[Bitcoin-development] 0.6.x - detachdb in wrong place

2012-06-17 Thread grarpamp
Well, detachdb doesn't appear in the -\? help
because it's stuffed under pnp, which is not set
in my build. please fix for people, tx :)

#ifdef USE_UPNP
#if USE_UPNP
  -upnp\t + _(Use Universal Plug and
Play to map the listening port (default: 1)) + \n +
#else
  -upnp\t + _(Use Universal Plug and
Play to map the listening port (default: 0)) + \n +
#endif
  -detachdb\t + _(Detach block and address
databases. Increases shutdown time (default: 0)) + \n +
#endif

--
Live Security Virtual Conference
Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and 
threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions 
will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware 
threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development


Re: [Bitcoin-development] 0.6.x - detachdb in wrong place

2012-06-17 Thread Gregory Maxwell
On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 5:22 AM, grarpamp grarp...@gmail.com wrote:
 Well, detachdb doesn't appear in the -\? help
 because it's stuffed under pnp, which is not set
 in my build. please fix for people, tx :)

It isn't inside the ifdef in bitcoin git master.

(For future reference this sort of request is probably best opened as
an issue in the github issue tracker instead of posted to the list).

--
Live Security Virtual Conference
Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and 
threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions 
will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware 
threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development


Re: [Bitcoin-development] After compressed pubkeys: hybrid pubkeys

2012-06-17 Thread Mike Hearn
 * 0x04 [32-byte X coord] [32-byte Y coord]: uncompressed format
 * 0x06 [32-byte X coord] [32-byte Y coord]: hybrid format for even Y coords
 * 0x07 [32-byte X coord] [32-byte Y coord]: hybrid format for odd Y coords

So what's the actual difference in format? Is there any at all, or
it's just the first number that's different?

--
Live Security Virtual Conference
Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and 
threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions 
will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware 
threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development


Re: [Bitcoin-development] After compressed pubkeys: hybrid pubkeys

2012-06-17 Thread Wladimir
On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 2:04 PM, Pieter Wuille pieter.wui...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 01:01:12PM +0200, Mike Hearn wrote:
   * 0x04 [32-byte X coord] [32-byte Y coord]: uncompressed format
   * 0x06 [32-byte X coord] [32-byte Y coord]: hybrid format for even Y
 coords
   * 0x07 [32-byte X coord] [32-byte Y coord]: hybrid format for odd Y
 coords
 
  So what's the actual difference in format? Is there any at all, or
  it's just the first number that's different?

 From what I understand, that is indeed the only difference.


To prevent surprises in the future, in case OpenSSL decides to add more,
can we disable all other key formats in advance?

Wladimir
--
Live Security Virtual Conference
Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and 
threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions 
will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware 
threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development


[Bitcoin-development] Ultimate Blockchain Compression w/ trust-free lite nodes

2012-06-17 Thread Alan Reiner

All,

With the flurry of discussion about blockchain compression, I thought it 
was time to put forward my final, most-advanced idea, into a single, 
well-thought-out, *illustrated*, forum post. Please check it out: 
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88208.0


This is a huge undertaking, but it has some pretty huge benefits.  And 
it's actually feasible because it can be implemented without disrupting 
the main network.  I'm sure there's lots of issues with it, but I'm 
putting it out there to see how it might be improved and actually executed.



*Summary:

*/Use a special tree data structure to organize all unspent-TxOuts on 
the network, and use the root of this tree to communicate its 
signature between nodes.  The leaves of this tree actually correspond 
to addresses/scripts, and the data at the leaf is actually a root of the 
unspent-TxOut list for that address/script.  To maintain security of the 
tree signatures, it will be included in the header of an alternate 
blockchain, which will be secured by merged mining.


This provides the same compression as the simpler unspent-TxOut merkle 
tree, but also gives nodes a way to download just the unspent-TxOut list 
for each address in their wallet, and verify that list directly against 
the blockheaders.  Therefore, even lightweight nodes can get full 
address information, from any untrusted peer, and with only a tiny 
amount of downloaded data (a few kB). /*

*

Alright, tear it up!
-Alan

--
Live Security Virtual Conference
Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and 
threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions 
will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware 
threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development


Re: [Bitcoin-development] Ultimate Blockchain Compression w/ trust-free lite nodes

2012-06-17 Thread Peter Todd
On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 02:39:28PM -0400, Alan Reiner wrote:
 All,
 
 With the flurry of discussion about blockchain compression, I
 thought it was time to put forward my final, most-advanced idea,
 into a single, well-thought-out, *illustrated*, forum post.
 Please check it out: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88208.0
 
 This is a huge undertaking, but it has some pretty huge benefits.
 And it's actually feasible because it can be implemented without
 disrupting the main network.  I'm sure there's lots of issues with
 it, but I'm putting it out there to see how it might be improved and
 actually executed.
 
