Flaws in LN (Lightning Network).

[DevilOper]

What does treating counterparty-pairs like singular market participants have to do with how a pair of market participants negotiate a channelstate between themselves? We're still talking about solving a 1:1 game. The above sounds like breaking down the Byzantine General's problem into a bunch of Byzantine dudes with inner conflict caused by multiple personality disorder.

You missed completely the point.

If there is no Byzantine General's problem for N=2 Generals - there is no such a problem at all for any N.

Which is not true.

[lightningslotmachine]

What the mistery entity the 'commitment state' is? Where is it kept? Who is responsible and guarantee for it's consistency and actual state?

I steel feel some smell of magic.

If it's such a mystery for you, why don't you just read how it works?

Just read the documentation https://lightning.network/lightning-network-paper.pdf

Come back after you have read and studied those 60 pages carefully and it will all be very clear for you..

[Carlton Banks]

What the mistery entity the 'commitment state' is? Where is it kept? Who is responsible and guarantee for it's consistency and actual state?

I steel feel some smell of magic.

If it's such a mystery for you, why don't you just read how it works?

OT fyi:

Spelling words incorrectly is probably part of the MO for these trolls, a psychological tactic to piss you off further. Many trolls have been doing this on bitcointalk.org for many years (implying they're either conferring on tactics or studying each other's output)

[lightningslotmachine]

OT fyi:

Spelling words incorrectly is probably part of the MO for these trolls, a psychological tactic to piss you off further. Many trolls have been doing this on bitcointalk.org for many years (implying they're either conferring on tactics or studying each other's output)

I see, but why doesn't these trolls get banned? Spreading false information on purpose would result in a ban on most forums.

[Carlton Banks]

It's very difficult to stop them just joining up with another email address.


I think Bitcointalk needs micropayments per post (that cheapen as you rank up), that would go furthest to solving the problem (ironic that this is meta-pertinent to a "Lightning Flaws" thread). That's way OT though.

Original thread on micropayments as an anti-spam/troll mechanism

[DevilOper]

What the mistery entity the 'commitment state' is? Where is it kept? Who is responsible and guarantee for it's consistency and actual state?

I steel feel some smell of magic.

If it's such a mystery for you, why don't you just read how it works?

It IS NOT mystery for me unlike those who use it as holy grail and philosopher's stone to argue anything.

[DevilOper]

Spelling words incorrectly is probably part of the MO for these trolls, a psychological tactic to piss you off further.

Oбычнoe дeлo: дoкoпaтьcя дo гpaммaтичecкoй oшибки, кoгдa нeт дpyгиx apгyмeнтoв.

[HeRetiK]

What does treating counterparty-pairs like singular market participants have to do with how a pair of market participants negotiate a channelstate between themselves? We're still talking about solving a 1:1 game. The above sounds like breaking down the Byzantine General's problem into a bunch of Byzantine dudes with inner conflict caused by multiple personality disorder.

You missed completely the point.

If there is no Byzantine General's problem for N=2 Generals - there is no such a problem at all for any N.

Which is not true.

What's the point in treating any 2 player game through the lens of the Byzantine General's problem though? With the amount of 2 player games available as game-theoretical source of inspiration it seems kinda silly to treat it as a problem that is effectively unsolvable for n = 2.

What the mistery entity the 'commitment state' is? Where is it kept? Who is responsible and guarantee for it's consistency and actual state?

I steel feel some smell of magic.

If it's such a mystery for you, why don't you just read how it works?

It IS NOT mystery for me unlike those who use it as holy grail and philosopher's stone to argue anything.

Why bring it up then?

I see, but why doesn't these trolls get banned? Spreading false information on purpose would result in a ban on most forums.

*why don't these trolls get banned

...sorry

[DevilOper]

What's the point in treating any 2 player game through the lens of the Byzantine General's problem though?

Because it just exists (and moreover, the whole blockchain\crypto-blabla stuff is built around it).

Why bring it up then?

Because so many people use buzzwords like 'cryptography', 'algorithm', etc. in sense of it.

[DooMAD]

Either the commitment state is updated because both parties agree, or it isn't updated because one party doesn't agree.

What the mistery entity the 'commitment state' is? Where is it kept? Who is responsible and guarantee for it's consistency and actual state?

I steel feel some smell of magic.

There is no magic involved.  Both participants know what the current commitment state is because they both have to update it each time.  They are both responsible.  I'm going to attempt this one last time and if you still can't grasp it then I'm afraid there's nothing more I can do to help you.
  

