Double spend with zero confirmations has been solved.

[nextgencoin]

http://vanillacoin.net/papers/zerotime.pdf

[spazzdla]

But.. It's not a problem..

The idea one thinks it's a problem points to they do not understand consensus algorithms..

The blockchain is enforced by time.. after 100 blocks one assumes we aren't forking from that.. after 5 blocks.. it's still reasonably likely a fork could happen.

[nextgencoin]

But.. It's not a problem..

The idea one thinks it's a problem points to they do not understand consensus algorithms..

Huh?

It's not a problem cause anyone who wants a safe transfer has to wait a bunch of confirmations. This now takes that need away, ie safe transfers under a second. I'm pretty sure Bitcoin can't do that.

[spazzdla]

But.. It's not a problem..

The idea one thinks it's a problem points to they do not understand consensus algorithms..

Huh?

It's not a problem cause anyone who wants a safe transfer has to wait a bunch of confirmations. This now takes that need away, ie safe transfers under a second. I'm pretty sure Bitcoin can't do that.

What if someone gets 51% for a couple hours and creates a bunch of coins....?  How do we fork out those coins?

[Fuserleer]

With the amount of hash power the BTC network has, just a single confirmation is enough for most transactions, if you are sending a large amount to an untrusted 3rd party, then 2-3 is plenty.  The effort required at that point to undo that work is pretty insane.

I've always had a small issue with the confirmation time of BTC, it could be a little faster IMO, but considering at the time BTC was released all this was a bit of an unknown, 10 minutes is a safe amount of time and isn't too inconvenient.  That 10 min confirm certainly isn't a deal breaker by any stretch of the imagination for me, nor for most other people.

I guess that the solution presented here solves potential Finney attacks to some degree, but its not a major issue and certainly isn't going to result in people en-mass leaving BTC for VNC just because a "problem" that isn't widespread has been solved.

You need much more than that to dethrone the current king.

[Lauda]

This should be moved to a more appropriate section. With time, the costs of doing such a attack become higher and higher. Bitcoin does not need this feature. However, if someone with real knowledge can actually look into it that would be good. If it isn't hard to implement, and will not cause problems, then go ahead.

[spazzdla]

Super nodes... sounds heavily centralized.

[Fuserleer]

This should be moved to a more appropriate section. With time, the costs of doing such a attack become higher and higher. Bitcoin does not need this feature. However, if someone with real knowledge can actually look into it that would be good. If it isn't hard to implement, and will not cause problems, then go ahead.

I didn't read the paper in too much detail, maybe I'll go over it and check it out.  We've had this ability to do "immediate confirmations" for quite some time now, but our ledger is not a block chain and works totally different.  

This "feature" of having transactions "confirm" in a rapid fashion for us was a side effect of how our ledger operates.  It was never something we felt the need to solve, even before the current ledger tech was implemented and gave it to us for free, because assuming you have good penetration into mass market, Finney attacks and the like will be rare because the majority of your users wont be tech savvy enough to perform them.  So long as the merchants are pro-active in ensuring that larger sized transactions are handled accordingly, the impact IMO is small, regardless of if its solved or not.

[nextgencoin]

With the amount of hash power the BTC network has, just a single confirmation is enough for most transactions, if you are sending a large amount to an untrusted 3rd party, then 2-3 is plenty.  The effort required at that point to undo that work is pretty insane.

I've always had a small issue with the confirmation time of BTC, it could be a little faster IMO, but considering at the time BTC was released all this was a bit of an unknown, 10 minutes is a safe amount of time and isn't too inconvenient.  That 10 min confirm certainly isn't a deal breaker by any stretch of the imagination for me, nor for most other people.

I guess that the solution presented here solves potential Finney attacks to some degree, but its not a major issue and certainly isn't going to result in people en-mass leaving BTC for VNC just because a "problem" that isn't widespread has been solved.

You need much more than that to dethrone the current king.

10 minutes is a looooooog time to wait at the counter in Starbucks...

[Fuserleer]

With the amount of hash power the BTC network has, just a single confirmation is enough for most transactions, if you are sending a large amount to an untrusted 3rd party, then 2-3 is plenty.  The effort required at that point to undo that work is pretty insane.

I've always had a small issue with the confirmation time of BTC, it could be a little faster IMO, but considering at the time BTC was released all this was a bit of an unknown, 10 minutes is a safe amount of time and isn't too inconvenient.  That 10 min confirm certainly isn't a deal breaker by any stretch of the imagination for me, nor for most other people.

I guess that the solution presented here solves potential Finney attacks to some degree, but its not a major issue and certainly isn't going to result in people en-mass leaving BTC for VNC just because a "problem" that isn't widespread has been solved.

You need much more than that to dethrone the current king.

10 minutes is a looooooog time to wait at the counter in Starbucks...

You don't have to wait for a confirmation though.  Starbucks can afford to take the $3 hit of 1 in 100,000 transactions being a Finney attack. 

People like to use that argument a lot to justify a ton of "issues" with BTC, and the fact is, you don't need to wait for a confirmation for most day to day transactions.

[Fuserleer]

If you think about it, a Finney attack is akin to counterfeit money, yet will probably be a lot rarer.

Is it a problem, sure it is, just like counterfeit notes, but you don't hear Starbucks or anyone else saying that they aren't going to accept cash anymore because 1 in 2000 notes are counterfeit which they accept mistakenly.  It's a hit they are willing to take, and the same is true here.

[Amph]

Super nodes... sounds heavily centralized.

as long as there is more than one you can't really call it centralized i think, i remember that super nodes, were theorized for resolving the longest chain issue and resolve the 51%, but i could be wrong

[BornBlazed]

doesn't take long too get that first confirmation right? no risk of a double spend if you wait for a single confirm before you can hand over  what the customer purchased? make sure customer is paying highest miner fee too speed up things.

[maokoto]

Although it is nice to have transactions in seconds, I think that this is not a major issue in order to exchange one coin for another, much less when one of the coins is very popular.

10 minutes is ok and much more than what regular banks offer.

[RocketSingh]

http://vanillacoin.net/papers/zerotime.pdf

Not for bitcoin, but for VanillaCoin. This post should go under AltCoin Discussion.

[TPTB_need_war]

Okay I've digested the white paper. I appreciate john-conner providing more details. That was the honorable and helpful action.

Unfortunately afaics, there are elementary attack vectors that he has not addressed in this white paper:

• No cost to being a peer, thus a Sybil attack on nodes in general. The adversary could insert a unlimited nodes if he wants to in order to dominate voting.
• How to squelch DoS attacks on the vote? A node which always votes against consensus can't be distinguished from one voting honestly since lock conflicts result in an indeterminate vote.
• He employs a Bellagio Algorithm to avoid gaming the selection of which nodes to poll for votes, so this removes the reputation weights of Skycoin's consensus, but it doesn't address the spamming of total node count nor the spamming of the lock conflict.
• Nodes are not paid for voting. If they receive bribes from the double-spender, the algorithm has no defense other than it hopes that 50% of the nodes in the network are not on-the-dole.
• Lock request spamming or DoS attacks. Are transaction fees hardcoded for the entire network?? Preset constants are anti-decentralization.

Also this algorithm requires the entire network to see all the transactions which of course won't scale without centralization, so if he is trying to enable real-time microtransactions (1 second confirmations) which could explode transaction volumes up to the 100,000s or more per second then he has a problem. Refer to the GavinCoin fork debate.

[americanpegasus]

TPTB, you are hereby tipped 20 PegasusCoin. 
 
Thank you for your expertise and hard work.

[bl234st]

While everyone is scrambling to buy some ETH I feel like Vanilla coin just became the genuine Bitcoin 2.0. Making perfect what was already great.


History making...

Oh dear!

FWIW, I politely reported the copyright violation (the code being a copy of Bitcoin Core run through an auto-formatter with all the attribution removed) as an issue on the github for the project and john-connor accused me of stalking him and then hid the issue tracker on that github from public view. :-/

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised as it's consistent with the rest of the concerns that resulted in creating this thread-- that there is some ongoing effort to keep that work out of the sunlight.

Oh double dear!!

What does Gordon, AnonyMint, Paul, and others know about synchronicity?


I trust John Conner! 

[nextgencoin]

Okay I've digested the white paper. I appreciate john-conner providing more details. That was the honorable and helpful action.

Unfortunately afaics, there are elementary attack vectors that he has not addressed in this white paper:

• No cost to being a peer, thus a Sybil attack on nodes in general. The adversary could insert a unlimited nodes if he wants to in order to dominate voting.
• How to squelch DoS attacks on the vote? A node which always votes against consensus can't be distinguished from one voting honestly since lock conflicts result in an indeterminate vote.
• He employs a Bellagio Algorithm to avoid gaming the selection of which nodes to poll for votes, so this removes the reputation weights of Skycoin's consensus, but it doesn't address the spamming of total node count nor the spamming of the lock conflict.
• Nodes are not paid for voting. If they receive bribes from the double-spender, the algorithm has no defense other than it hopes that 50% of the nodes in the network are not on-the-dole.
• Lock request spamming or DoS attacks. Are transaction fees hardcoded for the entire network?? Preset constants are anti-decentralization.

