Decrits: The 99%+ attack-proof coin

[Etlase2]

Is it necessary that the designated Shareholder for each block be the ONLY one capable of mining it or would it be OK if just a very small group was eligible, perhaps a rolling group with one added and one removed every block?

There are several reasons why selecting 1 SH per TB is important. 1) Reduction of data usage. The less people creating blocks for a specific window means there is less duplication of data. Even if I have a design to make duplicates use as little as data as possible, this small amount is still multiplied by potentially hundreds of thousands of nodes. 2) Determining the correct order of the network is easy. If 10 or 100 people are competing to make the same block, no one can really be very sure how reliable any block is. Therefore they have to wait for later blocks to accept them or whatnot, and transactions are not very secure in the mean time. 3) Depending on how it is set up, having rolling groups would make it less easy to determine when you need to be online, though having groups could make it less likely that any blocks are missed, but this also comes with 2)'s caveat that blocks are not reliable. Part of the nice thing about the Decrits system is that transactions are irreversible within 5-15 seconds.

And SHs are not mining these blocks like proof of stake, they are assigned and only need to create a block and sign it. Nothing more.

Is it necessary that the random ordering be completely unpredictable or dose it merely need to be proportionally distributed so no one individual can monopolize it?  Dose it need to change every cycle between Consensus blocks, or could the same pattern suffice several times in succession provided that Shareholders were equally represented?

No it is not completely necessary that the order be random, but as I mentioned in another post I was planning on using that randomness for some other features. Oh well, I'll find another way.

Or maybe keep the tree intact and just pick a random point within it to begin the traversal from.

What point?

Infact you could possibly do this with ALL the wallet holders and then get everyone in on the action of being a shareholder and validator, but use some secondary factor to weight the validation privilege on stake, say by traversing the tree in steps of a certain amount of coin balance rather then a certain number of account holders.  Now your change of being picked is proportional to balance and your immune to Sybil attack.

Sorry, but screw proof of stake or similar ideas. It has just as many caveats as proof of work except that it *might* use less energy. Decrits is already immune to a sybil attack. And changes like these will make section 4 impossible to implement, and it is a most necessary part of the proposal (though barely described) because it allows the network to adapt to the future and it allows for a peaceful network split in the case of monetary oppression.

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[Etlase2]

Aah, ok.,
I think its insanely improbable, but you can't rule it out completely i guess.

Even if finding the most opportune way to attack is very improbable, the attackers will still be able to check many different outcomes and select the best. This is not good.

But if we continue in theory, the attack is irrelevant because it can be identified long before the attackers would be able to hurt the honest SHs. If Walmart's cartel was controlling a large portion of consensus, everyone would know that Kmart's transaction verification is very slow. Kmart would not be wise to keep something hurting its business a secret.

Since the code that CNPs use to drop TBs is client-side, it could be modified to start being more aware of SHs intentionally dropping valid transactions (perhaps this is something that should be included from the start). Care has to be taken with this though. In the weakest prevention scenario using this type of defense, at the very least Walmart's transactions would start taking longer to approve, and Walmart must start being honest again or it will be in a ridiculous situation.


edit: I mixed up two different attacks there, since there are sort of actually 3 attacks that have been recently discussed and the third is a sort of combination of the other two. It's all starting to run together at this point. Decrits is not weak vs. any of them, though yes a few shenanigans are possible given an entity controls a *very* large portion of consensus. But I don't expect perfection from Decrits, and that is why rather than creating a *crits clone to fix an identified problem, the network could instead adapt, or worst-case split peacefully with each ideal going separate ways. I have some really neat ideas for section 4, but fleshing out 1, 2, and 3 is much more important for now.

[Etlase2]

I think I came up with a cool way to address some of the problems I see with having CNPs drop seemingly valid, but suspicious TBs.