Here are some checkboxes representing the previous and current commitment state.  Both A and B have revoked payments from N-1.  If either party attempted to spend from N-1, the other party could penalise them because B has A's key for N-1 and A has B's key for N-1.  If either party close the channel and broadcast to the blockchain, there is no penalty involved and N is the commitment state which gets broadcast:

N-1)	A: ☒  B: ☒
N)	A: ☑  B: ☑

Then A sends a new transaction which B has not yet accepted.  Because B has not accepted N+1 yet, N is still the current commitment state.  There is no way for A to claim or pretend that B has accepted N+1 because A does not have B's key for N.  They will only have B's key for N if B has given it to A as part of revocation.  If either party close the channel at this stage, there is no penalty involved and N is still the commitment state which gets broadcast to the blockchain:

N-1)	A: ☒  B: ☒
N)	A: ☑  B: ☑
N+1)	A: ☑  B: ☐

If B accepts N+1, they will give A their key for N.  A will also give B their key for N.  This revokes payments from N and N+1 then becomes the new current commitment state.  Neither party can spend from N without being penalised because N has now been revoked.  If either party close the channel at this stage, there is no penalty involved and N+1 is now the commitment state which gets broadcast to the blockchain:

N)	A: ☒  B: ☒
N+1)	A: ☑  B: ☑

If it still doesn't make sense, read it again more slowly.  If that doesn't work, keep reading it until it does make sense.  Or read the whitepaper.  Or read any other website where someone else has explained it.  But there is categorically no magic involved.

[aliashraf]

Monetary system (issuance and transfer of cash) is a social problem with billions of participants involved.

When I pay you by a paper printed note, paper money, you check the authenticity of the bill you receive from me by examining its signature (put it this way) and we are done. But when there is no famous signature, (cryptocurrency problem domain) the whole society is involved and should confirm my balance and your ownership afterwards. There is just one monetary game playable by 2 participants: physical payment of cash over the counters, other scenarios fall in the most sophisticated and sensitive game played in the world ever: monetary systems.

Are we clear? The whole Bitcoin network is trying to solve a single transaction between 2 participants. It is because the 'thing' that is being transferred is a social phenomenon: part of a balance which is the result of a long history of other transactions. [...]

I'm not sure how the above relates to the Byzantine General's problem.

PoW-based-consus is not about "solving a single transaction between 2 participants". It's about deciding on the "correct" transaction if there are multiple conflicting ones, ie. solving the double-spend problem. Money as a social phenomenon has nothing to do with it.

Double spend is solved by PoW based blockchains like Bitcoin with transaction ordering i.e. maintaining the ledger which also includes coinbase transactions (issuance of money), hence a whole monetary system with multiple participants.

No P2P transaction is considered valid unless it is stoned in the ledger and it won't get there if it is double-spend (or violates other network rules) . I maintain that only simple hand-to-hand cash transfers fall into the category of 2 participants monetary problem.

To my understanding the Byzantine General's problem only applies to n > 2 participants

Not really.

The N>2 participants may always be considered as (N-1)! pairs. And a single one-to-many transaction could be split to many one-to-one. Thus, the Byzantine General's problem for N>2 can always be reduced to (N-1)! two-participant's solutions, if one ever existed.

What does treating counterparty-pairs like singular market participants have to do with how a pair of market participants negotiate a channelstate between themselves? We're still talking about solving a 1:1 game. The above sounds like breaking down the Byzantine General's problem into a bunch of Byzantine dudes with inner conflict caused by multiple personality disorder.

It is a reductionist approach to monetary systems which is radically different than bitcoin that uses Byzantine Generals problem/PoW based consensus for modeling/managing them. The question would be: Does it deserve to be considered a legitimate approach comparably useful as bitcoin?

Obviously, using a trusted escrow for securing a single 1:1 cash transfer is possible. So one may suggest a escrow based model/solution for monetary systems (instead of Byzantine/consensus) e.g by stacking up some supplementary techniques to eliminate routing challenges, etc.

Actually, we have banks already as an implementation of such a solution in which central banks act as top level escrows for intra-bank clearance procedures.  

For LN you have bitcoin and htlc as the escrow system. It could be considered an improvement compared to traditional banking, escrows are replaced by a trustworthy decentralized system and it works somehow (if not now, may be in the future, after it becomes matured).

But is it really enough to be more secure than banks? Is it what people really need and would take it as an alternative to their banks? I don't think so.  

Bitcoin's primary incentive to approach monetary system by Byzantine problem model and PoW based consensus solution is NOT security considerations.  It is decentralization and resistance axiom.

