Decline in listening hosts

[Gavin Andresen]

...
within a year or so, only people with a dedicated ASIC (costing $1000+) can mine (even fewer people).

And in two years maybe anybody who can afford to buy an asic-mining-space-heater for their house can mine.  And in ten years maybe new houses will come pre-equipped with asic-mining-baseboard-electric-heaters.

Or maybe not.  Nobody knows what is going to happen, which is why I keep repeating BITCOIN IS AN EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS.  If you can't handle uncertainty and the very real possibility that the experiment will fail, then don't get involved (but don't come back whining that you missed out if the experiment turns out to be a huge success).

The thing is that while that the raw hashing power needed to attack the network is growing, the number of miners you need to target by DDOS or otherwise (if you are a malign government wanting to take down Bitcoin) is getting lower by the day!
IMO the 3000 nodes that we currently have seems like an easier target for a well funded attacker than than the prospect of deploying 55,000+ spartan 6 chips to brute-force a 51% attack.

What do you think? Is the chronic decline in hosts a genuine problem for the backbone p2p network?

No, I don't think it is a problem, any more than the relatively small number of "backbone" routers are a problem for the Internet. The bitcoin network is evolving in roughly the direction I expected it would (lots of lightweight clients connecting to a smaller number of heavyweight "backbone" nodes).

All of the incentives are for merchants, exchanges, and big mining pools to accept lots of connections, relay only valid transactions and blocks, and be as DoS-resistant as they can afford. Merchants and exchanges want transactions to be validated quickly, the big mining pools want their payouts to be processed quickly and want their blocks propagated quickly, and they all want to be reliable.  The big exchanges and mining pools have ALREADY implemented DDoS countermeasures because they have ALREADY been attacked. And the network keeps chugging away, processing transactions....

[1714793637]

1714793637

[minorman]

...
within a year or so, only people with a dedicated ASIC (costing $1000+) can mine (even fewer people).

And in two years maybe anybody who can afford to buy an asic-mining-space-heater for their house can mine.  And in ten years maybe new houses will come pre-equipped with asic-mining-baseboard-electric-heaters.

Or maybe not.  Nobody knows what is going to happen, which is why I keep repeating BITCOIN IS AN EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS.  If you can't handle uncertainty and the very real possibility that the experiment will fail, then don't get involved (but don't come back whining that you missed out if the experiment turns out to be a huge success).

The thing is that while that the raw hashing power needed to attack the network is growing, the number of miners you need to target by DDOS or otherwise (if you are a malign government wanting to take down Bitcoin) is getting lower by the day!
IMO the 3000 nodes that we currently have seems like an easier target for a well funded attacker than than the prospect of deploying 55,000+ spartan 6 chips to brute-force a 51% attack.

What do you think? Is the chronic decline in hosts a genuine problem for the backbone p2p network?

No, I don't think it is a problem, any more than the relatively small number of "backbone" routers are a problem for the Internet. The bitcoin network is evolving in roughly the direction I expected it would (lots of lightweight clients connecting to a smaller number of heavyweight "backbone" nodes).

All of the incentives are for merchants, exchanges, and big mining pools to accept lots of connections, relay only valid transactions and blocks, and be as DoS-resistant as they can afford. Merchants and exchanges want transactions to be validated quickly, the big mining pools want their payouts to be processed quickly and want their blocks propagated quickly, and they all want to be reliable.  The big exchanges and mining pools have ALREADY implemented DDoS countermeasures because they have ALREADY been attacked. And the network keeps chugging away, processing transactions....

Thanks Gavin. Nice to know you also think that relatively few ddos-protected backbone nodes can provide a high degree of resistance to attack.
Sure, Bitcoin is an experiment, but some of us really want it to succeed since it has potential to cchange the world in a good way.

[cypherdoc]

blah blah blah

MasterTroll™

I'm not trying to win any popularity contests here.  Obviously.

Trolling in my posts on this thread is actually fairly incidental.  I expect at most a handful of people to contemplate my conjectures.  Mostly I expect pom-pom wavers to do exactly as you'v done.

