Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-21 Thread Jeff Garzik 
On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 12:42 AM, Eric Lombrozo  wrote:

> Thanks for asking *the* question, Jeff. We often get caught up in these
> philosophical debates…but at the end of the day we need something concrete.
>
> Even more important than the specific software you’re using is the
> security policy.
>
> If you must accept zero confirmation transactions, there are a few
> concrete things you can do to reduce your exposure:
>
> 1) limit the transaction amounts for zero confirmation transactions - do
> not accept them for very high priced goods…especially if they require
> physical shipping.
> 2) limit the total amount of unconfirmed revenue you’ll tolerate at any
> given moment - if the amount is exceeded, require confirmations.
> 3) give merchants of subscription services (i.e. servers, hosting, etc…)
> the ability to shut the user out if a double-spend is detected.
>

Already done -- BitPay merchants choose their level of transaction
security.  Level of confirmations is directly exposed to merchants, so that
they choose the level of risk for themselves.

Physically shipped orders and subscriptions are actually the easy cases and
are already handled.  These can accept 0-conf for an initial order phase,
then have the luxury of time to wait for confirmations before shipping /
canceling a subscription.

Electronic goods instantly delivered are the toughest use case.  Even
there, merchants choose their level of risk.



> 4) collect legal information on purchasers (or have the merchants collect
> this information) so you have someone to go after if they try to screw you
>

The system requests this information on orders yes.  Merchants also collect
this info as their needs dictate.



> 5) create a risk profile for users…and flag suspicious behavior (i.e.
> someone trying to purchase a bunch of stuff that totally doesn’t fit into
> their purchasing habits).
> 6) get insurance (although right now reasonably-priced insurance is
> probably pretty hard to obtain since statistics are generally of little
> use…we’re entering uncharted territory).
> 7) set up a warning system and a “panic” button so that if you start to
> see an attack you can immediately disable all zero confirmation
> transactions system-wide.
> 8) independently verify all inbound transactions and connect to multiple
> network nodes…check them against one another.
>

Definitely looking at or have implemented this sort of stuff.  I cannot get
into detail in public...

-- 
Jeff Garzik
Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist
BitPay, Inc.  https://bitpay.com/
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-21 Thread Aaron Voisine 
We should use relay and default tx selection rules to raise the cost of
double spend attacks as far as it is easy and practical to do so. This
increases the value of the bitcoin network by making it practical to use in
more situations for more people. Merchants of course can't rely on them
being cryptographically safe, but the safer they are, the more useful.

The argument that since they can't be made perfectly safe, they should be
as easy as possible to reverse so that merchants learn not to rely on them,
is an incorrect one that reduces the usefulness and value of bitcoin.
Merchants will learn very quickly what the costs of accepting bitcoin
payments are, and the lower they are, the greater bitcoin merchant adoption
will be.


Aaron Voisine
co-founder and CEO
breadwallet.com

On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 5:54 PM, Eric Lombrozo  wrote:

> One more thing I would like to add to this thread: I want to make it
> unequivocally clear that I believe what is making double-spends easier has
> relatively little to do with the protocol and almost everything to do with
> poor software and poor security policy on the merchant end. Perhaps it
> isn’t prudent to push out changes to the relay policy that make these
> exploits even easier right now - but we NEED to be applying some kind of
> pressure on the merchant end to upgrade their stuff to be more resilient so
> that we have more room for changes on things like relay policy without
> significant disruption to the network.
>
> - Eric Lombrozo
>
>
> --
>
> ___
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>
>
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-21 Thread Eric Lombrozo 

> On Jun 21, 2015, at 1:41 AM, Btc Drak  wrote:
> 
> Eric,
> 
> BitPay clearly do understand the risks of 0-conf. In case you were not aware 
> BitPay does not particularly "accept zero confirm transactions". When a 
> payment is seen on the network the payment screen reports the invoice has 
> been paid, but that's front-end user facing. On the back end it's marked as 
> paid but the API exposes the the confirmation status allowing the merchant to 
> make business decisions about when to progress to fulfilment. A good example 
> of this is Neteller (a sort of paypal variant) which allows one to fund the 
> account with fiat using Bitcoin, via Bitpay. When you pay the bitpay invoice, 
> your account is marked as payment pending until there are some confirmations.
> 

I am glad to hear that. Yes, it absolutely makes sense to let the merchant to 
make business decisions still pending confirmation (i.e. should I actually 
ship?)

> Coinbase does not expose the confirmation status and from what I understand 
> (not checked myself) they guarantee payment to merchants for 0-confirm, 
> regardless of whether they confirm or not.

Then Coinbase is essentially taking on the role of an insurer…are they taking 
the appropriate precautions to limit potential losses? Can they make up for 
these losses with fees? And if not (or if they don’t really have a quantifiable 
risk model) could they survive a worst-case scenario with at most a surface 
wound? (i.e. a systemic attack involving many machines in many different places 
all attacking at once).

It would be absolutely the height of idiocy to guarantee payment on merchandise 
that has yet to ship, i.e. So I hope these reports are wrong :)


- Eric Lombrozo


signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-21 Thread Btc Drak 
Eric,

BitPay clearly do understand the risks of 0-conf. In case you were not
aware BitPay does not particularly "accept zero confirm transactions". When
a payment is seen on the network the payment screen reports the invoice has
been paid, but that's front-end user facing. On the back end it's marked as
paid but the API exposes the the confirmation status allowing the merchant
to make business decisions about when to progress to fulfilment. A good
example of this is Neteller (a sort of paypal variant) which allows one to
fund the account with fiat using Bitcoin, via Bitpay. When you pay the
bitpay invoice, your account is marked as payment pending until there are
some confirmations.

Coinbase does not expose the confirmation status and from what I understand
(not checked myself) they guarantee payment to merchants for 0-confirm,
regardless of whether they confirm or not.

I want to address something stated by Justus, that signing a payment
message and broadcasting somehow solidifies intent and going back on that
would be fraud. This seriously conflates cryptographic certainty with human
behaviour. For one, humans make mistakes all the time. We get tired, we get
distracted, we make copy paste errors. It's entirely possible on sends a
payment only to find it's been sent to the wrong address or the wrong
amount has been sent or the fee is wrong. Software may also misbehave
(Electrum for example has a weird UI glitch with fees where the specified
fee can be overwritten). r/bitcoin it littered with sad examples. What
ECDSA signing tells is that it was signed by your private key, but nothing
else. It does not say if *you* signed it, or that the message you signed
was correct.


On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 8:42 AM, Eric Lombrozo  wrote:

>
> On Jun 20, 2015, at 11:45 PM, Jeff Garzik  wrote:
>
> On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 5:54 PM, Eric Lombrozo 
> wrote:
>
>>  but we NEED to be applying some kind of pressure on the merchant end to
>> upgrade their stuff to be more resilient
>>
>
> Can you be specific?  What precise technical steps would you have BitPay
> and Coinbase do?  We upgrade our stuff to... what exactly?
>
> --
> Jeff Garzik
> Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist
> BitPay, Inc.  https://bitpay.com/
>
>
> Thanks for asking *the* question, Jeff. We often get caught up in these
> philosophical debates…but at the end of the day we need something concrete.
>
> Even more important than the specific software you’re using is the
> security policy.
>
> If you must accept zero confirmation transactions, there are a few
> concrete things you can do to reduce your exposure:
>
> 1) limit the transaction amounts for zero confirmation transactions - do
> not accept them for very high priced goods…especially if they require
> physical shipping.
> 2) limit the total amount of unconfirmed revenue you’ll tolerate at any
> given moment - if the amount is exceeded, require confirmations.
> 3) give merchants of subscription services (i.e. servers, hosting, etc…)
> the ability to shut the user out if a double-spend is detected.
> 4) collect legal information on purchasers (or have the merchants collect
> this information) so you have someone to go after if they try to screw you
> 5) create a risk profile for users…and flag suspicious behavior (i.e.
> someone trying to purchase a bunch of stuff that totally doesn’t fit into
> their purchasing habits).
> 6) get insurance (although right now reasonably-priced insurance is
> probably pretty hard to obtain since statistics are generally of little
> use…we’re entering uncharted territory).
> 7) set up a warning system and a “panic” button so that if you start to
> see an attack you can immediately disable all zero confirmation
> transactions system-wide.
> 8) independently verify all inbound transactions and connect to multiple
> network nodes…check them against one another.
>
>
> As for software tools to accomplish these things, we can talk about that
> offline :)
>
>
> - Eric Lombrozo
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> ___
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>
>
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-21 Thread Eric Lombrozo 

> On Jun 21, 2015, at 12:42 AM, Eric Lombrozo  wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Jun 20, 2015, at 11:45 PM, Jeff Garzik > > wrote:
>> 
>> On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 5:54 PM, Eric Lombrozo > > wrote:
>>  but we NEED to be applying some kind of pressure on the merchant end to 
>> upgrade their stuff to be more resilient
>> 
>> Can you be specific?  What precise technical steps would you have BitPay and 
>> Coinbase do?  We upgrade our stuff to... what exactly?
>> 
>> --
>> Jeff Garzik
>> Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist
>> BitPay, Inc.  https://bitpay.com/ 
> Thanks for asking *the* question, Jeff. We often get caught up in these 
> philosophical debates…but at the end of the day we need something concrete.
> 
> Even more important than the specific software you’re using is the security 
> policy.
> 
> If you must accept zero confirmation transactions, there are a few concrete 
> things you can do to reduce your exposure:
> 
> 1) limit the transaction amounts for zero confirmation transactions - do not 
> accept them for very high priced goods…especially if they require physical 
> shipping.
> 2) limit the total amount of unconfirmed revenue you’ll tolerate at any given 
> moment - if the amount is exceeded, require confirmations.
> 3) give merchants of subscription services (i.e. servers, hosting, etc…) the 
> ability to shut the user out if a double-spend is detected.
> 4) collect legal information on purchasers (or have the merchants collect 
> this information) so you have someone to go after if they try to screw you
> 5) create a risk profile for users…and flag suspicious behavior (i.e. someone 
> trying to purchase a bunch of stuff that totally doesn’t fit into their 
> purchasing habits).
> 6) get insurance (although right now reasonably-priced insurance is probably 
> pretty hard to obtain since statistics are generally of little use…we’re 
> entering uncharted territory).
> 7) set up a warning system and a “panic” button so that if you start to see 
> an attack you can immediately disable all zero confirmation transactions 
> system-wide.
> 8) independently verify all inbound transactions and connect to multiple 
> network nodes…check them against one another.
> 
> 
> As for software tools to accomplish these things, we can talk about that 
> offline :)
> 
> 
> - Eric Lombrozo
> 
> 
> 
> 

I should also point out that pretty much all of these suggestions (except for 
maybe 8) would apply to ANY payment system…they are NOT specific to Bitcoin 
whatsoever. Any serious payment processor should have these sorts of policies 
engrained as part of company culture…or else one day (probably not too long 
from now) you’ll be out of business. The mere suggestion that changing relay 
policy would pose significant threats to the bottom line of a payment processor 
is about the height of amateurishness, IMHO.


- Eric Lombrozo


signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-21 Thread Eric Lombrozo 

> On Jun 20, 2015, at 11:45 PM, Jeff Garzik  wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 5:54 PM, Eric Lombrozo  > wrote:
>  but we NEED to be applying some kind of pressure on the merchant end to 
> upgrade their stuff to be more resilient
> 
> Can you be specific?  What precise technical steps would you have BitPay and 
> Coinbase do?  We upgrade our stuff to... what exactly?
> 
> --
> Jeff Garzik
> Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist
> BitPay, Inc.  https://bitpay.com/ 
Thanks for asking *the* question, Jeff. We often get caught up in these 
philosophical debates…but at the end of the day we need something concrete.

Even more important than the specific software you’re using is the security 
policy.

If you must accept zero confirmation transactions, there are a few concrete 
things you can do to reduce your exposure:

1) limit the transaction amounts for zero confirmation transactions - do not 
accept them for very high priced goods…especially if they require physical 
shipping.
2) limit the total amount of unconfirmed revenue you’ll tolerate at any given 
moment - if the amount is exceeded, require confirmations.
3) give merchants of subscription services (i.e. servers, hosting, etc…) the 
ability to shut the user out if a double-spend is detected.
4) collect legal information on purchasers (or have the merchants collect this 
information) so you have someone to go after if they try to screw you
5) create a risk profile for users…and flag suspicious behavior (i.e. someone 
trying to purchase a bunch of stuff that totally doesn’t fit into their 
purchasing habits).
6) get insurance (although right now reasonably-priced insurance is probably 
pretty hard to obtain since statistics are generally of little use…we’re 
entering uncharted territory).
7) set up a warning system and a “panic” button so that if you start to see an 
attack you can immediately disable all zero confirmation transactions 
system-wide.
8) independently verify all inbound transactions and connect to multiple 
network nodes…check them against one another.


As for software tools to accomplish these things, we can talk about that 
offline :)


- Eric Lombrozo






signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread Jeff Garzik 
On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 5:54 PM, Eric Lombrozo  wrote:

>  but we NEED to be applying some kind of pressure on the merchant end to
> upgrade their stuff to be more resilient
>

Can you be specific?  What precise technical steps would you have BitPay
and Coinbase do?  We upgrade our stuff to... what exactly?

-- 
Jeff Garzik
Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist
BitPay, Inc.  https://bitpay.com/
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread Tom Harding 
On 6/20/2015 5:54 PM, Eric Lombrozo wrote:
> Perhaps it isn’t prudent to push out changes to the relay policy that make 
> these exploits even easier right now - but we NEED to be applying some kind 
> of pressure on the merchant end to upgrade their stuff to be more resilient 
> so that we have more room for changes on things like relay policy without 
> significant disruption to the network.
>

There's no need to worry about causing more problems by relaying
double-spends.  After a year of watching, it's clear that already only
20% of hash power strictly obeys first-seen.

http://i.imgur.com/0bYXrjn.png

It may be surprising that
 - The period of ambiguity is very short - just 2 seconds
   (this makes sense, given the .5s median propagation time)
 - Fast double-spends between 2 and 15 seconds are less successful
 - The steady-state 80% respend success rate is reached after just 15
seconds

The >30s data point includes txes that were respent after a long time,
sometimes months.  Those longer-term respends are to be expected, as
people reclaim stuck txes.

Paying attention to double-spends is an opportunity for wallets and
merchants .  With 140 Bitcoin XT nodes online, you're probably already
receiving them.  Most wallets, including vanilla core, don't even alert
when a double-spend of a wallet transaction appears in a block - even
though there may still be time to withhold delivery of the goods/services.

If FSS RBF gains miner share, fewer successful zero-conf double-spends
will occur.  Only radical twisted logic finds that to be an undesirable
result.



