Re: [Lightning-dev] Commitment delay asymmetry

2018-04-16 Thread ZmnSCPxj via Lightning-dev
Good morning Jim, >> It seems to me that adding an entire new attack vector in order to only >> *mitigate* (not eliminate!) another attack vector is not a good enough >> trade-off. In particular the new attack seems *easier* to perform. The >> current attack where I annoy the other side until

Re: [Lightning-dev] Commitment delay asymmetry

2018-04-15 Thread Jim Posen
> > It seems to me that adding an entire new attack vector in order to only > *mitigate* (not eliminate!) another attack vector is not a good enough > trade-off. In particular the new attack seems *easier* to perform. The > current attack where I annoy the other side until it closes has the risk

Re: [Lightning-dev] Commitment delay asymmetry

2018-04-15 Thread Daniel McNally
> Since there is no delay involved in my branch, I can get the money > immediately without Daniel being able to revoke it. So I get 1.0BTC and > 0.99BTC worth of Daniel products. Perhaps I should have clarified, the side unilaterally closing the channel would always have to wait for the full dela

Re: [Lightning-dev] Commitment delay asymmetry

2018-04-15 Thread ZmnSCPxj via Lightning-dev
Good morning all, It seems to me the below two worlds are possible: 1. Symmetric delays. 1.1. I can attack passively: I force a condition where most funds are in the other side (e.g. forwarding to another node I control, or exchanging BTC for material goods), then stop forwarding payments and

Re: [Lightning-dev] Commitment delay asymmetry

2018-04-15 Thread Ariel Lorenzo-Luaces
Letting the attacker have immediate access to their funds is a null point because the attacker always has the preparation time to unbalance the channel to the honest node's favor. The attacker's 'funds' in this case is trivially reduced to 'reserve balance'. It's hard to argue that forcing the m

Re: [Lightning-dev] Commitment delay asymmetry

2018-04-15 Thread Daniel McNally
Thanks ZmnSCPxj and Jim, > Indeed, in the situation where you are funding a new channel to me, I have 0 > satoshi on the channel and can perform this attack costlessly. My thinking here is that an attacker would have a hard time getting others to open new channels with them, and that even when o

Re: [Lightning-dev] Commitment delay asymmetry

2018-04-15 Thread Jim Posen
I believe that anyone attempting a DOS by forcing on-chain settlement can do it just as easily with asymmetric delays than with symmetric delays. If my goal is to waste the time-value of your money in a channel, in a world with symmetric delays, I could just publish the commitment transaction and

Re: [Lightning-dev] Commitment delay asymmetry

2018-04-15 Thread ZmnSCPxj via Lightning-dev
Good morning Daniel, > This makes a lot of sense to me as a way to correct the incentives for > closing channels. I figure that honest nodes that have truly gone offline > will not require (or be able to take advantage of) immediate access to their > balance, such that this change shouldn't cau

Re: [Lightning-dev] Commitment delay asymmetry

2018-04-13 Thread Daniel McNally
This makes a lot of sense to me as a way to correct the incentives for closing channels. I figure that honest nodes that have truly gone offline will not require (or be able to take advantage of) immediate access to their balance, such that this change shouldn't cause too much inconvenience. I was

Re: [Lightning-dev] Commitment delay asymmetry

2018-04-13 Thread Jim Posen
> By extension, perhaps both sides should use the maximum delay either one > asks for? > I'm not sure that is necessary. As long as both parties have to wait the same amount of time regardless of whether they publish the commitment or the other side does, that would resolve the issue. > I don't

Re: [Lightning-dev] Commitment delay asymmetry

2018-04-12 Thread Rusty Russell
Jim Posen writes: > I find it easier to analyze the game theory of these situations if the > to_remote output is also time-locked by the to_remote_delay. Making the > consequence of an on-chain settlement symmetric changes the game from > chicken [1] to a tragedy of the commons [2]. I'm curious ho