---

Rah! Rah! Rah!  Bitcoin is awesome and has no possibility of any defects whatsoever.  Keep stacking!

There.  Do you like me better now?

you trolling over here too, tvbcof? 

[tvbcof]

MasterTroll™

I'm not trying to win any popularity contests here.  Obviously.

Trolling in my posts on this thread is actually fairly incidental.  I expect at most a handful of people to contemplate my conjectures.  Mostly I expect pom-pom wavers to do exactly as you'v done.

---

Rah! Rah! Rah!  Bitcoin is awesome and has no possibility of any defects whatsoever.  Keep stacking!

There.  Do you like me better now?

you trolling over here too, tvbcof? 

I like to make friends wherever I go

[ZodiacDragon84]

Thanks for the explanation Gavin. As always, very concise.

[justusranvier]

Thanks Gavin. Nice to know you also think that relatively few ddos-protected backbone nodes can provide a high degree of resistance to attack.
Sure, Bitcoin is an experiment, but some of us really want it to succeed since it has potential to cchange the world in a good way.

I want Bitcoin to change the world too but I don't really understand how insulting the lead developer by implying he doesn't care if the project succeeds or not gets us closer to that goal.

Maybe that is the right approach to take and I'm just not seeing how it's beneficial to the project as a whole so can you explain it to me? I'll be more than happy join in and dump my emotional baggage all over the dev team if you can show me how that will make the project more successful.

[tvbcof]

What do you think? Is the chronic decline in hosts a genuine problem for the backbone p2p network?

No, I don't think it is a problem, any more than the relatively small number of "backbone" routers are a problem for the Internet. The bitcoin network is evolving in roughly the direction I expected it would (lots of lightweight clients connecting to a smaller number of heavyweight "backbone" nodes).

I have a pretty significant difference of opinion here.  I'm sure it sounds paranoid, but I think that there is a more than slight chance that Bitcoin could be attacked by the infrastructure providers.

Before writing this possibility off completely paranoid ravings, remember back to the time when AT&T had no compunction about installing Narus's in spite of it being about as diametrically opposed to our 'principles' as one could get.  Yes, it seems like no big deal now, but that only shows how quickly things drift.  IIRC, the only telecom who resisted was Verizon and it's CEO became the target of interest to the US justice department (making it one of the very few cases that our justice department has taken an interest in any white-collar individual for about 15 years now.)  And, of course, all of the telecoms got blanket immunity for any past wrongdoing, and probably future wrongdoing as well.

Philosophically, I contend that Bitcoin is not much more than an interesting toy if it is not needed to replace other failing monetary solutions.  And if it is, it will be under significant attack and will be again not very useful unless it can withstand the attack.  I will bet money (by dumping BTC) that a 'a smaller number of heavyweight "backbone" nodes' will be much more susceptible to the kinds of attack which will pose a genuine threat.

So, what to do?  Honestly I have concluded that the answer is 'nothing much different'.

Taking some lessons from biology, one can try to kill a starfish by chopping it into 1000 pieces.  The net effect is you end up with 1000 starfish.  Even more impressive to me, one can smash a sponge through a strainer in an attempt to destroy it but it re-forms itself into a similar sponge on the other side.

While highly non-specific, I believe that things like the above mentioned 'outside the box' concepts and constructions are the kinds of models to look at in designing a robust and durable p2p crypto-currency solution.  Certainly Bitcoin has some novel, clever, and powerful concepts to protect it against attack, but it also has some 'tried and true' architectures who's weaknesses I stress about since, as they say, 'a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.'  I think that it is not in the cards to rectify certain of these as a natural evolution of Bitcoin.

I suggest that the prime movers behind Bitcoin development, who I believe share the vision that crypto-currencies are a an empowering and positive thing for humanity, continue on the present course of making the solution as good as they can make it.  If/when a similar solution which has as a goal to address some of of the things which I've mentioned as concerns pops up, I do hope that there will be constructive symbiosis that will serve to strengthen everyone's hand.