--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread Dario Sneidermanis 
Sorry about that, ignore me
On Jun 20, 2015 11:11 PM, "Dario Sneidermanis"  wrote:

> se, lo re putearon a Peter Todd en reddit por esto
> On Jun 19, 2015 7:42 AM, "Peter Todd"  wrote:
>
>> Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the hashing
>> power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions with
>> me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has will be replaced if a
>> conflicting transaction pays a higher fee. There are no requirements for
>> the replacement transaction to pay addresses that were paid by the
>> previous transaction.
>>
>>
>> I'm a user. What does this mean for me?
>> ---
>>
>> In the short term, very little. Wallet software aimed at average users
>> has no ability to reliably detect conditions where an unconfirmed
>> transaction may be double-spent by the sender. For example, Schildbach's
>> Bitcoin Wallet for Android doesn't even detect double-spends of
>> unconfirmed transactions when connected to a RBF or Bitcoin XT nodes
>> that propagate them. The least sophisticated double-spend attack
>> possibly - simply broadcasting two conflicting transactions at the same
>> time - has about 50% probability of success against these wallets.
>>
>> Additionally, SPV wallets based on bitcoinj can't even detect invalid
>> transactions reliably, instead trusting the full node(s) it is connected
>> too over the unauthenticated, unencrypted, P2P protocol to do validation
>> for them. For instance due to a unfixed bug¹ Bitcoin XT nodes will relay
>> double-spends that spend the output of the conflicting transaction. I've
>> personally tested this with Schildbach's Bitcoin Wallet for Android,
>> which shows such invalid transactions as standard, unconfirmed,
>> transactions.
>>
>> Users should continue to assume that unconfirmed transactions could be
>> trivially reversed by the sender until the first confirmation. In
>> general, only the sender can reverse a transaction, so if you do trust
>> the sender feel free to assume an unconfirmed transaction will
>> eventually confirm. However, if you do not trust the sender and/or have
>> no other recourse if they double-spend you, wait until at least the
>> first confirmation before assuming the transaction will go through.
>>
>> In the long term, miner support of full RBF has a number of advantages
>> to users, allowing you to more efficiently make transactions, paying
>> lower fees. However you'll need a wallet supporting these features; none
>> exist yet.
>>
>>
>> I'm a business. What does this mean for me?
>> ---
>>
>> If you use your own node to verify transactions, you probably are in a
>> similar situation as average users, so again, this means very little to
>> you.
>>
>> If you use a payment processor/transaction API such as BitPay, Coinbase,
>> BlockCypher, etc. you may or may not be accepting unconfirmed
>> transactions, and they may or may not be "guaranteed" by your payment
>> processor even if double-spent. If like most merchants you're using the
>> API such that confirmations are required prior to accepting orders (e.g.
>> taking a meaningful loss such as shipping a product if the tx is
>> reversed) nothing changes for you. If not I recommend you contact your
>> payment processor.
>>
>>
>> I'm a miner. Why should I support replace-by-fee?
>> -
>>
>> Whether full or first-seen-safe⁵ RBF support (along with
>> child-pays-for-parent) is an important step towards a fully functioning
>> transaction fee market that doesn't lead to users' transactions getting
>> mysteriously "stuck", particularly during network flooding
>> events/attacks. A better functioning fee market will help reduce
>> pressure to increase the blocksize, particularly from the users creating
>> the most valuable transactions.
>>
>> Full RBF also helps make use of the limited blockchain space more
>> efficiently, with up to 90%+ transaction size savings possible in some
>> transaction patterns. (e.g. long payment chains⁶) More users in less
>> blockchain space will lead to higher overall fees per block.
>>
>> Finally as we'll discuss below full RBF prevents a number of serious
>> threats to the existing level playing field that miners operate in.
>>
>>
>> Why can't we make accepting unconfirmed txs from untrusted people safe?
>> ---
>>
>> For a decentralized wallet, the situation is pretty bleak. These wallets
>> only have a handful of connections to the network, with no way of
>> knowing if those connections give an accurate view of what transactions
>> miners actually know about.
>>
>> The only serious attempt to fix this problem for decentralized wallets
>> that has been actually deployed is Andresen/Harding's double-spend
>> relaying, implemented in Bitcoin XT. It relays up to one double-spend
>> transaction per double-spent txout, with the intended eff

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread Dario Sneidermanis 
se, lo re putearon a Peter Todd en reddit por esto
On Jun 19, 2015 7:42 AM, "Peter Todd"  wrote:

> Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the hashing
> power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions with
> me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has will be replaced if a
> conflicting transaction pays a higher fee. There are no requirements for
> the replacement transaction to pay addresses that were paid by the
> previous transaction.
>
>
> I'm a user. What does this mean for me?
> ---
>
> In the short term, very little. Wallet software aimed at average users
> has no ability to reliably detect conditions where an unconfirmed
> transaction may be double-spent by the sender. For example, Schildbach's
> Bitcoin Wallet for Android doesn't even detect double-spends of
> unconfirmed transactions when connected to a RBF or Bitcoin XT nodes
> that propagate them. The least sophisticated double-spend attack
> possibly - simply broadcasting two conflicting transactions at the same
> time - has about 50% probability of success against these wallets.
>
> Additionally, SPV wallets based on bitcoinj can't even detect invalid
> transactions reliably, instead trusting the full node(s) it is connected
> too over the unauthenticated, unencrypted, P2P protocol to do validation
> for them. For instance due to a unfixed bug¹ Bitcoin XT nodes will relay
> double-spends that spend the output of the conflicting transaction. I've
> personally tested this with Schildbach's Bitcoin Wallet for Android,
> which shows such invalid transactions as standard, unconfirmed,
> transactions.
>
> Users should continue to assume that unconfirmed transactions could be
> trivially reversed by the sender until the first confirmation. In
> general, only the sender can reverse a transaction, so if you do trust
> the sender feel free to assume an unconfirmed transaction will
> eventually confirm. However, if you do not trust the sender and/or have
> no other recourse if they double-spend you, wait until at least the
> first confirmation before assuming the transaction will go through.
>
> In the long term, miner support of full RBF has a number of advantages
> to users, allowing you to more efficiently make transactions, paying
> lower fees. However you'll need a wallet supporting these features; none
> exist yet.
>
>
> I'm a business. What does this mean for me?
> ---
>
> If you use your own node to verify transactions, you probably are in a
> similar situation as average users, so again, this means very little to
> you.
>
> If you use a payment processor/transaction API such as BitPay, Coinbase,
> BlockCypher, etc. you may or may not be accepting unconfirmed
> transactions, and they may or may not be "guaranteed" by your payment
> processor even if double-spent. If like most merchants you're using the
> API such that confirmations are required prior to accepting orders (e.g.
> taking a meaningful loss such as shipping a product if the tx is
> reversed) nothing changes for you. If not I recommend you contact your
> payment processor.
>
>
> I'm a miner. Why should I support replace-by-fee?
> -
>
> Whether full or first-seen-safe⁵ RBF support (along with
> child-pays-for-parent) is an important step towards a fully functioning
> transaction fee market that doesn't lead to users' transactions getting
> mysteriously "stuck", particularly during network flooding
> events/attacks. A better functioning fee market will help reduce
> pressure to increase the blocksize, particularly from the users creating
> the most valuable transactions.
>
> Full RBF also helps make use of the limited blockchain space more
> efficiently, with up to 90%+ transaction size savings possible in some
> transaction patterns. (e.g. long payment chains⁶) More users in less
> blockchain space will lead to higher overall fees per block.
>
> Finally as we'll discuss below full RBF prevents a number of serious
> threats to the existing level playing field that miners operate in.
>
>
> Why can't we make accepting unconfirmed txs from untrusted people safe?
> ---
>
> For a decentralized wallet, the situation is pretty bleak. These wallets
> only have a handful of connections to the network, with no way of
> knowing if those connections give an accurate view of what transactions
> miners actually know about.
>
> The only serious attempt to fix this problem for decentralized wallets
> that has been actually deployed is Andresen/Harding's double-spend
> relaying, implemented in Bitcoin XT. It relays up to one double-spend
> transaction per double-spent txout, with the intended effect to warn
> recipients. In practice however this functionality makes it easier to
> double-spend rather than harder, by giving an efficient and easy way to
> get double-spends to

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread Eric Lombrozo 
One more thing I would like to add to this thread: I want to make it 
unequivocally clear that I believe what is making double-spends easier has 
relatively little to do with the protocol and almost everything to do with poor 
software and poor security policy on the merchant end. Perhaps it isn’t prudent 
to push out changes to the relay policy that make these exploits even easier 
right now - but we NEED to be applying some kind of pressure on the merchant 
end to upgrade their stuff to be more resilient so that we have more room for 
changes on things like relay policy without significant disruption to the 
network.

- Eric Lombrozo


signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread Eric Lombrozo 

> On Jun 20, 2015, at 5:27 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> 
> Signed PGP part
> On 2015-06-20 19:19, Eric Lombrozo wrote:
> >> On Jun 20, 2015, at 4:37 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> >>
> >> Signed PGP part
> >> On 2015-06-20 18:20, Jorge Timón wrote:
> >> > On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:42 PM, Eric Lombrozo 
> >> > wrote:
> >> >> If we want a non-repudiation mechanism in the protocol, we should
> >> >> explicitly define one rather than relying on “prima facie”
> >> >> assumptions. Otherwise, I would recommend not relying on the existence
> >> >> of a signed transaction as proof of intent to pay…
> >> >
> >> > Non-repudiation can be built on top of the payment protocol layer.
> >>
> >>
> >> Non-repudiation is an intrinsic property of the ECDSA signatures which
> >> Bitcoin uses - it's not a feature that needs to be built.
> >>
> >> There's no way to accidentally sign a transaction and accidentally
> >> announce it publicly. There is no form of third-party error that can
> >> result in a payee receiving an erroneous contract.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Justus,
> >
> > We don’t even have a concept of identity in the Bitcoin protocol, let
> > alone non-repudiation. What good is non-repudiation if there’s no way
> > to even associate a signature with a legal entity?
> >
> > Sure, we could use the ECDSA signatures in transactions as part of a
> > non-repudiation scheme - but the recipient would have to also have a
> > means to establish the identity of the sender and associate it with
> > the the transaction.
> >
> >
> > Furthermore, in light of the fact that there *are* fully legitimate
> > use cases for sending conflicting transactions…and the fact that
> > determination of intent isn’t always entirely clear…we should refrain
> > from attaching any further significance transaction signatures other
> > than that “the sender was willing to have it included in the
> > blockchain if a miner were to have seen it and accepted it…but perhaps
> > the sender would have changed their mind before it actually did get
> > accepted.”
> 
> Bitcoin has no concept of identity, but in any type of commercial
> transaction the parties involved must know some minimal amount of
> identity information in order to transact at all.
> 
> Except for some identifiable special cases, I think a payee is perfectly
> justified in treating a double spend of a payment sent to them as part
> of a commercial transaction as a fraud attempt and employing whatever
> non-Bitcoin recourse mechanisms, if any, they have access to.
> 
> From the perspective of the network, the obviously correct action for
> any node or miner is to relay the first version of any transaction they
> see. The primary purpose of mining is to resolve this
> otherwise-unresolvable problem of determining which transaction among a
> set of conflicting transactions happened first.
> 
> If a node or miner wants to deviate from the obviously correct
> behaviour, and if they want to avoid harming the value of the network,
> they should be particularly careful to make sure their deviation from
> "first seen" doesn't introduce harmful unintended side effects, like
> making fraud easier.
> 

The contract between the buyer and seller is actually outside the Bitcoin 
network. Yes, a merchant that gets cheated could seek some other recourse in 
such an event…but the behavior you’re claiming as “obviously correct” is NOT 
obviously correct.  In fact, there are arguments against this “obviously 
correct” way even if we were to accept the premise that the signature implies a 
promise to pay (which I think many reasonable individuals would also dispute). 
For instance, by relaying conflicting transactions it makes it potentially 
easier for others to discover the double-spend attempt (of course, this 
requires wallets to not be lazy about this…perhaps such relays could be flagged 
or placed in a special message type).

- Eric Lombrozo





signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread justusranvier 
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 2015-06-20 19:19, Eric Lombrozo wrote:
>> On Jun 20, 2015, at 4:37 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>> 
>> Signed PGP part
>> On 2015-06-20 18:20, Jorge Timón wrote:
>> > On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:42 PM, Eric Lombrozo 
>> > wrote:
>> >> If we want a non-repudiation mechanism in the protocol, we should
>> >> explicitly define one rather than relying on “prima facie”
>> >> assumptions. Otherwise, I would recommend not relying on the existence
>> >> of a signed transaction as proof of intent to pay…
>> >
>> > Non-repudiation can be built on top of the payment protocol layer.
>> 
>> 
>> Non-repudiation is an intrinsic property of the ECDSA signatures which
>> Bitcoin uses - it's not a feature that needs to be built.
>> 
>> There's no way to accidentally sign a transaction and accidentally
>> announce it publicly. There is no form of third-party error that can
>> result in a payee receiving an erroneous contract.
>> 
>> 
> 
> Justus,
> 
> We don’t even have a concept of identity in the Bitcoin protocol, let
> alone non-repudiation. What good is non-repudiation if there’s no way
> to even associate a signature with a legal entity?
> 
> Sure, we could use the ECDSA signatures in transactions as part of a
> non-repudiation scheme - but the recipient would have to also have a
> means to establish the identity of the sender and associate it with
> the the transaction.
> 
> 
> Furthermore, in light of the fact that there *are* fully legitimate
> use cases for sending conflicting transactions…and the fact that
> determination of intent isn’t always entirely clear…we should refrain
> from attaching any further significance transaction signatures other
> than that “the sender was willing to have it included in the
> blockchain if a miner were to have seen it and accepted it…but perhaps
> the sender would have changed their mind before it actually did get
> accepted.”

Bitcoin has no concept of identity, but in any type of commercial 
transaction the parties involved must know some minimal amount of 
identity information in order to transact at all.

Except for some identifiable special cases, I think a payee is perfectly 
justified in treating a double spend of a payment sent to them as part 
of a commercial transaction as a fraud attempt and employing whatever 
non-Bitcoin recourse mechanisms, if any, they have access to.

- From the perspective of the network, the obviously correct action for 
any node or miner is to relay the first version of any transaction they 
see. The primary purpose of mining is to resolve this 
otherwise-unresolvable problem of determining which transaction among a 
set of conflicting transactions happened first.

If a node or miner wants to deviate from the obviously correct 
behaviour, and if they want to avoid harming the value of the network, 
they should be particularly careful to make sure their deviation from 
"first seen" doesn't introduce harmful unintended side effects, like 
making fraud easier.

-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1
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=HbNG
-END PGP SIGNATURE-

--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread Eric Lombrozo 

> On Jun 20, 2015, at 4:37 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> 
> Signed PGP part
> On 2015-06-20 18:20, Jorge Timón wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:42 PM, Eric Lombrozo 
> > wrote:
> >> If we want a non-repudiation mechanism in the protocol, we should
> >> explicitly define one rather than relying on “prima facie”
> >> assumptions. Otherwise, I would recommend not relying on the existence
> >> of a signed transaction as proof of intent to pay…
> >
> > Non-repudiation can be built on top of the payment protocol layer.
> 
> 
> Non-repudiation is an intrinsic property of the ECDSA signatures which
> Bitcoin uses - it's not a feature that needs to be built.
> 
> There's no way to accidentally sign a transaction and accidentally
> announce it publicly. There is no form of third-party error that can
> result in a payee receiving an erroneous contract.
> 
> 

Justus,

We don’t even have a concept of identity in the Bitcoin protocol, let alone 
non-repudiation. What good is non-repudiation if there’s no way to even 
associate a signature with a legal entity?

Sure, we could use the ECDSA signatures in transactions as part of a 
non-repudiation scheme - but the recipient would have to also have a means to 
establish the identity of the sender and associate it with the the transaction.


Furthermore, in light of the fact that there *are* fully legitimate use cases 
for sending conflicting transactions…and the fact that determination of intent 
isn’t always entirely clear…we should refrain from attaching any further 
significance transaction signatures other than that “the sender was willing to 
have it included in the blockchain if a miner were to have seen it and accepted 
it…but perhaps the sender would have changed their mind before it actually did 
get accepted.”

- Eric Lombrozo


signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread Eric Lombrozo 

> On Jun 20, 2015, at 4:47 PM, Eric Lombrozo  wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Jun 20, 2015, at 4:16 PM, Jorge Timón  wrote:
>> 
>> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 5:37 PM, Eric Lombrozo  wrote:
>>> The Bitcoin network was designed (or should be designed) with the 
>>> requirement that it can withstand deliberate double-spend attacks that can 
>>> come from anywhere at any time…
>> 
>> I disagree with this premise. Please, don't take this as an argument
>> from authority fallacy, but I will cite Satoshi to express what I
>> think the assumptions while using the system should be:
>> 
>> "As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are
>> not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest
>> chain and outpace attackers."
>> 
>> I can't say for sure what was meant by "attacking the network" in this
>> context but I personally mean trying to rewrite valid and
>> proof-of-work-timestamped history.
>> Unconfirmed transactions are simply not part of history yet. Ordering
>> unconfirmed transactions in a consensus compatible way without a
>> universal clock is impossible, that's why we're using proof of work in
>> the first place.
>> 
>> Alternative policies are NOT attacks on the network.
> 
> Just to be clear, Jorge, I wasn’t suggesting that unconfirmed transactions 
> are part of any sort of global consensus. In fact, they very much AREN’T. 
> Which is exactly why it is extremely dangerous to accept unconfirmed 
> transactions as final unless you clearly have assessed the risks and it makes 
> sense for the particular business use case.
> 
> - Eric Lombrozo

I think the misunderstanding was in perhaps my earlier statement seemed like I 
was suggesting that it’s the protocol’s responsibility to protect merchants 
from double-spends. On the contrary - I think we agree - the protocol CANNOT 
make any guarantees to ANYONE until we do converge on a history. The “design” I 
speak of here is more on the merchant side.

- Eric Lombrozo


signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread Eric Lombrozo 
I should also add that I think many in this space believe they have assessed 
the risk as acceptable but haven’t really considered how to cap potential 
losses nor made contingency plans for when the inevitable attacks *do* come.

- Eric Lombrozo

> On Jun 20, 2015, at 4:47 PM, Eric Lombrozo  wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Jun 20, 2015, at 4:16 PM, Jorge Timón  wrote:
>> 
>> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 5:37 PM, Eric Lombrozo  wrote:
>>> The Bitcoin network was designed (or should be designed) with the 
>>> requirement that it can withstand deliberate double-spend attacks that can 
>>> come from anywhere at any time…
>> 
>> I disagree with this premise. Please, don't take this as an argument
>> from authority fallacy, but I will cite Satoshi to express what I
>> think the assumptions while using the system should be:
>> 
>> "As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are
>> not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest
>> chain and outpace attackers."
>> 
>> I can't say for sure what was meant by "attacking the network" in this
>> context but I personally mean trying to rewrite valid and
>> proof-of-work-timestamped history.
>> Unconfirmed transactions are simply not part of history yet. Ordering
>> unconfirmed transactions in a consensus compatible way without a
>> universal clock is impossible, that's why we're using proof of work in
>> the first place.
>> 
>> Alternative policies are NOT attacks on the network.
> 
> Just to be clear, Jorge, I wasn’t suggesting that unconfirmed transactions 
> are part of any sort of global consensus. In fact, they very much AREN’T. 
> Which is exactly why it is extremely dangerous to accept unconfirmed 
> transactions as final unless you clearly have assessed the risks and it makes 
> sense for the particular business use case.
> 
> - Eric Lombrozo



signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread Eric Lombrozo 

> On Jun 20, 2015, at 4:16 PM, Jorge Timón  wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 5:37 PM, Eric Lombrozo  wrote:
>> The Bitcoin network was designed (or should be designed) with the 
>> requirement that it can withstand deliberate double-spend attacks that can 
>> come from anywhere at any time…
> 
> I disagree with this premise. Please, don't take this as an argument
> from authority fallacy, but I will cite Satoshi to express what I
> think the assumptions while using the system should be:
> 
> "As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are
> not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest
> chain and outpace attackers."
> 
> I can't say for sure what was meant by "attacking the network" in this
> context but I personally mean trying to rewrite valid and
> proof-of-work-timestamped history.
> Unconfirmed transactions are simply not part of history yet. Ordering
> unconfirmed transactions in a consensus compatible way without a
> universal clock is impossible, that's why we're using proof of work in
> the first place.
> 
> Alternative policies are NOT attacks on the network.