Instead of outright dropping them, honest CNPs will simply delay them significantly. The significance of the delay perhaps depending on the severity of the suspicion. This means that honest CNPs don't even have to be running similar heuristics (this was a worry with dropping TBs, I think it could fracture the CN). During the delay period, the CNP pretends as if this data does not even exist.

I *think* that this can cascade into a brilliant line of defense. If I am right and, for example, 10 SHs in a row attempt to cause the SH before them to get a soft strike, most or all of those 10 SHs will receive soft strikes instead. It requires more thought though. But it's already an idea in my notes with regards to ordinary transactions--holding transactions a CNP believes is either pre- or post-dated because time-honesty is somewhat important to the network, so why not reinforce it.

I believe this will also provide for an easier way to reintegrate from legitimate network splits.

[AnonyMint]

Aah, ok.,
I think its insanely improbable, but you can't rule it out completely i guess.

Where ever there is determinism, there are usually optimizations such as computing things only once and reusing. The key aspect of Bitcoin is that the attack vector can be described mathematically and we know exactly that it is only possible if an attacker controls 51% of the difficulty.

With determinism, we don't know all the optimizations. It is an unknown vulnerability (the worst kind in security) and I doubt it can be entirely characterized.

I suspect it is no where near insanely improbable and closer to insanely probable-- this is the nature of determinism in security.

The brute force attack is flood the system with SHs, which is separate from gaming the non-random hash order. This is why my next comment is focused on fiat purchasing share.

[AnonyMint]

But if we continue in theory, the attack is irrelevant because it can be identified long before the attackers would be able to hurt the honest SHs. If Walmart's cartel was controlling a large portion of consensus, everyone would know that Kmart's transaction verification is very slow. Kmart would not be wise to keep something hurting its business a secret.

I am more fearful of the coming world government (or the regional blocks under an umbrella of cooperation) providing a single currency and taking action only against individuals which refuse to provide their identity on all transactions. Most people agree with this. I don't think there will be consensus to stop it.

Let's stand back and assume that we can't stop the above outcome, rather we must embrace it. So how would we design a better Bitcoin that would be more popular (and more profitable for us) that people would accept more.

If we don't have to assume the government (or the fascist combo with corporations) is going to do evil we don't want, then our attack vulnerability is much decreased.

I now think it is entirely impossible (and undesirable) to create money that is not socialized. For the technical reasons upthread, but also for fundamental theoretical reasons that stored monetary (fungible) capital is the antithesis of knowledge production:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4946&cpage=1#comment-401510
http://www.coolpage.com/commentary/economic/shelby/Demise%20of%20Finance,%20Rise%20of%20Knowledge.html

Society needs an efficient fungible digital currency that the world government can adopt. What is the best design?

If it doesn't have the capacity to be debased by society, it will be destroyed or replaced. Period. Human nature and statism won't change (not since 3000 years).

We protect ourselves individually by innovating knowledge production. Money is not the solution, just as statism is not the solution. They are the aspects of human nature we have to route around with our knowledge production.

[AnonyMint]

What stops someone with fiat from buying Decrits and then buying shares (SHs)?

You can't know when a transaction was in exchange for fiat.

The mining design can't protect you from fiat.

This design is jumping through complex hoops to try to stop that which is natural-- the socialization of money.

The energy efficiency is the key magnificent feature of this design. No need to buy hardware, simply buy some shares and earn a profit. This would be popular.

Bad money drives good money out-of-circulation. Money is supposed to be bad. It is human nature.

You could radically simplify this design and make it popular, if stop trying to end human nature and socialization of money.

Just try to make it as attack proof as Bitcoin, but with advantages. Make it easier to implement.

Then we make it, get rich, and enjoy our lives.

We are not going to fix society-- leave that to a god.

We can continue to innovate knowledge, to uplift mankind. But money ain't it.

Well an efficient digital money will help a lot of people, just don't expect to fix all the ills of money with it.