 
 *Summary:
 
 */Use a special tree data structure to organize all unspent-TxOuts
 on the network, and use the root of this tree to communicate its
 signature between nodes.  The leaves of this tree actually
 correspond to addresses/scripts, and the data at the leaf is
 actually a root of the unspent-TxOut list for that address/script.
 To maintain security of the tree signatures, it will be included in
 the header of an alternate blockchain, which will be secured by
 merged mining.
 
 This provides the same compression as the simpler unspent-TxOut
 merkle tree, but also gives nodes a way to download just the
 unspent-TxOut list for each address in their wallet, and verify that
 list directly against the blockheaders.  Therefore, even lightweight
 nodes can get full address information, from any untrusted peer, and
 with only a tiny amount of downloaded data (a few kB). /*

How are you going to prevent people from delibrately unbalancing the
tree with addresses with chosen hashes?

One idea that comes to mind, which unfortunately would make for a
pseudo-network rule, is to simply say that any *new* address whose hash
happens to be deeper in the tree than, say, 10*log(n), indicating it was
probably chosen to be unbalanced, gets discarded. The new address part
of the rule would be required, or else you could use the rule to get
other people's addresses discarded.

Having said that, such a rule just means that anyone playing games will
find they can't spend *their* money, and only with pruning clients.
Unrelated people will not be effected. The coins can also always be
spent with a non-pruning client to an acceptable address, which can
later re-spend on a pruning client.


It also comes to mind is that with the popularity of firstbits it may be
a good idea to use a comparison function that works last bit first...


It's merkles all the way down...

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


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
--
Live Security Virtual Conference
Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and 
threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions 
will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware 
threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development


Re: [Bitcoin-development] 0.6.x - detachdb in wrong place

2012-06-17 Thread grarpamp
 It isn't inside the ifdef in bitcoin git master.

Oh, hmm, well then, what is the difference or usage
between these two repositories in regards to the project?

Which one are the formal releases tagged (tbz's cut) in?

Which one has the branches with the commits that will
make it into the next formal release? ie: tracking along
0.5.x, 0.6.x, HEAD/master (to be branched for 0.7.x).

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
https://git.gitorious.org/bitcoin/bitcoind-stable

I seem to be seeing more tags in the former, and
more maintained branches in the latter?

--
Live Security Virtual Conference
Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and 
threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions 
will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware 
threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development


Re: [Bitcoin-development] 0.6.x - detachdb in wrong place

2012-06-17 Thread Gregory Maxwell
On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 5:35 PM, grarpamp grarp...@gmail.com wrote:
 It isn't inside the ifdef in bitcoin git master.

 Oh, hmm, well then, what is the difference or usage
 between these two repositories in regards to the project?
 Which one are the formal releases tagged (tbz's cut) in?

 Which one has the branches with the commits that will
 make it into the next formal release? ie: tracking along
 0.5.x, 0.6.x, HEAD/master (to be branched for 0.7.x).

 https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
 https://git.gitorious.org/bitcoin/bitcoind-stable

The latter is Luke's backports of security and stability fixes to
otherwise unmaintained old versions.

--
Live Security Virtual Conference
Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and 
threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions 
will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware 
threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development


Re: [Bitcoin-development] Ultimate Blockchain Compression w/ trust-free lite nodes

2012-06-17 Thread Alberto Torres
Hi,

I did describe a very similar thing back in January (also illustrated,
and, if I'm not mistaken, more simple and efficient to recalculate),
and I wanted to do a prototype, but I have been very busy with other
projects since then.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/User:DiThi/MTUT

I just saw Gavin left a comment in the talk page, I'm sorry I haven't
seen it earlier.

I think armory is the perfect client to implement such an idea. I sort
of waited it to be able to run in my laptop with 2 GB of RAM before
being sucked into other projects. I even lost track of its
development.

I hope this gets developed. I will be able to help after summer if
this is still not done.

DiThi

P.S: Sorry Peter, I've sent you the message privately by mistake.
Also, I don't quite understand your concern of unbalancing the tree.