Just to be clear, Jorge, I wasn’t suggesting that unconfirmed transactions are 
part of any sort of global consensus. In fact, they very much AREN’T. Which is 
exactly why it is extremely dangerous to accept unconfirmed transactions as 
final unless you clearly have assessed the risks and it makes sense for the 
particular business use case.

- Eric Lombrozo


signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread justusranvier 
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 2015-06-20 18:20, Jorge Timón wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:42 PM, Eric Lombrozo  
> wrote:
>> If we want a non-repudiation mechanism in the protocol, we should 
>> explicitly define one rather than relying on “prima facie” 
>> assumptions. Otherwise, I would recommend not relying on the existence 
>> of a signed transaction as proof of intent to pay…
> 
> Non-repudiation can be built on top of the payment protocol layer.


Non-repudiation is an intrinsic property of the ECDSA signatures which 
Bitcoin uses - it's not a feature that needs to be built.

There's no way to accidentally sign a transaction and accidentally 
announce it publicly. There is no form of third-party error that can 
result in a payee receiving an erroneous contract.

-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1
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=o9dG
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread Jorge Timón 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:42 PM, Eric Lombrozo  wrote:
> If we want a non-repudiation mechanism in the protocol, we should explicitly 
> define one rather than relying on “prima facie” assumptions. Otherwise, I 
> would recommend not relying on the existence of a signed transaction as proof 
> of intent to pay…

Non-repudiation can be built on top of the payment protocol layer.

--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread Jorge Timón 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 5:37 PM, Eric Lombrozo  wrote:
> The Bitcoin network was designed (or should be designed) with the requirement 
> that it can withstand deliberate double-spend attacks that can come from 
> anywhere at any time…

I disagree with this premise. Please, don't take this as an argument
from authority fallacy, but I will cite Satoshi to express what I
think the assumptions while using the system should be:

"As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are
not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest
chain and outpace attackers."

I can't say for sure what was meant by "attacking the network" in this
context but I personally mean trying to rewrite valid and
proof-of-work-timestamped history.
Unconfirmed transactions are simply not part of history yet. Ordering
unconfirmed transactions in a consensus compatible way without a
universal clock is impossible, that's why we're using proof of work in
the first place.

Alternative policies are NOT attacks on the network.

--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread odinn 
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Peter,

Recently there was a brouhaha over Coinbase censoring the ability of
firearms businesses to accept bitcoins via Coinbase
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3agbs7/coinbase_shuts_down_bit
coin_biz_for_firearms/

The question and relevance here to this is that for people who are
going for the alternate route (e.g., bailing on Coinbase / Bitpay /
similar web wallets, in favor of setting up with something like
Electrum and using Gear https://gear.mycelium.com/ as payment
processor or Straight
https://github.com/snitko/straight-server,
what would be the answer to "What does this mean for me?" for this topic
?

On 06/19/2015 03:39 AM, Peter Todd wrote:
> Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the
> hashing power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after
> discussions with me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has
> will be replaced if a conflicting transaction pays a higher fee.
> There are no requirements for the replacement transaction to pay
> addresses that were paid by the previous transaction.
> 
> 
> I'm a user. What does this mean for me? 
> ---
> 
> In the short term, very little. Wallet software aimed at average
> users has no ability to reliably detect conditions where an
> unconfirmed transaction may be double-spent by the sender. For
> example, Schildbach's Bitcoin Wallet for Android doesn't even
> detect double-spends of unconfirmed transactions when connected to
> a RBF or Bitcoin XT nodes that propagate them. The least
> sophisticated double-spend attack possibly - simply broadcasting
> two conflicting transactions at the same time - has about 50%
> probability of success against these wallets.
> 
> Additionally, SPV wallets based on bitcoinj can't even detect
> invalid transactions reliably, instead trusting the full node(s) it
> is connected too over the unauthenticated, unencrypted, P2P
> protocol to do validation for them. For instance due to a unfixed
> bug¹ Bitcoin XT nodes will relay double-spends that spend the
> output of the conflicting transaction. I've personally tested this
> with Schildbach's Bitcoin Wallet for Android, which shows such
> invalid transactions as standard, unconfirmed, transactions.
> 
> Users should continue to assume that unconfirmed transactions could
> be trivially reversed by the sender until the first confirmation.
> In general, only the sender can reverse a transaction, so if you do
> trust the sender feel free to assume an unconfirmed transaction
> will eventually confirm. However, if you do not trust the sender
> and/or have no other recourse if they double-spend you, wait until
> at least the first confirmation before assuming the transaction
> will go through.
> 
> In the long term, miner support of full RBF has a number of
> advantages to users, allowing you to more efficiently make
> transactions, paying lower fees. However you'll need a wallet
> supporting these features; none exist yet.
> 
> 
> I'm a business. What does this mean for me? 
> ---
> 
> If you use your own node to verify transactions, you probably are
> in a similar situation as average users, so again, this means very
> little to you.
> 
> If you use a payment processor/transaction API such as BitPay,
> Coinbase, BlockCypher, etc. you may or may not be accepting
> unconfirmed transactions, and they may or may not be "guaranteed"
> by your payment processor even if double-spent. If like most
> merchants you're using the API such that confirmations are required
> prior to accepting orders (e.g. taking a meaningful loss such as
> shipping a product if the tx is reversed) nothing changes for you.
> If not I recommend you contact your payment processor.
> 
> 
> I'm a miner. Why should I support replace-by-fee? 
> -
> 
> Whether full or first-seen-safe⁵ RBF support (along with 
> child-pays-for-parent) is an important step towards a fully
> functioning transaction fee market that doesn't lead to users'
> transactions getting mysteriously "stuck", particularly during
> network flooding events/attacks. A better functioning fee market
> will help reduce pressure to increase the blocksize, particularly
> from the users creating the most valuable transactions.
> 
> Full RBF also helps make use of the limited blockchain space more 
> efficiently, with up to 90%+ transaction size savings possible in
> some transaction patterns. (e.g. long payment chains⁶) More users
> in less blockchain space will lead to higher overall fees per
> block.
> 
> Finally as we'll discuss below full RBF prevents a number of
> serious threats to the existing level playing field that miners
> operate in.
> 
> 
> Why can't we make accepting unconfirmed txs from untrusted people
> safe? 
> --
- -
>
>  For a decentralized wallet, the situation is

[Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread Cameron Hejazi 
On Saturday, June 20, 2015, Ivan Brightly > wrote:

> Yep - similarly: you live in a neighborhood with a local coffee store.
> Sure you could use a stolen credit card or a fake $5 bill, but it's not
> worth the risk of being caught for a $3 coffee. And on the other side, the
> store can deal with 1% of transactions getting reversed or having a fake
> bill so they don't change their procedures.
>

These analogies being brought are based on the goal of quick
payments, which is different from the goal of Bitcoin:
cryptographically sound, distributed consensus.



> Perfection is not necessary in all situations.
>

If you want zeroconf transactions, first realize that this goal currently
has no sound solution in Bitcoin and until it does, supporting it should
not be a part of the agenda. There are two paths going forward, not
independent of one another, that would achieve the goal of quick payments
for your coffee etc:
- Research/implement a solution that is consistent with the goal of Bitcoin
- Rely on a cosigning central authority

If you think the latter option is nasty, remember that people,
like corporations, can be nasty as well. Do not rely on the good faith of
people.

Cameron
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-20 Thread Ivan Brightly 
Yep - similarly: you live in a neighborhood with a local coffee store. Sure
you could use a stolen credit card or a fake $5 bill, but it's not worth
the risk of being caught for a $3 coffee. And on the other side, the store
can deal with 1% of transactions getting reversed or having a fake bill so
they don't change their procedures.

Perfection is not necessary in all situations.

On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 12:02 AM, Eric Lombrozo  wrote:

>
> > On Jun 19, 2015, at 8:48 PM, Luke Dashjr  wrote:
> >
> > On Saturday, June 20, 2015 1:23:03 AM Aaron Voisine wrote:
> >> They don't need to be made cryptographically safe, they just have to be
> >> safer than, for instance, credit card payments that can be charged
> back. As
> >> long as it's reasonably good in practice, that's fine.
> >
> > They never will be. You can get a decent rate of success merely by
> making one
> > transaction propagate fast (eg, 1 input, 1 output) and the other slow
> (eg,
> > 1000 inputs, 1000 outputs) and choosing your peers carefully. The only
> reason
> > unconfirmed transactions aren't double spent today is because nobody is
> > seriously *trying*.
> >
> > Luke
> >
>
>
> Newspapers are often sold in vending machines that make it possible for
> anyone to just pay the price of one and take them all…and most of the time
> they are not that carefully monitored. Why? Because most people have better
> things to do than try to steal a few newspapers. They probably were much
> more closely monitored earlier in their history…but once it became clear
> that despite the obvious attack vector very few people actually try to game
> it, vendors figured it wasn’t really that big a risk. Same thing applies to
> people trying to steal a piece of bubble gum at the cash register at a
> convenience store by double-spending.
>
> - Eric Lombrozo
>
> >
> --
> > ___
> > Bitcoin-development mailing list
> > [email protected]
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>
>
>
> --
>
> ___
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>
>
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Eric Lombrozo 

> On Jun 19, 2015, at 8:48 PM, Luke Dashjr  wrote:
> 
> On Saturday, June 20, 2015 1:23:03 AM Aaron Voisine wrote:
>> They don't need to be made cryptographically safe, they just have to be
>> safer than, for instance, credit card payments that can be charged back. As
>> long as it's reasonably good in practice, that's fine.
> 
> They never will be. You can get a decent rate of success merely by making one
> transaction propagate fast (eg, 1 input, 1 output) and the other slow (eg,
> 1000 inputs, 1000 outputs) and choosing your peers carefully. The only reason
> unconfirmed transactions aren't double spent today is because nobody is
> seriously *trying*.
> 
> Luke
> 


Newspapers are often sold in vending machines that make it possible for anyone 
to just pay the price of one and take them all…and most of the time they are 
not that carefully monitored. Why? Because most people have better things to do 
than try to steal a few newspapers. They probably were much more closely 
monitored earlier in their history…but once it became clear that despite the 
obvious attack vector very few people actually try to game it, vendors figured 
it wasn’t really that big a risk. Same thing applies to people trying to steal 
a piece of bubble gum at the cash register at a convenience store by 
double-spending.

- Eric Lombrozo

> --
> ___
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development



signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Luke Dashjr 
On Saturday, June 20, 2015 1:23:03 AM Aaron Voisine wrote:
> They don't need to be made cryptographically safe, they just have to be
> safer than, for instance, credit card payments that can be charged back. As
> long as it's reasonably good in practice, that's fine.

They never will be. You can get a decent rate of success merely by making one 
transaction propagate fast (eg, 1 input, 1 output) and the other slow (eg, 
1000 inputs, 1000 outputs) and choosing your peers carefully. The only reason 
unconfirmed transactions aren't double spent today is because nobody is 
seriously *trying*.

Luke

--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Eric Lombrozo 
It all comes down to managing risk. If you’ve got a decent risk model with 
capped losses and safe recovery mechanisms…and it’s still profitable…it’s fine. 
But most payment processors and merchants right now probably don’t have 
particularly good risk models and are making many dangerous assumptions…and 
probably would not be able to gracefully handle very many risk scenarios.

- Eric Lombrozo


> On Jun 19, 2015, at 6:23 PM, Aaron Voisine  wrote:
> 
> > What retail needs is escrowed microchannel hubs (what lightning provides, 
> > for example), which enable untrusted instant payments. Not reliance on 
> > single-signer zeroconf transactions that can never be made safe.
> 
> They don't need to be made cryptographically safe, they just have to be safer 
> than, for instance, credit card payments that can be charged back. As long as 
> it's reasonably good in practice, that's fine.
> 
> 
> Aaron Voisine
> co-founder and CEO
> breadwallet.com 
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:09 PM, Mark Friedenbach  > wrote:
> What retail needs is escrowed microchannel hubs (what lightning provides, for 
> example), which enable untrusted instant payments. Not reliance on 
> single-signer zeroconf transactions that can never be made safe.
> 
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 5:47 PM, Andreas Petersson  > wrote:
> I have some experience here. If you are seriously suggesting these
> measures, you might as well kill retail transactions altogether.
> 
> In practice, if a retail place starts to accept bitcoin they have a
> similar situation as with cash, only that the fraud potential is much
> lower. (e.g. 100-dollar bill for a sandwich might turn out fake later)
> and the fraud frequency is also much lower.
> 
> 0-conf concerns were never a problem in practice. except for 2-way atms
> i have never heard of a problem that was caused by double spends.
> while adding these measures is generally positive, requiring them means
> excluding 99.9% of the potential users. so you might as well not do it.
> 
> RBF as implemented by F2Pool just flat out lowers Bitcoins utility
> value. So it's a bad thing.
> 
> for any online or automated system, waiting for a handful of
> confirmations was always recommended practice.
> 
> Am 19.06.2015 um 22:39 schrieb Matt Whitlock:
> > Retail POS merchants probably should not be accepting vanilla Bitcoin
> > payments, as Bitcoin alone does not (and cannot) guarantee the
> > irreversibility of a transaction until it has been buried several
> > blocks deep in the chain. Retail merchants should be requiring a
> > co-signature from a mutually trusted co-signer that vows never to sign
> > a double-spend.
> 
> 
> --
> 
> ___
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> [email protected] 
> 
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> 
> ___
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> [email protected] 
> 
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> ___
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development



signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Aaron Voisine 
> What retail needs is escrowed microchannel hubs (what lightning provides,
for example), which enable untrusted instant payments. Not reliance on
single-signer zeroconf transactions that can never be made safe.

They don't need to be made cryptographically safe, they just have to be
safer than, for instance, credit card payments that can be charged back. As
long as it's reasonably good in practice, that's fine.


Aaron Voisine
co-founder and CEO
breadwallet.com

On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:09 PM, Mark Friedenbach 
wrote:

> What retail needs is escrowed microchannel hubs (what lightning provides,
> for example), which enable untrusted instant payments. Not reliance on
> single-signer zeroconf transactions that can never be made safe.
>
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 5:47 PM, Andreas Petersson 
> wrote:
>
>> I have some experience here. If you are seriously suggesting these
>> measures, you might as well kill retail transactions altogether.
>>
>> In practice, if a retail place starts to accept bitcoin they have a
>> similar situation as with cash, only that the fraud potential is much
>> lower. (e.g. 100-dollar bill for a sandwich might turn out fake later)
>> and the fraud frequency is also much lower.
>>
>> 0-conf concerns were never a problem in practice. except for 2-way atms
>> i have never heard of a problem that was caused by double spends.
>> while adding these measures is generally positive, requiring them means
>> excluding 99.9% of the potential users. so you might as well not do it.
>>
>> RBF as implemented by F2Pool just flat out lowers Bitcoins utility
>> value. So it's a bad thing.
>>
>> for any online or automated system, waiting for a handful of
>> confirmations was always recommended practice.
>>
>> Am 19.06.2015 um 22:39 schrieb Matt Whitlock:
>> > Retail POS merchants probably should not be accepting vanilla Bitcoin
>> > payments, as Bitcoin alone does not (and cannot) guarantee the
>> > irreversibility of a transaction until it has been buried several
>> > blocks deep in the chain. Retail merchants should be requiring a
>> > co-signature from a mutually trusted co-signer that vows never to sign
>> > a double-spend.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> ___
>> Bitcoin-development mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
> ___
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>
>
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Mark Friedenbach 
What retail needs is escrowed microchannel hubs (what lightning provides,
for example), which enable untrusted instant payments. Not reliance on
single-signer zeroconf transactions that can never be made safe.

On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 5:47 PM, Andreas Petersson 
wrote:

> I have some experience here. If you are seriously suggesting these
> measures, you might as well kill retail transactions altogether.
>
> In practice, if a retail place starts to accept bitcoin they have a
> similar situation as with cash, only that the fraud potential is much
> lower. (e.g. 100-dollar bill for a sandwich might turn out fake later)
> and the fraud frequency is also much lower.
>
> 0-conf concerns were never a problem in practice. except for 2-way atms
> i have never heard of a problem that was caused by double spends.
> while adding these measures is generally positive, requiring them means
> excluding 99.9% of the potential users. so you might as well not do it.
>
> RBF as implemented by F2Pool just flat out lowers Bitcoins utility
> value. So it's a bad thing.
>
> for any online or automated system, waiting for a handful of
> confirmations was always recommended practice.
>
> Am 19.06.2015 um 22:39 schrieb Matt Whitlock:
> > Retail POS merchants probably should not be accepting vanilla Bitcoin
> > payments, as Bitcoin alone does not (and cannot) guarantee the
> > irreversibility of a transaction until it has been buried several
> > blocks deep in the chain. Retail merchants should be requiring a
> > co-signature from a mutually trusted co-signer that vows never to sign
> > a double-spend.
>
>
>
> --
>
> ___
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>
>
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Andreas Petersson 
I have some experience here. If you are seriously suggesting these
measures, you might as well kill retail transactions altogether.

