Re: [Lightning-dev] Covert channel recovery with Oblivious Signatures

2020-12-14 Thread Lloyd Fournier
Errr please replace 5 with 4 in the previous post. Thanks to devrandom.

LL


On Tue, Dec 15, 2020 at 2:43 PM Lloyd Fournier  wrote:
>
> > It seems difficult to recommend YOLO commitment transactions becoming the 
> > standard way to recover funds. It could be preferable to the current system 
> > but even that is up for debate I guess.
> > I feel like I can recommend oblivious settlements because (i) it's covert 
> > (like YOLO commitments txs unlike current system) and (ii) it's  "what you 
> > see is what you get" -- you are guaranteed to recover the funds that you 
> > are presented with once you finally trigger the recovery
>
> Off list Dave correctly pointed out to me that this wasn't a very clear 
> picture of the situation.
> After some thought, I came up with these claims that I think I can make 
> strongly:
>
> 1. Before you reveal that you are doing recovery you are guaranteed to have a 
> tx in hand that:
>  i. You can broadcast first
>  ii. You can choose the fee to be as high as you like
>  iii. Is not replaceable.
> 2. If the malicious party is *not* willing to risk broadcasting a revoked tx 
> then you are guaranteed to recover the face value of the transaction(s) you 
> have in hand.
> 3. An honest party is never at risk of broadcasting a revoked commitment tx.
> 4. You never have to reveal that you were doing a recovery i.e. the channel 
> can continue (strictly preferable to 1)
>
> Current system has: 3
> Oblivious mutual close has: 1,2,3
> YOLO commitments has: 1,5
>
> So I think the question of YOLO commitments vs oblivious mutual close is 
> whether paying the price of losing (2,3) is worth the upgrade from (1) to (5).
> The concern with (1) is that once you broadcast to the network the 
> obliviously transferred "mutual close" transaction, the malicious party then 
> has a hint that you have lost data and they can try and broadcast a 
> favourable revoked transaction.
> This should be very hard since in (1) you broadcast first, can choose as 
> large a fee as you like and the tx does not signal replaceability whereas the 
> revoked tx *will* signal replaceability.
> I'm also personally trying to avoid losing (3) because to keep [1] applicable.
>
> As a side note: in YOLO commitment transactions you have to recover some 
> additional metadata from the other party -- in particular the compressed 
> revocation keys that you *should* know otherwise the channel cannot continue 
> to operate. So a signature on the compressed revocation keys must be given to 
> the other party before you lose data and returned to you when you are given 
> the commitment transaction upon reconnection.
> This should be easy enough to do though.
>
> [1] 
> https://github.com/LLFourn/witness-asymmetric-channel#scorched-earth-punishments
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2020 at 12:13 AM David A. Harding  wrote:
>>
>> > The idea I'm working with in revocable signature based channels [1] is
>> > to make the node lose its static secret key if it posts a revoked
>> > commitment tx. This means they could lose ALL funds from ALL their
>> > channels with ALL their peers if they ever broadcast a single revoked
>> > commitment transaction. This would be a very bad thing to happen while
>> > you're trying to recover funds.
>>
>> Yikes!  A very bad thing indeed.  I'll have to re-read about witness
>> asymmetric channels; I don't think I realized that was a consequence of
>> using them.
>
>
> It's an optional feature -- see link[1] above where I just added an 
> explanation of it.
> I actually see no reason why you couldn't apply revocable signatures to 
> transaction asymmetric channels (LN as it is today) you just have to overhaul 
> the revocation mechanism.
>
> In general I agree with your points that side-channels may be effective tools 
> to reveal whether a node has had data loss or not.
> I think in both YOLO commitments and oblivious mutual close it is easy enough 
> to simulate data-loss up to a point to try and catch malicious peers using 
> side channels.
> At least you don't have to ask the peer to broadcast a tx to find out!
>
> Cheers,
>
> LL
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Re: [Lightning-dev] Covert channel recovery with Oblivious Signatures

2020-12-14 Thread Lloyd Fournier
 > It seems difficult to recommend YOLO commitment transactions becoming
the standard way to recover funds. It could be preferable to the current
system but even that is up for debate I guess.
> I feel like I can recommend oblivious settlements because (i) it's covert
(like YOLO commitments txs unlike current system) and (ii) it's  "what you
see is what you get" -- you are guaranteed to recover the funds that you
are presented with once you finally trigger the recovery

Off list Dave correctly pointed out to me that this wasn't a very clear
picture of the situation.
After some thought, I came up with these claims that I think I can make
strongly:

1. Before you reveal that you are doing recovery you are guaranteed to have
a tx in hand that:
 i. You can broadcast first
 ii. You can choose the fee to be as high as you like
 iii. Is not replaceable.
2. If the malicious party is *not* willing to risk broadcasting a revoked
tx then you are guaranteed to recover the face value of the transaction(s)
you have in hand.
3. An honest party is never at risk of broadcasting a revoked commitment tx.
4. You never have to reveal that you were doing a recovery i.e. the channel
can continue (strictly preferable to 1)

Current system has: 3
Oblivious mutual close has: 1,2,3
YOLO commitments has: 1,5

So I think the question of YOLO commitments vs oblivious mutual close is
whether paying the price of losing (2,3) is worth the upgrade from (1) to
(5).
The concern with (1) is that once you broadcast to the network the
obliviously transferred "mutual close" transaction, the malicious party
then has a hint that you have lost data and they can try and broadcast a
favourable revoked transaction.
This should be very hard since in (1) you broadcast first, can choose as
large a fee as you like and the tx does not signal replaceability whereas
the revoked tx *will* signal replaceability.
I'm also personally trying to avoid losing (3) because to keep [1]
applicable.