Also this algorithm requires the entire network to see all the transactions which of course won't scale without centralization, so if he is trying to enable real-time microtransactions (1 second confirmations) which could explode transaction volumes up to the 100,000s or more per second then he has a problem. Refer to the GavinCoin fork debate.

He's solving Bitcoin problems thought impossible to solve while you are a troll on a forum.....hmmm who to trust.

[r0ach]

Why does nobody use something like proof of burn to defend against sybil attacks?  Because then they would have to create an actual economic system instead of just a consensus mechanism?  We are getting to the point where it's not possible to make any progress in the cryptocurrency space if you don't address consensus & economics at the same time.  People are so desperate to avoid arbitrary variables they end up not creating anything.

[TPTB_need_war]

He's solving Bitcoin problems thought impossible to solve while you are a troll on a forum.....hmmm who to trust.

I respect your right to believe what ever you want to believe, no matter how far removed from reality it may be.

I don't need to brag about who I am, my knowledge, etc.. Have fun.

[TPTB_need_war]

Why does nobody use something like proof of burn to defend against sybil attacks?  Because then they would have to create an actual economic system instead of just a consensus mechanism?  We are getting to the point where it's not possible to make any progress in the cryptocurrency space if you don't address consensus & economics at the same time.  People are so desperate to avoid arbitrary variables they end up not creating anything.

Astute. Agreed.

Well yes but then the problem is I stated in my post on the first page, how do you set the globally consistent level of "burn" (which afaics is just a transaction fee) without centralizing? What motivation would a peer have for participating if the peer must burn his coins to participate in the P2P network?

[patmast3r]

Okay I've digested the white paper. I appreciate john-conner providing more details. That was the honorable and helpful action.

Unfortunately afaics, there are elementary attack vectors that he has not addressed in this white paper:

• No cost to being a peer, thus a Sybil attack on nodes in general. The adversary could insert a unlimited nodes if he wants to in order to dominate voting.
• How to squelch DoS attacks on the vote? A node which always votes against consensus can't be distinguished from one voting honestly since lock conflicts result in an indeterminate vote.
• He employs a Bellagio Algorithm to avoid gaming the selection of which nodes to poll for votes, so this removes the reputation weights of Skycoin's consensus, but it doesn't address the spamming of total node count nor the spamming of the lock conflict.
• Nodes are not paid for voting. If they receive bribes from the double-spender, the algorithm has no defense other than it hopes that 50% of the nodes in the network are not on-the-dole.
• Lock request spamming or DoS attacks. Are transaction fees hardcoded for the entire network?? Preset constants are anti-decentralization.

Also this algorithm requires the entire network to see all the transactions which of course won't scale without centralization, so if he is trying to enable real-time microtransactions (1 second confirmations) which could explode transaction volumes up to the 100,000s or more per second then he has a problem. Refer to the GavinCoin fork debate.

He's solving Bitcoin problems thought impossible to solve while you are a troll on a forum.....hmmm who to trust.

Even if he is a troll his questions make sense and should be answered.

Also I could just always broadcast 2 Locks (Race Attack) and sometimes I'll get lucky (and the merchant unlucky) and other times the merchant will get lucky. It doesn't cost me anything so why not try ? So in the end the merchant should be waiting for the next block either way or am I missing something ? (Serious question not trying to hate)

Is the only thing that seperates peers form super peers that peers aren't reachable and super peers are ? If so I find the naming very odd.

[TPTB_need_war]

(Serious question not trying to hate)

Apologies if I expressed animosity in my postings about VanillaCoin. Such would be counter productive.

I guess I was aggravated that I would investigate and then find not even documentation of the main claimed innovation and vaporware for the claimed anonymity Dark-PP. To his credit, he promptly corrected the deficiency on documentation of the zerotime (but not yet on the Dark-PP) and provided a more detailed white paper.

Perhaps his zerotime algorithm can be rescued somehow, but I don't see how to do it.

For example, even the transaction fee can't be forfeited when there is a lock conflict stalemate, because innocent victims could be attacked by attacking the P2P network with a Sybil attack.

Sybil attacks and game theory have to be considered in great detail when designing any consensus network or even an anonymity network.

john-conner should be aware that I've been working on these short of designs for a long time too.

He is obviously knowledgeable about some research I wasn't. So maybe he has something else up his sleeve, but we don't see it in what he has published thus far.

[monsterer]

Why does nobody use something like proof of burn to defend against sybil attacks?  Because then they would have to create an actual economic system instead of just a consensus mechanism?  We are getting to the point where it's not possible to make any progress in the cryptocurrency space if you don't address consensus & economics at the same time.  People are so desperate to avoid arbitrary variables they end up not creating anything.

I really love the idea of proof of burn to be the only consensus mechanism, but the trouble is, to burn you need to send a transaction, which is itself subject to consensus.

[rnicoll]

Why does nobody use something like proof of burn to defend against sybil attacks?  Because then they would have to create an actual economic system instead of just a consensus mechanism?  We are getting to the point where it's not possible to make any progress in the cryptocurrency space if you don't address consensus & economics at the same time.  People are so desperate to avoid arbitrary variables they end up not creating anything.

So... my node burns coins to give itself credibility, is that the idea? However, what's in it for me, that I'd want to burn currency, a more functional network?

I presume this then gives me "credibility" up to the amount burnt, but if I try a double-spend, I could then still make more than I lose destroying my reputation. Actually, for that matter, how does the network assert I've compromised my credibility?

Potentially feasible, just a lot of questions, and honestly I think we need to stop trying to jam more transactions/faster transactions through a single huge relay network, and focus on side-chains/off-chain transactions for scalability.

[cryptodevil]

Okay I've digested the white paper. I appreciate john-conner providing more details. That was the honorable and helpful action.

Unfortunately afaics, there are elementary attack vectors that he has not addressed in this white paper:

• No cost to being a peer, thus a Sybil attack on nodes in general. The adversary could insert a unlimited nodes if he wants to in order to dominate voting.
• How to squelch DoS attacks on the vote? A node which always votes against consensus can't be distinguished from one voting honestly since lock conflicts result in an indeterminate vote.
• He employs a Bellagio Algorithm to avoid gaming the selection of which nodes to poll for votes, so this removes the reputation weights of Skycoin's consensus, but it doesn't address the spamming of total node count nor the spamming of the lock conflict.
• Nodes are not paid for voting. If they receive bribes from the double-spender, the algorithm has no defense other than it hopes that 50% of the nodes in the network are not on-the-dole.
• Lock request spamming or DoS attacks. Are transaction fees hardcoded for the entire network?? Preset constants are anti-decentralization.

Also this algorithm requires the entire network to see all the transactions which of course won't scale without centralization, so if he is trying to enable real-time microtransactions (1 second confirmations) which could explode transaction volumes up to the 100,000s or more per second then he has a problem. Refer to the GavinCoin fork debate.

He's solving Bitcoin problems thought impossible to solve while you are a troll on a forum.....hmmm who to trust.

Are you claiming the points raised are invalid?

[Nxtblg]

Okay I've digested the white paper. I appreciate john-conner providing more details. That was the honorable and helpful action.

Unfortunately afaics, there are elementary attack vectors that he has not addressed in this white paper:

• No cost to being a peer, thus a Sybil attack on nodes in general. The adversary could insert a unlimited nodes if he wants to in order to dominate voting.
• How to squelch DoS attacks on the vote? A node which always votes against consensus can't be distinguished from one voting honestly since lock conflicts result in an indeterminate vote.
• He employs a Bellagio Algorithm to avoid gaming the selection of which nodes to poll for votes, so this removes the reputation weights of Skycoin's consensus, but it doesn't address the spamming of total node count nor the spamming of the lock conflict.
• Nodes are not paid for voting. If they receive bribes from the double-spender, the algorithm has no defense other than it hopes that 50% of the nodes in the network are not on-the-dole.
• Lock request spamming or DoS attacks. Are transaction fees hardcoded for the entire network?? Preset constants are anti-decentralization.

Also this algorithm requires the entire network to see all the transactions which of course won't scale without centralization, so if he is trying to enable real-time microtransactions (1 second confirmations) which could explode transaction volumes up to the 100,000s or more per second then he has a problem. Refer to the GavinCoin fork debate.

He's solving Bitcoin problems thought impossible to solve while you are a troll on a forum.....hmmm who to trust.

I suggest not scoffing at what he wrote. I'm not a good programmer, so I had to "learn as I go" about the framework of cryptocurrency design by soaking up the posts here. I don't know much, but I do know that failing to take account of Sybil attacks and DDOS attacks means "back to the drawing board." Unlike li'l ol' me, TPTB_need_war really does know what he's doing.