[hazek]

Thanks Gavin. Nice to know you also think that relatively few ddos-protected backbone nodes can provide a high degree of resistance to attack.
Sure, Bitcoin is an experiment, but some of us really want it to succeed since it has potential to cchange the world in a good way.

I want Bitcoin to change the world too but I don't really understand how insulting the lead developer by implying he doesn't care if the project succeeds or not gets us closer to that goal.

Maybe that is the right approach to take and I'm just not seeing how it's beneficial to the project as a whole so can you explain it to me? I'll be more than happy join in and dump my emotional baggage all over the dev team if you can show me how that will make the project more successful.

You are falsely presuming trying to succeed == guaranteed success, it doesn't. There are no guarantees in life, Bitcoin is an experiment, thinking about it any other way will get you burned and all that Gavin is trying to do is warn you to stop it and take the appropriate precautions when using an experimental tool so you don't get burned unnecessarily.

I myself think if the total hosts are indeed declining, which I believe they are, this greatly diminishes Bitcoins resilience to central control and to being attacked by the state. The once touted peer to peer resilience similar to that of bittorrent is clearly slowly evaporating as time goes on and it would seem it's only a matter of time when we will have a few super nodes as the sole backbone and an easy target for either control or destruction.

Of course being an easy target doesn't mean it's worth to attack you. Bitcoin is still open source and still completely transparent and so an attack would with a high probability not go unnoticed meaning an attacker would have very little to gain facing the repercussions of their attack if their goal was control, and as long as a single copy of the blockchain is preserved and made freely available somewhere more people can start up a client if the need for defense should arise.

It's all very dynamic and fluid, it's praxiology of the human nature vs the integrity of an algorithm and technological advencment, how will it play out? No one knows.

[Piper67]

Thanks Gavin. Nice to know you also think that relatively few ddos-protected backbone nodes can provide a high degree of resistance to attack.
Sure, Bitcoin is an experiment, but some of us really want it to succeed since it has potential to cchange the world in a good way.

I want Bitcoin to change the world too but I don't really understand how insulting the lead developer by implying he doesn't care if the project succeeds or not gets us closer to that goal.

Maybe that is the right approach to take and I'm just not seeing how it's beneficial to the project as a whole so can you explain it to me? I'll be more than happy join in and dump my emotional baggage all over the dev team if you can show me how that will make the project more successful.

You are falsely presuming trying to succeed == guaranteed success, it doesn't. There are no guarantees in life, Bitcoin is an experiment, thinking about it any other way will get you burned and all that Gavin is trying to do is warn you to stop it and take the appropriate precautions when using an experimental tool so you don't get burned unnecessarily.

I myself think if the total hosts are indeed declining, which I believe they are, this greatly diminishes Bitcoins resilience to central control and to being attacked by the state. The once touted peer to peer resilience similar to that of bittorrent is clearly slowly evaporating as time goes on and it would seem it's only a matter of time when we will have a few super nodes as the sole backbone and an easy target for either control or destruction.

Of course being an easy target doesn't mean it's worth to attack you. Bitcoin is still open source and still completely transparent and so an attack would with a high probability not go unnoticed meaning an attacker would have very little to gain facing the repercussions of their attack if their goal was control, and as long as a single copy of the blockchain is preserved and made freely available somewhere more people can start up a client if the need for defense should arise.

It's all very dynamic and fluid, it's praxiology of the human nature vs the integrity of an algorithm and technological advencment, how it will play out? No one knows.

Nice argument. So how else do we generate incentives for new nodes? I like the baseboard heaters idea 

[hazek]

So how else do we generate incentives for new nodes?

I think we would have a lot more nodes if we had a client that didn't need the whole blockchain and wasn't connecting to a server to get it. Personally I'm running the Satoshi client right now for the sole purpose of adding a node and I will continue to do so until I can afford the space.

[Gavin Andresen]

Sipa has been busy implementing IPv6 support and much better support for running bitcoin as a Tor hidden service. Both of those should help make the network more robust and resistant to attack. If a lot of people decide to run only inside Tor then it will look like even fewer nodes are listening, though.