As a side note: in YOLO commitment transactions you have to recover some
additional metadata from the other party -- in particular the compressed
revocation keys that you *should* know otherwise the channel cannot
continue to operate. So a signature on the compressed revocation keys must
be given to the other party before you lose data and returned to you when
you are given the commitment transaction upon reconnection.
This should be easy enough to do though.

[1]
https://github.com/LLFourn/witness-asymmetric-channel#scorched-earth-punishments

On Tue, Dec 15, 2020 at 12:13 AM David A. Harding  wrote:

> > The idea I'm working with in revocable signature based channels [1] is
> > to make the node lose its static secret key if it posts a revoked
> > commitment tx. This means they could lose ALL funds from ALL their
> > channels with ALL their peers if they ever broadcast a single revoked
> > commitment transaction. This would be a very bad thing to happen while
> > you're trying to recover funds.
>
> Yikes!  A very bad thing indeed.  I'll have to re-read about witness
> asymmetric channels; I don't think I realized that was a consequence of
> using them.
>

It's an optional feature -- see link[1] above where I just added an
explanation of it.
I actually see no reason why you couldn't apply revocable signatures to
transaction asymmetric channels (LN as it is today) you just have to
overhaul the revocation mechanism.

In general I agree with your points that side-channels may be effective
tools to reveal whether a node has had data loss or not.
I think in both YOLO commitments and oblivious mutual close it is easy
enough to simulate data-loss up to a point to try and catch malicious peers
using side channels.
At least you don't have to ask the peer to broadcast a tx to find out!

Cheers,

LL
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Re: [Lightning-dev] Covert channel recovery with Oblivious Signatures

2020-12-14 Thread Ariel Lorenzo-Luaces
I don't think it's so clear that any party refusing to go go first can be 
assumed to have lost data.

If the rule is that the party receiving the connection is the one that must 
send the oblivious signatures then a party that has both lost data and is 
receiving a connection can just ignore the connection request.

There is plausible denyability because knowingly not answering a request can't 
be distinguished from just having connection issues or distinguished from a 
machine is just turned off.

This reasoning should work well into the future because as long as machine 
failures are common, the node with data loss can hide in that anonymity set. 
And if human kind resolves all machine failures then by definition there 
shouldn't be lightning channel data loss.

Cheers
Ariel Lorenzo-Luaces

On Dec 13, 2020, 10:12 AM, at 10:12 AM, "David A. Harding"  
wrote:
>On Fri, Dec 11, 2020 at 01:02:04PM +1100, Lloyd Fournier wrote:
>> If c = 1 (i.e. the node is fine and it wants to continue the channel)
>then
>> it checks `encrypted_signature_verify(X, settlement_tx, Y)`. If it
>passes
>> it sends the commitment blinding y back to prove that it doesn't have
>the
>> signature (i.e. prove c = 1). If verification fails then the node is
>> malicious and it fails the channel.
>
>This is really cool!  However, I don't understand why it's needed.
>Your
>goal seems to be for the sender to provide the commitment transaction
>and signatures before he learns whether the receiver actually needs
>them.  That's just as easily accomplished by sending the data upfront
>in
>plain text.  For example, it seems to me that both of the following
>protocols provide identical utility:
>
>1. On every reconnection, request the plain text unsigned commitment
>   transaction, send a pedersen commitment, and receive the encrypted
>   signature(s).  If c=1, verify the encrypted signature(s) and (on
>   success) send the blinding factor or (on failure) fail the channel
>   and ban the peer.  If c=0, decrypt the signature(s), apply them to
>   the commitment transaction, and broadcast.
>
>2. On every reconnection, request the plain text unsigned commitment
>   transaction with all of its signatures, also in plain text.  If our
>   database is intact, verify the commitment transaction and its
>   signatures are valid and (on success) continue or (on failure) fail
>   and ban.  If we lost data, broadcast the commitment transaction.
>
>Unless I'm forgetting something, there's no reason a node shouldn't
>send
>its latest commitment transaction to its counterparty in plain text
>(over the regular BOLT8 P2P encrypted and authenticated link).
>
>I think the challenge in either protocol above is deciding which peer
>goes first, because whoever sends the commitment transaction reveals
>what they think the current state is.  Any node that refuses to go
>first
>can then be suspected of having lost data.  BOLT2
>option_static_remotekey has this same problem, which is reasonably
>mitigated IMO by LN's penalty mechanism forcing any would-be thief to
>risk their own funds; this doesn't work for basic eltoo, though.
>
>-Dave
>
>
>
>
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