orphans another chain) can't be blamed for a double-spend or censored transaction, because there is no provable correlation. Seems you've forgotten where I had to teach you in my Decentralized thread why it is impossible for a minority chain to prove anything (because the state of the chain is never absolute w.r.t. to any external chain/clock and is always moving forward). Which is the same analogous mistake enet made upthread. |
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You can collude to attack, but that would be visible.
Nope. Please re-read my prior post. Attacker only needs 51% of hashrate to censor transactions perpetually (and less % to delay transactions). To censor, he has to orphan other miners' blocks that do include the transactions. That is visible. Delaying is possible without creating forks. Censorship is not. I had to teach monsterer that your assumption is incorrect. Why don't you ask him about our prior discussion in the Decentralization thread on this topic: Also I already explained upthread that an emphemeral fork (which orphans another chain) can't be blamed for a double-spend or censored transaction, because there is no provable correlation. Seems you've forgotten where I had to teach you in my Decentralized thread why it is impossible for a minority chain to prove anything (because the state of the chain is never absolute w.r.t. to any external chain/clock and is always moving forward). Which is the same analogous mistake enet made upthread. |
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You can collude to attack, but that would be visible.
Nope. Please re-read my prior post. |
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