"an inestimable condition for Byzantine fault tolerance" is not an natural state of all applications of byzantine systems as I have explained for example for modeling hardware.

"inability to observe faults consistently among all observers" is correct and is inarguable for BGP as already explained and to which even smooth agreed.

Readers must I continue to refute monsterer because this is impinging on my time? He has been wrong on ever post in this thread lately. I think it is time to put him on Ignore.

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.

Fuck man, you can't even keep all the concepts in your head from the past discussions!

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Sorry smooth none of that shit is true per what I wrote above to monsterer.

Besides collusion is unknowable due to Sybil attacks.

You guys are chasing your tails in circles.


Nonsense. There is no objective evidence in longest chain rule other than the longest chain. Period.


Nonsense all. monsterer isn't correct.

Attacker only needs 51% of hashrate to censor transactions perpetually (and less % to delay transactions).

There is no (sustained) fork in the longest chain rule.

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).

I am not ignoring it. You are ignoring the point that the condition on count of traitors is unknowable from any sane engineering estimation (which btw is why the point about Sybil attacked pools is relevant) and thus no state of the decentralized, trustless consensus system (Satoshi's variant when conjectured to be decentralized, trustless) can ever be distinguished from a Byzantine fault, regardless whether the condition threshold has been reached or not.

Your myopia Bill, is that (you smoked too much MJ and) when an inestimable condition for Byzantine fault tolerance is COMBINED with inability to observe faults consistently among all observers, then no state is trustworthy (which fails the goal of the solution). The "solution" collapses into a non-solution in the decentralized, trustless context.

Hopefully you will finally admit it.

You are delusional. Well beyond delusional to blinded by your anger and desire for me to be wrong. Sorry you are wrong monsterer, just as you were wrong in the other thread (and peskered me endlessly).

What use is a condition if it can't be measured?

The Lamport paper was aimed at hardware MTBF rates which can indeed be measured and verified.

I am into engineering. I guess you prefer black magic and voodoo (and I am from New Orleans, lol).


Thanks. It is unarguable fact.


Incorrect. MTBF rates for hardware are objective engineering measurements. Seems you are referring to "feelings", "speculation" or something other than engineering.


No I provided an overview of what can be put into a mathematical proof. That is objective engineering, not conjecture.

The asymptotic probability can be described quantitatively because of the inviolable economics (which derive from CAP theorem but we can prove just from the economic realities).


Non-sequitor.


For all intent & purposes, shitcoins that have $10 floats are dead and will fully die eventually.

For Christ's sake, you cause me to repeat all the points I made upthread over and over again.

I already explained to you invalid results where the observers can't know whether the state was attacked or not, which is a Byzantine fault! There is no way to compute this risk and in fact the asymptotic risk is 100% (probability = ~1) because all decentralized consensus systems must centralize (which I explained in detail upthread).

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.

Agreed, but please note my point is deeper than that.

I am saying that in a decentralized, trustless, Sybil-attackable scenario, there is also no conditional solution to BGP, because the participants have no way to conjecture the probabilities of 51% attack (nor does any solution to BGP provide all participants a consistent, provable observation when the system state is attacked).

The condition of count of traitors has only utility in applications where the probabilistic rate of traitors can be conjectured.

I have also I think argued convincingly that Satoshi's PoW design (and every decentralized consensus design) must trend towards and rely on centralization. Thus the asymptotic probability of 51% attack is ~1.


I can think of scenarios where that isn't necessarily true. For example, such an attack convinces speculators that the attack can be repeated at-will and so they flee the coin. Crash and burn.

The salient point continues to fly right over your head.

That is that the cases where the count of faulty nodes can be conjectured quantitatively (such as MTBF failure rates for hardware components) does not include the trustless, decentralized, Sybil attacked applications such as Satoshi's PoW design.

My statement is fact:

Yes the Lamport et al BGP paper was focused on cases where failure rates (where traitors are faulty components/nodes) can be conjectured (c.f. the end of the paper), not on Sybil attacks in a decentralized setting.