In practice, if a retail place starts to accept bitcoin they have a
similar situation as with cash, only that the fraud potential is much
lower. (e.g. 100-dollar bill for a sandwich might turn out fake later)
and the fraud frequency is also much lower.

0-conf concerns were never a problem in practice. except for 2-way atms
i have never heard of a problem that was caused by double spends.
while adding these measures is generally positive, requiring them means
excluding 99.9% of the potential users. so you might as well not do it.

RBF as implemented by F2Pool just flat out lowers Bitcoins utility
value. So it's a bad thing.

for any online or automated system, waiting for a handful of
confirmations was always recommended practice.

Am 19.06.2015 um 22:39 schrieb Matt Whitlock:
> Retail POS merchants probably should not be accepting vanilla Bitcoin
> payments, as Bitcoin alone does not (and cannot) guarantee the
> irreversibility of a transaction until it has been buried several
> blocks deep in the chain. Retail merchants should be requiring a
> co-signature from a mutually trusted co-signer that vows never to sign
> a double-spend.  



0xAA4EDEEF.asc
Description: application/pgp-keys
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Jeff Garzik 
Double spend detection is by definition best-effort.

The purpose of bitcoin is to provide security (confirmations) to otherwise
insecure, possibly double spent transactions.




On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 2:05 PM, Frank Flores  wrote:

> Has anyone from Mycelium weighed in on this? Is their doublespend attack
> detection broken with this kind of irresponsible behavior?
>
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 3:39 PM, Matt Whitlock 
> wrote:
>
>> On Friday, 19 June 2015, at 9:18 am, Adrian Macneil wrote:
>> > If full-RBF sees any significant adoption by miners, then it will
>> actively
>> > harm bitcoin adoption by reducing or removing the ability for online or
>> POS
>> > merchants to accept bitcoin payments at all.
>>
>> Retail POS merchants probably should not be accepting vanilla Bitcoin
>> payments, as Bitcoin alone does not (and cannot) guarantee the
>> irreversibility of a transaction until it has been buried several blocks
>> deep in the chain. Retail merchants should be requiring a co-signature from
>> a mutually trusted co-signer that vows never to sign a double-spend. The
>> reason we don't yet see such technology permeating the ecosystem is
>> because, to date, zero-conf transactions have been irreversible "enough,"
>> but this has only been a happy accident; it was never promised, and it
>> should not be relied upon.
>>
>>
>> --
>> ___
>> Bitcoin-development mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>>
>
>
>
> --
> *MONEY IS OVER!*
> IF YOU WANT IT
> 
> =
> The causes of my servitude can be traced to the tyranny of money.
> -Serj Tankian
>
>
> --
>
> ___
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>
>


-- 
Jeff Garzik
Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist
BitPay, Inc.  https://bitpay.com/
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Frank Flores 
Has anyone from Mycelium weighed in on this? Is their doublespend attack
detection broken with this kind of irresponsible behavior?

On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 3:39 PM, Matt Whitlock 
wrote:

> On Friday, 19 June 2015, at 9:18 am, Adrian Macneil wrote:
> > If full-RBF sees any significant adoption by miners, then it will
> actively
> > harm bitcoin adoption by reducing or removing the ability for online or
> POS
> > merchants to accept bitcoin payments at all.
>
> Retail POS merchants probably should not be accepting vanilla Bitcoin
> payments, as Bitcoin alone does not (and cannot) guarantee the
> irreversibility of a transaction until it has been buried several blocks
> deep in the chain. Retail merchants should be requiring a co-signature from
> a mutually trusted co-signer that vows never to sign a double-spend. The
> reason we don't yet see such technology permeating the ecosystem is
> because, to date, zero-conf transactions have been irreversible "enough,"
> but this has only been a happy accident; it was never promised, and it
> should not be relied upon.
>
>
> --
> ___
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>



-- 
*MONEY IS OVER!*
IF YOU WANT IT

=
The causes of my servitude can be traced to the tyranny of money.
-Serj Tankian
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Matt Whitlock 
On Friday, 19 June 2015, at 9:18 am, Adrian Macneil wrote:
> If full-RBF sees any significant adoption by miners, then it will actively
> harm bitcoin adoption by reducing or removing the ability for online or POS
> merchants to accept bitcoin payments at all.

Retail POS merchants probably should not be accepting vanilla Bitcoin payments, 
as Bitcoin alone does not (and cannot) guarantee the irreversibility of a 
transaction until it has been buried several blocks deep in the chain. Retail 
merchants should be requiring a co-signature from a mutually trusted co-signer 
that vows never to sign a double-spend. The reason we don't yet see such 
technology permeating the ecosystem is because, to date, zero-conf transactions 
have been irreversible "enough," but this has only been a happy accident; it 
was never promised, and it should not be relied upon.

--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Jeffrey Paul 
It seems to me that FSS RBF must enforce identical OP_RETURN data on the output 
scripts as the first seen transaction, as well, to safely continue support for 
various other applications built atop the blockchain.

Is there a canonical implementation of FSS RBF around somewhere I can review?

Best,
-jp

-- 
Jeffrey Paul   +1 (312) 361-0355
5539 AD00 DE4C 42F3 AFE1 1575 0524 43F4 DF2A 55C2

> On 19.06.2015, at 15:52, Chun Wang <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Before F2Pool's launch, I performed probably the only successful
> bitcoin double spend in the March 2013 fork without any mining power.
> [ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152348.0 ] I know how bad
> the full RBF is. We are going to switch to FSS RBF in a few hours.
> Sorry.
> 
>> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 9:44 PM, Peter Todd  wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 09:33:05AM -0400, Stephen Morse wrote:
>>> It is disappointing that F2Pool would enable full RBF when the safe
>>> alternative, first-seen-safe RBF, is also available, especially since the
>>> fees they would gain by supporting full RBF over FSS RBF would likely be
>>> negligible. Did they consider using FSS RBF instead?
>> 
>> Specifically the following is what I told them:
>> 
>>> We are
>>> interested in the replace-by-fee patch, but I am not following the
>>> development closely, more background info is needed, like what the
>>> difference between standard and zeroconf versions? Thanks.
>> 
>> Great!
>> 
>> Basically both let you replace one transaction with another that pays a
>> higher fee. First-seen-safe replace-by-fee adds the additional criteria
>> that all outputs of the old transaction still need to be paid by the new
>> transaction, with >= as many Bitcoins. Basically, it makes sure that if
>> someone was paid by tx1, then tx2 will still pay them.
>> 
>> I've written about how wallets can use RBF and FSS-RBF to more
>> efficiently use the blockchain on the bitcoin-development mailing list:
>> 
>> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg07813.html
>> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg07829.html
>> 
>> Basically, for the purpose of increasing fees, RBF is something like %50
>> cheaper than CPFP, and FSS-RBF is something like %25 cheaper.
>> 
>> In addition, for ease of implementation, my new FSS-RBF has a number of
>> other restrictions. For instance, you can't replace multiple
>> transactions with one, you can't replace a transaction whose outputs
>> have already been spent, you can't replace a transaction with one that
>> spends additional unconfirmed inputs, etc. These restrictions aren't
>> "set in stone", but they do make the code simpler and less likely to
>> have bugs.
>> 
>> In comparison my previous standard RBF patch can replace multiple
>> transactions with one, can replace long chains of transactions, etc.
>> It's willing to do more computation before deciding if a transaction
>> should be replaced, with more complex logic; it probably has a higher
>> chance of having a bug or DoS attack.
>> 
>> You've probably seen the huge controversy around zeroconf with regard to
>> standard replace-by-fee. While FSS RBF doesn't make zeroconf any safer,
>> it also doesn't make it any more dangerous, so politically with regard
>> to zeroconf it makes no difference. You *can* still use it doublespend
>> by taking advantage of how different transactions are accepted
>> differently, but that's true of *every* change we've ever made to
>> Bitcoin Core - by upgrading to v0.10 from v0.9 you've also "broken"
>> zeroconf in the same way.
>> 
>> 
>> Having said that... honestly, zeroconf is pretty broken already. Only
>> with pretty heroic measures like connecting to a significant fraction of
>> the Bitcoin network at once, as well as connecting to getblocktemplate
>> supporting miners to figure out what transactions are being mined, are
>> services having any hope of avoiding getting ripped off. For the average
>> user their wallets do a terrible job of showing whether or not an
>> unconfirmed transaction will go through. For example, Schildbach's
>> Bitcoin wallet for Android has no code at all to detect double-spends
>> until they get mined, and I've been able to trick it into showing
>> completely invalid transactions. In fact, currently Bitcoin XT will
>> relay invalid transactions that are doublepsends, and Schildbach's
>> wallet displays them as valid, unconfirmed, payments. It's really no
>> surprise to me that nearly no-one in the Bitcoin ecosystem accepts
>> unconfirmed transactions without some kind of protection that doesn't
>> rely on first-seen-safe mempool behavior. For instance, many ATM's these
>> days know who their customers are due to AML requirements, so while you
>> can deposit Bitcoins and get your funds instantly, the protection for
>> the ATM operator is that they can go to the police if you rip them off;
>> I've spoken to ATM operators who didn't do this who've lost hundreds or
>> even thousa

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread justusranvier 
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

On 2015-06-19 17:50, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> No.  You cannot know which is the 'right' or wrong transaction.  One tx 
> has
> obvious nSequence adjustments, the other - the refund transaction - may 
> not.

I'm still not seeing a case where a node could see conflicting 
transactions on the network as part of a micropayment channel, and not 
know it was observing the resolution of a channel rather than a likely 
retail double spend.

If both transactions have been broadcast, then one of the conflicting 
members of the set will have nSequence adjustments.

Maybe a clever griefer could try to make their retail double spend look 
like a micropayment channel, but it seems like they'd be missing the 
other identifiable markers of that protocol.

-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v2
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=Hj0x
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Jeff Garzik 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 10:48 AM,  wrote:

> On 2015-06-19 17:40, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>
>> Making multiple incompatible versions of a spend is a -requirement- of
>> various refund contract protocols.
>>
>
> Is there not a dedicated field in a transaction (nSequence) for express
> purpose of indicating when a protocol like this is in use?
>

No.  You cannot know which is the 'right' or wrong transaction.  One tx has
obvious nSequence adjustments, the other - the refund transaction - may not.

-- 
Jeff Garzik
Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist
BitPay, Inc.  https://bitpay.com/
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread justusranvier 
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

On 2015-06-19 17:40, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Making multiple incompatible versions of a spend is a -requirement- of
> various refund contract protocols.

Is there not a dedicated field in a transaction (nSequence) for express 
purpose of indicating when a protocol like this is in use?

As far as I know, transactions which are using those protocols can be 
easily differentiated from those that aren't (which is probably good 
from a payment assurance standpoint and bad from a privacy standpoint).

-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v2
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=en1q
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Jeff Garzik 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 9:44 AM,  wrote:

> If we have ECDSA proof that an entity intentionally made and publicly
> announced incompatible promises regarding the disposition of particular
> Bitcoins under their control, then why shouldn't that be assumed to be a
> fraud attempt unless shown otherwise?
>

Making multiple incompatible versions of a spend is a -requirement- of
various refund contract protocols.

-- 
Jeff Garzik
Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist
BitPay, Inc.  https://bitpay.com/
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Tier Nolan 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 5:42 PM, Eric Lombrozo  wrote:

> If we want a non-repudiation mechanism in the protocol, we should
> explicitly define one rather than relying on “prima facie” assumptions.
> Otherwise, I would recommend not relying on the existence of a signed
> transaction as proof of intent to pay…
>

Outputs could be marked as "locked".  If you are performing a zero
confirmation spend, then the recipient could insist that you flag the
output for them as non-reducible.

This reduces privacy since it would be obvious which output was change.  If
both are locked, then the fee can't be increased.

This would be information that miners could ignore though.

Creating the right incentives is hard though.  Blocks could be
"discouraged" if they have a double spend that is known about for a while
which reduces payment for a locked output.
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread justusranvier 
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

On 2015-06-19 16:42, Eric Lombrozo wrote:
> If we want a non-repudiation mechanism in the protocol, we should
> explicitly define one rather than relying on “prima facie”
> assumptions. Otherwise, I would recommend not relying on the existence
> of a signed transaction as proof of intent to pay…

Again, I'm not talking about any changes to the protocol. The mining 
mechanism in the Bitcoin protocol is the fallback method of resolving 
fraud that isn't prevented or resolved via other mechanisms.

There are plenty of other ways economic actors resolve their 
disagreements other than blockchain adjudication. Sometimes when both 
parties are identified and reside in the same legal jurisdiction, 
contract violations and fraud can be adjudicated in courts. In some 
situations, the parties involved may have access to private dispute 
resolution techniques.

Sometimes the stakeholders in the network act to preserve the long term 
value of their investments, even if it means passing short-term profits. 
The more of those stakeholders there are in Bitcoin, the more effective 
it is to make the case for choices that are long-term beneficial.

The degree to which anyone should rely on a signed transaction as 
assurance of future payment is not a question with a universal answer. 
It depends on the particular details of the situation, and the parties 
involved, and their own risk tolerances and time preferences. There's no 
right answer for everyone, which is why "let's break zeroconf because 
*I* don't think it's safe enough" is a kind of vandalism.
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v2
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=x8eh
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Peter Todd 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 09:42:33AM -0700, Eric Lombrozo wrote:
> If we want a non-repudiation mechanism in the protocol, we should explicitly 
> define one rather than relying on “prima facie” assumptions. Otherwise, I 
> would recommend not relying on the existence of a signed transaction as proof 
> of intent to pay…

Indeed.

For instance, one of the ideas behind my Proofchains work is that you
could hind all details of a smartcontract-whatchamacallit protocol
behind single-use-seals in a consensus blockchain. Closing those seals,
that is spending the appropriate txouts, represents things in the
protocol which are absolutely unobservable to anyone without the data
behind those hashes, an extreme version of the above.


Incidentally, some patent prior-art exposure:

https://github.com/proofchains/python-proofchains

:)

-- 
'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
0a203bd78c8536399f67275064107def6c7afea29c4e3a7b


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Milly Bitcoin 
"prima facie" generally means that in a court case the burden of proof 
shifts from one party to another. For instance, if you have a federal 
trademark registration that is prima fascia evidence of those rights 
even though they could still be challenged.  To say a prosecutor would 
have prima fascia evidence of a crime because double spend was detected 
is quite a stretch.



On 6/19/2015 12:36 PM, Matt Whitlock wrote:
> On Friday, 19 June 2015, at 3:53 pm, [email protected] wrote:
>> I'd also like to note that "prima facie" doesn't mean "always", it means
>> that "the default assumption, unless proven otherwise."
> Why would you automatically assume fraud by default? Shouldn't the null 
> hypothesis be the default? Without any information one way or another, you 
> ought to make *no assumption* about the fraudulence or non-fraudulence of any 
> given double-spend.
>
> --
> ___
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>



--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Matt Whitlock 
Even if you could prove "intent to pay," this would be almost useless. I can 
sincerely intend to do a lot of things, but this doesn't mean I'll ever 
actually do them.

I am in favor of more zero-confirmation transactions being reversed / 
double-spent. Bitcoin users largely still believe that accepting zero-conf 
transactions is safe, and evidently it's going to take some harsh lessons in 
reality to correct this belief.


On Friday, 19 June 2015, at 9:42 am, Eric Lombrozo wrote:
> If we want a non-repudiation mechanism in the protocol, we should explicitly 
> define one rather than relying on “prima facie” assumptions. Otherwise, I 
> would recommend not relying on the existence of a signed transaction as proof 
> of intent to pay…
> 
> 
> > On Jun 19, 2015, at 9:36 AM, Matt Whitlock  wrote:
> > 
> > On Friday, 19 June 2015, at 3:53 pm, [email protected] wrote:
> >> I'd also like to note that "prima facie" doesn't mean "always", it means
> >> that "the default assumption, unless proven otherwise."
> > 
> > Why would you automatically assume fraud by default? Shouldn't the null 
> > hypothesis be the default? Without any information one way or another, you 
> > ought to make *no assumption* about the fraudulence or non-fraudulence of 
> > any given double-spend.
> 

--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread justusranvier 
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

On 2015-06-19 16:36, Matt Whitlock wrote:
> On Friday, 19 June 2015, at 3:53 pm, [email protected] wrote:
>> I'd also like to note that "prima facie" doesn't mean "always", it 
>> means
>> that "the default assumption, unless proven otherwise."
> 
> Why would you automatically assume fraud by default? Shouldn't the
> null hypothesis be the default? Without any information one way or
> another, you ought to make *no assumption* about the fraudulence or
> non-fraudulence of any given double-spend.

If we have ECDSA proof that an entity intentionally made and publicly 
announced incompatible promises regarding the disposition of particular 
Bitcoins under their control, then why shouldn't that be assumed to be a 
fraud attempt unless shown otherwise?

