NXT :: descendant of Bitcoin - Updated Information

[chanc3r]

1/x or definitely 10? - I just think users will think of an amount like 200, 500, 1000 nxt rather than 1/10 or 1/x, i should have expressed more clearly, I think the user should be able to specify the level of pocket money they need.... aka reserve balance

No, you do not get what I was trying to say. You need TWO fractions of your total amount:

Say you have 1000 NXT for non-instant transactions available.

Now, you want to have 100 NXT for instant transactions available. So, you have only 900 NXT available for non-instant transactions.
But still, you are only allowed to have 1/10 of THESE 100 NXT to spent within the frame of 24 hours.

Replace 100, 10 and 24 with your preferred constants.

As you might see, you cannot have the 900 NXT available for instant refunding. Why? Because you can withdraw them at any time.

Ok got you...
the 100 reserve I understand - this is the pre fund for instant TX
EDIT 2: the 24 hours is arbitrary and the reserve should be held permanently to cover instant TX liability up to that amount until the user cancels the instruction which cannot be done if they are any instant TX not fully confirmed.
EDIT: this is the maximum total liability they can create and they cannot withdraw the reserve balance.
I still don't understand the 1/10 if it were a limit per instant TX as further risk management, its stil arbitrary but I could understand it but I don't get it as a 24hr limit on the reserve - why is this?

[pandaisftw]

Seriously though, this is pretty scary. You can brute force the ENTIRE network at once. It's the equivalent of someone walking though the neighborhood (at high speed) checking every door for a weak lock and methodically steal EVERYTHING from anyone who has the wrong kind of lock.

It would be nice to be able to tie your account to a MAC address if you want to, or to a list of MAC addresses. 2FA might help as well but don't see that as feasible at the core level.

Anyone can run a cracker on anything - that doesn't mean it can be broken.
There is a variation called vanitygen to look for nice account numbers
Tries lots of passwords until it finds one that matches your parameters
I wanted a shorter account number which is the one in my signature so I wrote a script to find me one, 5 digits shorter than my original one.
People can easily write a cracker but will it work ? - read the posts on password length and entropy...
I read the other thread... its juvenile.

I'm sure someone has already calculated the hash for "Peanuts" which is account 11002691385236070570, put any NXT in that account, a bot will see the TX on the block chain and nick the NXT probably.

I've run 10m passwords through NRS to see if I can break it - didn't,  I did do it randomly to see if i could get a password collision.
I could have run a smarter cracker but I didn't see the point its not my job to find people who have used weak passwords.

Since there's no username/password combination, a hacker does not need to target an account to crack it. They can set up a cracker to log into http://localhost:7875/ and start with A, then AA, Then AAA and so on. They can run this cycle continuously. If your password is halfway decent maybe it takes them a couple of years to break it, but since you can't change your secret phrase you are a sitting duck. You can send to a new account once in a while but you lose your "coin age" and have to wait 1440 blocks to forge again every time you do this.

I typed in 'password" and instantly gained access to an account that had a couple hundred NXT there at one point. Who's  NXT indeed.

As chanc3r mentioned, username+password is merely an illusion. Actually, username+password is weaker because the first half of your "pass" is known by everyone. If your password is decent i.e. 35+ chars, I don't think any amount of CPU power (currently) can break it in an economical fashion.

[ChuckOne]

1/x or definitely 10? - I just think users will think of an amount like 200, 500, 1000 nxt rather than 1/10 or 1/x, i should have expressed more clearly, I think the user should be able to specify the level of pocket money they need.... aka reserve balance

No, you do not get what I was trying to say. You need TWO fractions of your total amount:

Say you have 1000 NXT for non-instant transactions available.

Now, you want to have 100 NXT for instant transactions available. So, you have only 900 NXT available for non-instant transactions.
But still, you are only allowed to have 1/10 of THESE 100 NXT to spent within the frame of 24 hours.

Replace 100, 10 and 24 with your preferred constants.

As you might see, you cannot have the 900 NXT available for instant refunding. Why? Because you can withdraw them at any time.