Folks who have joined bitcoin recently or have lost their faith in it gradually, have no idea about what resistance axiom is and why it is time for setting money free both from debt/inflation and from censorship/surveillance and state control. Trojans like Vitalik Buterin has gone that far to claim it almost impossible to have a system both decentralized and secure and at the same time with acceptable performance. (Check his ridiculous trilemma shit).

LN won't get mass adopted because security (against compromised banks) is not an urgent priority for people to convince them for transition. And it has roughly, nothing to offer for decentralization and resistance.
On the contrary, routing (you need finding a path to your peer) and liquidity (you need money to deposit/block for every channel) problems  leave no space for decentralization. A lot of literature exist out there discussing centralization implication of LN you are welcome to check them.

So, this is it. We have an alternative approach to p2p electronic cash systems (other than Bitcoin and its Byzantine model) while being a bit more secure than traditional banks (still, less secure than bitcoin) but eventually resembles a similarly centralized hub and spokes topology just like them.

And what's the problem about LN deferring the Byzantine General's problem to the blockchain?

No problem, as long as we are not counting on it as a serious proposal/solution for scaling bitcoin.  It degrades the same bitcoin features that are of vital importance in the specific period of time we live in: decentralization and censorship/surveillance resistance.

[franky1]

4. as for you main question. because there is no community consensus to reject/orphan off them 12 decimal tokens people play within within the channel. person B can edit a node to ignore bolts or pause bolts command list of what suppose to happen at any point. and instead do other things.

I said "be specific".  Saying that person B can "instead do other things" is not specific.  What "things" can they do, franky1?

If this really was an attack vector, where can we download this supposed modified client?  Surely if there was a way to steal peoples' money, detractors of Lightning would be all over that action.  They'd have already proven by now that Lightning wasn't a viable concept.  Why aren't you bringing down LN one node at a time if it's so easy?

il spell it out for you
THERE .. ARE.. MANY.. THINGS
ill also spell this out
there is no supposed modified client... ALL CLIENTS CAN BE MODIFIED
there is no pirate party group that have a downloadable client.
its individuals all with their own variants. in short

YOU MODIFY YOUR OWN CLIENT AND FREE YOURSELF TO DO MANY THINGS because of lack of byzantine generals rule
its not like there is a team that has a download that you can social drama REKT. its all individual clients that play with their nodes in many fancy ways

many have already lost funds/gained funds.. not lost or gained but reported the ability to do so.
maybe now that you have suddenly been motivated by a chance of free money. you might put a critical hat on and try LN and play with it with the attempt to see the flaws.

people are doing game plays that abuse the routing (raiding channels)
people are doing code changes to lock others funds up by not just autopiloting agreements. (blackmail)
they are sending out transactions with different opcodes to sign so they can mess with destinations and inputs
people are setting up multiple channel lines so they can multiply their fees
people are

go play with LN

?me bring down LN one node at at time?
again i point out the flaws but i dont have the lack of morals/ethics to steal other peoples funds. your narrow view of things and people think that if someone say something is wrong they are the kind of people who want to destroy it.  is totally wrong

what i find strange is that you want to promote the hell out of LN but you act like you have never tried it and afraid to try it
how about use the testnet, alter some code.

LN devs know loads of flaws. maybe its time you learned them. instead of sticking with the positive utopia
why do you think the concepts are changing and moving the goal posts.

GO PLAY WITH LN

[cellard]

The problem with LN haters is that they always shit on everything devs do, but don't bring up any solutions to the table, unless they consider bcash a solution? because that would prove they've got the game theory wrong, as they should understand by now that hardfork consensus cannot be reached when a project is actually decentralized, it will always lead to splits. Who gets to decide what end continues being "Bitcoin"? And their scaling model depends on continuously hard forking into bigger blocksizes.

I agree with some of what franky1 says. Obviously using proper peer to peer Bitcoin is not the same security model as LN, however, tell me anything out there that's better in design than LN for small OTC transactions? because all I see is scams. Bcash this, Ethereum that, IOTA this... really?

I wouldn't mind using bitcoin lightning network to get some coke for instance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fb6Xww2P7c

Seems safe enough for the task. Sure, im not trusting LN for any relevant transactions, but I think that's the point of LN. The problem will be when most people cannot afford on-chain transactions because most of the block usage will be LN-transaction filled blocks as LN becomes more mainstream. Can this even be avoided? some argue it's the ways things will go, only the rich will transact on-chain when BTC is the world reserve currency worth millions a coin, everything else will go off-chain.