You are conflating the decentralized, trustless, Sybil attackable scenario with the scenarios where the precondition can be conjectured probabilistically and thus where Lamport's "solution" has quantitative merit/utility as I stated:

Yup but the 'set' remains unknown in the conditional solution (conditioned on only the 'count') offered by that white paper. You are wrong and there was no "poor conclusion" on my part. And what is with your condescending use of the word "another" since your prior attempt of presenting a white paper was also rebutted successfully by me.

And that it is conditional, is why I rebutted smooth upthread that he was stating the problem—not the solution—in the decentralized context because the count can only be conjectured (e.g. probabilistic estimates of hardware failure which was the focus of the paper) in a centralized (non-Sybil attacked application).

monsterer you are boastfully filling the thread with errors and useless noise. Stop the boastful and condescending and take more time to think over your points, so our discussion can remain high S/N and mutually respectful. When I asked you in the past to please cut down on the noise, you might have taken this personally. Sorry but I have limited bandwidth and time. So do readers. Try to make high quality contributions. I am suffering from an illness and it doesn't help when you shoot my cortisol sky high! And make very strong statements which require me to go read a white paper that I don't have time and energy to read. At least show that you aren't wrong most of the time, so you aren't being disrespectful of my limitations.

Edit: I can sincerely appreciate your contribution and also be totally unable to accept it if the S/N ratio is too low, because I have finite resources to expend here.

monsterer I am sad to conclude that you've turned into a time wasting Dunning-Kruger troll with a chip on your shoulder.

Your reading comprehension sucks! I wrote about the 'number/count of' not the 'set of' (where the latter requires knowing which of the generals are the traitors, not just the count of traitors).

There is no fault in my logic. Sorry dude.

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.


No I was referring to your implied belief in man-made global warming (AGW), since you mentioned "greenhouse gases".


I am not arguing for DRM hardware nor the corrupt aspects of the corporate music and video industry. DRM can always be cracked, because only end-to-end communications between loyal ends can remain encrypted.

You conflated my desire to help indie musicians get paid, with your claim that would require DRM. I disagree. My point was about State enforcement of copyrights by regulating Hosts and ISPs. Thus precisely my point is the decentralized file system protocols will be banned by regulation because those decentralized systems can't enforce (comply with) copyright.


Only the Invisible Hand knows what is waste and what is necessary along the way of annealing the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Communists wolves in decentralized-sheep-skin think they are omniscient.


Note I had also stated an algorithm for sameness (i.e. algorithmically detecting infringement, and if invented) and a blockchain of who is first to claim ownership, could in theory replace the need for the State to enforce copyright. I also suggested having the decentralize file system respect an ownership signature that resolves to an active URL, so the blame can be placed on a URL that can be served the copyright infringement case. If the URL goes down, the decentralized file system revokes the files.

Absent the algorithmic solution I have proposed, the Orwellian state is unavoidable and so pursuing decentralized file storage (without the aforementioned blame feature) is a fool's direction. Ideology aside, because reality is paramount.


You have not proved that. You are not omniscient. You are injecting your ideological delusion into a claim without proof. I explained above how intellectual property is compatible with freedom and decentralization if we invent the necessary algorithms to replace the role of the State.


Representative democracy will forever be an insoluble lie.


Non-sequitor.


Wrong as explained above. Also it is ludicrous to assert that only electronics are causing environmental degradation. And please unconflate that environment degradation is an orthogonal issue to (the erroneous but alleged) AGW (allegedly caused by greenhouse gases).


Incorrect. You are not omniscient.

In theory the aforementioned algorithm can run and be verified in zero knowledge with zk-snarks.