Ok got you...
the 100 reserve I understand - this is the pre fund for instant TX
the 24 hours is arbitrary and the reserve should be held until no instant TX are not confirmed.
EDIT: this is the maximum total liability they can create and they cannot withdraw the reserve balance.
I still don't understand the 1/10 if it were a limit per instant TX as further risk management, its stil arbitrary but I could understand it but I don't get it as a 24hr limit on the reserve - why is this?

If am not completely mistaken, an attack should work like this:

I have 1000 merchants. I want to buy 1000 items, 1 from each merchant. I initiate the trade and pay each of them 1 NXT. My reserve fund is 100. So, if everything goes well, I have 1000 items and paid only 100.

The merchants send me the items as soon as they have the confidence that I can pay and I do not cheat. That confidence is different from merchant to merchant.

1) They send the transactions I send them to the network.
2) They wait for a moment to see what other transactions are coming through.
3) They re-evaluate my reserve fund.

Here kicks the network randomizer in:

A) Some merchants see that I was cheating, so they will cancel the trade and nodes start deleting my transactions for that very account.
B) Some merchants are faster and did not wait for so long. They already sent me the item. They need to be refunded, so they resend the transactions.

---

I see this is not quite secure as it might seems from the beginning. In case merchants of type B trying to refunding them, I could easily abort the refunding process by spamming the network with transactions. I can replay this over and over again.

Is there a way to distinguish merchants from me?

[ChuckOne]

How do I get on the Testnet? I'm running client version 0.8.8 on Linux.

Have a look at here: http://www.nxtcrypto.org/nxt-change-log/nxt-084e-change-log

[Jerical13]

If it is possible to speed up the network, in a resource efficient manor that wasn't out of balance with the purpose for speeding it up I say "Hell Yeah! Do it". If not , there are other options.

To use your words 'Hell Yeah' this is the way I would try to do it... and it is about infrastructure if you consider this to be how NXT works as a whole, but its not about H/W or shouldn't be (other than N/W).

What ever works. <snip...>
Plus this kind of conversation is just interesting.

What do you mean by H/W and N/W ? missed that.

For next computation is not the issue but we cannot do much about data volumes... we can make the communication more efficient by compressing/turning it into binary, but once done then the more transactions you have the more data nodes need to exchange so N/W or network could become an issue. Its not an issue today we don't need nodes with huge pipes but in my experience the way you stop something like this being an issue or costing a lot to fix is to solve it when the system is small.

Also we talk about NXT (singular) and think about 1 node, there is value in thinking of it as a network and a sequence of nodes...

I really don't understand a lot about programing, Does that mean in the future it will take more powerful computers to run the network or just more computers? and if N/W is "network" what is H/W

[ChuckOne]

How do I get on the Testnet? I'm running client version 0.8.8 on Linux.

Have a look at here: http://www.nxtcrypto.org/nxt-change-log/nxt-084e-change-log

Thanks  I tried looking through the change logs but must have skipped that one. Is it possible to run testnet and real NXT at the same time?

Not for the same node. You could ask Jean-Luc.

[chanc3r]

Ok got you...
the 100 reserve I understand - this is the pre fund for instant TX
the 24 hours is arbitrary and the reserve should be held until no instant TX are not confirmed.
EDIT: this is the maximum total liability they can create and they cannot withdraw the reserve balance.
I still don't understand the 1/10 if it were a limit per instant TX as further risk management, its stil arbitrary but I could understand it but I don't get it as a 24hr limit on the reserve - why is this?

If am not completely mistaken, an attack should work like this:

I have 1000 merchants. I want to buy 1000 items, 1 from each merchant. I initiate the trade and pay each of them 1 NXT. My reserve fund is 100. So, if everything goes well, I have 1000 items an only paid 100.

The merchants send me the items as soon as they have the confidence that I can pay and I do not cheat. That confidence is different from merchant to merchant.

1) They send the transactions I send them to the network.
2) They wait for a moment to see what other transactions are coming through.
3) They re-evaluate my reserve fund.

Here kicks the network randomizer in:

A) Some merchants see that I was cheating, so they will cancel the trade and nodes start deleting my transactions for that very account.
B) Some merchants are faster and did not wait for so long. They already sent me the item. They need to be refunded, so they resend the transactions.