And with altcoins would be even worse, since centralization happens at layer 0 and is irreversible, so Bitcoin remains the best choice.

[DooMAD]

GO PLAY WITH LN

go play with the internet  
you act like you've never tried the internet  
there are many ways to break the rules and cause people to lose their funds.  the internet isn't perfect and it doesn't solve the Byzantine Generals problem... ALL BROWSERS CAN BE MODIFIED  

lots of people are aware of the flaws and the goalposts are moving.  

the internet isn't utopia
many have already lost funds  
stop promoting the internet
its not the sole solution  

GO PLAY WITH THE INTERNET    


Ugh... I feel like I've killed some of my braincells writing like that.  I honestly don't know how you do it all the time.  Your "arguments" are ridiculous.  I accept that Lightning isn't perfect and I accept that there are ways in which you can lose funds.  I only wish you were actually capable of having a decent enough understanding of LN to explain the genuine flaws (and not the totally made up ones, like the one quoted in the first post in this topic) in a way that wasn't so utterly painful to read.  When real flaws are discovered, people will be hard at work on fixing those flaws.  Until the technology matures, LN is currently just for micropayments and should still be treated as highly experimental.  

No one is saying Lightning is the sole scaling solution right now and no one will be saying it's the sole scaling solution even once it has matured, so I suggest you stop claiming otherwise unless you genuinely want anyone reading this to think that you are a liar (assuming they don't already think that).  

Also, duplicitous much?

you might want to use LN yourself first... but not with the utopian 'i shall follow the rules' and make one payment the way it was intended. but with a 'lets see if i can tinker' mindset.
it will shock you

?me bring down LN one node at at time?
again i point out the flaws but i dont have the lack of morals/ethics to steal other peoples funds. your narrow view of things and people think that if someone say something is wrong they are the kind of people who want to destroy it.  is totally wrong

You tell me I should try to break LN, but you've never attempted it yourself?  Worthless troll.

[franky1]

You tell me I should try to break LN, but you've never attempted it yourself?  Worthless troll.

i dont need to break it or rip people off. i just need to tell an LN dev of an exploit.

anyway
you can spend your own life trying to social distract people informing the flaws to counter your narative that its a service people need and why its worth wasting years waiting for LN instead of getting devs to grow bitcoins network.

but how about concentrate less on these other networks designed to make devs and their private investors behind their salaries returns on their investments. and instead care more about the bitcoin network

the reason i say actually use something. is because you seem more about promoting the positives. than someone that spends time using the thing they want to promote positively.

you need to learn how the routing works to actually understand the scheme quoted in the first post.
you need to learn about byzantine generals to learn about other exploits.
you need to actually use LN to know its limitations, how it functions

but trying to explain to you the faults without you doing the basic understanding of certain things is like trying to explain to a person that ha never driven or seen a car engine why a car wont start.
in other words if you have nevr driven a car and not seen engine. dont get involved in discussions about cars. and dont start insulting people that say cars have flaws. because all your doing is turning a discussion about car faults into a discussion about social dramatising the people talking about it.

again try learning the things. try using the things. and then you will get shocked.
coz so far it just seems all you are learning is PR positive promoting.

either way. your dramatising things and insulting is just distracting the content away from the content...
and just turning things into a kardashian drama over who hates who. rather than a what's wrong with a technology that has caused so much delay, and will cause even more delay due to the flaws. and why we should now re-concentrate efforts on the bitcoin network and just let LN be what it is a separate network that some devs can sort out while bitcoin devs actually start concentrating on bitcoins network again

EG the paid devs that want to say bitcoin cant scale.. let them go play with LN
and those that want bitcoin to be innovative and grow. actually concentrate on making bitcoin grow.

[franky1]

The problem with LN haters is that they always shit on everything devs do, but don't bring up any solutions to the table,

actually i and others have given solutions to problems. even solutions to segwit too.
 but those that see me bringing up flaws or see me offering solutions dont think about the flaw/solution. they just see the hate and then dramatise it into a finger pointing game of social distraction to meander the content away from talking about the flaw..

yea i know. you core positive PR guys that poke the bear. and then quoting when the bear bites, that the bear bit.. is just your ploy. more wasted time talking about social distractions

anyway.
LN is a separate network with flaws. now if anyone cares about bitcoin. start concentrating on bitcoin. not advertising core devs and their features that are made to make investment returns.

we are just waiting time with other networks and social distractions. and less time getting devs to innovate the bitcoin network.
LN wont be ready any time soon. so no need to promote it. put your wasting time to actually trying to innovate the bitcoin network.

