Topic: NXT stake-grinding attack? (Read 9135 times)

coretechs · « **on:** February 26, 2015, 02:33:09 am »

https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/alts.pdf

Quote

In its initial incarnation, NXT was susceptible to a trivial stake-grinding attack (to be described below) and could not achieve any consensus. Since becoming closed-source while spamming technically-illiterate claims at popular conferences, it has fallen out of scope of this document

Does anyone know more about the stake-grinding attack referenced here? Does the "initial incarnation" refer to something that happened right after NXT was launched?

jones · « **Reply #1 on:** February 26, 2015, 02:47:17 am »

Quote from: coretechs on February 26, 2015, 02:33:09 am

https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/alts.pdf

Quote
In its initial incarnation, NXT was susceptible to a trivial stake-grinding attack (to be described below) and could not achieve any consensus. Since becoming closed-source while spamming technically-illiterate claims at popular conferences, it has fallen out of scope of this document

Does anyone know more about the stake-grinding attack referenced here? Does the "initial incarnation" refer to something that happened right after NXT was launched?

Edit:
"Because NXT is a new and scary technology that I don't feel like learning more about to make this document I'm going to say it has the same vulnerability that other earlier PoS systems had to get rid of it"

Stake grinding was a technique based around PoS currencies which used coin age, which nxt never was. BCnext originally was going to use coin age, but was dissuaded to do so by cunicula if I remember my history correctly.

Bitcoiners are scared

Tosch110 · « **Reply #2 on:** February 26, 2015, 02:57:49 am »

Quote from: jones on February 26, 2015, 02:47:17 am

Stake grinding was a technique based around PoS currencies which used coin age, which nxt never was. BCnext originally was going to use coin age, but was dissuaded to do so by cunicula if I remember my history correctly.

I have something familiar in mind.

Quote from: jones on February 26, 2015, 02:47:17 am

Bitcoiners are scared

Quote from: Douglas Crockford

Weaving the Threads
- The people who should be first to recognize the value of innovation are often the last
- Obsolete technologies fade away slowly

coretechs · « **Reply #3 on:** February 26, 2015, 03:19:13 am »

I'm surprised that he confused PPcoin with NXT, especially considering how recently the paper is dated.

jl777 · « **Reply #4 on:** February 26, 2015, 03:31:14 am »

Quote from: coretechs on February 26, 2015, 03:19:13 am

I'm surprised that he confused PPcoin with NXT, especially considering how recently the paper is dated.

both have three letters "PPC" and "NXT" and it is easy to get them mixed up

achim · « **Reply #5 on:** February 26, 2015, 08:26:25 am »

Quote

could not achieve any consensus.

This is the part I love the most

In the old days we used to post block height and ids daily to check if we were on a fork.
The network may have been fragmented a little bit during the zombie node attacks and such, but consensus was always reached sooner or later.

coud not achieve any consensus... lol

Come-from-Beyond · « **Reply #6 on:** February 26, 2015, 10:58:29 am »

Quote from: coretechs on February 26, 2015, 02:33:09 am

https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/alts.pdf

Quote
In its initial incarnation, NXT was susceptible to a trivial stake-grinding attack (to be described below) and could not achieve any consensus. Since becoming closed-source while spamming technically-illiterate claims at popular conferences, it has fallen out of scope of this document

Does anyone know more about the stake-grinding attack referenced here? Does the "initial incarnation" refer to something that happened right after NXT was launched?

The author of that "whitepaper" is a bitcoiner. It explains all.

youyou · « **Reply #7 on:** February 26, 2015, 11:11:33 am »

Quote

Since becoming closed-source while spamming technically-
illiterate claims at popular conferences, it has fallen out of scope of this document.

valarmg · « **Reply #8 on:** February 26, 2015, 11:32:45 am »

Quote from: coretechs on February 26, 2015, 03:19:13 am

I'm surprised that he confused PPcoin with NXT, especially considering how recently the paper is dated.

Seems that quote is copy-pasted from his pos.pdf from back in April/May.