---

I see this is not quite secure as it might seems from the beginning. In case merchants of type B trying to refunding them, I could easily abort the refunding process by spamming the network with transactions. I can replay this over and over again.

Is there a way to distinguish merchants from me?

In my thinking there are two balances, - apologies if this is a bit long....

The Reserve Balance which is an amount of NXT you cannot withdraw and you can initiate instant transactions up to that level - this is a permanent reserve until cancelled.

The other balance is the Instant Balance which is updated as soon as an instant transaction is broadcast by a node i.e. 0 confirmations.
This reflects the liability the account has created with an instant transaction.
The node the transaction is broadcast through will have an realtime view of this because it will update the accounts instant balance before broadcasting the tx, all nodes seeing the TX will also update the instant balance for that account.
If the account tries to initiate more TX that would make Instant Balance > Reserve Balance this would create an error.

An attack vector such as you describe would rely on being able to send the TX through a node which had not yet updated its instant balance total for the account in question.

For instant transactions to work I would want to ensure that both accounts had to be connected to a node and both nodes had the same view of the instant transaction balance of the sending account. If the seller is logged into the buyer node then this is a possible edge case attack.

This means that the sellers account can confirm that there are sufficient reserved funds for the instant purchase because it also has a view of the buyers instant balance that it can verify with other nodes - this would be a possible client verification/check  during the purchasing process, the seller NRS node is passive in this process other than providing data to the sellers software client.

Even if the buyer switches nodes, the seller doesn't and the sellers node reconciles the instant balance of the sellers account using normal time line rules.... So unless the buyer can get the seller onto a node that doesn't know the buyers balance or initiate trades with lots of sellers which it knows are connected to nodes which won't get the instant balance update then an attack will fail ( I think)


Once the instant TX is confirmed the liability reduces and the instant balance can be reduced.

[chanc3r]

I really don't understand a lot about programing, Does that mean in the future it will take more powerful computers to run the network or just more computers? and if N/W is "network" what is H/W

Sorry more computers and in particular more network bandwidth but not the stupid hardware growth that you see with bitcoin.

[allwelder]

Found an interesting link. Nxt community became a victim of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringelmann_effect, IMHO.

I shall tell you what is wrong in this community!

If you pay one person 40,000 NXT /month for stealing more nxt and sit on his ass whole day typing crap that get us nowhere, and hard working members getting nothing

what do you think other members will do? Right nothing than waiting to sell out and leave nxt behind

When will it get through to your skull that the 40,000 isn't a community payment?
It's done by a private person, and it's his right.
Or are you denying private persons the right to spend where they want to?

+1

[allwelder]

New iNxt version 1.0.8 in AppStore

Changelog:
New exchange:Cryptsy, Poloniex
Now exchange are sorted for Volume (03/03/14)
App now uses POST instead of GET (more secure)
New API to know if account is forging
Bug fix


Download link:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/inxt/id802351888?l=it&ls=1&mt=8


Donations:
4894174904569783391

Great.
no price of Cryptsy?

[allwelder]

This is largely true, but I am applying how cash is legislated (at least here in the U.S) to crypto and I'm pretty certain that setting up a USD mixing service would be stopped immediately and the proprietors would possibly be prosecuted for violating money laundering laws.

No one is going to care about small transactions. But if there's a way to make large amounts of money untraceable (which is also very very difficult to do with cash as well) using crypto-currency then I can guarantee that powerful forces will put a stop to it or at least make it a very dark and dangerous activity to engage in. I'm not risking my freedom so I can buy a beer with my cell phone.

I think the mixing will be an add on layer on top of the Nxt as the gateways and it can be located in any where. Users can stay away from it if they are afraid because of government's regulations.

agree,
you can choose to use or not ,just your choice.

[mcjavar]

Nxt :: Asset Exchange Test

I have set up a test management tool using Test Pad for the Asset Exchange Testing.

Please check out the thread I´ve created for this purpose.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=507444

I will report all recorded bugs to Jean-Luc.


If you feel it´s usefull what I am doing, I´d be happy to accept some Nxt.

17081684614434671224

[^[GS]^]

How to calculate the deadline through APIs?