[DooMAD]

i dont need to break it or rip people off. i just need to tell an LN dev of an exploit.

Is that before or after you tell them they have to work on solely on-chain stuff to make Bitcoin better?

The problem with LN haters is that they always shit on everything devs do, but don't bring up any solutions to the table,

actually i and others have given solutions to problems. even solutions to segwit too.

Yeah, "4MB for everybody"!  

as for the respect of segwit users.
read my posts
i said open up the 4mb space for BOTH segwit and legacy to coexist and get the optimum 15k plus tx capacity

That's not a "solution".  Try again.  If the Bitcoin network couldn't find consensus for 2MB legacy with SegWit, what makes you think people will jump at the chance to have 4MB legacy with SegWit?  Maybe try saying "learn consensus" without a hint of irony a few more times just to make everyone laugh a little bit harder.

[HeRetiK]

It is a reductionist approach to monetary systems which is radically different than bitcoin that uses Byzantine Generals problem/PoW based consensus for modeling/managing them. The question would be: Does it deserve to be considered a legitimate approach comparably useful as bitcoin?

Now we're talking

Bitcoin's primary incentive to approach monetary system by Byzantine problem model and PoW based consensus solution is NOT security considerations.  It is decentralization and resistance axiom.

Even decentralization is just a means to an end, namely for permissionlessness and network resilience.

I think everyone here can agree that nothing beats on-chain transactions at any of this (including security). As it stands however LN seems to offer a better trade-off than a simple on-chain scaling approach.

Put differently, I think increasing transaction throughput on-chain to the levels that LN could achieve, would come at a higher cost in terms of network resilience and by extension permissionlessness than LN itself. So far I've read nothing that would convince me otherwise (links are welcome).

Solving the Byzantine General's problem for decentralized monetary transfers was just one piece of the puzzle. What to do with the past decisions of our Byzantine friends is the challenge we are currently facing (ie. storing everything on-chain as-is vs delegating transaction sequences and merely storing the end result vs sharding).

il spell it out for you
THERE .. ARE.. MANY.. THINGS

If there are so many things it shouldn't be so hard to provide some references :3

So far these are all I found:

User trying to manually recover from a corrupted payment channel database loses their funds due the out-of-date state triggering the penalty transaction
https://www.trustnodes.com/2018/03/26/lightning-network-user-loses-funds

Users accidentally locking up their funds due to a channel closing bug
https://www.ethnews.com/lightning-network-users-report-losing-bitcoin-due-to-bugs

And... that's it. What else has been reported so far?

[franky1]

That's not a "solution".  Try again.  If the Bitcoin network couldn't find consensus for 2MB legacy with SegWit, what makes you think people will jump at the chance to have 4MB legacy with SegWit?  Maybe try saying "learn consensus" without a hint of irony a few more times just to make everyone laugh a little bit harder.

you already know that the 2mb legacy with segwit was just a ploy. by the same group that just wanted segwitx1. it was always just a bait and switch to try getting the numbers up.. many seen that. hense why UASF was also needed to push segwit through

but letting bitcoins network expand in a efficient byte for byte transaction for transaction is not their roadmap.
because who would want LN if bitcoin could handle the transaction flow for 2015-2020

its why they have the wishy washy hurpa derp code of x4. its why they had to do a hard fork mascaraed as a UASF and then point fingers at another group as the instigators..
its all just social drama just to keep things running along a roadmap that is designed to make investors of devs money. and not to innovate and expand bitcoin byte for byte/transaction for transaction

funny part is segwitx1 only had 40% consensus. but without segwit. devs would not have fulfilled their private investment contracts to get their $$  so had to employ such tactics of UASF and finger pointing. to get it done.

anyway.
all i care about is innovating the bitcoin network. you can point your fingers that i must be another coin lover because im not ass kissing devs all you like.
you can try thinking the only solution is other networks and if i dont like the devs i should play with other coins. but thats just the mindset of people that think the only option is other networks.
if thats your mindset. maybe you should move to the other networks you want people to concentrate and look at so much

[franky1]

anyway back to talking about the flaws. and hopefully no more insulting social distraction attempts.

And... that's it. What else has been reported so far?

look into the opcodes. they even want to rename an opcode to make it visibly shown its a risk(hint. its a risk for one and secondly reintroduces malleability)
look into why factories/watchtowers are being conceived
look into why having just a couple channels aint enough for full random pay anyone
look into how the byzantine generals issue applies
look into the 6degree of kevin bacon plays out
look into the funds of channels and the % of operability the more 'kevin bacons' are involved
the list goes on