On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 12:32 PM, Peter Todd <p...@petertodd.org> wrote:
> > "In a Sybil attack the attacker subverts the reputation system of a > peer-to-peer network by creating a large number of pseudonymous > identities, using them to gain a disproportionately large influence." > Our "identities" aren't pseudonymous. In the case of Bitcoin, there's something like 6,000 nodes, so if that > 20% is achived via outgoing connections you'd have 600 to 1200 active > outgoing connections using up network resources. Meanwhile, the default > is 8 outgoing connections - you're using about two orders of magnitude > more resources. > You're not talking about a Sybil attack anymore, just resource use. We do know how to change default configurations to offer more connections. If you are achieving that via incoming connections, you're placing a big > part of the relay network under central control. As we've seen in the > case of Chainalysis's sybil attack, even unintentional confirguation > screwups can cause serious and widespread issues due to the large number > of nodes that can fail in one go. (note how Chainalysis's actions were > described(1) as a sybil attack by multiple Bitcoin devs, including > Gregory Maxwell, Wladimir van der Laan, and myself) > We're not Chainanalysis and we do not run hundreds of distinct nodes. Just a few well-tuned ones. > What you are doing is inherently incompatible with decentralization. > That's a matter of opinion. One could argue your actions and control attempts hurt decentralization. Either way, no one should play the decentralization police or act as a gatekeeper. Question: Do you have relationships with mining pools? For instance, are > you looking at contracts to have transactions mined to guarantee > confirmations? > No, we do not. We do not know anyone else having such contracts. As you know, Coinbase also denied having such contracts in place [1]. But you seem to have more relationships with mining pools than we do. Thanks, Matthieu CTO and Founder, BlockCypher [1] http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-June/008864.html
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