In the source (Java):

Code:

...
            lastBlocks.put(account, lastBlock);
            hits.put(account, hit);

            long total = hit.divide(BigInteger.valueOf(lastBlock.getBaseTarget()).multiply(BigInteger.valueOf(effectiveBalance))).longValue();
            long elapsed = Convert.getEpochTime() - lastBlock.getTimestamp();

            deadline = Math.max(total - elapsed, 0);
...

With APIs:

1) http://localhost:7876/nxt?requestType=getState
Get the lastBlock and EffectiveBalance of the Network.
2) http://localhost:7876/nxt?requestType=getBalance&account=ACCOUNT
Get the effectiveBalance of the Account.
2) http://localhost:7876/nxt?requestType=getBlock&block=LASTBLOCK
Get the baseTarget and timestamp of the Block.
3) Formula deadline: ¿?

Any help?

[btc2nxt]

How do I get on the Testnet? I'm running client version 0.8.8 on Linux.

switch to testnet you need to set in nxt.properties:
nxt.isTestnet=true

[btc2nxt]

Level-3 multi-bid-ask match test cases,contain 3 test case

3-1
Purpose:    multi-bidorder VS  multi-ask-order, Level 3
Prereq:   secretphrase,n ask orders(n=2,3,10,100)
Test Data:    bid orders (n=2,3,10,100) ,
 total quantity<,=,> askorder.quantity
price = or > askorder.price
Steps:   1.   at same time place multi bid orders,using multi-secretphrase
2.   verify place bid orders are correct or not
3.   verify balances are ok
4.   verify assets are ok
5.   cancel ask orders,bid orders,recheck balance,asset are ok.

3-2
Purpose:    1k+ bidorders match a ask order, Level 3
Prereq:   secretphrase,a ask order
Test Data:    bid orders (n=1000-10.000) ,
 quantity<,=,> askorder.quantity
price = or > askorder.price
Steps:   1.   at same time place multi bid orders,using multi-secretphrase
2.   verify balances are ok
3.   verify assets are ok
4.   cancel ask order,bid orders,recheck balance,asset are ok.

3-3
Purpose:    1k+ askorders match a bid order, Level 3
Prereq:   secretphrase,a bid order
Test Data:    ask orders (n=1000-10.000) ,
 quantity<,=,> askorder.quantity
price = or > askorder.price
Steps:   1.   at same time place multi ask orders,using multi-secretphrase
2.   verify balances are ok
3.   verify assets are ok
4.   cancel ask order,bid orders,recheck balance,asset are ok.

I don't understand how these test cases work or what the procedure is. Are there instructions available somewhere? I've just gone in and tried to break it and reported any feedback here.

here is 2 simple test cases. you may test using NXT api in NRS,or use other applications(i know wesleyh released one in web,marcus03 released one in Mac and windows)
and of course, you have to ask someone send you testnxt, issue a asset need 1000nxt

Purpose:   Issue Asset- Level 1
Prereq:   secretphrase,balance
Test Data:   balance = {0, <1000, 1000,>1000}
name len(0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,100)
quantity=(-1,0,0.1,1,100,1000,100000000000000000000000)
Steps:   1.   enter secrephrase
2.   enter name
3.   enter quantity
4.   click issue button
5.   verify transaction is correct


Purpose:   place ask order- Level 1
Prereq:   secretphrase,asset id,asset quantity
Test Data:   assetid={other acccount issued asset,i issued asset}
balance = {0, 1, >1}
price(-1,0,1.0,>1)
quantity=(-1,0,0.1, =1, asset.quantity,> asset quantity)
Steps:   1.   enter secrephrase
2.   enter assetid/select a asset
3.   enter quantity
4.   enter price
5.   click place-ask-order
6.   verify transaction is correct or not

[EvilDave]

My 'caught up with 30 pages of this thread' thoughts for today:

Found an interesting link. Nxt community became a victim of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringelmann_effect, IMHO.

Community became a victim of bitching each other up like a bunch of school kids as far as I can see.
I've just plowed thru 30+ pages of whining and bitchery (with far too much eMule in it) and I am not bloody happy.