At a very minimum, the flaws he saw demand a detailed rebuttal from john_connor: the more technical, the better. I'm only at the amateur-dabbler level programming-wise, but I've been around the echo-chambers block enough times to no longer believe in the "Galileo trope" - namely:

- Galileo was an innovative genius who was attacked and persecuted by the Establishment.
- X is being attacked and persecuted by the Establishment for his "innovations."
- Therefore, X is a world-changing innovative genius like Galileo!

Formally, this bit-o'-flattery is an instantiation of the fallacy of the undistributed middle.

Myself, I'm taking TPTB_need_war's criticism quite seriously.

[nextgencoin]

Okay I've digested the white paper. I appreciate john-conner providing more details. That was the honorable and helpful action.

Unfortunately afaics, there are elementary attack vectors that he has not addressed in this white paper:

• No cost to being a peer, thus a Sybil attack on nodes in general. The adversary could insert a unlimited nodes if he wants to in order to dominate voting.
• How to squelch DoS attacks on the vote? A node which always votes against consensus can't be distinguished from one voting honestly since lock conflicts result in an indeterminate vote.
• He employs a Bellagio Algorithm to avoid gaming the selection of which nodes to poll for votes, so this removes the reputation weights of Skycoin's consensus, but it doesn't address the spamming of total node count nor the spamming of the lock conflict.
• Nodes are not paid for voting. If they receive bribes from the double-spender, the algorithm has no defense other than it hopes that 50% of the nodes in the network are not on-the-dole.
• Lock request spamming or DoS attacks. Are transaction fees hardcoded for the entire network?? Preset constants are anti-decentralization.

Also this algorithm requires the entire network to see all the transactions which of course won't scale without centralization, so if he is trying to enable real-time microtransactions (1 second confirmations) which could explode transaction volumes up to the 100,000s or more per second then he has a problem. Refer to the GavinCoin fork debate.

He's solving Bitcoin problems thought impossible to solve while you are a troll on a forum.....hmmm who to trust.

I suggest not scoffing at what he wrote. I'm not a good programmer, so I had to "learn as I go" about the framework of cryptocurrency design by soaking up the posts here. I don't know much, but I do know that failing to take account of Sybil attacks and DDOS attacks means "back to the drawing board." Unlike li'l ol' me, TPTB_need_war really does know what he's doing.

At a very minimum, the flaws he saw demand a detailed rebuttal from john_connor: the more technical, the better. I'm only at the amateur-dabbler level programming-wise, but I've been around the echo-chambers block enough times to no longer believe in the "Galileo trope" - namely:

- Galileo was an innovative genius who was attacked and persecuted by the Establishment.
- X is being attacked and persecuted by the Establishment for his "innovations."
- Therefore, X is a world-changing innovative genius like Galileo!

Formally, this bit-o'-flattery is an instantiation of the fallacy of the undistributed middle.

Myself, I'm taking TPTB_need_war's criticism quite seriously.

John Conner already gave a rebuttal to his last erroneous conclusions. Why should he keep having to deal with this troll?

The fact is he has created something, produced a detailed white paper, he has set up a test net and offer a bounty to someone who can break it. Plus he is publishing the code next week. Seriously these guys are trolls, they don't want to know what's true.

[TPTB_need_war]

John Conner already gave a rebuttal to his last erroneous conclusions. Why should he keep having to deal with this troll?

Now nextgencoin will try to take advantage of your ignorance of tech.

john won't respond. period. Forget the rest of the obfuscation he appended to that.

[cryptodevil]

John Conner already gave a rebuttal to his last erroneous conclusions. Why should he keep having to deal with this troll?

Perhaps because JC's 'white paper' is severely lacking in any content which would suitably rebut the points being raised?

Your post history concerning this developer and his coin is becoming shillier by the day and your tactic of repeatedly calling people 'Troll' or their assertions 'FUD', are tiresome. We get it, you want people to idolise JC the way you do, but it isn't going to happen unless and until he can actually satisfy the technical issues related to his claims towards having solved 'zero confirmation' transaction vulnerabilities.

[nextgencoin]

John Conner already gave a rebuttal to his last erroneous conclusions. Why should he keep having to deal with this troll?

Perhaps because JC's 'white paper' is severely lacking in any content which would suitably rebut the points being raised?

Your post history concerning this developer and his coin is becoming shillier by the day and your tactic of repeatedly calling people 'Troll' or their assertions 'FUD', are tiresome. We get it, you want people to idolise JC the way you do, but it isn't going to happen unless and until he can actually satisfy the technical issues related to his claims towards having solved 'zero confirmation' transaction vulnerabilities.

It a brave new world in crypto when a developer can post a white paper, and open source code, a attest net that no one can attack and still they apparently need to defend themselves......guess what they don't...don't like the coin don't buy it.

[cryptodevil]

don't like the coin don't buy it.

Can't explain how it solves the zero-confirmation vulnerabilities? Don't promote it as having solved the zero confirmation vulnerabilities.

[TPTB_need_war]

It a brave new world in crypto when a developer can post a white paper, and open source code, a attest net that no one can attack and still they apparently need to defend themselves......guess what they don't...don't like the coin don't buy it.

Sucks doesn't it when you can't peddle shitcoins any more.

I better not continue posting in the altcoin forums, because then n00bs might actually start investing in the few innovative coins that actually prove their claims beyond any reasonable doubt.

You still don't seem to understand that perhaps the people capable of attacking it won't do it until there is enough value to extract out of attacking it. I already explained several times that $2100 in VNL is not a bounty because after one successfully attacks it, the VNL will very likely decline in value before the person gets paid the bounty and can convert it to BTC. And it is not high enough any way. It will require some resources, time, and skills to work out and launch such an attack. Personally I am not interested.

Also I read today that John has been caught turning the mining off and on, thus the test net is not a unprotected P2P network where the adversary can apply all his potential powers.

All we asked was for him to explain how he would handle Sybil and DoS attacks and then you call us trolls for wanting to have a complete white paper and not Swiss cheese. Perhaps he can solve those issues or he can explain why he believes they are non-issues. Or perhaps he doesn't want to at this time to hide them from his competitors. But again, I don't see solutions to those issues. So I remain unconvinced.

It wasn't personal until you called me a troll.

Real scholars and devs appreciaterequire peer review.

[traumschiff]

Also I read today that John has been caught turning the mining off and on, thus the test net is not a unprotected P2P network where the adversary can apply all his potential powers.

That was the live network, people agreed on it, it was needed for testing purposes. TestNet is untouched since deployed. Either read over stuff properly or don't comment on them at all.

All we asked was for him to explain how he would handle Sybil and DoS attacks

You would probably know by now that John isn't here to answer the question. Jump on IRC (#vanillacoin) or send him a message through BM.

[solid12345]

You still don't seem to understand that the people capable of attacking it won't do it until there is enough value to extract out of attacking it. I already explained several times that $2100 in VNL is not a bounty because after one successfully attacks it, the VNL will very likely decline in value before the person gets paid the bounty and can convert it to BTC. And it is not high enough any way. It will require some resources, time, and skills to work out and launch such an attack. Personally I am not interested.

Sorry but I still don't get this argument. There are several companies that offer $1,000-$5,000 bug and exploit bounties for Bitcoin. However you are under the assumption any bug found in vanillacoin means the coin is permanently dead, which is like saying BTC is dead if I find an exploit. Which btw if someone DOES find a Bitcoin exploit, what incentive is there for them to come forward either when they can profit more of it then reporting it?

[TPTB_need_war]

You still don't seem to understand that the people capable of attacking it won't do it until there is enough value to extract out of attacking it. I already explained several times that $2100 in VNL is not a bounty because after one successfully attacks it, the VNL will very likely decline in value before the person gets paid the bounty and can convert it to BTC. And it is not high enough any way. It will require some resources, time, and skills to work out and launch such an attack. Personally I am not interested.

Sorry but I still don't get this argument. There are several companies that offer $1,000-$5,000 bug and exploit bounties for Bitcoin. However you are under the assumption any bug found in vanillacoin means the coin is permanently dead, which is like saying BTC is dead if I find an exploit. Which btw if someone DOES find a Bitcoin exploit, what incentive is there for them to come forward either when they can profit more of it then reporting it?

Because zerotime is the only feature of the VNL. The Dark-PP stuff isn't even documented so if the dev fails on the zerotime, the market won't trust him on what is not even documented.

And I am just saying that they can't claim that offering a bounty is an evidence of anything.

The only evidence that zerotime is robust and correct, is to submit to peer review and address all reasonable threat models raised. John has written nothing about Sybil and DoS attacks in the context of consensus (which is entirely different than in the context of virtual synchrony for attributes that are mappable to invariant UDP tags such as IP address such as DHT slots). Every P2P dev knows these have to be dealt with.