2012/6/17 Peter Todd p...@petertodd.org:
 On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 02:39:28PM -0400, Alan Reiner wrote:
 All,

 With the flurry of discussion about blockchain compression, I
 thought it was time to put forward my final, most-advanced idea,
 into a single, well-thought-out, *illustrated*, forum post.
 Please check it out: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88208.0

 This is a huge undertaking, but it has some pretty huge benefits.
 And it's actually feasible because it can be implemented without
 disrupting the main network.  I'm sure there's lots of issues with
 it, but I'm putting it out there to see how it might be improved and
 actually executed.

 
 *Summary:

 */Use a special tree data structure to organize all unspent-TxOuts
 on the network, and use the root of this tree to communicate its
 signature between nodes.  The leaves of this tree actually
 correspond to addresses/scripts, and the data at the leaf is
 actually a root of the unspent-TxOut list for that address/script.
 To maintain security of the tree signatures, it will be included in
 the header of an alternate blockchain, which will be secured by
 merged mining.

 This provides the same compression as the simpler unspent-TxOut
 merkle tree, but also gives nodes a way to download just the
 unspent-TxOut list for each address in their wallet, and verify that
 list directly against the blockheaders.  Therefore, even lightweight
 nodes can get full address information, from any untrusted peer, and
 with only a tiny amount of downloaded data (a few kB). /*

 How are you going to prevent people from delibrately unbalancing the
 tree with addresses with chosen hashes?

 One idea that comes to mind, which unfortunately would make for a
 pseudo-network rule, is to simply say that any *new* address whose hash
 happens to be deeper in the tree than, say, 10*log(n), indicating it was
 probably chosen to be unbalanced, gets discarded. The new address part
 of the rule would be required, or else you could use the rule to get
 other people's addresses discarded.

 Having said that, such a rule just means that anyone playing games will
 find they can't spend *their* money, and only with pruning clients.
 Unrelated people will not be effected. The coins can also always be
 spent with a non-pruning client to an acceptable address, which can
 later re-spend on a pruning client.


 It also comes to mind is that with the popularity of firstbits it may be
 a good idea to use a comparison function that works last bit first...


 It's merkles all the way down...

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

 --
 Live Security Virtual Conference
 Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and
 threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions
 will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware
 threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/
 ___
 Bitcoin-development mailing list
 Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
 https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development


--
Live Security Virtual Conference
Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and 
threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions 
will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware 
threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development


Re: [Bitcoin-development] Ultimate Blockchain Compression w/ trust-free lite nodes

2012-06-17 Thread Alan Reiner
Hi Alberto,

Your thread was part of the inspiration for the idea that I proposed.  
But as I read it more, I see that I originally misunderstood it 
(mistaking it for a simpler unspent-TxOut tree idea).  Even after 
reading it, I'm not entirely clear how your proposal would work, but I 
see that you proposed something very similar.  I just want to clarify 
that there are two, major orthogonal pieces to both proposals:

(1) The method for creating unspent-TxOut-tree roots/fingerprints for 
verification
(2) Using an alternate blockchain to maintain and distribute those 
fingerprints

There are multiple ways to do both of those.  You proposed a different 
tree structure (which I haven't entirely figured out, yet), and putting 
those fingerprints in the main chain header.

In my proposal, (2) is to avoid inducing a blockchain fork, or even 
changing the protocol at all.  By using a separate blockchain, it can be 
done non-disruptively, and could even be thrown out and re-worked if we 
were to find an issue with it later.  The availability of merged mining 
makes it possible to get [almost] the same security as changing the 
protocol, but without the disruption of hard-forking.  (I expect that if 
there's not too much computational overhead and the software is already 
written, most miners would sign on)

I'll read into your page a little more.  I don't want to take credit 
away from you, since you clearly had a comparable idea developed long 
before me :)

-Alan


On 06/17/2012 06:46 PM, Alberto Torres wrote:
 Hi,

 I did describe a very similar thing back in January (also illustrated,
 and, if I'm not mistaken, more simple and efficient to recalculate),
 and I wanted to do a prototype, but I have been very busy with other
 projects since then.

 https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/User:DiThi/MTUT

 I just saw Gavin left a comment in the talk page, I'm sorry I haven't
 seen it earlier.

 I think armory is the perfect client to implement such an idea. I sort
 of waited it to be able to run in my laptop with 2 GB of RAM before
 being sucked into other projects. I even lost track of its
 development.

 I hope this gets developed. I will be able to help after summer if
 this is still not done.

 DiThi

 P.S: Sorry Peter, I've sent you the message privately by mistake.
 Also, I don't quite understand your concern of unbalancing the tree.