There are ways of achiving transaction fee adjustment after broadcast 
that do not present the appearance of, or opportunity for, fraud. If 
those options are available and the user chooses not to use them in 
favor of the option that does, that makes bad intentions even more 
probable.

-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v2
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=xtXD
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Eric Lombrozo 
If we want a non-repudiation mechanism in the protocol, we should explicitly 
define one rather than relying on “prima facie” assumptions. Otherwise, I would 
recommend not relying on the existence of a signed transaction as proof of 
intent to pay…


> On Jun 19, 2015, at 9:36 AM, Matt Whitlock  wrote:
> 
> On Friday, 19 June 2015, at 3:53 pm, [email protected] wrote:
>> I'd also like to note that "prima facie" doesn't mean "always", it means
>> that "the default assumption, unless proven otherwise."
> 
> Why would you automatically assume fraud by default? Shouldn't the null 
> hypothesis be the default? Without any information one way or another, you 
> ought to make *no assumption* about the fraudulence or non-fraudulence of any 
> given double-spend.



signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Peter Todd 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 09:18:54AM -0700, Adrian Macneil wrote:
> >
> > > So connecting to many nodes just because we can and it's not technically
> > > prevented is bad for the network and creating systemic risks of failure,
> >
> > Well it is actually; that's why myself, Wladimir van der Laan, and
> > Gregory Maxwell all specifically¹ called Chainalysis's actions a sybil
> > attack.
> >
> > The Bitcoin P2P network is resilliant to failure when the chance of any
> > one node going down is uncorrelated with others. For instance if you
> > accidentally introduced a bug in your nodes that failed to relay
> > transactions/blocks properly, you'd simultaneously be disrupting a large
> > portion of the network all at once.
> >
> 
> This is exactly what your RBF patch is doing. By your own logic, nodes on
> the network should be allowed to relay (or not relay) whatever they wish.

Ah, seems you misunderstand the problem.

By properly we're concerned that things do get relayed, not that they do
not. In particularl with blocks a fairly to relay valid blocks will
quickly lead to a loss of consensus.

> > How many nodes is Coinbase connecting too? What software are they
> > running? What subnets are they using? In particular, are they all on one
> > subnet or multiple?
> >
> 
> We're running about a dozen nodes running regular Bitcoin Core in various
> subnets. We aren't doing anything particularly out of the ordinary here.
> Nothing that would fall under your definition of a sybil attack or harmful
> to the network.

Right, so those dozen nodes, how many outgoing connections are they
making?

> > But of course, you'd never 51% the network right? After all it's not
> > possible to guarantee that your miner won't mine double-spends, as there
> > is no single consensus definition of which transaction came first, nor
> > can there be.
> >
> > Or do you see things differently? If I'm a small miner should I be
> > worried my blocks might be rejected by the majority with hashing power
> > contracts because I'm unable to predict which transactions Coinbase
> > believes should go in the blockchain?
> >
> 
> You seem so concerned that we are actively trying to harm or control the
> network. We're simply trying to drive bitcoin adoption by making it easy
> for people to spend their bitcoin with merchants online. The problems we
> face are no different from other merchant processors, or small independent
> merchants accepting online or point-of-sale payments.
>
> We've historically had relatively little interest in what miners were doing
> (until RBF came out) - for the most part it didn't affect our business.
> However, most large merchants would be simply uninterested in accepting
> bitcoin if we forced their customers to wait 10-60 minutes for their
> payments to confirm. Many have inventory management systems which can not
> even place items on hold that long.

While your goals may be reasonable, again, the question is how are you
going to achieve them? Do you accept that you may be in a position where
you can't guarantee confirmations? Again, what's your plan to deal with
this? For instance, I know Coinbase is contractually obliged to accept
zeroconf payments with at least some of your customers - how strong are
those agreements?

What we're worried about is your plan appears to include nothing
concrete beyond the possibility of getting contracts with hashing power,
maybe even just a majority of hashing power. This is something that
should concern everyone in the Bitcoin ecosystem, and it'd help if you
clearly stated what your intentions are.

-- 
'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
1128683847671e0ca022f9c74df90a3dc718545379101b72


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Matt Whitlock 
On Friday, 19 June 2015, at 3:53 pm, [email protected] wrote:
> I'd also like to note that "prima facie" doesn't mean "always", it means
> that "the default assumption, unless proven otherwise."

Why would you automatically assume fraud by default? Shouldn't the null 
hypothesis be the default? Without any information one way or another, you 
ought to make *no assumption* about the fraudulence or non-fraudulence of any 
given double-spend.

--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Adrian Macneil 
>
> > So connecting to many nodes just because we can and it's not technically
> > prevented is bad for the network and creating systemic risks of failure,
>
> Well it is actually; that's why myself, Wladimir van der Laan, and
> Gregory Maxwell all specifically¹ called Chainalysis's actions a sybil
> attack.
>
> The Bitcoin P2P network is resilliant to failure when the chance of any
> one node going down is uncorrelated with others. For instance if you
> accidentally introduced a bug in your nodes that failed to relay
> transactions/blocks properly, you'd simultaneously be disrupting a large
> portion of the network all at once.
>

This is exactly what your RBF patch is doing. By your own logic, nodes on
the network should be allowed to relay (or not relay) whatever they wish.


> How many nodes is Coinbase connecting too? What software are they
> running? What subnets are they using? In particular, are they all on one
> subnet or multiple?
>

We're running about a dozen nodes running regular Bitcoin Core in various
subnets. We aren't doing anything particularly out of the ordinary here.
Nothing that would fall under your definition of a sybil attack or harmful
to the network.

> > You know, you're creating an interesting bit of game theory here: if I'm
> > > a miner who doesn't already have a mining contract, why not implement
> > > full-RBF to force Coinbase to offer me one? One reason might be because
> > > other miners with such a contract - a majority - are going to be asked
> > > by Coinbase to reorg you out of the blockchain, but then we have a
> > > situation where a single entity has control of the blockchain.
> > >
> >
> > If someone did enter into contracts with miners to mine certain
> > transactions, and had a guarantee that the miners would not build on
> > previous blocks which included double spends, then they would only need
> > contracts with 51% of the network anyway. So it wouldn't really matter if
> > you were a small time miner and wanted to run full-RBF.
>
> But of course, you'd never 51% the network right? After all it's not
> possible to guarantee that your miner won't mine double-spends, as there
> is no single consensus definition of which transaction came first, nor
> can there be.
>
> Or do you see things differently? If I'm a small miner should I be
> worried my blocks might be rejected by the majority with hashing power
> contracts because I'm unable to predict which transactions Coinbase
> believes should go in the blockchain?
>

You seem so concerned that we are actively trying to harm or control the
network. We're simply trying to drive bitcoin adoption by making it easy
for people to spend their bitcoin with merchants online. The problems we
face are no different from other merchant processors, or small independent
merchants accepting online or point-of-sale payments.

We've historically had relatively little interest in what miners were doing
(until RBF came out) - for the most part it didn't affect our business.
However, most large merchants would be simply uninterested in accepting
bitcoin if we forced their customers to wait 10-60 minutes for their
payments to confirm. Many have inventory management systems which can not
even place items on hold that long.

If full-RBF sees any significant adoption by miners, then it will actively
harm bitcoin adoption by reducing or removing the ability for online or POS
merchants to accept bitcoin payments at all. I do not see a single benefit
to running full-RBF.

FWIW, I'm fine with the first-seen-safe RBF, that seems like a sensible
addition and a good way to allow fees to be added or increased on existing
transactions, without harming existing applications of bitcoin.

Adrian
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Peter Todd 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 09:44:08AM -0400, Peter Todd wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 09:33:05AM -0400, Stephen Morse wrote:
> > It is disappointing that F2Pool would enable full RBF when the safe
> > alternative, first-seen-safe RBF, is also available, especially since the
> > fees they would gain by supporting full RBF over FSS RBF would likely be
> > negligible. Did they consider using FSS RBF instead?
> 
> Specifically the following is what I told them:

Incidentally, because someone asked that message was sent two weeks ago.


Also, a shout-out to Marshal Long of FinalHash for his help with
(FSS)-RBF deployment and for getting F2Pool and myself in touch, as well
as his work in talking getting pools on board with BIP66.

-- 
'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
0bb4abd88c6b023e9f19a1c1deaac120467279c330a803cf


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread justusranvier 
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

On 2015-06-19 15:37, Eric Lombrozo wrote:
> OK, a few things here:
> 
> The Bitcoin network was designed (or should be designed) with the
> requirement that it can withstand deliberate double-spend attacks that
> can come from anywhere at any time…and relaxing this assumption
> without adequately assessing the risk (i.e. I’ve never been hacked
> before so I can assume it’s safe) is extremely dangerous at best and
> just horrid security practice at worst. Your users might not thank you
> for not getting hacked - but they surely will not like it when you DO
> get hacked…and lack a proper recovery plan.
> 
> Furthermore, the protocol itself makes no assumptions regarding the
> intentions behind someone signing two conflicting transactions. There
> are many potential use cases where doing so could make a lot of sense.
> Had the protocol been designed along the lines of, say,
> tendermint…where signing multiple conflicting blocks results in loss
> of one’s funds…then the protocol itself disincentivizes the behavior
> without requiring any sort of altruistic, moralistic assumptions. That
> would also mean we’d need a different mechanism for the use cases that
> things like RBF address.
> 
> Thirdly, taken to the extreme, the viewpoint of “signing a conflicting
> transaction is fraud and vandalism” means that if for whatever reason
> you attempt to propagate a transaction and nobody mines it for a very
> long time, you’re not entitled to immediately reclaim those funds…they
> must remain in limbo forever.

I'm not talking about changing the protocol - I'm talking about the 
business relationships between users of Bitcoin.

I would expect a payment processor to inform the merchants of relevant 
double spends that it observes on the network, even if the payment is 
actually successful, so that the merchant can decide for themselves 
whether or not to pursue it out of band.

Mining is a kind of technical fallback that allows the network to 
resolve human misbehavior without human intervention. If nobody ever 
attempted to make a fraudulent payment, we wouldn't need mining at all 
because the signed transaction itself is proof of intention to pay. That 
it exists doesn't suddenly make fraud less fraudulent and mean that 
users who are in a position to pursue out of band recourse shouldn't do 
so.

I agree that there are valid reasons for replacing transactions in the 
mempool, I just think they should be implemented in a way that doesn't 
facilitate fraud.

I'd also like to note that "prima facie" doesn't mean "always", it means 
that "the default assumption, unless proven otherwise."

-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v2
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=77NP
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Jeff Garzik 
Yes, FSS RBF is far better.


On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:52 AM, Chun Wang <[email protected]> wrote:

> Before F2Pool's launch, I performed probably the only successful
> bitcoin double spend in the March 2013 fork without any mining power.
> [ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152348.0 ] I know how bad
> the full RBF is. We are going to switch to FSS RBF in a few hours.
> Sorry.
>
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 9:44 PM, Peter Todd  wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 09:33:05AM -0400, Stephen Morse wrote:
> >> It is disappointing that F2Pool would enable full RBF when the safe
> >> alternative, first-seen-safe RBF, is also available, especially since
> the
> >> fees they would gain by supporting full RBF over FSS RBF would likely be
> >> negligible. Did they consider using FSS RBF instead?
> >
> > Specifically the following is what I told them:
> >
> >> We are
> >> interested in the replace-by-fee patch, but I am not following the
> >> development closely, more background info is needed, like what the
> >> difference between standard and zeroconf versions? Thanks.
> >
> > Great!
> >
> > Basically both let you replace one transaction with another that pays a
> > higher fee. First-seen-safe replace-by-fee adds the additional criteria
> > that all outputs of the old transaction still need to be paid by the new
> > transaction, with >= as many Bitcoins. Basically, it makes sure that if
> > someone was paid by tx1, then tx2 will still pay them.
> >
> > I've written about how wallets can use RBF and FSS-RBF to more
> > efficiently use the blockchain on the bitcoin-development mailing list:
> >
> >
> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg07813.html
> >
> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg07829.html
> >
> > Basically, for the purpose of increasing fees, RBF is something like %50
> > cheaper than CPFP, and FSS-RBF is something like %25 cheaper.
> >
> > In addition, for ease of implementation, my new FSS-RBF has a number of
> > other restrictions. For instance, you can't replace multiple
> > transactions with one, you can't replace a transaction whose outputs
> > have already been spent, you can't replace a transaction with one that
> > spends additional unconfirmed inputs, etc. These restrictions aren't
> > "set in stone", but they do make the code simpler and less likely to
> > have bugs.
> >
> > In comparison my previous standard RBF patch can replace multiple
> > transactions with one, can replace long chains of transactions, etc.
> > It's willing to do more computation before deciding if a transaction
> > should be replaced, with more complex logic; it probably has a higher
> > chance of having a bug or DoS attack.
> >
> > You've probably seen the huge controversy around zeroconf with regard to
> > standard replace-by-fee. While FSS RBF doesn't make zeroconf any safer,
> > it also doesn't make it any more dangerous, so politically with regard
> > to zeroconf it makes no difference. You *can* still use it doublespend
> > by taking advantage of how different transactions are accepted
> > differently, but that's true of *every* change we've ever made to
> > Bitcoin Core - by upgrading to v0.10 from v0.9 you've also "broken"
> > zeroconf in the same way.
> >
> >
> > Having said that... honestly, zeroconf is pretty broken already. Only
> > with pretty heroic measures like connecting to a significant fraction of
> > the Bitcoin network at once, as well as connecting to getblocktemplate
> > supporting miners to figure out what transactions are being mined, are
> > services having any hope of avoiding getting ripped off. For the average
> > user their wallets do a terrible job of showing whether or not an
> > unconfirmed transaction will go through. For example, Schildbach's
> > Bitcoin wallet for Android has no code at all to detect double-spends
> > until they get mined, and I've been able to trick it into showing
> > completely invalid transactions. In fact, currently Bitcoin XT will
> > relay invalid transactions that are doublepsends, and Schildbach's
> > wallet displays them as valid, unconfirmed, payments. It's really no
> > surprise to me that nearly no-one in the Bitcoin ecosystem accepts
> > unconfirmed transactions without some kind of protection that doesn't
> > rely on first-seen-safe mempool behavior. For instance, many ATM's these
> > days know who their customers are due to AML requirements, so while you
> > can deposit Bitcoins and get your funds instantly, the protection for
> > the ATM operator is that they can go to the police if you rip them off;
> > I've spoken to ATM operators who didn't do this who've lost hundreds or
> > even thousands of dollars before giving up on zeroconf.
> >
> > My big worry with zeroconf is a service like Coinbase or Shapeshift
> > coming to rely on it, and then attempting to secure it by gaining
> > control of a majority of hashing power. For instance, if Coinbase had
> > contracts with 80% of the

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Jeff Garzik 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:44 AM, Peter Todd  wrote:

> Having said that... honestly, zeroconf is pretty broken already. Only
> with pretty heroic measures like connecting to a significant fraction of
> the Bitcoin network at once, as well as connecting to getblocktemplate
> supporting miners to figure out what transactions are being mined, are
> services having any hope of avoiding getting ripped off. For the average
> user their wallets do a terrible job of showing whether or not an
>

This is no excuse for further degrading the overall network security.

There are many issues to address in the bitcoin ecosystem.  It negatively
impacts users to roll out "scorched earth" replace-by-fee given today's
ecosystem.

Yes, zero conf security is poor.  An outright attack on zero conf degrades
user security even more.

-- 
Jeff Garzik
Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist
BitPay, Inc.  https://bitpay.com/
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Peter Todd 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 08:20:52AM -0700, Adrian Macneil wrote:
> >
> > Unless you're sybil attacking the network and miners, consuming valuable
> > resources and creating systemic risks of failure like we saw with
> > Chainalysis, I don't see how you're getting "very small" double-spend
> > probabilities.
> >
> 
> So connecting to many nodes just because we can and it's not technically
> prevented is bad for the network and creating systemic risks of failure,

Well it is actually; that's why myself, Wladimir van der Laan, and
Gregory Maxwell all specifically¹ called Chainalysis's actions a sybil
attack.

The Bitcoin P2P network is resilliant to failure when the chance of any
one node going down is uncorrelated with others. For instance if you
accidentally introduced a bug in your nodes that failed to relay
transactions/blocks properly, you'd simultaneously be disrupting a large
portion of the network all at once.

How many nodes is Coinbase connecting too? What software are they
running? What subnets are they using? In particular, are they all on one
subnet or multiple?

> but relaying harmful double spend transactions just because you can and
> it's not technically prevented, is good for everyone?

You realise that Hearn/Andresen/Harding's double-spend-relaying patch,
included in Bitcoin XT, relays double-spend transactions right? Do you
consider that harmful?

> > You know, you're creating an interesting bit of game theory here: if I'm
> > a miner who doesn't already have a mining contract, why not implement
> > full-RBF to force Coinbase to offer me one? One reason might be because
> > other miners with such a contract - a majority - are going to be asked
> > by Coinbase to reorg you out of the blockchain, but then we have a
> > situation where a single entity has control of the blockchain.
> >
> 
> If someone did enter into contracts with miners to mine certain
> transactions, and had a guarantee that the miners would not build on
> previous blocks which included double spends, then they would only need
> contracts with 51% of the network anyway. So it wouldn't really matter if
> you were a small time miner and wanted to run full-RBF.