[AnonyMint]

The energy efficiency is the key magnificent feature of this design. No need to buy hardware, simply buy some shares and earn a profit. This would be popular.

Bad money drives good money out-of-circulation. Money is supposed to be bad. It is human nature.

You could radically simplify this design and make it popular, if stop trying to end human nature and socialization of money.

Could limit SH, then let shares be sold on the market. Yet another reason to buy shares. Yet another demand for the currency and for a rising currency value. SH get the transaction fees, so their value is related to the expected velocity (usefulness as a medium-of-exchange) for the currency. How do or should try we stop users from sending their transactions only to SH which refund the transaction fees, thus driving down the value of SH shares that don't? Hey if they want to refund them to clients of their cartel, that won't always speed up their client's transactions, unless they own 100% of the shares, unlike the vulnerability I identified for Bitcoin cartelization.

Limiting SH, eliminates the overload problem. Every SH gets a turn within a CB.

A cartel could buy up all the SH, but they can also buy up 51% of the difficulty in Bitcoin. The difference is that unless they buy 100%, the transactions still go through (even though delayed by up to one CB).

Some honest people can buy initial shares and vow to always do good. I will be one of them!

I love it! Super easy to implement. Super popular.

Let's make money, compete with Bitcoin, and provide a better digital currency. How could life be any better?

What about minting? How could we improve on Bitcoin in a way that would be more popular or better performant? In a simplified view of the quantity theory of money, the money supply should increase proportional to the velocity. Since we have mandatory transaction fees, we can measure velocity, something Bitcoin can't do.

Also this design would fix the 10 minute delay for transactions in Bitcoin? Because the signing SH for each TB period is known in advance.

(be a realist)

[aaaxn]

The vulnerability is that the hash of all the sigs was being used to generate a random number, but anyone can use a different value for k to create a different signature for the same hash. It's an expensive operation because EC requires a lot of heavy math, but it still offers the last person to sign many options in how to rearrange the network rather than just two.

There are EC systems that have deterministic sigs.

http://ed25519.cr.yp.to/

(...)  Signatures are generated deterministically; key generation consumes new randomness but new signatures do not. (...)

[Etlase2]

There are EC systems that have deterministic sigs.

http://ed25519.cr.yp.to/

(...)  Signatures are generated deterministically; key generation consumes new randomness but new signatures do not. (...)

This is what happens when you spend 2 years and thousands of hours and tons of notes. You forget a lot of stuff. Ed25519 was already slotted as my most likely choice some time ago because of the improved side channel attacks and faster batch verification (I also designed a way to "pulse" the network to make that verification useful).

Anyways, because I have ideas that will make multiple different DSAs part of the system, and easily, this is still a problem from the standpoint of not requiring SHs to use Ed25519.

However, I already fixed that problem too if I still need the randomness reusing an idea I had for something else.

[mobodick]

But if we continue in theory, the attack is irrelevant because it can be identified long before the attackers would be able to hurt the honest SHs. If Walmart's cartel was controlling a large portion of consensus, everyone would know that Kmart's transaction verification is very slow. Kmart would not be wise to keep something hurting its business a secret.

Let's stand back and assume that we can't stop the above outcome, rather we must embrace it. So how would we design a better Bitcoin that would be more popular (and more profitable for us) that people would accept more.

If we don't have to assume the government (or the fascist combo with corporations) is going to do evil we don't want, then our attack vulnerability is much decreased.

I now think it is entirely impossible (and undesirable) to create money that is not socialized. For the technical reasons upthread, but also for fundamental theoretical reasons that stored monetary (fungible) capital is the antithesis of knowledge production:

The requirements for normal people are very basic.
-widespread in use
-practical (ease of use, technical requirements)
-cheap in use (transaction costs, energy costs)
-safe from hackers/criminals
-stable value

The problem is that i don't think an autonomous distributed system can easily satisfy all of these.
Particularily safety and practicality are at extremes. If you add safety you lose practicality because everyone needs to participate in the safety. An increase in practicality usually reduces safety.
In bitcoin the safety is built into the blockchain which makes it impractical for normal people nd every day use.