 2012/6/17 Peter Toddp...@petertodd.org:
 On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 02:39:28PM -0400, Alan Reiner wrote:
 All,

 With the flurry of discussion about blockchain compression, I
 thought it was time to put forward my final, most-advanced idea,
 into a single, well-thought-out, *illustrated*, forum post.
 Please check it out: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88208.0

 This is a huge undertaking, but it has some pretty huge benefits.
 And it's actually feasible because it can be implemented without
 disrupting the main network.  I'm sure there's lots of issues with
 it, but I'm putting it out there to see how it might be improved and
 actually executed.

 
 *Summary:

 */Use a special tree data structure to organize all unspent-TxOuts
 on the network, and use the root of this tree to communicate its
 signature between nodes.  The leaves of this tree actually
 correspond to addresses/scripts, and the data at the leaf is
 actually a root of the unspent-TxOut list for that address/script.
 To maintain security of the tree signatures, it will be included in
 the header of an alternate blockchain, which will be secured by
 merged mining.

 This provides the same compression as the simpler unspent-TxOut
 merkle tree, but also gives nodes a way to download just the
 unspent-TxOut list for each address in their wallet, and verify that
 list directly against the blockheaders.  Therefore, even lightweight
 nodes can get full address information, from any untrusted peer, and
 with only a tiny amount of downloaded data (a few kB). /*
 How are you going to prevent people from delibrately unbalancing the
 tree with addresses with chosen hashes?

 One idea that comes to mind, which unfortunately would make for a
 pseudo-network rule, is to simply say that any *new* address whose hash
 happens to be deeper in the tree than, say, 10*log(n), indicating it was
 probably chosen to be unbalanced, gets discarded. The new address part
 of the rule would be required, or else you could use the rule to get
 other people's addresses discarded.

 Having said that, such a rule just means that anyone playing games will
 find they can't spend *their* money, and only with pruning clients.
 Unrelated people will not be effected. The coins can also always be
 spent with a non-pruning client to an acceptable address, which can
 later re-spend on a pruning client.


 It also comes to mind is that with the popularity of firstbits it may be
 a good idea to use a comparison function that works last bit first...


 It's merkles all the way down...

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

 

Re: [Bitcoin-development] 0.6.x - detachdb in wrong place

2012-06-17 Thread Luke-Jr
On Sunday, June 17, 2012 11:04:42 PM grarpamp wrote:
  https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
  https://git.gitorious.org/bitcoin/bitcoind-stable
  
  The latter is Luke's backports of security and stability fixes to
  otherwise unmaintained old versions.
 
 Ah ok, coming from cvs/svn, it's a bit different to find things.
 There's something to be said for maintenance of pior branches.
 Though I see some things I can use in github and my work would
 be more useful there, so maybe I'll stwitch to that from gitorius/0.6.x.
 
 Presumably the github/0.6.2 branch is safe for production?

No, that was a temporary branch of what became the stable 0.6.x branch.
GitHub/master is bleeding edge. For production, you usually want the stable 
branches/releases (which are on Gitorious).

The fix to -detachdb's position in -help was just merged to master, and should 
be backported sometime in the next few days.

Luke

--
Live Security Virtual Conference
Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and 
threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions 
will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware 
threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development


Re: [Bitcoin-development] 0.6.x - detachdb in wrong place

2012-06-17 Thread Gregory Maxwell
On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 7:04 PM, grarpamp grarp...@gmail.com wrote:
 Presumably the github/0.6.2 branch is safe for production?

0.6.2 is very widely used, more so than the other acceptably updated backports.

 What degree of caution about wallet eating should be
 made for those using github/master?

I can't speak for anyone but myself:

I don't run master on wallets with large amounts of (non-testnet) coin
in them, except for a few times when I needed access to this feature
or that or just in a isolated capacity for testing.  In any use with
real wallets I'd be sure to have good backups that never touched the
new code.

We have at various times had bugs in master that would corrupt wallets
(though IIRC not too severely) and have bugs that would burn coin both
in mining and in transactions (though again, I think not too
severely).  My caution is not due to the risk being exceptionally
great but just because there is probably no remedy if things go wrong,
this caution is magnified by the fact that we don't currently have
enough testing activity on master.

Testnet exists so that people can test without fear of losing a lot of
funds and with the 0.7.0(git master) testnet reboot it should be more
usable than it has been.   It would be very helpful if anyone offering
bitcoin services would setup parallel toy versions of your sites on
testnet— it would bring more attention to your real services, it would
give you an opportunity to get more testing done of your real
services, it would show some more commitment to software quality, and
it would let you take a more active role in advancing bitcoin
development by doing a little testing yourself that you couldn't do on
your production systems.