But of course, you'd never 51% the network right? After all it's not
possible to guarantee that your miner won't mine double-spends, as there
is no single consensus definition of which transaction came first, nor
can there be.

Or do you see things differently? If I'm a small miner should I be
worried my blocks might be rejected by the majority with hashing power
contracts because I'm unable to predict which transactions Coinbase
believes should go in the blockchain?

> > For the good of Bitcoin, and your own company, you'd do well to firmly
> > state that under no condition will Coinbase ever enter into mining
> > contracts.
> >
> 
> I don't personally see what good this does for bitcoin. Now you are
> suggesting that we should prevent a 51% attack by using policy and
> promises, rather than a technical solution. How is this any better than us
> relying on existing double spend rules which are based on policy and
> promises?

Well, I think I've shown how dangerous mining contracts can be to the
overall health of the Bitcoin ecosystem; I'm simply asking you to
promise not to make use of this dangerous option regardless of what
happens. Like I said, if for whatever reason the first-seen mempool
behavior proves to be insufficient at preventing double-spends from your
perspective, you did suggest you might use mining contracts to ensure
txs you want mined get mined, over others.


1) "Chainalysis CEO Denies 'Sybil Attack' on Bitcoin's Network",
   March 14th 2015, Grace Caffyn, Coindesk,
   
http://www.coindesk.com/chainalysis-ceo-denies-launching-sybil-attack-on-bitcoin-network/

-- 
'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
0e806870e7e9cf4d507af6b78fc709e6839a8d34b52ea334


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Jeff Garzik 
This is very disappointing.  "scorched earth" replace-by-fee implemented
first at a pool, without updating wallets and merchants, is very
anti-social and increases the ability to perform Finney attacks and
double-spends.

The community is progressing more towards a safer replace-by-fee model, as
indicated by the following code change:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/6176


On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 3:39 AM, Peter Todd  wrote:

> Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the hashing
> power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions with
> me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has will be replaced if a
> conflicting transaction pays a higher fee. There are no requirements for
> the replacement transaction to pay addresses that were paid by the
> previous transaction.
>
>
> I'm a user. What does this mean for me?
> ---
>
> In the short term, very little. Wallet software aimed at average users
> has no ability to reliably detect conditions where an unconfirmed
> transaction may be double-spent by the sender. For example, Schildbach's
> Bitcoin Wallet for Android doesn't even detect double-spends of
> unconfirmed transactions when connected to a RBF or Bitcoin XT nodes
> that propagate them. The least sophisticated double-spend attack
> possibly - simply broadcasting two conflicting transactions at the same
> time - has about 50% probability of success against these wallets.
>
> Additionally, SPV wallets based on bitcoinj can't even detect invalid
> transactions reliably, instead trusting the full node(s) it is connected
> too over the unauthenticated, unencrypted, P2P protocol to do validation
> for them. For instance due to a unfixed bug¹ Bitcoin XT nodes will relay
> double-spends that spend the output of the conflicting transaction. I've
> personally tested this with Schildbach's Bitcoin Wallet for Android,
> which shows such invalid transactions as standard, unconfirmed,
> transactions.
>
> Users should continue to assume that unconfirmed transactions could be
> trivially reversed by the sender until the first confirmation. In
> general, only the sender can reverse a transaction, so if you do trust
> the sender feel free to assume an unconfirmed transaction will
> eventually confirm. However, if you do not trust the sender and/or have
> no other recourse if they double-spend you, wait until at least the
> first confirmation before assuming the transaction will go through.
>
> In the long term, miner support of full RBF has a number of advantages
> to users, allowing you to more efficiently make transactions, paying
> lower fees. However you'll need a wallet supporting these features; none
> exist yet.
>
>
> I'm a business. What does this mean for me?
> ---
>
> If you use your own node to verify transactions, you probably are in a
> similar situation as average users, so again, this means very little to
> you.
>
> If you use a payment processor/transaction API such as BitPay, Coinbase,
> BlockCypher, etc. you may or may not be accepting unconfirmed
> transactions, and they may or may not be "guaranteed" by your payment
> processor even if double-spent. If like most merchants you're using the
> API such that confirmations are required prior to accepting orders (e.g.
> taking a meaningful loss such as shipping a product if the tx is
> reversed) nothing changes for you. If not I recommend you contact your
> payment processor.
>
>
> I'm a miner. Why should I support replace-by-fee?
> -
>
> Whether full or first-seen-safe⁵ RBF support (along with
> child-pays-for-parent) is an important step towards a fully functioning
> transaction fee market that doesn't lead to users' transactions getting
> mysteriously "stuck", particularly during network flooding
> events/attacks. A better functioning fee market will help reduce
> pressure to increase the blocksize, particularly from the users creating
> the most valuable transactions.
>
> Full RBF also helps make use of the limited blockchain space more
> efficiently, with up to 90%+ transaction size savings possible in some
> transaction patterns. (e.g. long payment chains⁶) More users in less
> blockchain space will lead to higher overall fees per block.
>
> Finally as we'll discuss below full RBF prevents a number of serious
> threats to the existing level playing field that miners operate in.
>
>
> Why can't we make accepting unconfirmed txs from untrusted people safe?
> ---
>
> For a decentralized wallet, the situation is pretty bleak. These wallets
> only have a handful of connections to the network, with no way of
> knowing if those connections give an accurate view of what transactions
> miners actually know about.
>
> The only serious attempt to fix this problem for decentralized wallets
> that has been actually deployed is Andre

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread justusranvier 
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

On 2015-06-19 15:11, Peter Todd wrote:
> If you ask me to pay you 1BTC at address A and I create tx1 that pays
> 1BTC to A1 and 2BTC of chain to C, what's wrong with me creating tx2
> that still pays 1BTC to A, but now only pays 1.999BTC to C? I'm not
> defrauding you, I'm just reducing the value of my change address to pay
> a higher fee. Similarly if I now need to pay Bob 0.5BTC, I can create
> tx3 paying 1BTC to A, 0.5BTC to B, and 1.498BTC to C.
> 
> Yet from the point of view of an external observer they have no idea 
> why
> the transaction outputs reduced in size, nor any way of knowing if 
> fraud
> did or did not occur.

If there are two transactions which spend the same inputs, and each 
transaction has completely different output scripts, then this is prima 
facie fraudulent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_facie

If the two transactions have identical output scripts, and one output is 
reduced in value to increase the transaction fee, that has the 
appearance of honest dealing. There is a possibility that the payer has 
chose to under-pay their payee in order to over-pay the miner, but 
that's not what a reasonable observer would assume at first glance.

Adding outputs to a transaction, while keeping all the existing outputs 
exactly how they are is another way of increasing the transaction fee of 
a transaction and is prima facie non-fraudulent.

Note that child-pays-for-parent has none of this ambiguity.

> What do you think of Bitcoin XT then? It relays double-spends, which
> makes it much easier to get double-spends to miners than before. In
> particular you see a lot of zero-fee transactions being replaced by
> fee-paying transactions, relayed through Bitcoin XT nodes and then
> mined. Is that encouraging fraud?

I haven't closely looked into the features of Bitcoin XT because I'm 
hoping that it never becomes relevant. I do want to see a heterogenous 
implementation network develop, but Bitcoin XT doesn't really count 
since it's a derivative of the Bitcoin Core codebase.

In general, I think every signed Bitcoin transaction sent between 
different parties is part of a valid, enforceable contract (using common 
law definitions which predate any particular legal jurisdiction). 
Handling contracts and money is Serious Business and so the decision of 
how software should respond to double spends should not be made 
frivolously.

-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v2

iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJVhDcpAAoJECpf2nDq2eYj23gP/ja9zqWZBoI/EfTJM0ZDVVY1
7lNwPJrAhO7oKQOKDrqhimA0TPRkoU0rCoYXSUEWn5X8ZIFlz9SQnGwXjIxt7PfG
yZTxF+vJbFCDifNcUlF7DRs07cavEFM9AOutYi8PyVg0LoV5+0VMhhWT4Kc5vnlZ
4Tw91r1lvtI9MCif+KFpida/PnPlhvIfjASEuaK+vYx3ro1ovSUesh558xZmCZ9A
Jfs+EwXBrxDO0zC0fatnaoRMkYQN7i/Dq1PFis7OHcZYBaQwgQTUoF8/wASvr8fQ
dPXJNzhgpYYXeu4IsYH/Of9HkEw+N+/0DEW07asJJ5OIgQmcyoGn+ph8QzrPqG5m
Rgb9BAmpqfCX+KrG6VDxU7xHLebwPhrPoYMIppvf77xhB2mV8c7Xky16Y/1tmxcH
NLOL/WQelNBqCvx2+6c9yDJsJoY12Z0n1tdbIfp3m65xcFzqHPFPtTpsNl0p/gX7
xOMSEUdSVyjvsJjXxWOG3B06+dVRqjS0Pr9ERjjviqx40XVpg4Q0b6y+LL0ZVweE
vs8ECN4y3vB7Qg2swYryVA7kNBh6GwCs7pMCh0DFw1mynGKndCKD+cPh8r3taP1u
8SlrKaD33schk4x70kxbtUzU+C7Yb5187Ct4U5kmsXhz1sypu4ebFPuWbJYG/Sjl
uEW4Vcn+HxlNI/rhxBw4
=odRL
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Eric Lombrozo 
OK, a few things here:

The Bitcoin network was designed (or should be designed) with the requirement 
that it can withstand deliberate double-spend attacks that can come from 
anywhere at any time…and relaxing this assumption without adequately assessing 
the risk (i.e. I’ve never been hacked before so I can assume it’s safe) is 
extremely dangerous at best and just horrid security practice at worst. Your 
users might not thank you for not getting hacked - but they surely will not 
like it when you DO get hacked…and lack a proper recovery plan.

Furthermore, the protocol itself makes no assumptions regarding the intentions 
behind someone signing two conflicting transactions. There are many potential 
use cases where doing so could make a lot of sense. Had the protocol been 
designed along the lines of, say, tendermint…where signing multiple conflicting 
blocks results in loss of one’s funds…then the protocol itself disincentivizes 
the behavior without requiring any sort of altruistic, moralistic assumptions. 
That would also mean we’d need a different mechanism for the use cases that 
things like RBF address.

Thirdly, taken to the extreme, the viewpoint of “signing a conflicting 
transaction is fraud and vandalism” means that if for whatever reason you 
attempt to propagate a transaction and nobody mines it for a very long time, 
you’re not entitled to immediately reclaim those funds…they must remain in 
limbo forever.


- Eric Lombrozo


> On Jun 19, 2015, at 8:11 AM, Peter Todd  wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 03:00:57PM +, [email protected] wrote:
>> On 2015-06-19 10:39, Peter Todd wrote:
>> 
>> Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the hashing
>> power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions
>> with
>> me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has will be replaced if
>> a
>> conflicting transaction pays a higher fee. There are no requirements
>> for
>> the replacement transaction to pay addresses that were paid by the
>> previous transaction.
>> 
>> 
>> Intentional fraud is a bad thing to add to a financial protocol.
>> 
>> A user who creates conflicting transactions, one that pays someone else
>> and another which does not pay them, and broadcasts both of them, has
>> just self-incriminated themselves by producing prima facie evidence of
>> fraud.
> 
> Depends.
> 
> If you ask me to pay you 1BTC at address A and I create tx1 that pays
> 1BTC to A1 and 2BTC of chain to C, what's wrong with me creating tx2
> that still pays 1BTC to A, but now only pays 1.999BTC to C? I'm not
> defrauding you, I'm just reducing the value of my change address to pay
> a higher fee. Similarly if I now need to pay Bob 0.5BTC, I can create
> tx3 paying 1BTC to A, 0.5BTC to B, and 1.498BTC to C.
> 
> Yet from the point of view of an external observer they have no idea why
> the transaction outputs reduced in size, nor any way of knowing if fraud
> did or did not occur.
> 
> Equally, maybe you tell me "Actually, just give me 0.5BTC to cancel out
> that debt", in which case I'm not breaking any contract at all by giving
> you less money than I first promised - the contract has changed.
> 
> Again, none of this can or should be observable to anyone other than the
> parties directly involved.
> 
>> It may be the case that since Bitcoin spans multiple legal jurisdictions
>> and can be use anonymously that the victims of such fraud can not rely
>> on legal recourse, and it may also be the case that proof of work is how
>> Bitcoin deals with the aforementioned factors, but regardless
>> un-prosecutable fraud is still fraud and anyone who encourages it should
>> be recognied as a bad actors.
>> 
>> Committing vandalism and encouraging fraud to prove a point may be
>> something the network can't stop on a technical level, but there's no
>> reason not to call it out for what it is.
> 
> What do you think of Bitcoin XT then? It relays double-spends, which
> makes it much easier to get double-spends to miners than before. In
> particular you see a lot of zero-fee transactions being replaced by
> fee-paying transactions, relayed through Bitcoin XT nodes and then
> mined. Is that encouraging fraud?
> 
> --
> 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
> 03932458055c68d4ee2b6d68441c4764efbdf6b0b1683717
> --
> ___
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development



signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Adrian Macneil 
Great. Thank you for this!

Adrian

On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 7:40 AM, Chun Wang <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 10:00 PM, Adrian Macneil 
> wrote:
> > However, we do rely pretty heavily on zeroconf transactions for merchant
> > processing, so if any significant portion of the mining pools started
> > running your unsafe RBF patch, then we would probably need to look into
> this
> > as a way to prevent fraud.
>
> This might be useful to you: https://www.f2pool.com/api/mempool
>
>
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Adrian Macneil 
>
> Unless you're sybil attacking the network and miners, consuming valuable
> resources and creating systemic risks of failure like we saw with
> Chainalysis, I don't see how you're getting "very small" double-spend
> probabilities.
>

So connecting to many nodes just because we can and it's not technically
prevented is bad for the network and creating systemic risks of failure,
but relaying harmful double spend transactions just because you can and
it's not technically prevented, is good for everyone?


> You know, you're creating an interesting bit of game theory here: if I'm
> a miner who doesn't already have a mining contract, why not implement
> full-RBF to force Coinbase to offer me one? One reason might be because
> other miners with such a contract - a majority - are going to be asked
> by Coinbase to reorg you out of the blockchain, but then we have a
> situation where a single entity has control of the blockchain.
>

If someone did enter into contracts with miners to mine certain
transactions, and had a guarantee that the miners would not build on
previous blocks which included double spends, then they would only need
contracts with 51% of the network anyway. So it wouldn't really matter if
you were a small time miner and wanted to run full-RBF.


> For the good of Bitcoin, and your own company, you'd do well to firmly
> state that under no condition will Coinbase ever enter into mining
> contracts.
>

I don't personally see what good this does for bitcoin. Now you are
suggesting that we should prevent a 51% attack by using policy and
promises, rather than a technical solution. How is this any better than us
relying on existing double spend rules which are based on policy and
promises?
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Peter Todd 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 03:00:57PM +, [email protected] wrote:
> On 2015-06-19 10:39, Peter Todd wrote:
> 
>  Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the hashing
>  power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions 
> with
>  me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has will be replaced if 
> a
>  conflicting transaction pays a higher fee. There are no requirements 
> for
>  the replacement transaction to pay addresses that were paid by the
>  previous transaction.
> 
> 
> Intentional fraud is a bad thing to add to a financial protocol.
> 
> A user who creates conflicting transactions, one that pays someone else 
> and another which does not pay them, and broadcasts both of them, has 
> just self-incriminated themselves by producing prima facie evidence of 
> fraud.

Depends.

If you ask me to pay you 1BTC at address A and I create tx1 that pays
1BTC to A1 and 2BTC of chain to C, what's wrong with me creating tx2
that still pays 1BTC to A, but now only pays 1.999BTC to C? I'm not
defrauding you, I'm just reducing the value of my change address to pay
a higher fee. Similarly if I now need to pay Bob 0.5BTC, I can create
tx3 paying 1BTC to A, 0.5BTC to B, and 1.498BTC to C.

Yet from the point of view of an external observer they have no idea why
the transaction outputs reduced in size, nor any way of knowing if fraud
did or did not occur.

Equally, maybe you tell me "Actually, just give me 0.5BTC to cancel out
that debt", in which case I'm not breaking any contract at all by giving
you less money than I first promised - the contract has changed.

Again, none of this can or should be observable to anyone other than the
parties directly involved.

> It may be the case that since Bitcoin spans multiple legal jurisdictions 
> and can be use anonymously that the victims of such fraud can not rely 
> on legal recourse, and it may also be the case that proof of work is how 
> Bitcoin deals with the aforementioned factors, but regardless 
> un-prosecutable fraud is still fraud and anyone who encourages it should 
> be recognied as a bad actors.
> 
> Committing vandalism and encouraging fraud to prove a point may be 
> something the network can't stop on a technical level, but there's no 
> reason not to call it out for what it is.

What do you think of Bitcoin XT then? It relays double-spends, which
makes it much easier to get double-spends to miners than before. In
particular you see a lot of zero-fee transactions being replaced by
fee-paying transactions, relayed through Bitcoin XT nodes and then
mined. Is that encouraging fraud?