So i think that in all cases a bigger party that centralizes parts of the system will be the clear winner in the publics eyes.
Even worse, people will tend to trust large institutions much more than a grass root (astro turf?) currency.

So you really need a strong incentive for people to switch. One of the biggest hurdles for switching will be availibility of goods payable with the new currency.
Even with a (modest) incentive to flee fiat people will still hesitate if the new currency cannot provide food and other basics.
So maybe the new currency needs to be linked to some goods that allow people to at least buy the basics with the currency from the start. I dunno, something like a currency backed by bread maybe.

In any case, the general public will need very good reasons to turn their back on the system that gave them their house and their job etc.
The new currency should be able to cope with people that are rejected by the system so it needs to cater to poor people that have little access to services.
People that have it good won't need a revolutionary currency so the costs of using the system need to be as low as possible.

[AnonyMint]

One of the big advantages over Paypal and credit cards, is that anyone can become a recipient instantly, and in any country.

But none of that matters too much at that beginning, because nearly the only people interested are the speculators, as is the case with Bitcoin. Stable value is not what you want, as there would be no interest.

There is no safety problem as long as people guard their private keys.

Bitcoin's biggest weaknesses are:

- transactions take 10 minutes or more
- investing to mine for coins or tx fees requires a lot of hassle and technical knowledge about ASICs, etc
- a cartel could control it with only 51% of mining difficulty
- it wastes energy (but who cares)

As far as I can see, this consensus CB idea solves the above weaknesses.

What is to not prefer about it over Bitcoin?

[Etlase2]

- it wastes energy (but who cares)

It's a pretty significant weakness vs. a currency that doesn't. Of course bitcoin proponents compare it to fiat's energy use, leaving out the possibility of a non-PoW competitor.

As far as I can see, this consensus CB idea solves the above weaknesses.

What is to not prefer about it over Bitcoin?

Several thousand nerds will *not* become (b/m)illionaires for doing essentially nothing.

I think I could significantly boost the capacity to implement, if I can be convinced we have the correct design.

How close are you to being convinced now?

[mobodick]

- it wastes energy (but who cares)

It's a pretty significant weakness vs. a currency that doesn't. Of course bitcoin proponents compare it to fiat's energy use, leaving out the possibility of a non-PoW competitor.

Also, its pretty difficult to compare the energy profile of fiat to bitcoin. They have differnet demands for different parts of the process. Energy costs scale differently.

[clicksmoney]

When does this launch? 

[pascal257]

This should get way more attention than these random altcoins popping up each day.

[zerodrama]

That helps the business, it helps the cryptocurrency, and it stimulates the overall economy. Its a win-win-win, thats what Im trying to explain.

It's also something any non-pyramidal cryptocurrency will provide. Will businesses choose the volatile rollercoaster of bitcoin? Or would they prefer something that is stable and immune to fiat inflation? When businesses can hold cryptocurrency without volatility, it will encourage them to find ways to use it outside of fiat, thus expanding the real value of the economy. Immediately cashing back to fiat does not expand this value--it makes for digital hot potatoes.

This is what makes me lose faith in what seems an interesting model.

The most painless system moves fastest.
The fastest system becomes widespread.

You're arguing about functional advantage when memetic advantage is the topic.

Yes, it's unfortunate that businesses trade from BTC to fiat immediately.
But it also makes the new and old BTC using customers able to live their fantasy long enough for it to become a reality.

I find it funny how the detail oriented folks like yourself seem to miss the bigger picture by a mile.

You don't need a perfect system. You just need a comfortable one with a window to the stars. Stargazers of the wild wild loincloth and spear west didn't care about the lack of a spaceship. They just wanted to look up and dream.