If this is how we as a community react to delays and setbacks, we might as well go home now.
NXT is a big project. Every big project is going to hit problems, miss deadlines and generally be a pain in the arse for the people who are putting in the work on it.
We need to rise to the challenge and get working on making NXT the best it can be, not getting all butt hurt because we aren't millionaires yet (well, most of us).
Play nice, kids, we are all on roughly the same side.

Committees: good thing.
Thx for the votes, btw, happy to serve. (i'm on Infrastructure....)

Some thoughts on committee basics which don't seem to have covered and perhaps can be aligned across all... I don't remember any of this being stated but below is kind of my expectations - what do you think?

Its not inf stuff but general - how do we demonstrate that we are doing this well and honestly.

Not sure if its been stated 'tenure' - 1 year - all committees? - re-election all at same time with a non-candidate election officer every 12 months.

Election officer for committee should be known 3 months before election is due to take place and start candidacy process.

If a committee member stands down or is inactive (to be agreed) - invite 6th candidate from previous vote to join.

If committee has less than 6 months to election then it can run with 4 members, committee is not quorate with less than 4 members.

No funds to be paid directly to committee members for committee work.

For projects - members can apply/be part of an application but cannot vote on own project or a project they are part of, whether as investor or contributor.

Removal of a committee member requires N-1 votes - i.e. unanimous by all remaining members with a public statement of why.

+1

I was going to suggest that we invite one/both of the Cointropolis guys to act as extra members on the Marketing committee.....but that seems to have ended in tears. Pity, I hated SoL, but they did seem to have some really good input otherwise, loved the Star Trek convention currency idea. Is that still happening ?

Need to wrap this up and get in bed......I'm going to put this semi-random list of priorities here, if we can get this lot done in the next few weeks,we'll have done well:

 Get the White Paper and Audit done.

 Integrate Wesleys client to NRS, audit it, release to a grateful world in a one click package with some form of password security enforcement.

 Figure out our current TPS, make a plan to hit a realistic TPS target that gives close to instant transactions, even if it's not the   promised 1000TPS.

 Get AE up and running, with at least a handful of gateways for other cryptos/Fiat.

 Nodecoin!

 Make a simple payment module for the Web. Get merchants on board, sell/buy stuff with NXT as a first gen currency.

 Think more about marketing. The crypto market is maturing, we need branding to succeed and achieve mass adoption. (I hate to say it....but I think it's true)

 Give EvilDave lots of NXT for being such a nice guy, and to pay for the A'dam conference.

Anything I missed, lets add it to the list.....

[MadCow]

I was going to suggest that we invite one/both of the Cointropolis guys to act as extra members on the Marketing committee.....but that seems to have ended in tears.

+1

NXT really needs the Cointropolis guys .... please stick around!!

[rickyjames]

I've got a lot of catching up to do in this thread, also.  For now, I will say a few things off the top of my head.  

First, we have got to pay more attention to NXT as a 1st generation coin, and call it a coin, without "quotation marks" or apologies.  We need vendors to accept it and people to want it.  NXT cannot be mined and the ability to forge it requires one to buy it on an exchange first.  We have to give people a reason to buy NXT.  That reason cannot be as a stake to forge more NXT because without exception newcomers are dramatically disappointed when they figure out the true numbers that underlie NXT forging. Doge has a fun factor.  NXT has zero fun factor.  It is a frustrating experience all the way thru - getting a client set up and running, dealing with a super long password or losing all your NXT if you don't, realizing you're not going to make anything of true value by forging with small stake quantities, asking yourself what can you do with this coin you just bought....  Repeat:  NXT is frustrating, Doge is fun.  WE MUST LEARN FROM DOGE AND BE FUN.

Second, we have got to identify just what is 2nd generation about this coin that we really truly are going to support.  Mixing/Zerocash anonymity?  Peer to peer AE?  Multisig gateways to other coins?  Transparent forging TF to get high transaction speed?  Multiple blockchains?  Pruning the main blockchain?  BCNext's latest out-of-left-field proposal for instant transactions based on some kind of multiple account?  Jesus, even the guy with the secret plan is proposing new ideas before completely revealing his old ideas.  This gives me a headache and a stomach ache at the same time.  