[Este Nuno]

You still don't seem to understand that the people capable of attacking it won't do it until there is enough value to extract out of attacking it. I already explained several times that $2100 in VNL is not a bounty because after one successfully attacks it, the VNL will very likely decline in value before the person gets paid the bounty and can convert it to BTC. And it is not high enough any way. It will require some resources, time, and skills to work out and launch such an attack. Personally I am not interested.

Sorry but I still don't get this argument. There are several companies that offer $1,000-$5,000 bug and exploit bounties for Bitcoin. However you are under the assumption any bug found in vanillacoin means the coin is permanently dead, which is like saying BTC is dead if I find an exploit. Which btw if someone DOES find a Bitcoin exploit, what incentive is there for them to come forward either when they can profit more of it then reporting it?

Bitcoin doesn't make any exceptional claims that can't be proven by plain old math, networking, and computer science. And for example, say someone did find an exploit in Bitcoin where they could monopolize mining or something, then yeah Bitcoin probably would have a chance of dying.

Also, there are lots of white hats who gladly report bugs that they could profit more from than what they'd get from the reward alone.

[TPTB_need_war]

Also I read today that John has been caught turning the mining off and on, thus the test net is not a unprotected P2P network where the adversary can apply all his potential powers.

That was the live network, people agreed on it, it was needed for testing purposes. TestNet is untouched since deployed. Either read over stuff properly or don't comment on them at all.

All we asked was for him to explain how he would handle Sybil and DoS attacks

You would probably know by now that John isn't here to answer the question. Jump on IRC (#vanillacoin) or send him a message through BM.

I have no obligation. He can come here where I talk to clear the matter or not. Ball is in his court.

John has been caught doing several questionable actions, thus I don't know what he is doing with the testnet. What ever is written is irrelevant, since he has already been caught lying (or exaggerating) about not copying Bitcoin source code.

[TPTB_need_war]

Apologies to harp on this thread, but it would be sneaky if I added this as an edit to a prior post.

Zerotime is a very significant claim. When you make bold claims that have the potential to seriously challenge Bitcoin, you will be held to a higher standard of scholarly proof.

Indeed the necessary proofs can be explained with math, computer science, and networking research.

Einstein said you don't really know something until you can explain it to a n00b.

The only ways I know of to squelch DoS and Sybil attacks are:

• Participant expends resources.
• Participant must have a reputation.
• Participant performance can be measured.

I already stated that I don't know how to do #3 for his proposed lock protocol, because there is no verified correct vote on a lock. Disagreement isn't a verified crime in this protocol.

I already stated that I don't know how to do #1 for his protocol, because transaction fees can't be taken in the lock stalemate case where Sybil attack applies. Others suggested burning resources (I assume the voting nodes) and I responded saying which nodes would participate in voting if they must burn resources? If instead you require every transaction to burn or include a proof-of-work hash or fee, then the innocent spender is penalized by any lock stalemate.

So that leaves us with reputation. But again how do we measure performance in order to assign reputation? And then there are other problems with reputation.

There is a reason that solving the Byzantine Generals Problem remained unsolved until Satoshi invented proof-of-work. The problem is essentially that there is no reference point, because either value is correct and incorrect at the same time (e.g. lock or not lock) because we can't prove the network is reliable.

It is as if John isn't aware of how significant Satoshi's accomplishment was. Or somehow John thinks he has a clever improvement, but hasn't yet proven it to us.

Btw, I think I have a solution of how to achieve zerotime. But I do it an entirely different way and my solution doesn't require all peers to see all transactions, so even if John fixes his, I've still got him beat (assuming my white paper comes together which is not finished yet).

[rnicoll]

Apologies to harp on this thread, but it would be sneaky if I added this as an edit to a prior post.

Zerotime is a very significant claim. When you make bold claims that have the potential to seriously challenge Bitcoin, you will be held to a higher standard of scholarly proof.

On a related note, I'd love to see some of these whitepapers actually submitted to an academic journal for peer review.

Btw, I think I have a solution of how to achieve zerotime. But I do it an entirely different way and my solution doesn't require all peers to see all transactions, so even if John fixes his, I've still got him beat (assuming my white paper comes together which is not finished yet).

Be careful you're not reinventing the Lightning network, which seems the logical conclusion for what a "fixed" version of ZeroTime would look like.

[TPTB_need_war]

Btw, I think I have a solution of how to achieve zerotime. But I do it an entirely different way and my solution doesn't require all peers to see all transactions, so even if John fixes his, I've still got him beat (assuming my white paper comes together which is not finished yet).

Be careful you're not reinventing the Lightning network, which seems the logical conclusion for what a "fixed" version of ZeroTime would look like.

Afair, Lightning network enables channels for sending repetitive transactions to same parties. There is no such restriction in what I am formulating. But again I caution that until I write it all down, I won't satisfy myself that I haven't missed some key detail. Details matter much.

[nextgencoin]

Apologies to harp on this thread, but it would be sneaky if I added this as an edit to a prior post.

Zerotime is a very significant claim. When you make bold claims that have the potential to seriously challenge Bitcoin, you will be held to a higher standard of scholarly proof.

Indeed the necessary proofs can be explained with math, computer science, and networking research.

Einstein said you don't really know something until you can explain it to a n00b.

The only ways I know of to squelch DoS and Sybil attacks are:

• Participant expends resources.
• Participant must have a reputation.
• Participant performance can be measured.

I already stated that I don't know how to do #3 for his proposed lock protocol, because there is no verified correct vote on a lock. Disagreement isn't a verified crime in this protocol.

I already stated that I don't know how to do #1 for his protocol, because transaction fees can't be taken in the lock stalemate case where Sybil attack applies. Others suggested burning resources (I assume the voting nodes) and I responded saying which nodes would participate in voting if they must burn resources? If instead you require every transaction to burn or include a proof-of-work hash or fee, then the innocent spender is penalized by any lock stalemate.

So that leaves us with reputation. But again how do we measure performance in order to assign reputation? And then there are other problems with reputation.

There is a reason that solving the Byzantine Generals Problem remained unsolved until Satoshi invented proof-of-work. The problem is essentially that there is no reference point, because either value is correct and incorrect at the same time (e.g. lock or not lock) because we can't prove the network is reliable.

It is as if John isn't aware of how significant Satoshi's accomplishment was. Or somehow John thinks he has a clever improvement, but hasn't yet proven it to us.

Btw, I think I have a solution of how to achieve zerotime. But I do it an entirely different way and my solution doesn't require all peers to see all transactions, so even if John fixes his, I've still got him beat (assuming my white paper comes together which is not finished yet).

Prove everyone you really aren't scared of Johns Knowledge compared to yours and go on irc, cut and paste this post and the come back and give us his answer. Otherwise you are simply wasting everyone's time..

All that effort to post this, it will take a second to go there and ask....Bulshit is called until you do.

[Fuserleer]

I too have looked at the the paper in more detail as it seems to be a hot topic and I concur TPTB's statements.

It's wide open to various gaming and DoS attack vectors as stated by him.  Mainly due to there being no cost penalty at all for an attacker to perform these malicious activities.  

Some kind of burn would be the simplest fix as suggested in this thread, with compensation of some kind for the nodes whose votes are accepted.

[traumschiff]

Apologies to harp on this thread, but it would be sneaky if I added this as an edit to a prior post.

Zerotime is a very significant claim. When you make bold claims that have the potential to seriously challenge Bitcoin, you will be held to a higher standard of scholarly proof.

Indeed the necessary proofs can be explained with math, computer science, and networking research.

Einstein said you don't really know something until you can explain it to a n00b.

The only ways I know of to squelch DoS and Sybil attacks are:

• Participant expends resources.
• Participant must have a reputation.
• Participant performance can be measured.

I already stated that I don't know how to do #3 for his proposed lock protocol, because there is no verified correct vote on a lock. Disagreement isn't a verified crime in this protocol.

I already stated that I don't know how to do #1 for his protocol, because transaction fees can't be taken in the lock stalemate case where Sybil attack applies. Others suggested burning resources (I assume the voting nodes) and I responded saying which nodes would participate in voting if they must burn resources? If instead you require every transaction to burn or include a proof-of-work hash or fee, then the innocent spender is penalized by any lock stalemate.

So that leaves us with reputation. But again how do we measure performance in order to assign reputation? And then there are other problems with reputation.

There is a reason that solving the Byzantine Generals Problem remained unsolved until Satoshi invented proof-of-work. The problem is essentially that there is no reference point, because either value is correct and incorrect at the same time (e.g. lock or not lock) because we can't prove the network is reliable.

It is as if John isn't aware of how significant Satoshi's accomplishment was. Or somehow John thinks he has a clever improvement, but hasn't yet proven it to us.

Btw, I think I have a solution of how to achieve zerotime. But I do it an entirely different way and my solution doesn't require all peers to see all transactions, so even if John fixes his, I've still got him beat (assuming my white paper comes together which is not finished yet).