[zerodrama]

But if we continue in theory, the attack is irrelevant because it can be identified long before the attackers would be able to hurt the honest SHs. If Walmart's cartel was controlling a large portion of consensus, everyone would know that Kmart's transaction verification is very slow. Kmart would not be wise to keep something hurting its business a secret.

Let's stand back and assume that we can't stop the above outcome, rather we must embrace it. So how would we design a better Bitcoin that would be more popular (and more profitable for us) that people would accept more.

If we don't have to assume the government (or the fascist combo with corporations) is going to do evil we don't want, then our attack vulnerability is much decreased.

I now think it is entirely impossible (and undesirable) to create money that is not socialized. For the technical reasons upthread, but also for fundamental theoretical reasons that stored monetary (fungible) capital is the antithesis of knowledge production:

The requirements for normal people are very basic.
-widespread in use
-practical (ease of use, technical requirements)
-cheap in use (transaction costs, energy costs)
-safe from hackers/criminals
-stable value

The problem is that i don't think an autonomous distributed system can easily satisfy all of these.
Particularily safety and practicality are at extremes. If you add safety you lose practicality because everyone needs to participate in the safety. An increase in practicality usually reduces safety.
In bitcoin the safety is built into the blockchain which makes it impractical for normal people nd every day use.

So i think that in all cases a bigger party that centralizes parts of the system will be the clear winner in the publics eyes.
Even worse, people will tend to trust large institutions much more than a grass root (astro turf?) currency.

So you really need a strong incentive for people to switch. One of the biggest hurdles for switching will be availibility of goods payable with the new currency.
Even with a (modest) incentive to flee fiat people will still hesitate if the new currency cannot provide food and other basics.
So maybe the new currency needs to be linked to some goods that allow people to at least buy the basics with the currency from the start. I dunno, something like a currency backed by bread maybe.

In any case, the general public will need very good reasons to turn their back on the system that gave them their house and their job etc.
The new currency should be able to cope with people that are rejected by the system so it needs to cater to poor people that have little access to services.
People that have it good won't need a revolutionary currency so the costs of using the system need to be as low as possible.

This has to be the most aware post of all time. Nice.

[zerodrama]

Several thousand nerds will *not* become (b/m)illionaires for doing essentially nothing.

I'm done with this model. Good luck.

Researching and providing security to the network is NOT DOING NOTHING.
Is guarding a bank doing nothing?

It's your perceived pride in effort which satisfied the SYSTEM that harrasses you that makes you feel that people keeping hashing machines are doing nothing.
The SYSTEM harrassed you out of a state of of comfort and curiosity which would cover your direct needs for food and shelter.
Then the SYSTEM said it would provide you with said food and shelter.
Then the SYSTEM said you needed to work X hours to get food and shelter.
Later, you found out that X hours leaves no time to get food and shelter.

You complained to SYSTEM and SYSTEM laughed at you for being a noob at extortion.
But you internalized that shame and you project it on anyone that figures out a way to earn something valuable without the self-torture most people accept in their daily lives.

So now you shake your fists at people whom you perceive to be doing nothing.

My case actually is a bit different. I use my careful choices in BTC/LTC/FTC to get ahead and stay ahead. And at the end of the day, I ask, "What can I do that is worth the $20 my hardware earned today?"

Maybe those of us who "do nothing" take the earnings as a payment upfront and contribute because we have some degree of financial security which allows us to think freely.

[Etlase2]

This is what makes me lose faith in what seems an interesting model.

The most painless system moves fastest.
The fastest system becomes widespread.

You're arguing about functional advantage when memetic advantage is the topic.

Bitcoin is the hare. Measuring its success by volatile speculation is like trying to measure the event horizon of a black hole.

Bitcoin is incredibly much less useful than it appears to be. If the Cyprus event had been ongoing while Decrits was at a reasonable level of popularity, there would be no turning back. Bitcoin failed at an amazing opportunity. Again.