[tvbcof]

As a related side note...

At some point it will really not be very truthful to refer to Bitcoin as a 'p2p' solution.  It is on a trajectory which makes Bitcoin not much more 'peer to peer' than Visa, PayPal, etc (assuming they have some amount of clustering and redundancy.)

Of course even with the realization of Bitcoin as a 'necessary infrastructure backbone' architecture there will still be (hopefully) a lack of centralized control that we see in other solutions and that is a very good thing.  But it will be decidedly non-P2P so it might be worth thinking about how to shift various text and 'sales pitches' as the time approaches.  Or get beat up about false advertising, and legitimately so.

[imsaguy]

As a related side note...

At some point it will really not be very truthful to refer to Bitcoin as a 'p2p' solution.  It is on a trajectory which makes Bitcoin not much more 'peer to peer' than Visa, PayPal, etc (assuming they have some amount of clustering and redundancy.)

Of course even with the realization of Bitcoin as a 'necessary infrastructure backbone' architecture there will still be (hopefully) a lack of centralized control that we see in other solutions and that is a very good thing.  But it will be decidedly non-P2P so it might be worth thinking about how to shift various text and 'sales pitches' as the time approaches.  Or get beat up about false advertising, and legitimately so.

There's a distinction.  Anyone can run a bitcoin node of they want to, some are just opting to go the lightweight route.

[MoonShadow]

As a related side note...

At some point it will really not be very truthful to refer to Bitcoin as a 'p2p' solution.  It is on a trajectory which makes Bitcoin not much more 'peer to peer' than Visa, PayPal, etc (assuming they have some amount of clustering and redundancy.)

I'm begining to suspect that you do not understand how bitcoin actually works, what decentralization means in the context of economic science, nor what it means to be a 'peer'.

[tvbcof]

As a related side note...

At some point it will really not be very truthful to refer to Bitcoin as a 'p2p' solution.  It is on a trajectory which makes Bitcoin not much more 'peer to peer' than Visa, PayPal, etc (assuming they have some amount of clustering and redundancy.)

I'm begining to suspect that you do not understand how bitcoin actually works, what decentralization means in the context of economic science, nor what it means to be a 'peer'.

When I log on to my Wells-Fargo account to transfer funds, is my computer a 'peer' to Wells's machines?

Until recently I did all my work on a machine which contained an up-to-date block chain and which I owned and controlled fully.  At that time I considered my presence in relationship to other participants in the economy as one of a 'peer', and I interacted with other participants directly (the '2' part) though I did rely on global network infrastructure which I pay a third party to provide.

_This_ is the archietecture which was described in most of the documentation related to Bitcoin, at least at the time I studied it significant.  As importantly, _this_ is one the aspect of Bitcoin which appealed to me the most about the solution.

[imsaguy]

As a related side note...

At some point it will really not be very truthful to refer to Bitcoin as a 'p2p' solution.  It is on a trajectory which makes Bitcoin not much more 'peer to peer' than Visa, PayPal, etc (assuming they have some amount of clustering and redundancy.)

I'm begining to suspect that you do not understand how bitcoin actually works, what decentralization means in the context of economic science, nor what it means to be a 'peer'.

When I log on to my Wells-Fargo account to transfer funds, is my computer a 'peer' to Wells's machines?

Until recently I did all my work on a machine which contained an up-to-date block chain and which I owned and controlled fully.  At that time I considered my presence in relationship to other participants in the economy as one of a 'peer', and I interacted with other participants directly (the '2' part) though I did rely on global network infrastructure which I pay a third party to provide.

_This_ is the archietecture which was described in most of the documentation related to Bitcoin, at least at the time I studied it significant.  As importantly, _this_ is one the aspect of Bitcoin which appealed to me the most about the solution.

and that's how it continues to be.  The people running lightweight clients CHOSE to run them.  Nobody forced them to run the lightweight clients.

[cypherdoc]

As a related side note...

