[messaging] Namecoin

[Tao Effect]

Thanks Tony,

On Aug 22, 2014, at 4:46 PM, Tony Arcieri <bascule at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 3:33 PM, Tao Effect <contact at taoeffect.com> wrote:
> Speaking of unsupported assertions, that "the merits of proof-of-work [are] debatable" needs to be substantiated with something, especially if you are comparing it to pre-PoW concepts.
> 
> Systems that use a Bitcoin-like proof-of-work function are both:
> 
> 1) Monumentally inefficient

I'm guessing you are referring to either having to wait for transactions to confirm, and/or "wasted CPU". I addressed the latter in previous email with a reference to Vitalik's discussion of PoW algos that serve to better society (think folding @ home, SETI, etc.).

Re the former (txn delay), yes that's an issue with PoW consensus algos, and why some look to others.

> 2) Vulnerable to an attacker who wins the proof-of-work lottery most of the time, like has recently happened to Bitcoin

Yes, this is a very interesting problem that many are working on. Solution to pooled mining is known:

http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/06/18/how-to-disincentivize-large-bitcoin-mining-pools/

There are many others who are suggesting interesting ways of combatting 51% issues:

- https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/07/05/stake/
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=309073.msg7385002#msg7385002
- https://eprint.iacr.org/2014/452.pdf


> Compounding this problem is the desire to prevent key compromise in Bitcoin-like systems via the use of multisignature trust and trusted third parties which sign-off on certain operations. This approach centralizes authority, in which case a consensus-based system like Ripple with trusted gateways could be used instead. If it were, it'd be much more efficient, and arguably have better security properties.

I'd rather chance DPOS to address efficiency concerns [1] than rely on "trusted gateways", that reminds me too much of the CAs we're trying to get away from.

[1] http://wiki.bitshares.org/index.php/DPOS

Thanks for bringing up the 51% issue btw, this is something that I need to do more reading on. At the moment I'm just collecting links... :P

Kind regards,
Greg

--
Please do not email me anything that you are not comfortable also sharing with the NSA.


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