If the monetary systems of the world are really heading, or are already at, where we all think they are, then the value of Decrits will vastly outweigh the value of bitcoin. Bitcoin will only be valuable to those that hold bitcoins. And that value won't be much, because everyone and their monkey's uncle is encouraged to create a clone to hope that the same effect happens, even if on a lesser scale. It can be gussied up with a tweak, but it's still the same old shit.

There is little incentive to create a Decrits clone. And the currency will quickly diminish the fears of businesses looking to accept it. The fears of bitcoin only increase as bitcoin is more well-understood.

Yes, it's unfortunate that businesses trade from BTC to fiat immediately.
But it also makes the new and old BTC using customers able to live their fantasy long enough for it to become a reality.

I think you mean, "live their fantasy long enough until they are left holding the bag." Bitcoin's scheme is not in anyway sustainable. It will not make the world a richer place, and it will not reach any of its lofty promises, especially not when there is a competitor like Decrits. It doesn't have to be Decrits, but it will exist, and bitcoin will fall to it.

I find it funny how the detail oriented folks like yourself seem to miss the bigger picture by a mile.

I could quite easily say the same of you.

[zerodrama]

This is what makes me lose faith in what seems an interesting model.

The most painless system moves fastest.
The fastest system becomes widespread.

You're arguing about functional advantage when memetic advantage is the topic.

Bitcoin is the hare. Measuring its success by volatile speculation is like trying to measure the event horizon of a black hole.

Details versus big picture again.

Bitcoin is incredibly much less useful than it appears to be. If the Cyprus event had been ongoing while Decrits was at a reasonable level of popularity, there would be no turning back. Bitcoin failed at an amazing opportunity. Again.

That's not bitcoin's fault. That's failing to build the infrastructure for the fallout. You're trying to force infrastructure on a population that can't even comprehend why Cyprus happened. Lack of education is the culprit not lack of design.

If the monetary systems of the world are really heading, or are already at, where we all think they are, then the value of Decrits will vastly outweigh the value of bitcoin. Bitcoin will only be valuable to those that hold bitcoins. And that value won't be much, because everyone and their monkey's uncle is encouraged to create a clone to hope that the same effect happens, even if on a lesser scale. It can be gussied up with a tweak, but it's still the same old shit.

Bitcoin and even JunkCoin can deal with it. The HUMAN infrastructure is missing. And making it a formal feature of your system will not make it materialize. Design cannot compensate for lack of dedication.

There is little incentive to create a Decrits clone. And the currency will quickly diminish the fears of businesses looking to accept it. The fears of bitcoin only increase as bitcoin is more well-understood.

There is always incentive, both for innovators and thieves.

Yes, it's unfortunate that businesses trade from BTC to fiat immediately.
But it also makes the new and old BTC using customers able to live their fantasy long enough for it to become a reality.

I think you mean, "live their fantasy long enough until they are left holding the bag." Bitcoin's scheme is not in anyway sustainable. It will not make the world a richer place, and it will not reach any of its lofty promises, especially not when there is a competitor like Decrits. It doesn't have to be Decrits, but it will exist, and bitcoin will fall to it.

Decrits is not a competitor. It's a snapshot of a system that is obsessed with one problem. Decrits will fall when the problem evaporates because it will then require unnecessary features to be maintained just for its own sake. It's an awesome fast nuclear submarine which will be decommissioned when the war is over. It's not that it's a bad system, but you could have done better with separate components and a framework to make them work together. Bitcoin has already failed because it only values high price and currency trade and even the businesses around it with some exceptions are just conversions.

Noone holds bitcoins because the feel they have value, but because someone else might want them more. The whole point of altcoins is the HUMAN failure at the center of the currencies not the design.

I find it funny how the detail oriented folks like yourself seem to miss the bigger picture by a mile.

I could quite easily say the same of you.

The old detail vs model debate. Didn't mean to insult here, just noticing a tendency.