Prove everyone you really aren't scared of Johns Knowledge compared to yours and go on irc, cut and paste this post and the come back and give us his answer. Otherwise you are simply wasting everyone's time..

All that effort to post this, it will take a second to go there and ask....Bulshit is called until you do.

Have to agree with this.

You are attacking John's solution while you are 100% sure that he won't post here. Debate him on IRC, in a live manner (this forum isn't suited for a debate) and we can post the irc logs on pastebin.

[monsterer]

Btw, I think I have a solution of how to achieve zerotime. But I do it an entirely different way and my solution doesn't require all peers to see all transactions, so even if John fixes his, I've still got him beat (assuming my white paper comes together which is not finished yet).

I'd like to hear your idea in advance of your paper if you're willing to discuss it?

[nextgencoin]

I too have looked at the the paper in more detail as it seems to be a hot topic and I concur TPTB's statements.

It's wide open to various gaming and DoS attack vectors as stated by him.  Mainly due to there being no cost penalty at all for an attacker to perform these malicious activities.  

Some kind of burn would be the simplest fix as suggested in this thread, with compensation of some kind for the nodes whose votes are accepted.

I would also say the same to you, you're a known person on this forum and have had your own project with focused discussion of your IRC so I ask of you really want to ask these questions to someone who can give a real answer.

https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.freenode.net/#Vanillacoin

If you're reasonable I think he is willing to answer questions you have, it would be great for all of us, investors, Fudders, hyper to get to the bottom of this, cause a lot of accusations are being pointed at zero time and it's a massively important issue. Please take the time as many did with your project to ask questions on IRC. I think it's the fair thing to do. Attacks here at this point are more like slander than genuine efforts to ask the actual person you need to. you suffered the same in your project I should expect you understand how destructive that is.

[Este Nuno]

I too have looked at the the paper in more detail as it seems to be a hot topic and I concur TPTB's statements.

It's wide open to various gaming and DoS attack vectors as stated by him.  Mainly due to there being no cost penalty at all for an attacker to perform these malicious activities. 

Some kind of burn would be the simplest fix as suggested in this thread, with compensation of some kind for the nodes whose votes are accepted.

I would also say the same to you, you're a known person on this forum and have had your own project with focused discussion of your IRC so I ask of you really want to ask these questions to someone who can give a real answer.

https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.freenode.net/#Vanillacoin

If you're reasonable I think he is willing to answer questions you have, it would be great for all of us, investors, Fudders, hyper to get to the bottom of this, cause a lot of accusations are being pointed at zero time and it's a massively important issue. Please take the time as many did with your project to ask questions on IRC. I think it's the fair thing to do. Attacks here at this point are more like slander than genuine efforts to ask the actual person you need to. you suffered the same in your project I should expect you understand how destructive that is.

If he absolutely doesn't want to post here, why don't you ask him to write up a response and post it here on his behalf? You realize that all these people criticizing aren't just some random newbies but people who are all very knowledgeable about cryptocurrency in general and have been involved in it for many years now, right?

[nextgencoin]

And in any case I hope someone steps up to the plate to take on John Conner instead of weak accusations here. This could be a pay-per-view fight!  everyone wants to see this.lol

[nextgencoin]

I too have looked at the the paper in more detail as it seems to be a hot topic and I concur TPTB's statements.

It's wide open to various gaming and DoS attack vectors as stated by him.  Mainly due to there being no cost penalty at all for an attacker to perform these malicious activities. 

Some kind of burn would be the simplest fix as suggested in this thread, with compensation of some kind for the nodes whose votes are accepted.

I would also say the same to you, you're a known person on this forum and have had your own project with focused discussion of your IRC so I ask of you really want to ask these questions to someone who can give a real answer.

https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.freenode.net/#Vanillacoin

If you're reasonable I think he is willing to answer questions you have, it would be great for all of us, investors, Fudders, hyper to get to the bottom of this, cause a lot of accusations are being pointed at zero time and it's a massively important issue. Please take the time as many did with your project to ask questions on IRC. I think it's the fair thing to do. Attacks here at this point are more like slander than genuine efforts to ask the actual person you need to. you suffered the same in your project I should expect you understand how destructive that is.

If he absolutely doesn't want to post here, why don't you ask him to write up a response and post it here on his behalf? You realize that all these people criticizing aren't just some random newbies but people who are all very knowledgeable about cryptocurrency in general and have been involved in it for many years now, right?

This needs a debate, otherwise we will be bouncing around on this forever. And the only ones who can debate are the ones who 'think' they know the problems with zero time...

[Este Nuno]

I too have looked at the the paper in more detail as it seems to be a hot topic and I concur TPTB's statements.

It's wide open to various gaming and DoS attack vectors as stated by him.  Mainly due to there being no cost penalty at all for an attacker to perform these malicious activities. 

Some kind of burn would be the simplest fix as suggested in this thread, with compensation of some kind for the nodes whose votes are accepted.

I would also say the same to you, you're a known person on this forum and have had your own project with focused discussion of your IRC so I ask of you really want to ask these questions to someone who can give a real answer.

https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.freenode.net/#Vanillacoin

If you're reasonable I think he is willing to answer questions you have, it would be great for all of us, investors, Fudders, hyper to get to the bottom of this, cause a lot of accusations are being pointed at zero time and it's a massively important issue. Please take the time as many did with your project to ask questions on IRC. I think it's the fair thing to do. Attacks here at this point are more like slander than genuine efforts to ask the actual person you need to. you suffered the same in your project I should expect you understand how destructive that is.

If he absolutely doesn't want to post here, why don't you ask him to write up a response and post it here on his behalf? You realize that all these people criticizing aren't just some random newbies but people who are all very knowledgeable about cryptocurrency in general and have been involved in it for many years now, right?

This needs a debate, otherwise we will be bouncing around on this forever. And the only ones who can debate are the ones who 'think' they know the problems with zero time...

This is almost the perfect forum for a debate though. IRC not so much imo. Is there any particular reason he won't post here? I'd really like to her his responses personally.

[nextgencoin]

I asked tha very question a few days ago. He simply is tired of FUD and thinks it won't ever stop and that BTT has become a cesspool of FUD etc......plus last accusations was responded to, accusers ignorance was highlighted and still no one stopped.


Something you all forget is he doesn't need to defend his product if he believes it to be safe and awesome. it's actually the accuser than must direct their accusations directly....ie JC couldn't give a shit if you trust or like VNL coin honestly.hahahahaha.


So you're asking someone who doest give a shit what you think to run everywhere asking you what you think.hahahahahahaha

[traumschiff]

I too have looked at the the paper in more detail as it seems to be a hot topic and I concur TPTB's statements.

It's wide open to various gaming and DoS attack vectors as stated by him.  Mainly due to there being no cost penalty at all for an attacker to perform these malicious activities. 

Some kind of burn would be the simplest fix as suggested in this thread, with compensation of some kind for the nodes whose votes are accepted.

I would also say the same to you, you're a known person on this forum and have had your own project with focused discussion of your IRC so I ask of you really want to ask these questions to someone who can give a real answer.

https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.freenode.net/#Vanillacoin

If you're reasonable I think he is willing to answer questions you have, it would be great for all of us, investors, Fudders, hyper to get to the bottom of this, cause a lot of accusations are being pointed at zero time and it's a massively important issue. Please take the time as many did with your project to ask questions on IRC. I think it's the fair thing to do. Attacks here at this point are more like slander than genuine efforts to ask the actual person you need to. you suffered the same in your project I should expect you understand how destructive that is.

If he absolutely doesn't want to post here, why don't you ask him to write up a response and post it here on his behalf? You realize that all these people criticizing aren't just some random newbies but people who are all very knowledgeable about cryptocurrency in general and have been involved in it for many years now, right?

This needs a debate, otherwise we will be bouncing around on this forever. And the only ones who can debate are the ones who 'think' they know the problems with zero time...

This is almost the perfect forum for a debate though. IRC not so much imo. Is there any particular reason he won't post here? I'd really like to her his responses personally.

You really think that for a debate a forum is just as well suited where you have to push reply to write up a comment and push post afterwards while refreshing the page waiting for an answer compared to a live chat client?

 

[TPTB_need_war]

accusers ignorance was highlighted

He is fooling you too. I rather fancy letting him continue to do that to you. Because you called me a troll. And because I have absolutely nothing to gain from expending my time on this. I do hope you call me chickenshit and put your entire networth in VNL.

I will have one parting shot though...in the next post...

[nextgencoin]

accusers ignorance was highlighted

He is fooling you too. I rather fancy letting him continue to do that to you. Because you called me a troll. And because I have absolutely nothing to gain from expending my time on this. I do hope you call me chickenshit and put your entire networth in VNL.

I will have one parting shot though...in the next post...

So you spent a ton of time making these points on here over the last week but you can't click on IRC and ask your question, I'm not calling you chicken shit.....I'm calling you a liar.

