"scorched earth" refers to the _real world_ impact such policies would have on present-day 0-conf usage within the bitcoin community.
All payment processors AFAIK process transactions through some scoring system, then accept 0-conf transactions for payments. This isn't some theoretical exercise. Like it or not many use insecure 0-conf transactions for rapid payments. Deploying something that makes 0-conf transactions unusable would have a wide, negative impact on present day bitcoin payments, thus "scorched earth" Without adequate decentralized solutions for instant payments, deploying replace-by-fee widely would simply push instant transactions even more into the realm of centralized, walled-garden services. On Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 3:30 PM, Mark Friedenbach <m...@friedenbach.org> wrote: > Thank you Jorge for the contribution of the Stag Hunt terminology. It is > much better than a politically charged "scorched earth". > > On Feb 21, 2015 11:10 AM, "Jorge Timón" <jti...@jtimon.cc> wrote: >> >> I agree "scorched hearth" is a really bad name for the 0 conf protocol >> based on game theory. I would have preferred "stag hunt" since that's >> basically what it's using (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt) >> but I like the protocol and I think it would be interesting to >> integrate it in the payment protocol. >> Even if that protocol didn't existed or didn't worked, replace-by-fee >> is purely part of a node's policy, not part of consensus. >> >From the whitepaper, 0 conf transactions being secure by the good will >> of miners was never an assumption, and it is clear to me that the >> system cannot provide those guaranties based on such a weak scheme. I >> believe thinking otherwise is naive. >> As to consider non-standard policies "an attack to bitcoin" because >> "that's not how bitcoin used to work", then I guess minimum relay fee >> policies can also be considered "an attack to bitcoin" on the same >> grounds. >> Lastly, "first-seen-wins" was just a simple policy to bootstrap the >> system, but I expect that most nodes will eventually move to policies >> that are economically rational for miners such as replace-by-fee. >> Not only I disagree this will be "the end of bitcoin" or "will push >> the price of the btc miners are mining down", I believe it will be >> something good for bitcoin. >> Since this is apparently controversial I don't want to push for >> replace-by-fee to become the new standard policy (something that would >> make sense to me). But once the policy code is sufficiently modular as >> to support several policies I would like bitcoin core to have a >> CReplaceByFeePolicy alongside CStandardPolicy and a CNullPolicy (no >> policy checks at all). >> One step at a time I guess... >> >> >> On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 9:56 AM, Troy Benjegerdes <ho...@hozed.org> wrote: >> > On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 11:40:24PM +0200, Adam Gibson wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> On 02/15/2015 11:25 PM, Troy Benjegerdes wrote: >> >> > >> >> > Most money/payment systems include some method to reverse or undo >> >> > payments made in error. In these systems, the longer settlement >> >> > times you mention below are a feature, not a bug, and give more >> >> > time for a human to react to errors and system failures. >> >> > >> >> >> >> Settlement has to be final somewhere. That is the whole point of it. >> >> Transfer costs in current electronic payment systems are a direct >> >> consequence of their non-finality. That's the point Satoshi was making >> >> in the introduction to the whitepaper: "With the possibility of >> >> reversal, the need for trust spreads". >> > >> > The problem with that statement is I trust a merchant that I went into >> > a store and made a payment with personally more than I trust the >> > firmware >> > on my hard drive [1]. >> > >> > The attack surface of devices in your computer is huge. A motivated >> > attacker >> > just needs to get an intern into a company that makes some kind of >> > component >> > or system that's in your computer, cloud server, hardware wallet, or >> > what >> > have you that has firmware capable of reading your private keys. >> > >> > With the possibility of mass trojaned hardware, if we are going to trust >> > the system, it must somehow allow reversal through a human-in-the-loop. >> > >> >> There is nothing wrong with having reversible mechanisms built on top >> >> of Bitcoin, and indeed it makes sense for most activity to happen at >> >> those higher layers. It's easy to build things that way, but >> >> impossible to build them the other way: you can't build a >> >> non-reversible layer on top of a reversible layer. >> > >> > We built 'reliable' TCP on top of unreliable ethernet networks. My >> > experience >> > with networking was if you tried to guarantee message delivery at the >> > lowest >> > level, the system got exceedingly complicated, expensive, and brittle. >> > >> > Most applications, in particular paying someone you already trust, are >> > quite >> > happy running on reversible systems, and in some cases more reliable and >> > lower risk. (carrying non-reversible cash is generally considered risky) >> > >> > The problem is that if the base currency is assumed to be >> > non-reversible, >> > then it's brittle and becomes 'too big to fail'. >> > >> > Where the blockchain improves on everything else is in transparency. If >> > you >> > reverse transactions a lot, it will be obvious from an analysis. I would >> > much >> > rather deal with a known, predictable, and relatively continous >> > transaction >> > reversal rate (percentage) than have to deal with sudden failures where >> > some anonymous bad actor makes off with a fortune. >> > >> > We already have zero-conf double-spend transaction reversal, why not >> > explicitly >> > extend that a little in a way that senders and receivers have a choice >> > to >> > use it, or not? >> > >> > >> > [1] >> > http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/16/us-usa-cyberspying-idUSKBN0LK1QV20150216 >> > >> > >> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> > Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server >> > from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards >> > with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration & >> > more >> > Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE >> > >> > http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=190641631&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Bitcoin-development mailing list >> > Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net >> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server >> from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards >> with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration & more >> Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE >> >> http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=190641631&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk >> _______________________________________________ >> Bitcoin-development mailing list >> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server > from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards > with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration & more > Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE > http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=190641631&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk > _______________________________________________ > Bitcoin-development mailing list > Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development > -- Jeff Garzik Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist BitPay, Inc. https://bitpay.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! 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