From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from sog-mx-4.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com ([172.29.43.194] helo=mx.sourceforge.net) by sfs-ml-1.v29.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtp (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1VdvkA-00039F-PU for Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Wed, 06 Nov 2013 05:33:30 +0000 X-ACL-Warn: Received: from serv.jerviss.org ([12.47.47.47] helo=inana.jerviss.org) by sog-mx-4.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.76) id 1Vdvk9-00004x-LF for Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Wed, 06 Nov 2013 05:33:30 +0000 Received: from [10.8.2.254] ([192.151.168.109]) (username: kjj authenticated by PLAIN symmetric_key_bits=0) by inana.jerviss.org (8.13.6/8.12.11) with ESMTP id rA65XIFd016524 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Tue, 5 Nov 2013 23:33:23 -0600 Message-ID: <5279D49D.5050807@jerviss.org> Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 23:33:17 -0600 From: kjj User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.2; WOW64; rv:25.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.22 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Received-SPF: pass (inana.jerviss.org: 192.151.168.109 is authenticated by a trusted mechanism) X-Spam-Score: -1.5 (-) X-Spam-Report: Spam Filtering performed by mx.sourceforge.net. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. -1.5 SPF_CHECK_PASS SPF reports sender host as permitted sender for sender-domain -0.0 RP_MATCHES_RCVD Envelope sender domain matches handover relay domain 0.0 URIBL_BLOCKED ADMINISTRATOR NOTICE: The query to URIBL was blocked. See http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/DnsBlocklists#dnsbl-block for more information. [URIs: bitcointalk.org] X-Headers-End: 1Vdvk9-00004x-LF Subject: [Bitcoin-development] we can all relax now X-BeenThere: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 05:33:30 -0000 One of the things that really gets me going is when someone devises a model, tests it against itself, and then pretends that they've learned something about the real world. Naturally, the Selfish Mining paper is exactly this sort of nonsense. Their model is one with no latency, and one where the attacker has total visibility across the network. An iterated FSM is not a suitable simulation of the bitcoin system. The bitcoin network does not have states, and to the extent that you can pretend that we do, you can't simulate transitions between them with static probabilities. The authors understand this deep down inside, even though they didn't work out the implications. They handwave the issue by assuming a total sybil attack, and in true academic spirit, they don't realize that the condition necessary for the attack is far, far worse than the attack itself. Greg said he'd like to run some simulations, and I'm thinking about it too. Unfortunately, he is busy all week, and I'm lazy (and also busy for most of tomorrow). If neither of us get to it first, I'm willing to pitch in 1 BTC as a bounty for building a general bitcoin network simulator framework. The simulator should be able to account for latency between nodes, and ideally within a node. It needs to be able to simulate an attacker that owns varying fractions of the network, and make decisions based only on what the attacker actually knows. It needs to be able to simulate this "attack" and should be generic enough to be easily modified for other crazy schemes. (Bounty offer is serious, but expires in one year [based on the earliest timestamp that my mail server puts on this email], and /may/ be subject to change if the price on any reputable exchange breaks 1000 USD per BTC in that period.) Basically, the lack of a decent network simulator is what allowed this paper to get press. If the author had been able to see the importance of the stuff he was ignoring, we wouldn't be wasting so much time correcting him (and sadly the reporters that have no way to check his claims). https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=324413.msg3495663#msg3495663