adilson_lanpo@8AEGotJKXJ4ABJy1gKjls4SrrzpshQNoEMAbu0IFA94 wrote:

> On Sun, 05 May 2013 12:59:33 -0000
> toad-notrust@h2RzPS4fEzP0zU43GAfEgxqK2Y55~kEUNR01cWvYApI wrote:
> 
>> adilson_lanpo@8AEGotJKXJ4ABJy1gKjls4SrrzpshQNoEMAbu0IFA94 wrote:
>> 
>> Basically the worry is that the network could become over-reliant on
>> a moderate number of nodes with lots of connections each. I.e. it
>> becomes a "scale free" network, where all requests are routed through
>> a centralised cabal of nodes, rather than a more homogenous "small
>> world" network.
> 
> I thought all scale-free networks were small-world.
> 
>> The problem with such a situation is if you take out the "big" nodes,
>> the rest of the network will be severely damaged and take some time
>> to adapt.
> 
> I guess it'd depend on how bad that would affect the rest of the
> network, would it just slow things down for a bit?  Could we be looking
> at a netsplit or some routing screwup?

Yeah, it might need a major reconfiguration? On the other hand, node locations 
*never* change on opennet, so how bad can it be?
> 
> I'd expect that the big nodes would be more likely to be running 24/7 so
> they'd probably be less likely than average to go down.
> 
> So how many of them could we afford to lose at once?  I doubt we'd lose
> all of them unless someone were DOSing high bandwidth opennet nodes but
> anyone who could do that could probably hurt us in other ways.

Right. It isn't possible to secure opennet to the point where this is a more 
interesting attack than the other options.
> 
>> Arguably you can get a cabal just by fast (high capacity) nodes
>> linking to other fast (high capacity) nodes, without violating the
>> peer limits. To some degree this happens automatically on opennet (as
>> it's a bit meritocratic), but the fact that fast nodes still see
>> relatively low transfer rates shows it doesn't happen *that much*.
> 
> If the majority of nodes are slow then it would happen rarely.

It's a theory that's bounced around for years. Certainly opennet is somewhat 
meritocratic: Newbie nodes tend to be connected to other poorly connected 
nodes, even when they have lots of them.
> 
>> So maybe there's no problem with raising the limit to say 100 peers
>> on opennet. On darknet somebody with a lot of connections might well
>> have 100 peers, especially if we have FOAF links. Opennet is
>> vulnerable with or without high peer limits, and the main worries
>> with centralisation are somewhat independent of peer limits.
>> 
>> We could limit "aristocracy" by e.g. limiting connections not by
>> number but by capacity. I.e. you can have 20 high capacity peers or
>> 40 low capacity peers. This is a bit hand-wavy at this point...
> 
> Does a node know what bandwidth limit has been set by its peers?
> 
> But even if you do that I suspect you wouldn't actually reduce
> centralization, just have something slower than if you just used the
> low capacity peers number on its own.

Right, we can look at capacity, but you could still get well connected nodes 
connecting to well connected nodes. And maybe that's not a bad thing.

Thoughts?

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