[TPTB_need_war]

Btw, I think I have a solution of how to achieve zerotime. But I do it an entirely different way and my solution doesn't require all peers to see all transactions, so even if John fixes his, I've still got him beat (assuming my white paper comes together which is not finished yet).

I'd like to hear your idea in advance of your paper if you're willing to discuss it?

Well if you can offer peer review maybe that can be arranged. I will get back with  you when I am prepared.

Btw, I tried to sleep and suddenly I solved the last remaining snag in my consensus design. I suddenly realized I indeed solved it. And yes mine will be fully proved in a white paper.

Just a few days ago, I solved the holy grail of anonymity:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1049048.msg12127776#msg12127776

It is all over for Bitcoin. Seriously. I will go silent. Next you hear from me will be via white papers.

Good luck.

[Este Nuno]

I too have looked at the the paper in more detail as it seems to be a hot topic and I concur TPTB's statements.

It's wide open to various gaming and DoS attack vectors as stated by him.  Mainly due to there being no cost penalty at all for an attacker to perform these malicious activities. 

Some kind of burn would be the simplest fix as suggested in this thread, with compensation of some kind for the nodes whose votes are accepted.

I would also say the same to you, you're a known person on this forum and have had your own project with focused discussion of your IRC so I ask of you really want to ask these questions to someone who can give a real answer.

https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.freenode.net/#Vanillacoin

If you're reasonable I think he is willing to answer questions you have, it would be great for all of us, investors, Fudders, hyper to get to the bottom of this, cause a lot of accusations are being pointed at zero time and it's a massively important issue. Please take the time as many did with your project to ask questions on IRC. I think it's the fair thing to do. Attacks here at this point are more like slander than genuine efforts to ask the actual person you need to. you suffered the same in your project I should expect you understand how destructive that is.

If he absolutely doesn't want to post here, why don't you ask him to write up a response and post it here on his behalf? You realize that all these people criticizing aren't just some random newbies but people who are all very knowledgeable about cryptocurrency in general and have been involved in it for many years now, right?

This needs a debate, otherwise we will be bouncing around on this forever. And the only ones who can debate are the ones who 'think' they know the problems with zero time...

This is almost the perfect forum for a debate though. IRC not so much imo. Is there any particular reason he won't post here? I'd really like to her his responses personally.

You really think that for a debate a forum is just as well suited where you have to push reply to write up a comment and push post afterwards while refreshing the page waiting for an answer compared to a live chat client?

 

I do yeah. Mainly because you can write out long responses that address each point individually by quoting them. Also you have more time to consider your responses and it's not as emotional as an IRC chat can sometimes be. IRC is alright, but I prefer the long form style on a forum.

[nextgencoin]

Btw, I think I have a solution of how to achieve zerotime. But I do it an entirely different way and my solution doesn't require all peers to see all transactions, so even if John fixes his, I've still got him beat (assuming my white paper comes together which is not finished yet).

I'd like to hear your idea in advance of your paper if you're willing to discuss it?

Well if you can offer peer review maybe that can be arranged. I will get back with  you when I am prepared.

Btw, I tried to sleep and suddenly I solved the last remaining snag in my consensus design. I suddenly realized I indeed solved it. And yes mine will be fully proved in a white paper.

Just a few days ago, I solved the holy grail of anonymity:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1049048.msg12127776#msg12127776

It is all over for Bitcoin. Seriously. I will go silent. Next you hear from me will be via white papers.

Good luck.

Be warned a LOT of people are going to want to FUD anything you do into oblivion....not me, but you made so many enemies I wouldn't expect a smooth ride now.

[TPTB_need_war]

Be warned a LOT of people are going to want to FUD anything you do into oblivion....not me, but you made so many enemies I wouldn't expect a smooth ride now.

Let them FUD Satoshi's white paper. That is how difficult it will be to FUD math proofs with clear and complete explanations covering every possible attack.

[nextgencoin]

Be warned a LOT of people are going to want to FUD anything you do into oblivion....not me, but you made so many enemies I wouldn't expect a smooth ride now.

Let them FUD Satoshi's white paper. That is how difficult it will be to FUD math proofs and clear and complete explanations covering every possible attack.

I looked through you extensive posting on here. you might be legit and have a coin that has value but I also honestly wonder if you are unhinged, your posts are kind of hysterical, emotional and sometimes troubling....I question your mental stability.

[TPTB_need_war]

I am trying to do too much often going 18 hours nonstop day after day, week after week, so perhaps there will be effects from that. You try it sometime. Someone asked me to evaluate VNL. I would have never looked. Once I invest effort, I typically need to follow through. Also since zerotime is a direct competitor to what I am working on, I became very curious to know if he has something better or equivalent.

In any case, you will know when the white papers are released whether I am legit or not. I will go quiet. Good luck again.

[x0rcist]

I am trying to do too much often going 18 hours nonstop day after day, week after week, so perhaps there will be effects from that. You try it sometime. Someone asked me to evaluate VNL. I would have never looked. Once I invest effort, I typically need to follow through. Also since zerotime is a direct competitor to what I am working on, I became very curious to know if he has something better or equivalent.

In any case, you will know when the white papers are released whether I am legit or not. I will go quiet. Good luck again.

So for months you could not solve your own problems regarding the lightning network and after the whitepaper of ZT got released you had a bright moment and it answered all remaining questions? Anyway good luck with your project, every bright mind deserves a place in crypto land and if true i will support it like other groundbreaking coins. Also dont forget to sleep/rest it will kill the brain eventually.

[Fuserleer]

I am trying to do too much often going 18 hours nonstop day after day, week after week, so perhaps there will be effects from that. You try it sometime. Someone asked me to evaluate VNL. I would have never looked. Once I invest effort, I typically need to follow through. Also since zerotime is a direct competitor to what I am working on, I became very curious to know if he has something better or equivalent.

In any case, you will know when the white papers are released whether I am legit or not. I will go quiet. Good luck again.

I know that feeling, I've been going solid on eMunie for 18 hours a day for over 2 years now and trying to keep abreast on everything that could be competition!

Seems like there's going to be a shake up around here soon, if you've solved what you claim it's going to be interesting, plus we're also gearing up to release a lot of our information on how we achieved our "holy grails" too in the next few weeks.

Interesting times ahead

[Fuserleer]

I am trying to do too much often going 18 hours nonstop day after day, week after week, so perhaps there will be effects from that. You try it sometime. Someone asked me to evaluate VNL. I would have never looked. Once I invest effort, I typically need to follow through. Also since zerotime is a direct competitor to what I am working on, I became very curious to know if he has something better or equivalent.

In any case, you will know when the white papers are released whether I am legit or not. I will go quiet. Good luck again.

So for months you could not solve your own problems regarding the lightning network and after the whitepaper of ZT got released you had a bright moment and it answered all remaining questions?

Thats the way the cookie crumbles I've had similar, some issue I've tried to solve over a long period of time, get nowhere. Decide to take a break from it and work on some other stuff instead for a while, then one day you read something/see something thats not even relevant, but it inspires a solution and BAM, problem solved.

[traumschiff]

I am trying to do too much often going 18 hours nonstop day after day, week after week, so perhaps there will be effects from that. You try it sometime. Someone asked me to evaluate VNL. I would have never looked. Once I invest effort, I typically need to follow through. Also since zerotime is a direct competitor to what I am working on, I became very curious to know if he has something better or equivalent.

In any case, you will know when the white papers are released whether I am legit or not. I will go quiet. Good luck again.

So for months you could not solve your own problems regarding the lightning network and after the whitepaper of ZT got released you had a bright moment and it answered all remaining questions?

Thats the way the cookie crumbles I've had similar, some issue I've tried to solve over a long period of time, get nowhere. Decide to take a break from it and work on some other stuff instead for a while, then one day you read something/see something thats not even relevant, but it inspires a solution and BAM, problem solved.

This isn't something that's not relevant to what he tried to code

[TPTB_need_war]

How can you claim to of solved problems when the first is already solved by Vanilla coin. Vanilla coin wallet is anonomous already right? Plus it's plans are to implement anominity too. Just remember if your not done in a couple of months your not first mover in anominity either.

No I see why you attacked and got so upset at Vanilla coin....though it seems it inspired you 'solving' double spend ie you copied.  

I wish VanillaCoin good luck. My confidence is well founded. I haven't copied a thing from them. I've (as AnonyMint) been working on my own stuff for 2.5 years. And there are no similarities whatsoever in our algorithms and methods. And I have stated all my logic over in the altcoin forum as to why they haven't proven theirs can work (and several other long-time experts have agreed with me). And they have released no details whatsoever on their anonymity algorithms. The chance that they discovered what I did on anonymity is about zero. Again I wish them good luck and have no desire to continue any discord with them.

When people follow you to other threads, stalking you, that is indicative of whom is the leader.

