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From: "Jorge Timón" <jtimon@jtimon.cc>
To: Jimmy Song <jaejoon@gmail.com>
Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] A Small Modification to Segwit
Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2017 13:48:27 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CABm2gDpaPeYXnPq0k6QMdz4t3PYXaSTqay2PJz-7gVcD3ixiRw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAJR7vkqnRNLv6xpg04Uh2ybu5DQnBSqc5rdBBJ77Dy=EsEAK2Q@mail.gmail.com>

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Why won't the attacker use asicboost too? (Please don't say because of
patents)

On 9 Apr 2017 12:26 am, "Jimmy Song" <jaejoon@gmail.com> wrote:

> Jorge,
>
> Suppose someone figures out an ASIC optimization that's completely
> unrelated that gives X% speed boost over your non-ASICBoosted
> implementation. If you ban ASICBoost, someone with this optimization can
> get 51% of the network by adding N machines with their new optimization. If
> you allow ASICBoost and assuming this gets a 20% speed boost over
> non-ASICBoosted hardware, someone with this optimization would need 1.2N
> machines to get 51%. The network in that sense is 20% stronger against this
> attack in terms of cost.
>
> Jimmy
>
> On Sat, Apr 8, 2017 at 12:22 PM, Jorge Timón <jtimon@jtimon.cc> wrote:
>
>> To be more specific, why "being higher will secure the Bitcoin network
>> better against newer optimizations"?
>> Or, to be more clear, let's forget about future "optimizations", let's
>> just think of an attacker. Does asicboost being used by all miners
>> make the system more secure against an attacker? No, for the attacker
>> can use asicboost too.
>> What about the case when not all the miners are using asicboost? Then
>> the attacker can actually get an advantage by suing asicboost.
>>
>> Sometimes people compare asicboost with the use of asics in general as
>> both providing more security for the network and users. But I don't
>> think this is accurate. The existence of sha256d asics makes an attack
>> with general purpose computing hardware (or even more specialized
>> architectures like gpgpu) much more expensive and unlikely. As an
>> alternative the attacker can spend additional resources investing in
>> asics himself (again, making many attacks more expensive and
>> unlikely).
>>
>> But as far as I know, asicboost can be implemented with software
>> running on general purpose hardware that integrates with regular
>> sha256d asics. There is probably an advantage on having the asicboost
>> implementation "in the same box" as the sha256d, yet again the
>> attacker can invest in hardware with the competitive advantage from
>> having asicboost more intergrated with the sha256d asics too.
>>
>> To reiterate, whether all miners use asicboost or only a subset of
>> them, I remain unconvinced that provides any additional security to
>> the network (to be more precise whether that makes "tx history harder
>> to rewrite"), even if it results on the hashrate charts looking "more
>> secure".
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 8, 2017 at 6:27 PM, Jorge Timón <jtimon@jtimon.cc> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > On 8 Apr 2017 5:06 am, "Jimmy Song via bitcoin-dev"
>> > <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > Praxeology Guy,
>> >
>> >> Why would the actual end users of Bitcoin (the long term and short term
>> >> owners of bitcoins) who run fully verifying nodes want to change
>> Bitcoin
>> >> policy in order to make their money more vulnerable to 51% attack?
>> >
>> >
>> > Certainly, if only one company made use of the extra nonce space, they
>> would
>> > have an advantage. But think of it this way, if some newer ASIC
>> optimization
>> > comes up, would you rather have a non-ASICBoosted hash rate to defend
>> with
>> > or an ASICBoosted hash rate? Certainly, the latter, being higher will
>> secure
>> > the Bitcoin network better against newer optimizations.
>> >
>> >
>> > Why?
>>
>
>

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  reply	other threads:[~2017-04-09 11:48 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 41+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2017-04-07 20:06 [bitcoin-dev] A Small Modification to Segwit Jimmy Song
2017-04-08  0:05 ` Jimmy Song
2017-04-08 14:59   ` Luke Dashjr
2017-04-08 15:17     ` Jimmy Song
2017-04-08 16:05       ` Luke Dashjr
2017-04-08 16:16         ` Jimmy Song
2017-04-08 16:19   ` Timo Hanke
2017-04-08  1:48 ` praxeology_guy
2017-04-08  2:46   ` Jimmy Song
2017-04-08  8:33     ` Pavel Moravec
2017-04-08 14:35       ` Jimmy Song
2017-04-08 16:38         ` Pavel Moravec
2017-04-08 22:19           ` Jimmy Song
2017-04-08 18:15         ` praxeology_guy
2017-04-08 18:51           ` Eric Voskuil
2017-04-08 20:38             ` praxeology_guy
2017-04-09 11:46           ` Jorge Timón
2017-04-08 16:27     ` Jorge Timón
2017-04-08 17:22       ` Jorge Timón
2017-04-08 22:26         ` Jimmy Song
2017-04-09 11:48           ` Jorge Timón [this message]
2017-04-09 14:01             ` Jimmy Song
     [not found]               ` <CABm2gDqfsBREj2x5Uz9hxwt-Y6m=KHd2-hRw4gV0CbO+-8B0dg@mail.gmail.com>
2017-04-10  9:16                 ` Jorge Timón
2017-04-09 18:44   ` Erik Aronesty
2017-04-09 21:16     ` Jared Lee Richardson
2017-04-09 23:51       ` David Vorick
2017-04-10  0:20         ` Erik Aronesty
2017-04-10  1:45           ` Thomas Daede
2017-04-10 14:34     ` Bram Cohen
2017-04-10 14:46     ` Bram Cohen
2017-04-10 15:25     ` g
2017-04-10 18:17       ` Erik Aronesty
2017-04-11  2:39         ` g
2017-04-11 18:39           ` Staf Verhaegen
2017-04-11  9:31       ` Sancho Panza
2017-04-11 13:00         ` Jorge Timón
2017-04-11  7:59 ` Tom Zander
2017-04-11 13:25   ` Sancho Panza
2017-04-11 14:40     ` Jimmy Song
2017-04-11 21:25       ` Jorge Timón
2017-04-11 23:42         ` Jimmy Song

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