At some point it will really not be very truthful to refer to Bitcoin as a 'p2p' solution.  It is on a trajectory which makes Bitcoin not much more 'peer to peer' than Visa, PayPal, etc (assuming they have some amount of clustering and redundancy.)

I'm begining to suspect that you do not understand how bitcoin actually works, what decentralization means in the context of economic science, nor what it means to be a 'peer'.

no, he doesn't understand it.

[tvbcof]

As a related side note...

At some point it will really not be very truthful to refer to Bitcoin as a 'p2p' solution.  It is on a trajectory which makes Bitcoin not much more 'peer to peer' than Visa, PayPal, etc (assuming they have some amount of clustering and redundancy.)

I'm begining to suspect that you do not understand how bitcoin actually works, what decentralization means in the context of economic science, nor what it means to be a 'peer'.

no, he doesn't understand it.

To paraphrase our dear leader (in US-land and by extension in a lot of the rest of the world...):

  "I'm not interested in playing the game better; I'm interested in changing the rules of the game."

A big difference is that when Obama said it he was utterly and completely full of shit as history has shown.  But anyway, it looks to me like Satoshi also had similar instincts, and also that they were just a little bit to alien conceptually for a lot of folk.  Oh well.

[memvola]

When I log on to my Wells-Fargo account to transfer funds, is my computer a 'peer' to Wells's machines?

Good one...

As long as anyone can join in, it's p2p. Doesn't matter who joins in. Of course you can't know for sure that anyone can join in until there is a critical number of peers present and there is a convincing level of political freedom (apparent conflicts of interest provides this). I don't think it's reasonable to expect it to naturally evolve to a state where it wouldn't be considered p2p.

[DeathAndTaxes]

When I log on to my Wells-Fargo account to transfer funds, is my computer a 'peer' to Wells's machines?

No and if you have to ask something that dumb you likely shouldn't be making proclomaitons.

The very words "log on to my Wells-Fargo account" implies a master-slave relationship.

Your computer isn't joining the banking network.  Your computer is a dumb terminal.  Wells Fargo computer is part of the banking network.  A network you have no hope of EVER becoming a peer.  As such you are utterly beholden to the owners of that network to graciously give you an account, and allow you to make REQUESTS.   That is right, when you "transfer money" you aren't actually doing anything.  You can't do anything because you are an outside to the network.  You (via your dumb terminal browser) is formally asking Wells Fargo for permission, and if Wells Fargo feels like it they will grant your request.  If they don't (because they don't allow that, or you broke a rule, or the govt told them to stop) well then it becomes painfully obvious you aren't a peer and never ever ever will be.

If you can't see the difference with Bitcoin well ... never mind, outside of trolling it is impossible to not see the difference.

Until recently I did all my work on a machine which contained an up-to-date block chain and which I owned and controlled fully.  At that time I considered my presence in relationship to other participants in the economy as one of a 'peer', and I interacted with other participants directly (the '2' part) though I did rely on global network infrastructure which I pay a third party to provide.

_This_ is the archietecture which was described in most of the documentation related to Bitcoin, at least at the time I studied it significant.  As importantly, _this_ is one the aspect of Bitcoin which appealed to me the most about the solution.

There is nothing preventing you from continuing that method of direct connection (unlike in your flawed banking analogy).  Now will the costs to run a node rise?  Maybe.  It is entirely possible that resource demands will grow but slower than Moore's law and as such the cost to you will remain the same (or fall).  Then again maybe you will incur a cost to have direct access to the network.

SO WHAT?

You have the Freedom.  Freedom is the choice.  It doesn't mean you will be given access free of charge.  Many people will choose the ease, convenience, (and potentially lower cost) of having indirect access.  As long as the number of peers remains robust and geo-diverse it isn't necessary for everyone to have direct access. 

Imagine a hypothetical situation where there are 20 million users but only 20,000 full nodes.  Who might make up full nodes?  Merchants, banks, exchanges, service providers, bitcoin enthusiasts, paranoid users, developers, and non-profits.  The fact that less than 0.1% of user's run a full node doesn't diminish the network.  At any point any one of them COULD run a full node.  That is the whole point.