[nextgencoin]

How can you claim to of solved problems when the first is already solved by Vanilla coin. Vanilla coin wallet is anonomous already right? Plus it's plans are to implement anominity too. Just remember if your not done in a couple of months your not first mover in anominity either.

No I see why you attacked and got so upset at Vanilla coin....though it seems it inspired you 'solving' double spend ie you copied.  

I wish VanillaCoin good luck. My confidence is well founded. I haven't copied a thing from them. I've (as AnonyMint) been working on my own stuff for 2.5 years. And there are no similarities whatsoever in our algorithms and methods. And I have stated all my logic over in the altcoin forum as to why they haven't proven theirs can work (and several other long-time experts have agreed with me). And they have released no details whatsoever on their anonymity algorithms. The chance that they discovered what I did on anonymity is about zero. Again I wish them good luck and have no desire to continue any discord with them.

When people follow you to other threads, stalking you, that is indicative of whom is the leader.

Actually there was a question in there you failed to answer.

How can you solve a problem that's already been solved?

Bit like Tittie coin saying they invented Bitcoin....

If you succee you will be the second person to solve it......no prizes for second in crypto sadly.

And anominity, you will be like the 10th to do that too....lol


You can't keep saying you solved stuff that's already solved....makes you sound mental.

[TPTB_need_war]

Reliable, complete, and fool-proof anonymity has not be solved yet by any altcoin. Instant 0-conf without double spending has not been solved by any altcoin. These facts will be explained beyond any doubt.

Again I wish you all good luck and good night.

What I see people essentially saying in this thread is that Bitcoin is autonomous. They can get access to it, spend as anonymously as they take the care to obscure their IP address, and use it without any permission or without obtaining any account with some authority. In short, permission-less commerce (do what you like, no big brother with his dick up your ass!). Most of the terms above fall under the "autonomy" umbrella taxonomy.

In my case, I don't have a utility bill matching my current address because I rent. And so I can't comply with the asinine Patriot Act KYC identification requirements that exchanges and financial institutions impose. So no worries, I just go place a buy order on localbitcoins, then go deposit some cash in a local bank and I get the BTC released an hour or so later.

Later as the bankrupted Western governments start to limit more how much money you can get out per day from your ATM account (e.g. Greece is an example of what is coming to every Western nation because they are all broke), then if you are holding crypto-currency you can sidestep these restrictions.

However, do note that Bitcoin is not reliably anonymous (unless you are for example connecting via a unregistered, public WiFi connection) as your IP address can be traced back to your identity (and Tor and I2P don't really stop the national security agencies from tracking your identity on the block chain) and so the authorities will one day in the future be clawing back against you prosecuting you for violating their regulations by using Bitcoin.

This is why I (formerly username AnonyMint since 2013) support the development of altcoins with more robust built in anonymity. Many users will not appreciate the need for this until later when so many Bitcoin users are being busted for past activity all stored on the block chain.

Ease of access, constant availability and low transaction fees are my 3 picks. This is where Bitcoin would beat by far Fiat and this is why Bitcoin will survive and be competitive in the future. My money should be there when I want it and I should be able to spend it when and how I want it.

Autonomy again. Thanks.

[d0om]

Two days and not a single articulate counter argument.

[traumschiff]

@TPTB_need_war full ZeroTime code is up on VNL github and the public release is around the corner. From what John talked about on IRC yesterday, non of the issues pointed out were relevant and everything has a solution in the code even if it's not detailed in the whitepaper.

Keep writing your whitepaper, which you couldn't solve in 2 years while he pushes the full code to the live network.

[statdude]

He replied to some of the accusations in IRC. I pasted the quotes on the VNL forum for those who care. I don't really consider these "basic" questions, but I agree they should have been answered outside IRC. However, I can understand not wanting to hang around Bitcointalk. The VNL forum seems the best medium.

[monsterer]

You guys are aware of Dash's InstantX? Which also 'solved' this problem this problem ages ago (in a strikingly similar way, I might add).

For the record the quotes around 'solved' imply that it isn't at all solved.

[traumschiff]

You guys are aware of Dash's InstantX? Which also 'solved' this problem this problem ages ago (in a strikingly similar way, I might add).

For the record the quotes around 'solved' imply that it isn't at all solved.

Oh, please. Strikingly? Won't even  bother responding.

[monsterer]

Oh, please. Strikingly? Won't even  bother responding.

Fair enough.

For anyone else wondering what I mean by strikingly, here are some excerpts from the dash paper:

In this paper we will introduce the masternode network as observer network, utilising a distributed consensus and locking algorithm “TX locking”

Utilizing this code, we can make a deterministic list of the Masternodes that will act as the authority for the transaction lock. These will be the same nodes across the network and they will vote on the validity of the transaction lock in question

https://www.dashpay.io/instantx/

So, we have the same transaction locking idea, a voting system for the consensus and the idea of different classes of nodes which perform this work.

For the record, instantx has exactly the same problems as zero time - sybil attack. The basic idea is that the cost of impersonating multiple different nodes is cheap / constant and once you have many such nodes at your disposal, the attack costs zero resources.

The only proven solution to sybil attack is POW.

[traumschiff]

Oh, please. Strikingly? Won't even  bother responding.

Fair enough.

For anyone else wondering what I mean by strikingly, here are some excerpts from the dash paper:

In this paper we will introduce the masternode network as observer network, utilising a distributed consensus and locking algorithm “TX locking”

Utilizing this code, we can make a deterministic list of the Masternodes that will act as the authority for the transaction lock. These will be the same nodes across the network and they will vote on the validity of the transaction lock in question

https://www.dashpay.io/instantx/

So, we have the same transaction locking idea, a voting system for the consensus and the idea of different classes of nodes which perform this work.

For the record, instantx has exactly the same problems as zero time - sybil attack. The basic idea is that the cost of impersonating multiple different nodes is cheap / constant and once you have many such nodes at your disposal, the attack costs zero resources.

The only proven solution to sybil attack is POW.

John on sybil attacks regarding ZeroTime: https://talk.vanillacoin.net/topic/193/john-connor-irc-quotes

It may be possible to do it on InstantX, but you won't do it here.

Also please don't compare paid masternodes to random super peers. ZeroTime is fully decentralized.

Please note that the full code is available on GitHub, before trying to act professional and pasting the same attack vector that 10 people did before you (and which obviously John knows about also), do a research. Audit the code and give out your official review.

[monsterer]

John on sybil attacks regarding ZeroTime: https://talk.vanillacoin.net/topic/193/john-connor-irc-quotes

To be honest, this is why I don't go on IRC - these responses are rushed and barely intelligible.

Sybil attacks are not possible. Botes cannot be forged because the top K votes are used.

and then we have

In that sense vote rigging can only prevent ZT confirmations. Not Harm. However the vote rigging odds are < 2%.

So on the one hand he says you cannot rig votes, and then just below he gives a constant probability of rigging, which is what all these systems eventually come down to.

A longer chain can never become valid since the locks remain the blocks will never be accepted.

This implies that transaction locks persist forever, but this is obviously not the case, since RAM is limited.

[patmast3r]

For me it comes down to this:

from the whitepaper

2. Lock Race Attack

In a lock race attack the sender forms two transactions and two locks and
submits one to the merchant and the other to the rest of the network. In this
case the locks will cancel each other out and the transaction MUST wait for
block inclusion before being considered confirmed.

The attack will NOT result in a double spend but it does force the receiver to wait for 1 confirmation. So I don't see how ZT solves anything if I should prob wait for 1 confirmation just to make sure.

If the nodes are being chosen randomly - compared to instantx - then how is this not vulnderable to sybill attacks ? The more nodes I controll the more likely it becomes they are chosen. So I don't think it's random (allthough I don't see any quality assessment in the calculation of the voting score).  

I'm by no stretch an expert so could someone point out what exactly it is I'm missing ? You can hardly expect everyone having questions to go through all the code.

[traumschiff]

John on sybil attacks regarding ZeroTime: https://talk.vanillacoin.net/topic/193/john-connor-irc-quotes

To be honest, this is why I don't go on IRC - these responses are rushed and barely intelligible.

Sybil attacks are not possible. Botes cannot be forged because the top K votes are used.

and then we have

In that sense vote rigging can only prevent ZT confirmations. Not Harm. However the vote rigging odds are < 2%.

So on the one hand he says you cannot rig votes, and then just below he gives a constant probability of rigging, which is what all these systems eventually come down to.

A longer chain can never become valid since the locks remain the blocks will never be accepted.

This implies that transaction locks persist forever, but this is obviously not the case, since RAM is limited.

He states IF anyone could do vote rigging with tons of resources wasted all you could achieve is stopping ZeroTime transactions, thus the system waits for the default 1 confirmation.

What else do you need? There is no incentive to do harm as you can't do harm. Stopping ZT is not a harm scenario just something that is less optimal since our confirmations already take a maximum of 1.5 minutes on avg. People like you heavily misinterpret how a system like this should or could work.