-- 
'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
03932458055c68d4ee2b6d68441c4764efbdf6b0b1683717


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread justusranvier 
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

On 2015-06-19 10:39, Peter Todd wrote:

 Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the hashing
 power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions 
with
 me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has will be replaced if 
a
 conflicting transaction pays a higher fee. There are no requirements 
for
 the replacement transaction to pay addresses that were paid by the
 previous transaction.


Intentional fraud is a bad thing to add to a financial protocol.

A user who creates conflicting transactions, one that pays someone else 
and another which does not pay them, and broadcasts both of them, has 
just self-incriminated themselves by producing prima facie evidence of 
fraud.

It may be the case that since Bitcoin spans multiple legal jurisdictions 
and can be use anonymously that the victims of such fraud can not rely 
on legal recourse, and it may also be the case that proof of work is how 
Bitcoin deals with the aforementioned factors, but regardless 
un-prosecutable fraud is still fraud and anyone who encourages it should 
be recognied as a bad actors.

Committing vandalism and encouraging fraud to prove a point may be 
something the network can't stop on a technical level, but there's no 
reason not to call it out for what it is.

-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v2
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=s0w/
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Peter Todd 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 07:30:17AM -0700, Adrian Macneil wrote:
> > In that case would you enter into such contracts?
> >
> 
> We take it as it comes.
> 
> Currently, it's perfectly possible to accept zeroconf transactions with
> only a very small chance of double spend. As long as it's only possible to
> double spend a small fraction of the time, it's an acceptable cost to us in
> exchange for being able to provide a fast checkout experience to customers
> and merchants.

Unless you're sybil attacking the network and miners, consuming valuable
resources and creating systemic risks of failure like we saw with
Chainalysis, I don't see how you're getting "very small" double-spend
probabilities.

You realise how the fact that F2Pool is using full-RBF right now does
strongly suggest that the chances of a double-spend are not only low,
but more importantly, vary greatly? Any small change in relaying policy
or even network conditions creates opportunities to double-spend.

> If the status quo changes, then we will need to investigate alternatives
> (which realistically would include mining contracts, or only accepting
> instant payments from other trusted hosted wallets, which would be a net
> loss for decentralization).

You know, you're creating an interesting bit of game theory here: if I'm
a miner who doesn't already have a mining contract, why not implement
full-RBF to force Coinbase to offer me one? One reason might be because
other miners with such a contract - a majority - are going to be asked
by Coinbase to reorg you out of the blockchain, but then we have a
situation where a single entity has control of the blockchain.

For the good of Bitcoin, and your own company, you'd do well to firmly
state that under no condition will Coinbase ever enter into mining
contracts.

-- 
'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
0fe727215265d9ddacb2930ad2d45920b71920b7aed687f1


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Chun Wang 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 10:00 PM, Adrian Macneil  wrote:
> However, we do rely pretty heavily on zeroconf transactions for merchant
> processing, so if any significant portion of the mining pools started
> running your unsafe RBF patch, then we would probably need to look into this
> as a way to prevent fraud.

This might be useful to you: https://www.f2pool.com/api/mempool

--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Adrian Macneil 
>
> > We have no contracts in place or plans to do this that I am aware of.
> >
> > However, we do rely pretty heavily on zeroconf transactions for merchant
> > processing, so if any significant portion of the mining pools started
> > running your unsafe RBF patch, then we would probably need to look into
> > this as a way to prevent fraud.
>
> What happens if the mining pools who are mining double-spends aren't
> doing it delibrately? Sybil attacking pools appears to have been done
> before to get double-spends though, equally there are many other changes
> the reduce the reliability of transaction confirmations. For instance
> the higher demands on bandwidth of a higher blocksize will inevitably
> reduce the syncronicity of mempools, resulting in double-spend
> opportunities. Similarly many proposals to limit mempool size allow
> zeroconf double-spends.
>
> In that case would you enter into such contracts?
>

We take it as it comes.

Currently, it's perfectly possible to accept zeroconf transactions with
only a very small chance of double spend. As long as it's only possible to
double spend a small fraction of the time, it's an acceptable cost to us in
exchange for being able to provide a fast checkout experience to customers
and merchants.

If the status quo changes, then we will need to investigate alternatives
(which realistically would include mining contracts, or only accepting
instant payments from other trusted hosted wallets, which would be a net
loss for decentralization).

Long term we would prefer to see an open, decentralized solution, such as
payment channels / green addresses / lightening networks. However, I think
as a community we are a long way away from choosing a standard here and
implementing it across all popular wallet software and merchant processors.

Adrian
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Lawrence Nahum 
Chun Wang <1240902  gmail.com> writes:

> Hello. We recognize the problem. We will switch to FSS RBF soon. Thanks.

FSS RBF is better than no RBF but we think it is better to use full RBF.

We think Full RBF is better for a number of reasons:

-user experience
-efficiency
-cost
-code complexity

We think FSS RBF is  great progress but ultimately less efficient and more 
complicated to keep alive something that never worked properly.

And why would miner pick the option paying less when other miners run the 
option paying more? It may be soon more than 1-5% of block reward.

A lot of users don't have multiple UTXO handy.

Full RBF is the best, second FSS RBF and we'd be looking into supporting 
them both separately so that miners and users can pick whichever they 
prefer.

If users only had one UTXO it makes sense to use Full RBF since there are no 
other options.

Disclosure: GreenAddress always believed zero conf transactions are not 
secure and that miners have the incentive to run FBF; this bias doesn't make 
the above less true 



--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Peter Todd 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 07:00:56AM -0700, Adrian Macneil wrote:
> >
> > For instance, if Coinbase had
> > contracts with 80% of the Bitcoin hashing power to guarantee their
> > transactions would get mined, but 20% of the hashing power didn't sign
> > up, then the only way to guarantee their transactions could be for the
> > 80% to not build on blocks containing doublespends by the 20%.
> >
> 
> This seems to be more of a problem with centralized mining than zeroconf
> transactions.

You're mistaking cause and effect: the contracts will drive
centralization of mining, as only the larger, non-anonymous, players
have the ability to enter into such contracts.

> Speaking of, could we get a confirmation that Coinbase is, or is not,
> > one of the merchant service providers trying to get hashing power
> > contracts with mining pools for guaranteed transaction acceptance? IIRC
> > you are still an advisor to them. This is a serious concern for the
> > reasons I outlined in my post.
> >
> 
> We have no contracts in place or plans to do this that I am aware of.
> 
> However, we do rely pretty heavily on zeroconf transactions for merchant
> processing, so if any significant portion of the mining pools started
> running your unsafe RBF patch, then we would probably need to look into
> this as a way to prevent fraud.

What happens if the mining pools who are mining double-spends aren't
doing it delibrately? Sybil attacking pools appears to have been done
before to get double-spends though, equally there are many other changes
the reduce the reliability of transaction confirmations. For instance
the higher demands on bandwidth of a higher blocksize will inevitably
reduce the syncronicity of mempools, resulting in double-spend
opportunities. Similarly many proposals to limit mempool size allow
zeroconf double-spends.

In that case would you enter into such contracts?

-- 
'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
05a4c76d0bf088ef3e059914d6fc0335683a92b5be01b7dc


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Adrian Macneil 
Extremely disappointed to hear this. This change turns double spending from
a calculable (and affordable) risk for merchant payment processors into
certain profit for scammers, and provides no useful benefit for consumers.

I sincerely hope that F2Pool reconsider, given that RBF will decrease the
overall utility of bitcoin and reduce the number of people using it for
online purchases.

Adrian




On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:33 AM, Stephen Morse 
wrote:

> It is disappointing that F2Pool would enable full RBF when the safe
> alternative, first-seen-safe RBF, is also available, especially since the
> fees they would gain by supporting full RBF over FSS RBF would likely be
> negligible. Did they consider using FSS RBF instead?
>
> Best,
> Stephen
>
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:39 AM, Peter Todd  wrote:
>
>> Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the hashing
>> power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions with
>> me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has will be replaced if a
>> conflicting transaction pays a higher fee. There are no requirements for
>> the replacement transaction to pay addresses that were paid by the
>> previous transaction.
>>
>>
>> I'm a user. What does this mean for me?
>> ---
>>
>> In the short term, very little. Wallet software aimed at average users
>> has no ability to reliably detect conditions where an unconfirmed
>> transaction may be double-spent by the sender. For example, Schildbach's
>> Bitcoin Wallet for Android doesn't even detect double-spends of
>> unconfirmed transactions when connected to a RBF or Bitcoin XT nodes
>> that propagate them. The least sophisticated double-spend attack
>> possibly - simply broadcasting two conflicting transactions at the same
>> time - has about 50% probability of success against these wallets.
>>
>> Additionally, SPV wallets based on bitcoinj can't even detect invalid
>> transactions reliably, instead trusting the full node(s) it is connected
>> too over the unauthenticated, unencrypted, P2P protocol to do validation
>> for them. For instance due to a unfixed bug¹ Bitcoin XT nodes will relay
>> double-spends that spend the output of the conflicting transaction. I've
>> personally tested this with Schildbach's Bitcoin Wallet for Android,
>> which shows such invalid transactions as standard, unconfirmed,
>> transactions.
>>
>> Users should continue to assume that unconfirmed transactions could be
>> trivially reversed by the sender until the first confirmation. In
>> general, only the sender can reverse a transaction, so if you do trust
>> the sender feel free to assume an unconfirmed transaction will
>> eventually confirm. However, if you do not trust the sender and/or have
>> no other recourse if they double-spend you, wait until at least the
>> first confirmation before assuming the transaction will go through.
>>
>> In the long term, miner support of full RBF has a number of advantages
>> to users, allowing you to more efficiently make transactions, paying
>> lower fees. However you'll need a wallet supporting these features; none
>> exist yet.
>>
>>
>> I'm a business. What does this mean for me?
>> ---
>>
>> If you use your own node to verify transactions, you probably are in a
>> similar situation as average users, so again, this means very little to
>> you.
>>
>> If you use a payment processor/transaction API such as BitPay, Coinbase,
>> BlockCypher, etc. you may or may not be accepting unconfirmed
>> transactions, and they may or may not be "guaranteed" by your payment
>> processor even if double-spent. If like most merchants you're using the
>> API such that confirmations are required prior to accepting orders (e.g.
>> taking a meaningful loss such as shipping a product if the tx is
>> reversed) nothing changes for you. If not I recommend you contact your
>> payment processor.
>>
>>
>> I'm a miner. Why should I support replace-by-fee?
>> -
>>
>> Whether full or first-seen-safe⁵ RBF support (along with
>> child-pays-for-parent) is an important step towards a fully functioning
>> transaction fee market that doesn't lead to users' transactions getting
>> mysteriously "stuck", particularly during network flooding
>> events/attacks. A better functioning fee market will help reduce
>> pressure to increase the blocksize, particularly from the users creating
>> the most valuable transactions.
>>
>> Full RBF also helps make use of the limited blockchain space more
>> efficiently, with up to 90%+ transaction size savings possible in some
>> transaction patterns. (e.g. long payment chains⁶) More users in less
>> blockchain space will lead to higher overall fees per block.
>>
>> Finally as we'll discuss below full RBF prevents a number of serious
>> threats to the existing level playing field that miners operate in.
>>
>>
>> Why can't we make accepting unconfirmed txs from untrusted

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Adrian Macneil 
>
> For instance, if Coinbase had
> contracts with 80% of the Bitcoin hashing power to guarantee their
> transactions would get mined, but 20% of the hashing power didn't sign
> up, then the only way to guarantee their transactions could be for the
> 80% to not build on blocks containing doublespends by the 20%.
>

This seems to be more of a problem with centralized mining than zeroconf
transactions.

Speaking of, could we get a confirmation that Coinbase is, or is not,
> one of the merchant service providers trying to get hashing power
> contracts with mining pools for guaranteed transaction acceptance? IIRC
> you are still an advisor to them. This is a serious concern for the
> reasons I outlined in my post.
>

We have no contracts in place or plans to do this that I am aware of.

However, we do rely pretty heavily on zeroconf transactions for merchant
processing, so if any significant portion of the mining pools started
running your unsafe RBF patch, then we would probably need to look into
this as a way to prevent fraud.

In the long term, I would love to see a safe, decentralized solution for
accepting zeroconf transactions. However, right now there is no such
solution supported by any wallets in use, and I don't think breaking the
current bitcoin behavior for everyone is the best way to achieve this.

Adrian
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Chun Wang 
Before F2Pool's launch, I performed probably the only successful
bitcoin double spend in the March 2013 fork without any mining power.
[ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152348.0 ] I know how bad
the full RBF is. We are going to switch to FSS RBF in a few hours.
Sorry.

On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 9:44 PM, Peter Todd  wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 09:33:05AM -0400, Stephen Morse wrote:
>> It is disappointing that F2Pool would enable full RBF when the safe
>> alternative, first-seen-safe RBF, is also available, especially since the
>> fees they would gain by supporting full RBF over FSS RBF would likely be
>> negligible. Did they consider using FSS RBF instead?
>
> Specifically the following is what I told them:
>
>> We are
>> interested in the replace-by-fee patch, but I am not following the
>> development closely, more background info is needed, like what the
>> difference between standard and zeroconf versions? Thanks.
>
> Great!
>
> Basically both let you replace one transaction with another that pays a
> higher fee. First-seen-safe replace-by-fee adds the additional criteria
> that all outputs of the old transaction still need to be paid by the new
> transaction, with >= as many Bitcoins. Basically, it makes sure that if
> someone was paid by tx1, then tx2 will still pay them.
>
> I've written about how wallets can use RBF and FSS-RBF to more
> efficiently use the blockchain on the bitcoin-development mailing list:
>
> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg07813.html
> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg07829.html
>
> Basically, for the purpose of increasing fees, RBF is something like %50
> cheaper than CPFP, and FSS-RBF is something like %25 cheaper.
>
> In addition, for ease of implementation, my new FSS-RBF has a number of
> other restrictions. For instance, you can't replace multiple
> transactions with one, you can't replace a transaction whose outputs
> have already been spent, you can't replace a transaction with one that
> spends additional unconfirmed inputs, etc. These restrictions aren't
> "set in stone", but they do make the code simpler and less likely to
> have bugs.
>
> In comparison my previous standard RBF patch can replace multiple
> transactions with one, can replace long chains of transactions, etc.
> It's willing to do more computation before deciding if a transaction
> should be replaced, with more complex logic; it probably has a higher
> chance of having a bug or DoS attack.
>
> You've probably seen the huge controversy around zeroconf with regard to
> standard replace-by-fee. While FSS RBF doesn't make zeroconf any safer,
> it also doesn't make it any more dangerous, so politically with regard
> to zeroconf it makes no difference. You *can* still use it doublespend
> by taking advantage of how different transactions are accepted
> differently, but that's true of *every* change we've ever made to
> Bitcoin Core - by upgrading to v0.10 from v0.9 you've also "broken"
> zeroconf in the same way.
>
>
> Having said that... honestly, zeroconf is pretty broken already. Only
> with pretty heroic measures like connecting to a significant fraction of
> the Bitcoin network at once, as well as connecting to getblocktemplate
> supporting miners to figure out what transactions are being mined, are
> services having any hope of avoiding getting ripped off. For the average
> user their wallets do a terrible job of showing whether or not an
> unconfirmed transaction will go through. For example, Schildbach's
> Bitcoin wallet for Android has no code at all to detect double-spends
> until they get mined, and I've been able to trick it into showing
> completely invalid transactions. In fact, currently Bitcoin XT will
> relay invalid transactions that are doublepsends, and Schildbach's
> wallet displays them as valid, unconfirmed, payments. It's really no
> surprise to me that nearly no-one in the Bitcoin ecosystem accepts
> unconfirmed transactions without some kind of protection that doesn't
> rely on first-seen-safe mempool behavior. For instance, many ATM's these
> days know who their customers are due to AML requirements, so while you
> can deposit Bitcoins and get your funds instantly, the protection for
> the ATM operator is that they can go to the police if you rip them off;
> I've spoken to ATM operators who didn't do this who've lost hundreds or
> even thousands of dollars before giving up on zeroconf.
>
> My big worry with zeroconf is a service like Coinbase or Shapeshift
> coming to rely on it, and then attempting to secure it by gaining
> control of a majority of hashing power. For instance, if Coinbase had
> contracts with 80% of the Bitcoin hashing power to guarantee their
> transactions would get mined, but 20% of the hashing power didn't sign
> up, then the only way to guarantee their transactions could be for the
> 80% to not build on blocks containing doublespends by the 20%. There's
> no way in a dece

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Peter Todd 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 09:33:03AM -0400, Gavin Andresen wrote:
> I just sent the following email to F2Pool:
> 
> 
> I was disappointed to see Peter Todd claiming that you have (or will?) run
> his replace-by-fee patch.
> 
> I strongly encourage you to wait until most wallet software supports
> replace-by-fee before doing that, because until that happens replace-by-fee
> just makes it easier to steal from bitcoin-accepting merchants.

Do you mean just full-RBF, or FSS-RBF as well?


Speaking of, could we get a confirmation that Coinbase is, or is not,
one of the merchant service providers trying to get hashing power
contracts with mining pools for guaranteed transaction acceptance? IIRC
you are still an advisor to them. This is a serious concern for the
reasons I outlined in my post.

Equally if anyone else from Coinbase would like to chime in that'd be
great.