Anyway, having that quote in the document indicates that much of the "treatise" is likely to be unresearched and wrong. Saves having to waste time reading it.

msin · « **Reply #9 on:** February 26, 2015, 01:46:31 pm »

If I were to write a paper on Bitcoiner authors, I would describe this guy as an "incredible dumbass"

Tosch110 · « **Reply #10 on:** February 26, 2015, 01:52:53 pm »

Quote from: msin on February 26, 2015, 01:46:31 pm

If I were to write a paper on Bitcoiner authors, I would describe this guy as an "incredible dumbass"

but he knows scientific paper format... has to be legit.

coretechs · « **Reply #11 on:** February 26, 2015, 03:32:32 pm »

Quote from: valarmg on February 26, 2015, 11:32:45 am

Seems that quote is copy-pasted from his pos.pdf from back in April/May.

Anyway, having that quote in the document indicates that much of the "treatise" is likely to be unresearched and wrong. Saves having to waste time reading it.

Actually the first half of the paper isn't bad, it does a pretty good job explaining bitcoin / pow consensus. It would have been nice to read a criticism of NXT if the author had the same level of understanding about it.

Daedelus · « **Reply #12 on:** March 01, 2015, 02:09:07 pm »

Quote from: Tosch110 on February 26, 2015, 01:52:53 pm

Quote from: msin on February 26, 2015, 01:46:31 pm
If I were to write a paper on Bitcoiner authors, I would describe this guy as an "incredible dumbass"

but he knows scientific paper format... has to be legit.

Yup, and it's a PDF. So I can't see how it can't be anything other than 100% watertight.

kushti · « **Reply #13 on:** March 19, 2015, 09:51:46 am »

The quality of the treatise is just horrible. And it seems Andrew hasn't an idea about a "consensus"(can't get totally which kind of consensus he has assumed) & why proof-of-work was proposed for anonymous Byzantine Agreement (see intro https://eprint.iacr.org/2014/765.pdf for details)

kushti · « **Reply #14 on:** March 21, 2015, 02:43:15 am »

Having discussion with Andrew over Reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2zpmlj/expanded_rewrite_of_distributed_consensus_from/cplj4ug

Daedelus · « **Reply #15 on:** March 21, 2015, 09:27:55 am »

I saw. Feels to me you are calling his bluff, far too many excuses for not doing a full analysis were given in those few paragraphs..

I don't know how you can make these kind of claims without academic rigor.

Come-from-Beyond · « **Reply #16 on:** March 21, 2015, 10:09:00 am »

Quote from: Daedelus on March 21, 2015, 09:27:55 am

I don't know how you can make these kind of claims without academic rigor.

Easily. Science of decentralized consensus doesn't have established paradigms yet.

kushti · « **Reply #17 on:** March 21, 2015, 06:58:25 pm »

Quote from: Come-from-Beyond on March 21, 2015, 10:09:00 am

Quote from: Daedelus on March 21, 2015, 09:27:55 am
I don't know how you can make these kind of claims without academic rigor.

Easily. Science of decentralized consensus doesn't have established paradigms yet.

Disagree, it's around for ~50 years or maybe even more. Internet of today wouldn't be possible without a bunch of fault- and byzantine-tolerant algos. The innovation around blockchain is sybil-resistent solution to anonymous Byzantine agreement for building decentralized append log(a.k.a. versioned database a.k.a. blockchain).

Come-from-Beyond · « **Reply #18 on:** March 21, 2015, 07:44:24 pm »

Quote from: kushti on March 21, 2015, 06:58:25 pm

Disagree, it's around for ~50 years or maybe even more. Internet of today wouldn't be possible without a bunch of fault- and byzantine-tolerant algos.

Haha, it's cool that you mentioned byzantine-tolerant algos. I claim that Satoshi has not solved byzantine generals problem. Do you agree or not? If not, I'd like to hear your reasoning.

kushti · « **Reply #19 on:** March 22, 2015, 03:25:18 am »

Quote from: Come-from-Beyond on March 21, 2015, 07:44:24 pm

Haha, it's cool that you mentioned byzantine-tolerant algos. I claim that Satoshi has not solved byzantine generals problem. Do you agree or not? If not, I'd like to hear your reasoning.

Again, here's the outstanding paper on that https://eprint.iacr.org/2014/765.pdf

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Author Topic: NXT stake-grinding attack? (Read 9135 times)