[monsterer]

He states IF anyone could do vote rigging with tons of resources wasted all you could achieve is stopping ZeroTime transactions, thus the system waits for the default 1 confirmation.

What else do you need? There is no incentive to do harm as you can't do harm. Stopping ZT is not a harm scenario just something that is less optimal since our confirmations already take a maximum of 1.5 minutes on avg. People like you heavily misinterpret how a system like this should or could work.

That's the whole point of a sybil attack, in a system where impersonating multiple identities has zero cost (no wasted resources) you can easily have majority bad actors.

Once you have a majority of bad actors, you could easily imagine a scenario in which two different conflicting transaction locks are 'applied' because the majority of bad actors just lie to the rest of the network.

[Este Nuno]

John on sybil attacks regarding ZeroTime: https://talk.vanillacoin.net/topic/193/john-connor-irc-quotes

It may be possible to do it on InstantX, but you won't do it here.

Also please don't compare paid masternodes to random super peers. ZeroTime is fully decentralized.

Please note that the full code is available on GitHub, before trying to act professional and pasting the same attack vector that 10 people did before you (and which obviously John knows about also), do a research. Audit the code and give out your official review.

07:59 <@john-connor-afk> Finny is a offline attack.
08:00 <@john-connor-afk> 6 full block confirmations
08:00 <@john-connor-afk> so at least 20 mins 3.33 x 6
08:02 <@john-connor-afk> finney only applies to PoW coins in reality when you can outhash the network

It would appear that he doesn't understand what a Finney attack is:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/4942/what-is-a-finney-attack

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Double-spending#Finney_attack

[traumschiff]

John on sybil attacks regarding ZeroTime: https://talk.vanillacoin.net/topic/193/john-connor-irc-quotes

It may be possible to do it on InstantX, but you won't do it here.

Also please don't compare paid masternodes to random super peers. ZeroTime is fully decentralized.

Please note that the full code is available on GitHub, before trying to act professional and pasting the same attack vector that 10 people did before you (and which obviously John knows about also), do a research. Audit the code and give out your official review.

07:59 <@john-connor-afk> Finny is a offline attack.
08:00 <@john-connor-afk> 6 full block confirmations
08:00 <@john-connor-afk> so at least 20 mins 3.33 x 6
08:02 <@john-connor-afk> finney only applies to PoW coins in reality when you can outhash the network

It would appear that he doesn't understand what a Finney attack is:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/4942/what-is-a-finney-attack

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Double-spending#Finney_attack

It requires the attacker to be mining and controlling the content of his blocks; however, he can in theory do this with any hashrate, in particular significantly less than 50% of the network hashrate.

66% of our blocks are POS.

Also these sources are...khm..

[monsterer]

What else do you need? There is no incentive to do harm as you can't do harm. Stopping ZT is not a harm scenario just something that is less optimal since our confirmations already take a maximum of 1.5 minutes on avg. People like you heavily misinterpret how a system like this should or could work.

Here is why this doesn't actually hold true:

* As a sybil attacker, I control the majority of nodes, therefore I am able to respond in any way I chose to queries about transaction locks
* So, when I attempt a double spend, the recipient node performs a query to determine lock status, I then am able to respond that the lock is in place
* Once I receive my coins, I submit my own lock whilst simultaneously dropping the fake lock from all my majority nodes memories, such that subsequent lock takes priority and persists from the POV of any other network queries

[traumschiff]

@monsterer can I ask you if you actually checked the code that is uploaded in github?

You heavily underestimate John and keep questioning his developments on a forum where he won't respond to you. Did you or did you not audit the open sourced full ZT code?

Currently you are theory crafting on issues YOU think John has not dealt with.

[monsterer]

@monsterer can I ask you if you actually checked the code that is uploaded in github?

You heavily underestimate John and keep questioning his developments on a forum where he won't respond to you. Did you or did you not audit the open sourced full ZT code?

Currently you are theory crafting on issues YOU think John has not dealt  without reading a single line of the code available.

I have no intention of reading code. Code is, at best, an interpretation of the design. The design is key.

edit: In addition, my intention is only to help people who do not have knowledge about the intricacies of consensus design to understand the problem with a little more clarity.

[traumschiff]

@monsterer can I ask you if you actually checked the code that is uploaded in github?

You heavily underestimate John and keep questioning his developments on a forum where he won't respond to you. Did you or did you not audit the open sourced full ZT code?

Currently you are theory crafting on issues YOU think John has not dealt  without reading a single line of the code available.

I have no intention of reading code. Code is, at best, an interpretation of the design. The design is key.

/thread

Proof is in the code which he will deploy today on the public release. Either break it or review it if you are sure it's a weak design and doesn't need resources. The code is already up, you can start with it.

[traumschiff]

edit: In addition, my intention is only to help people who do not have knowledge about the intricacies of consensus design to understand the problem with a little more clarity.

You are obviously more competent in this than John. Not sure why you didn't build the first proper TCP/UDP network capable of decentralized subsecond transactions. On a sidenote, part of his code is already running in a top 15 crypto since months.

[rnicoll]

edit: In addition, my intention is only to help people who do not have knowledge about the intricacies of consensus design to understand the problem with a little more clarity.

You are obviously more competent in this than John. Not sure why you didn't build the first proper TCP/UDP network capable of decentralized subsecond transactions. On a sidenote, part of his code is already running in a top 15 crypto since months.

I'd hazard a guess at "UDP is a bloody pain to work with, and the advantages are uncertain", but that kind of gives the impression I'm against the idea - actually, I really like the idea of transaction relaying over UDP at least. I wouldn't do what I _believe_ Vanillacoin does and uses UDP without a controlling TCP channel (the whitepaper isn't too clear on that point), to the same node, but as transactions need to arrive quickly, in no specific order, and losing a few to network congestion isn't a crisis, on the face of it, it's a good idea.

[Este Nuno]

John on sybil attacks regarding ZeroTime: https://talk.vanillacoin.net/topic/193/john-connor-irc-quotes

It may be possible to do it on InstantX, but you won't do it here.

Also please don't compare paid masternodes to random super peers. ZeroTime is fully decentralized.

Please note that the full code is available on GitHub, before trying to act professional and pasting the same attack vector that 10 people did before you (and which obviously John knows about also), do a research. Audit the code and give out your official review.

07:59 <@john-connor-afk> Finny is a offline attack.
08:00 <@john-connor-afk> 6 full block confirmations
08:00 <@john-connor-afk> so at least 20 mins 3.33 x 6
08:02 <@john-connor-afk> finney only applies to PoW coins in reality when you can outhash the network

It would appear that he doesn't understand what a Finney attack is:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/4942/what-is-a-finney-attack

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Double-spending#Finney_attack

It requires the attacker to be mining and controlling the content of his blocks; however, he can in theory do this with any hashrate, in particular significantly less than 50% of the network hashrate.

66% of our blocks are POS.

Also these sources are...khm..

A stackexchange answer by noted Bitcoin expert Meni Rosenfeld and the Bitcoin Wiki itself which according to the page history was authored by sgornick(https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2228) are bad sources?

[traumschiff]

ZeroTime released. Wallet version 0.3.2

https://talk.vanillacoin.net/topic/197/version-0-3-2-rc1-alpha-release

Enjoy breaking it if you can.

[Este Nuno]

ZeroTime released. Wallet version 0.3.2

https://talk.vanillacoin.net/topic/197/version-0-3-2-rc1-alpha-release

Enjoy breaking it if you can.

I see there that the bounty is now off the table for breaking zerotime. Any particular reason why? Not planning on attempting it myself, but I would be interested in reading reports from people who try it.

[rnicoll]

I'd hazard a guess at "UDP is a bloody pain to work with, and the advantages are uncertain", but that kind of gives the impression I'm against the idea - actually, I really like the idea of transaction relaying over UDP at least. I wouldn't do what I _believe_ Vanillacoin does and uses UDP without a controlling TCP channel (the whitepaper isn't too clear on that point), to the same node, but as transactions need to arrive quickly, in no specific order, and losing a few to network congestion isn't a crisis, on the face of it, it's a good idea.

Oh, also, you get all the fun of dealing with UDP in NAT environments. Enjoy! I do not miss that at all.

[mrvegad]

Some new input on VNL here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1157409.msg12195905#msg12195905 read from this post and on.

[DanielRo]

Almost every time I'm visiting https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions I'm seeing Double Spend transactions.
Yesterday: https://blockchain.info/address/1Ku7ajZ8wCB9fDQAhfE4WThwkVc37VzWsg?offset=50&filter=0, https://blockchain.info/tx-index/99701355
Today: https://blockchain.info/address/163cTKxPehxPi4nJ3oTHAso6eXWywfYr7N, https://blockchain.info/tx/c0e00b3e484481b449bc7185cde28afe5966de4ae39f09a48aa1d931dafcac55.

It seems that some people are trying hard to get some wrongful coins.