Quick correction: > Thus, the cost to perform the attack would be many orders of > magnitude greater than the cost to back up one channel.
This was written assuming the attacker was trying to upload multiple encrypted blobs for the same txid, which seems like an unlikely attack vector if the tower inherently defends against it. If instead they are just trying to fill up the tower, the cost is linear in the amount of blobs they send. --Conner On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 4:12 PM Conner Fromknecht <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi ZmnSCPxj, > > I haven't yet gotten around to writing up everything documenting in the > working > watchtower design. However, I think we are nearing that phase where things > seem > mostly solidified and would welcome feedback before attempting to formalize > it. > Expect some follow up posts on the ML :) > > > From my bare knowledge of go, it seems data structures and messages so far, > > without actual logic, but please inform me if I am incorrect. > > Much of the server side has been implemented, which accepts encrypted blobs > from > watchtower clients and stores them. The functionality related to scanning > blocks > and publishing justice txns has also been implemented, but has not been merged > yet. The big remaining task is to integrate the client such that it properly > backs up states after receiving revocations from the remote peer. > > > Note however that watchtowers would require to keep all encrypted blobs that > > are keyed to the same partial txid. I.e. watchtowers need to store the pair > > in a set with the set looking at the entire txid+blob as the identity of the > > object. Otherwise it would be possible, if your watchtower is identified by > > your counterparty, for the counterparty to give the commitment transaction's > > txid with a randomly-generated blob to your watchtower before it gives the > > revocation key to you. > > > > I have described the above problem before here: > > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2018-April/001203.html > > with an unsatisfactory solution. > > Indeed, this was great observation! The tower can't be sure which client is > uploading the "real" blob either. In light of that, the chosen design uses a > two level bucketing structure that maps: > > <txid[:16]> -> client_pubkey1 : encrypted_blob1 > -> client_pubkey2 : encrypted_blob2 > > ensuring that different client's can't overwrite each other. Further, the > tower > will only store one blob for a given txid per client. Upon decryption, the > tower > would learn that only one of this a valid update (and possibly delete state > for > the offender). > > > However, this remains your counterparty best avenue of attack, is to simply > > spam your watchtower until it runs out of resources and crashes. > > The client pubkeys described above are tied to what we've been referring to > as a > session. In order for a client to facilitate the attack described above, they > would have to pay the tower for multiple sessions tied to different ephemeral > session keys. > > A session grants the client the ability to store up to N blobs, where N would > be > several thousand. Thus, the cost to perform the attack would be many orders of > magnitude greater than the cost to back up one channel. In the private tower > case, there isn't necessarily payment, though it's more or less assumed that > one > wouldn't DOS their own tower. > > In practice, the tower should only ever accept sessions if it can be certain > it > has the appropriate disk-space to facilitate them, so I don't think > there is much > risk in the node crashing due to this. Someone could still pay to fill > up my tower, > but the tower would be compensated appropriately. The tower could also raise > it's price point if it detects such behavior. > > > And if the watchtower identifies the user, then this leaks the privacy of > > the > > user to the watchtower, and what would then be the point of encrypted blob? > > I believe the same session-based, encrypted-blob approach would work eltoo > towers as well, if the concern is primarily about the channel partner > presuming > the valid blob. The general design should be readily able to serve > eltoo clients, > with some slight modifications to breach detection and justice txn > construction. > > My greater concern with the update-and-replace model is that it leaks timing > information about a particular channel to the tower, since the tower must know > which prior state needs replacing. So even though it is possible to make eltoo > towers constant-space per channel, IMO we're better off storing all prior > encrypted blobs to maintain adequate privacy. On private towers, perhaps this > privacy/space tradeoff may acceptable, but not sure if the tradeoff makes > sense > on public towers. > > Cheers, > Conner > > On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 1:18 AM ZmnSCPxj via Lightning-dev > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Good morning list, > > > > We were not able to discuss this topic much at recent summit, but I noticed > > that lnd has some code related to watchtowers already. From my bare > > knowledge of go, it seems data structures and messages so far, without > > actual logic, but please inform me if I am incorrect. > > > > I assume much of the watchtowers code and design in lnd is by Conner, > > simply because, he discussed this on this list earlier this year. > > > > I have seen recently, some paper about paying watchtowers by actually > > simulating breaches. You would give a watchtower some txid+blob pair, then > > send that txid and see if the watchtower claims it. If it does, then you > > have evidence of liveness and correct behavior, and have also paid for and > > incentivized the watchtower to operate correctly. > > > > Note however that watchtowers would require to keep all encrypted blobs > > that are keyed to the same partial txid. I.e. watchtowers need to store > > the pair in a set with the set looking at the entire txid+blob as the > > identity of the object. Otherwise it would be possible, if your watchtower > > is identified by your counterparty, for the counterparty to give the > > commitment transaction's txid with a randomly-generated blob to your > > watchtower before it gives the revocation key to you. However, this > > remains your counterparty best avenue of attack, is to simply spam your > > watchtower until it runs out of resources and crashes. > > > > I have described the above problem before here: > > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2018-April/001203.html > > with an unsatisfactory solution. > > > > -- > > > > I have also been thinking about watchtowers compatible with > > Decker-Russell-Osuntokun channels. > > > > As I understand, in a separate thread, laolu is promoting that > > Decker-Russell-Osuntokun channels can simply "update" the blob side of a > > txid-blob entry, with the txid being the kickoff/trigger transaction. As I > > point out, unless the watchtower identifies the user somehow, this is > > unsafe; if I can identify your watchtower, then after you update it but > > before I attack, I can "update" the blob side with a randomly-generated, > > invalid blob. And if the watchtower identifies the user, then this leaks > > the privacy of the user to the watchtower, and what would then be the point > > of encrypted blob? > > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2018-May/001264.html > > > > I am curious what Conner and the other lnd developers are planning for > > these issues? You seem to be the first movers into this, and I cannot read > > go well enough to decipher what plans you have. > > > > Regards, > > ZmnSCPxj > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Lightning-dev mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/lightning-dev _______________________________________________ Lightning-dev mailing list [email protected] https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/lightning-dev