Corrected link: http://www.thestar.com/business/2016/01/26/nervous-canadians-hoarding-record-amounts-of-money-in-cash.html

Vested interests of people would never allow all people to avail of what the model advises to do at any given juncture, so if eveyone forsaked their vested interests then the model would control the world, but the model doesn't tell individuals how to produce and create new technology for example so it is impossible for all people to vest in the model.

I wrote upthread that the model can't be omniscient.

My reply to CfB and smooth follows.

The Byzantine Generals Problem (BGP) is at its generate essence (i.e. conditions IC1 and IC2 in the white paper) whether a commanding general can collect the vote (e.g. 'attack' or 'retreat', or other information subject to a consensus) of the other generals and relay that result to other decentralized generals and have the vote of the loyal generals reflect the consensus, but without trusting that the commanding general is loyal. This is functionally equivalent to the case of each loyal general computing the vote independently (i.e. conditions 1 and 2 of the white paper).

Afaics the paper has an important omission which is that when the disloyal generals (traitors) are not colluding (i.e. can't trust each other) then they have no reliable means to disrupt the loyal consensus. So my analysis will focus on the case where the disloyal generals are colluding.

The paper does not also explicitly state that at any number of loyal generals other than exactly 2/3 (wherein the result will be inconclusive 50/50 conflict and failure of consensus), then it is undecidable (from the perspective of each general) whether the consensus result reflects loyalty or disloyalty.

Thus although the paper is correct to state that BGP is solvable if the 2/3 + 1 of the generals are loyal (i.e. 3m + 1 total generals for m traitors), the only way to know that precondition is for the system to be centralized so that the count of the traitors is known. Thus the white paper is poorly written (w.r.t. this issue) because it does not explain that there is no decentralized, trustless solution to the BGP and insinuates the opposite in the mind of the naive reader.

No loyal general ever knows if the system is loyal or not.

There is no decentralized solution to the BGP problem. Period.

(note also that the definition of oral messages assumes conditions A1, A2, and A3 which can't exist in a decentralized network where Sybil attacks are possible)


Damn my illness really restricts me. Normally I would go off on a tangent thinking about how such points ripple into the Halting theorem and unbounded recursion of Turing completeness, but I can barely sustain the mental focus to do the above. I need to get cured. This is really fucking me up.

Do you mean the computation of the PoW can be outsourced from the payer and the payer could pay a fee?

In that sense our designs are equivalent then. The assumption is that such outsourcing will be driven to very low profit margins near to costs. Also the payer is still in control of whom they outsource to, so control is still decentralized.

Agreed on the edit.

So we can see that profitable PoW is not bounded either if k is unbounded, but you can argue that UNprofitable PoW is not bounded at any k > 0. But the retort is that difficulty in my UNprofitable PoW design will not be limited to a difficulty which makes the cost of mining precisely equal to the block rewards, and thus the difficulty the attacker is facing is unbounded which is not the case in Satoshi's PoW design where difficulty is bounded by profitability of the marginal miners.

I asked you wait for the white paper, but there is a hint to you for you to chomp on interim time.

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And yet you argue against providing employment for indie musicians by paying for their music 

The internet opened the eyes to the people in Philippines and leaped forward from being ignorant about everything to being some of the most savvy social networking users and they fought to the right to go work abroad and the country has changed so much since 1991 when I first arrived.

I can put all my music on the same device I use to do mobile communications & calls. When i first arrived in Philippines in 1991, you had to send a mailed letter to your other party and wait days/weeks for the response. Now I can send an SMS in 1 second.

Etc...

And just ask the Amish about whether it is still possible to live the simple life if that is what you want.

For a little while.

And KimDotFatCom is not in prison for a little while longer.

Who claimed it is solved with 1/3[2/3] of the generals are honest!

That is the statement of the problem. The problem is not fault tolerant!

The only fault tolerant design for a solution is with centralization which obviously doesn't address the requirements of the problem, .e.g as you say "unless you add externally-assigned identities and unforgeable messages".

Thus I wrote upthread there is no solution to BGP. The problem will never be solved as stated.