TF and 1000TPS is what sold me on this coin and is the ONLY feature we have that is above and beyond all Bitcoin clones and even Etherium on the horizon.  I get that 1000TPS would take dev work, but I thought TF was a done deal.  Now it's not?

Third, we have got to pull together as a team and FOCUS.  FOCUS.  FOCUS.  Maybe the funding committees are the start of this.  I hope so.   I would go so far to say that there needs to be yet another committee election, for a leadership committee, one with no money or unspent NXT behind it at all, just the raw power to say "NXT IS GOING TO DO THIS."  and whose members then can stand up on a stage, virtual or real, in front of people and tell them that NXT is on a course to SOMEWHERE.

Maybe I'm just in dictator withdrawal from pushing the election over the goal line.   Maybe sleep will help.  G'nite.

 

[2Kool4Skewl]

I didn't donate to "Songs of Love" because it's ridiculous.  There are millions of children who are sick.  Singing to them will do nothing.  How about trying to cure their illness.

wow, sophisticated thought process 

This is the main reason I didn't donate.

Also, one of the singers was a stripper.  If I had a sick child, I would not want a "former" stripper singing to them.  I'm not going to support that garbage.  They couldn't find a better role model?  Seriously?

That's very judgy of you. Strippers are not the devil, they just dance for money naked. Why are you afraid of the naked female form? And she was a former stripper. Are you saying anyone who ever did anything outside of the box in their life should not be allowed to donate their time to a charity?

Now, I'm judging you.

[mcjavar]

I've got a lot of catching up to do in this thread, also.  For now, I will say a few things off the top of my head. 

First, we have got to pay more attention to NXT as a 1st generation coin, and call it a coin, without parentheses or apologies.  We need vendors to accept it and people to want it.  NXT cannot be mined and the ability to forge it requires one to buy it on an exchange first.  We have to give people a reason to buy NXT.  That reason cannot be as a stake to forge more NXT because without exception newcomers are dramatically disappointed when they figure out the true numbers that underlie NXT forging. Doge has a fun factor.  NXT has zero fun factor.  It is a frustrating experience all the way thru - getting a client set up and running, dealing with a super long password or losing all your NXT if you don't, realizing you're not going to make anything of true value by forging with small stake quantities, asking yourself what can you do with this coin you just bought....  Repeat:  NXT is frustrating, Doge is fun.  WE MUST LEARN FROM DOGE AND BE FUN.

Second, we have got to identify just what is 2nd generation about this coin that we really truly are going to support.  Mixing/Zerocash anonymity?  Peer to peer AE?  Multisig gateways to other coins?  Transparent forging TF to get high transaction speed?  Multiple blockchains?  Pruning the main blockchain?  BCNext's latest out-of-left-field proposal for instant transactions based on some kind of multiple account?  Jesus, even the guy with the secret plan is proposing new ideas before completely revealing his old ideas.  This gives me a headache and a stomach ache at the same time. 

TF and 1000TPS is what sold me on this coin and is the ONLY feature we have that is above and beyond all Bitcoin clones and even Etherium on the horizon.  I get that 1000TPS would take dev work, but I thought TF was a done deal.  Now it's not?

Third, we have got to pull together as a team and FOCUS.  FOCUS.  FOCUS.  Maybe the funding committees are the start of this.  I hope so.   I would go so far to say that there needs to be yet another committee election, for a leadership committee, one with no money or unspent NXT behind it at all, just the raw power to say "NXT IS GOING TO DO THIS."  and whose members then can stand up on a stage, virtual or real, in front of people and tell them that NXT is on a course to SOMEWHERE.

Maybe I'm just in dictator withdrawal from pushing the election over the goal line.   Maybe sleep will help.  G'nite.

 

I believe in dictatorship. Democracy will fail (and fall) in the coming decades. Collective ownership is bullshit, because noone feels responsible for anything. A lot of great ideas are getting thrown in the round every day in this thread, but almost all remain without action. It´s like fartig in a room with full off people and then closing the door and leaving: it´s an interesting experience, but pointless and after a while even disturbing.

I still believe that this project needs a project manager. Look at all the other successfull cryptos: they all have carismatic leaders. A big project like this can´t only rely on a few self-sacrificing people.