-- 
'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
0d7110f3a176228445ed710afd332291384992ed89c5c1a7


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Peter Todd 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 09:37:49PM +0800, Chun Wang wrote:
> Hello. We recognize the problem. We will switch to FSS RBF soon. Thanks.

No worries, let me know if you have any issues. You have my phone
number.

While my own preference - and a number of other devs - is full-RBF,
either one is a good step forward for Bitcoin.

-- 
'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
03188926be14e5fbe2f8f9c63c9fb8e2ba4b14ab04f1c9ab


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Peter Todd 
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 09:33:05AM -0400, Stephen Morse wrote:
> It is disappointing that F2Pool would enable full RBF when the safe
> alternative, first-seen-safe RBF, is also available, especially since the
> fees they would gain by supporting full RBF over FSS RBF would likely be
> negligible. Did they consider using FSS RBF instead?

Specifically the following is what I told them:

> We are
> interested in the replace-by-fee patch, but I am not following the
> development closely, more background info is needed, like what the
> difference between standard and zeroconf versions? Thanks.

Great!

Basically both let you replace one transaction with another that pays a
higher fee. First-seen-safe replace-by-fee adds the additional criteria
that all outputs of the old transaction still need to be paid by the new
transaction, with >= as many Bitcoins. Basically, it makes sure that if
someone was paid by tx1, then tx2 will still pay them.

I've written about how wallets can use RBF and FSS-RBF to more
efficiently use the blockchain on the bitcoin-development mailing list:

http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg07813.html
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg07829.html

Basically, for the purpose of increasing fees, RBF is something like %50
cheaper than CPFP, and FSS-RBF is something like %25 cheaper.

In addition, for ease of implementation, my new FSS-RBF has a number of
other restrictions. For instance, you can't replace multiple
transactions with one, you can't replace a transaction whose outputs
have already been spent, you can't replace a transaction with one that
spends additional unconfirmed inputs, etc. These restrictions aren't
"set in stone", but they do make the code simpler and less likely to
have bugs.

In comparison my previous standard RBF patch can replace multiple
transactions with one, can replace long chains of transactions, etc.
It's willing to do more computation before deciding if a transaction
should be replaced, with more complex logic; it probably has a higher
chance of having a bug or DoS attack.

You've probably seen the huge controversy around zeroconf with regard to
standard replace-by-fee. While FSS RBF doesn't make zeroconf any safer,
it also doesn't make it any more dangerous, so politically with regard
to zeroconf it makes no difference. You *can* still use it doublespend
by taking advantage of how different transactions are accepted
differently, but that's true of *every* change we've ever made to
Bitcoin Core - by upgrading to v0.10 from v0.9 you've also "broken"
zeroconf in the same way.


Having said that... honestly, zeroconf is pretty broken already. Only
with pretty heroic measures like connecting to a significant fraction of
the Bitcoin network at once, as well as connecting to getblocktemplate
supporting miners to figure out what transactions are being mined, are
services having any hope of avoiding getting ripped off. For the average
user their wallets do a terrible job of showing whether or not an
unconfirmed transaction will go through. For example, Schildbach's
Bitcoin wallet for Android has no code at all to detect double-spends
until they get mined, and I've been able to trick it into showing
completely invalid transactions. In fact, currently Bitcoin XT will
relay invalid transactions that are doublepsends, and Schildbach's
wallet displays them as valid, unconfirmed, payments. It's really no
surprise to me that nearly no-one in the Bitcoin ecosystem accepts
unconfirmed transactions without some kind of protection that doesn't
rely on first-seen-safe mempool behavior. For instance, many ATM's these
days know who their customers are due to AML requirements, so while you
can deposit Bitcoins and get your funds instantly, the protection for
the ATM operator is that they can go to the police if you rip them off;
I've spoken to ATM operators who didn't do this who've lost hundreds or
even thousands of dollars before giving up on zeroconf.

My big worry with zeroconf is a service like Coinbase or Shapeshift
coming to rely on it, and then attempting to secure it by gaining
control of a majority of hashing power. For instance, if Coinbase had
contracts with 80% of the Bitcoin hashing power to guarantee their
transactions would get mined, but 20% of the hashing power didn't sign
up, then the only way to guarantee their transactions could be for the
80% to not build on blocks containing doublespends by the 20%. There's
no way in a decentralized network to come to consensus about what
transactions are or are not valid without mining itself, so you could
end up in a situation where unless you're part of one of the big pools
you can't reliably mine at all because your blocks may get rejected for
containing doublespends.

One of my goal with standard replace-by-fee is to prevent this scenario
by forcing merchants and others to implement ways of accepting zeroconf
transactions safely that work in a decentr

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Chun Wang 
Hello. We recognize the problem. We will switch to FSS RBF soon. Thanks.

On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 9:33 PM, Stephen Morse
 wrote:
> It is disappointing that F2Pool would enable full RBF when the safe
> alternative, first-seen-safe RBF, is also available, especially since the
> fees they would gain by supporting full RBF over FSS RBF would likely be
> negligible. Did they consider using FSS RBF instead?
>
> Best,
> Stephen
>
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:39 AM, Peter Todd  wrote:
>>
>> Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the hashing
>> power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions with
>> me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has will be replaced if a
>> conflicting transaction pays a higher fee. There are no requirements for
>> the replacement transaction to pay addresses that were paid by the
>> previous transaction.
>>
>>
>> I'm a user. What does this mean for me?
>> ---
>>
>> In the short term, very little. Wallet software aimed at average users
>> has no ability to reliably detect conditions where an unconfirmed
>> transaction may be double-spent by the sender. For example, Schildbach's
>> Bitcoin Wallet for Android doesn't even detect double-spends of
>> unconfirmed transactions when connected to a RBF or Bitcoin XT nodes
>> that propagate them. The least sophisticated double-spend attack
>> possibly - simply broadcasting two conflicting transactions at the same
>> time - has about 50% probability of success against these wallets.
>>
>> Additionally, SPV wallets based on bitcoinj can't even detect invalid
>> transactions reliably, instead trusting the full node(s) it is connected
>> too over the unauthenticated, unencrypted, P2P protocol to do validation
>> for them. For instance due to a unfixed bug¹ Bitcoin XT nodes will relay
>> double-spends that spend the output of the conflicting transaction. I've
>> personally tested this with Schildbach's Bitcoin Wallet for Android,
>> which shows such invalid transactions as standard, unconfirmed,
>> transactions.
>>
>> Users should continue to assume that unconfirmed transactions could be
>> trivially reversed by the sender until the first confirmation. In
>> general, only the sender can reverse a transaction, so if you do trust
>> the sender feel free to assume an unconfirmed transaction will
>> eventually confirm. However, if you do not trust the sender and/or have
>> no other recourse if they double-spend you, wait until at least the
>> first confirmation before assuming the transaction will go through.
>>
>> In the long term, miner support of full RBF has a number of advantages
>> to users, allowing you to more efficiently make transactions, paying
>> lower fees. However you'll need a wallet supporting these features; none
>> exist yet.
>>
>>
>> I'm a business. What does this mean for me?
>> ---
>>
>> If you use your own node to verify transactions, you probably are in a
>> similar situation as average users, so again, this means very little to
>> you.
>>
>> If you use a payment processor/transaction API such as BitPay, Coinbase,
>> BlockCypher, etc. you may or may not be accepting unconfirmed
>> transactions, and they may or may not be "guaranteed" by your payment
>> processor even if double-spent. If like most merchants you're using the
>> API such that confirmations are required prior to accepting orders (e.g.
>> taking a meaningful loss such as shipping a product if the tx is
>> reversed) nothing changes for you. If not I recommend you contact your
>> payment processor.
>>
>>
>> I'm a miner. Why should I support replace-by-fee?
>> -
>>
>> Whether full or first-seen-safe⁵ RBF support (along with
>> child-pays-for-parent) is an important step towards a fully functioning
>> transaction fee market that doesn't lead to users' transactions getting
>> mysteriously "stuck", particularly during network flooding
>> events/attacks. A better functioning fee market will help reduce
>> pressure to increase the blocksize, particularly from the users creating
>> the most valuable transactions.
>>
>> Full RBF also helps make use of the limited blockchain space more
>> efficiently, with up to 90%+ transaction size savings possible in some
>> transaction patterns. (e.g. long payment chains⁶) More users in less
>> blockchain space will lead to higher overall fees per block.
>>
>> Finally as we'll discuss below full RBF prevents a number of serious
>> threats to the existing level playing field that miners operate in.
>>
>>
>> Why can't we make accepting unconfirmed txs from untrusted people safe?
>> ---
>>
>> For a decentralized wallet, the situation is pretty bleak. These wallets
>> only have a handful of connections to the network, with no way of
>> knowing if those connections give an accurate view of what transactions
>> miners actu

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Gavin Andresen 
I just sent the following email to F2Pool:


I was disappointed to see Peter Todd claiming that you have (or will?) run
his replace-by-fee patch.

I strongly encourage you to wait until most wallet software supports
replace-by-fee before doing that, because until that happens replace-by-fee
just makes it easier to steal from bitcoin-accepting merchants.

I will tell you the same thing about 8MB blocks: until most merchants
support bigger blocks I will strongly encourage you keep creating
less-than-1MB blocks. If we want Bitcoin to succeed more quickly, we should
all be thinking about what is good for the whole system: users, merchants,
exchanges and miners.

As always, if you have questions or concerns feel free to email me.


-- 
--
Gavin Andresen
--
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

Re: [Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Stephen Morse 
It is disappointing that F2Pool would enable full RBF when the safe
alternative, first-seen-safe RBF, is also available, especially since the
fees they would gain by supporting full RBF over FSS RBF would likely be
negligible. Did they consider using FSS RBF instead?

Best,
Stephen

On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:39 AM, Peter Todd  wrote:

> Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the hashing
> power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions with
> me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has will be replaced if a
> conflicting transaction pays a higher fee. There are no requirements for
> the replacement transaction to pay addresses that were paid by the
> previous transaction.
>
>
> I'm a user. What does this mean for me?
> ---
>
> In the short term, very little. Wallet software aimed at average users
> has no ability to reliably detect conditions where an unconfirmed
> transaction may be double-spent by the sender. For example, Schildbach's
> Bitcoin Wallet for Android doesn't even detect double-spends of
> unconfirmed transactions when connected to a RBF or Bitcoin XT nodes
> that propagate them. The least sophisticated double-spend attack
> possibly - simply broadcasting two conflicting transactions at the same
> time - has about 50% probability of success against these wallets.
>
> Additionally, SPV wallets based on bitcoinj can't even detect invalid
> transactions reliably, instead trusting the full node(s) it is connected
> too over the unauthenticated, unencrypted, P2P protocol to do validation
> for them. For instance due to a unfixed bug¹ Bitcoin XT nodes will relay
> double-spends that spend the output of the conflicting transaction. I've
> personally tested this with Schildbach's Bitcoin Wallet for Android,
> which shows such invalid transactions as standard, unconfirmed,
> transactions.
>
> Users should continue to assume that unconfirmed transactions could be
> trivially reversed by the sender until the first confirmation. In
> general, only the sender can reverse a transaction, so if you do trust
> the sender feel free to assume an unconfirmed transaction will
> eventually confirm. However, if you do not trust the sender and/or have
> no other recourse if they double-spend you, wait until at least the
> first confirmation before assuming the transaction will go through.
>
> In the long term, miner support of full RBF has a number of advantages
> to users, allowing you to more efficiently make transactions, paying
> lower fees. However you'll need a wallet supporting these features; none
> exist yet.
>
>
> I'm a business. What does this mean for me?
> ---
>
> If you use your own node to verify transactions, you probably are in a
> similar situation as average users, so again, this means very little to
> you.
>
> If you use a payment processor/transaction API such as BitPay, Coinbase,
> BlockCypher, etc. you may or may not be accepting unconfirmed
> transactions, and they may or may not be "guaranteed" by your payment
> processor even if double-spent. If like most merchants you're using the
> API such that confirmations are required prior to accepting orders (e.g.
> taking a meaningful loss such as shipping a product if the tx is
> reversed) nothing changes for you. If not I recommend you contact your
> payment processor.
>
>
> I'm a miner. Why should I support replace-by-fee?
> -
>
> Whether full or first-seen-safe⁵ RBF support (along with
> child-pays-for-parent) is an important step towards a fully functioning
> transaction fee market that doesn't lead to users' transactions getting
> mysteriously "stuck", particularly during network flooding
> events/attacks. A better functioning fee market will help reduce
> pressure to increase the blocksize, particularly from the users creating
> the most valuable transactions.
>
> Full RBF also helps make use of the limited blockchain space more
> efficiently, with up to 90%+ transaction size savings possible in some
> transaction patterns. (e.g. long payment chains⁶) More users in less
> blockchain space will lead to higher overall fees per block.
>
> Finally as we'll discuss below full RBF prevents a number of serious
> threats to the existing level playing field that miners operate in.
>
>
> Why can't we make accepting unconfirmed txs from untrusted people safe?
> ---
>
> For a decentralized wallet, the situation is pretty bleak. These wallets
> only have a handful of connections to the network, with no way of
> knowing if those connections give an accurate view of what transactions
> miners actually know about.
>
> The only serious attempt to fix this problem for decentralized wallets
> that has been actually deployed is Andresen/Harding's double-spend
> relaying, implemented in Bitcoin XT. It relays up to one double-spend
>

[Bitcoin-development] F2Pool has enabled full replace-by-fee

2015-06-19 Thread Peter Todd 
Yesterday F2Pool, currently the largest pool with 21% of the hashing
power, enabled full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions with
me. This means that transactions that F2Pool has will be replaced if a
conflicting transaction pays a higher fee. There are no requirements for
the replacement transaction to pay addresses that were paid by the
previous transaction.


I'm a user. What does this mean for me?
---

In the short term, very little. Wallet software aimed at average users
has no ability to reliably detect conditions where an unconfirmed
transaction may be double-spent by the sender. For example, Schildbach's
Bitcoin Wallet for Android doesn't even detect double-spends of
unconfirmed transactions when connected to a RBF or Bitcoin XT nodes
that propagate them. The least sophisticated double-spend attack
possibly - simply broadcasting two conflicting transactions at the same
time - has about 50% probability of success against these wallets.

Additionally, SPV wallets based on bitcoinj can't even detect invalid
transactions reliably, instead trusting the full node(s) it is connected
too over the unauthenticated, unencrypted, P2P protocol to do validation
for them. For instance due to a unfixed bug¹ Bitcoin XT nodes will relay
double-spends that spend the output of the conflicting transaction. I've
personally tested this with Schildbach's Bitcoin Wallet for Android,
which shows such invalid transactions as standard, unconfirmed,
transactions.

Users should continue to assume that unconfirmed transactions could be
trivially reversed by the sender until the first confirmation. In
general, only the sender can reverse a transaction, so if you do trust
the sender feel free to assume an unconfirmed transaction will
eventually confirm. However, if you do not trust the sender and/or have
no other recourse if they double-spend you, wait until at least the
first confirmation before assuming the transaction will go through.

In the long term, miner support of full RBF has a number of advantages
to users, allowing you to more efficiently make transactions, paying
lower fees. However you'll need a wallet supporting these features; none
exist yet.


I'm a business. What does this mean for me?
---

If you use your own node to verify transactions, you probably are in a
similar situation as average users, so again, this means very little to
you.

If you use a payment processor/transaction API such as BitPay, Coinbase,
BlockCypher, etc. you may or may not be accepting unconfirmed
transactions, and they may or may not be "guaranteed" by your payment
processor even if double-spent. If like most merchants you're using the
API such that confirmations are required prior to accepting orders (e.g.
taking a meaningful loss such as shipping a product if the tx is
reversed) nothing changes for you. If not I recommend you contact your
payment processor.


I'm a miner. Why should I support replace-by-fee?
-

Whether full or first-seen-safe⁵ RBF support (along with
child-pays-for-parent) is an important step towards a fully functioning
transaction fee market that doesn't lead to users' transactions getting
mysteriously "stuck", particularly during network flooding
events/attacks. A better functioning fee market will help reduce
pressure to increase the blocksize, particularly from the users creating
the most valuable transactions.

Full RBF also helps make use of the limited blockchain space more
efficiently, with up to 90%+ transaction size savings possible in some
transaction patterns. (e.g. long payment chains⁶) More users in less
blockchain space will lead to higher overall fees per block.

Finally as we'll discuss below full RBF prevents a number of serious
threats to the existing level playing field that miners operate in.


Why can't we make accepting unconfirmed txs from untrusted people safe?
---

For a decentralized wallet, the situation is pretty bleak. These wallets
only have a handful of connections to the network, with no way of
knowing if those connections give an accurate view of what transactions
miners actually know about.

The only serious attempt to fix this problem for decentralized wallets
that has been actually deployed is Andresen/Harding's double-spend
relaying, implemented in Bitcoin XT. It relays up to one double-spend
transaction per double-spent txout, with the intended effect to warn
recipients. In practice however this functionality makes it easier to
double-spend rather than harder, by giving an efficient and easy way to
get double-spends to miners after the fact. Notably my RBF
implementation even connects to Bitcoin XT nodes, reserving a % of all
incoming and outgoing connection slots for them.

Additionally Bitcoin XT's double-spend relaying is subject to attacks
include bandwidth exhaustion, sybil atta