--
Live Security Virtual Conference
Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and 
threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions 
will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware 
threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/
___
Bitcoin-development mailing list
Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development


Re: [Bitcoin-development] Proposed new P2P command and response: getcmds, cmdlist

2012-06-17 Thread Mark Friedenbach
Sorry for the duplication Amir, I meant to send this to everyone:

BitTorrent might be an example to look to here. It's a peer-to-peer network
that has undergone many significant protocol upgrades over the years while
maintaining compatibility. More recent clients have had the ability to
expose the capabilities of connected peers and modify behavior accordingly,
and overall it has worked very well.

Capability-based systems do work, and provide an excellent means of trying
out new algorithms, adding new features for upgraded clients, and when
necessary reverting protocol changes (by depreciating or removing
extensions).

The problem with OpenGL was and continues to be that the two superpowers of
that industry develop and maintain competing proposals for similar
functionality, which are thrust upon developers which must support both if
they want access to the latest and greatest features, until such time that
the ARB arbitrarily choses one to standardize upon (in the process creating
yet another extension of the form ARB_* that may be different and must be
explicitly supported by developers).

I think the BitTorrent example shows that a loosely organized, open-source
community *can* maintain a capability-based extension system without
falling into capability-hell.

Mark

On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 9:30 AM, Amir Taaki zgen...@yahoo.com wrote:

 As the only person to have created and maintaining a full reimplementation
 of the Bitcoin protocol/standard, I do think Bitcoin is filled with
 arbitrary endianness and magic numbers. However it is a tiny and simple
 protocol.

 The big problem is not implementing the Bitcoin protocol, but the fact
 that once you have created a codebase, you want to perfect and fine-tune
 the design. During the meantime, the Bitcoin protocol is being changed.
 Change to the Bitcoin protocol is far more damaging to people that want to
 implement the protocol than any issues with the current protocol.

 That's not to say, I disagree with changes to the protocol. I think
 changes should be a lot more conservative and have a longer time frame than
 they do currently. Usually changes suddenly get added to the Satoshi client
 and I notice them in the commit log or announcements. Then it's like oh I
 have to add this and I spend a week working to implement the change
 without proper consideration or reflection which ends up with me having to
 compromise on design choices. That is to remain compatible with the
 protocol.

 However it is not my intent to slow down progress so I usually try to
 hedge against that kind of feeling towards conservatism.



 - Original Message -
 From: Jeff Garzik jgar...@exmulti.com
 To: Wladimir laa...@gmail.com
 Cc: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
 Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 5:19 PM
 Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Proposed new P2P command and response:
 getcmds, cmdlist

 On Sat, Jun 16, 2012 at 4:42 AM, Wladimir laa...@gmail.com wrote:
  Which is a perfectly reasonable requirement. However, one could simply
  standardize what a 'thin client' and what a 'thick client' does and
 offers
  (at a certain version level), without having to explicitly enumerate
  everything over the protocol.
 
  This also makes it easier to deprecate (lack of) certain features later
 on.
  You can simply drop support for protocol versions before a certain number
  (which has happened before). With the extension system this is much
 harder,
  which likely means you keep certain workarounds forever.
 
  Letting the node know of each others capabilities at connection time
 helps
  somewhat. It'd allow refusing clients that do not implement a certain
  feature. Then again, to me it's unclear what this wins compared to
  incremental protocol versions with clear requirements.
 
  I'm just afraid that the currently simple P2P protocol will turn into a
 zoo
  of complicated (and potentially buggy/insecure) interactions.

 What is missing here is some perspective on the current situation.  It
 is -very- easy to make a protocol change and bump PROTOCOL_VERSION in
 the Satoshi client.

 But for anyone maintaining a non-Satoshi codebase, the P2P protocol is
 already filled with all sorts of magic numbers, arbitrarily versioned
 binary data structures..  already an unfriendly zoo of complicated and
 potentially buggy interactions.  There is scant, incomplete
 documentation on the wiki -- the Satoshi source code is really the
 only true reference.

 I see these problems personally, trying to keep ArtForz' half-a-node
 running on mainnet (distributed as 'blkmond' with pushpool).

 In an era of HTTP and JSON, NFS and iSCSI, bitcoin's P2P protocol is
 woefully backwards, fragile, limited and inflexible when it comes to
 parameter/extension exchange and negotiation.  Even iSCSI, that which
 is implemented on hard drive firmware, has the ability to exchange
 key=value  parameters between local and remote sides of the RPC
 connection.

 Calling the current P2P protocol simple belies