Topic: Gavin to Satoshi, 2010 -- "SOMEBODY will try to mess up the network (...)" - page 4. (Read 3731 times)

Yes.  That's better.

seems dinofelis is on a scripted mission

objective try to brainwash sheep into thinking nodes are not important.

i think he is new to the community and doesnt yet grasp the deeper details of consensus or bitcoin,, and has only been taught the highschool level concept.

if coinbase (non-mining node) stopped getting blocks from pool X.
pool X cant spend its reward with coinbase and thus hashing for nothing.

the nodes work together to get a single agreed chain of blocks.
the nodes agree on what should go next ontop.

pools blocks do get orphaned off where by a different pool gets chosen as the better block creator.
this happens many times a week

pools are NOT the boss.
nodes are the boss

pools are just the secretary. collating data, but having to collate it in the way the boss is happy to sign off and file. if the boss disagree's he will bin their work and get another secretary.

nodes=boss
pools=secretary
devs=janitors

Oh geez, sorry I should have said "you believe we're either paid shills or stupid" right?

I feel sad.  I want Core and BU to come together but I fear they won't.  I don't know what to do.  I have to wait until they do come together or split.  If they come together then I will be ok.  If they split then I will have to figure out how to move/split my investment.  This violates my desire to be lazy.

You snipped the very next sentence where I said just the opposite.  And didn't bother to indicate that you made an edit.  You expect anyone to accept any of your bullshit when you display such primitive and transparent duplicity?

Myth.   Bollocks.  Non-mining nodes are simply miner-chain proxies.  You are right that a "decentralized network" consists of independent nodes, but a crypto currency is not a "decentralized network" but a "decentralized block chain".  And that is built by miners.

After all is said and done, the "network" doesn't matter, the block chain does.  The crypto currency is the block chain, not "the network".

A (hopefully) decentralized network is for instance, Tor, and matters for communication.  But a crypto currency is not about communication but about a consensus ledger: the block chain.

The only way in which a "decentralized network" matters, is if there were some difficulty in the *network connection* to *obtain the block chain*.   For instance, if the Great Wall of China were blocking some miner nodes, and one has to get through via a P2P way in some or other way.  THEN the "decentralized network" matters.  But if there are good internet connections, and you don't need anonymity of communication (like with Tor), then that decentralized network doesn't matter.

Because the crypto currency is the block chain: the consensus ledger.  And that is built by miners.  Not by non-mining nodes.
And you can obtain it directly from the miner if you want to.  You don't need the P2P network for that.

Can we call that a UACF - User Activated Cluster F***

Miners make block chains.  Users (with wallets) use them, and connect to nodes.  They can run their own full node (the only real reason to run a full node), connect to a "random node on the network" with a light wallet (and trust that node), or connect directly to the miner's network.  If the node to which they connect, runs the same protocol as the miner's (or a more permissive one), they will obtain a copy of the block chain made by those miners and their wallet will do things according to that block chain.

If they don't, well, they have a stalled node, connect to a stalled node, will not see the right balances, and may produce invalid transactions.  

If there are competing miners, with competing block chains, then the protocol choice of the node you use (one of the miners' protocols, otherwise, see above) will select the block chain corresponding to that protocol.  It is as if you used "that specific coin".  We have a hard fork and two coins now, because there are two living block chains.

So, essentially, miners make block chains, and users (with wallets) connect to a node (their own, or another one) that has a protocol that corresponds to the block chain at hand.  If there is only one block chain, they have no choice, there is only one chain.  If there are several chains, then there are several coins, and their choice of node selects their choice of coin.

(warning: their transactions can be valid on both chains in some circumstances).

Miners serve block chains.  Wallets browse block chains.  Nodes are proxies to block chain servers.

Thanks for the explanation. So basically miners will decide which node implementation is the official implementation, and which node implementation is trying to mess up the network? (to get back on topic)

There is no such thing as an orphan hell in the network.  Let us define clearly what an orphaned block is: it is a valid block, but on which other miners decided not to build any more.  So only MINERS can orphan blocks.

BTW, miners (of same protocol) have good reasons to have very fast connections between them, because they need to know very quickly when a new good block (according to their rules) is mined.  They will not wait for it to be randomly propagated through the P2P network, because the time they need to receive it is lost hash power for them. It is this strong, fast network of equally-minded miners that is the "block chain principal server" (for that protocol).

What you can have, is that nodes come to a grinding halt, if their validation rules don't find any valid chain.  This happens if no miner produces such a chain.   Imagine that I write a modification of bitcoin core, with a soft fork, so that only blocks less than 500 KB are valid.  If I install this software, and connect it to the bitcoin network, it will download a certain part of the chain, until it finds the first block bigger than 500 KB.  And then it stops.  Because no other block, less than 500 KB, and directly built on that last block, is around.  I simply have a stalled node.  Did I "orphan" the rest of the bitcoin block chain ?  Not at all.  The rest of the chain is simply invalid according to my node, which will wait forever for the next valid block that no miner will make.

Suppose now that I fire up 100 000 nodes on amazon with this software.  Of course, I will mess up somewhat the bitcoin network, because many nodes will ONLY have connections to my amazon nodes which have stopped.  But after a while, the normal nodes will find out that my overwhelming majority of nodes do not use the same protocol, and that a GOOD chain does exist.  They will end up finding one another, banning my nodes as confused, and I won't be able, even with my overwhelming node majority, to bring down bitcoin to accept my soft fork, wind back the chain to my last valid block some years ago, and restart from there.  Even though I have more that 95% of the nodes in my hand on Amazon.

If it really were that simple that one can impose rules by having a large majority of non mining nodes, then I'm sure that someone would already have fired up 100 000 nodes on Amazon doing that.  The very fact that bitcoin has never undergone this, simply means that non-mining nodes are not that important.

And as a consequence, that the argument against bigger blocks, "because of less nodes and hence more centralization" is totally bogus.  But it is a hard myth that will not die.

It's indeed ironic seeing Gavin point out the very valid point of how a fee market and a blocksize limit was needed in order to avoid nonsensical transaction spam.

Also very nice to read satoshi point out the problems of alternative software. Some people confuse decentralized development with hard forking the project and changing fundamentals of it while wanting it to call it the same.

Bingo.  

However, consensus dynamics is such that it IS now part of the protocol rules.  I fully agree with you that it was *extremely stupid*.  But now that block size became an *economic parameter*, whether one wants it or not, it IS locked in as a protocol rule.  The same rule that makes that one cannot find consensus over "redoing the last few blocks and leave out a few transactions", the same rule that makes that one cannot "jump a block reward halving", the same rule that makes that one cannot change the 10 minutes into 2 minutes.  Because all these parameters are economic parameters, meaning: if you change them, some get an advantage, and others, a disadvantage.   2 or 3 years ago, most probably the block size was still a technical parameter and could have been changed under "neutral consensus".  But now it is an economic parameter.  It is locked in.  Only centralization or a hard fork with two coins will be able to change it if the immutability mechanism means anything.

My idea is that people didn't really understand "consensus dynamics" and all its consequences.

I think I see what you are saying here. As long as the miners have good connections between themselves and the majority of hash power, they can create the longest chain.
Only problem is, without the rest of the network consensus, the wider bitcoin eco-system ends in orphan hell?

It's a simple idea.

Blocksize should not be part of the protocol rules.

If the debate's taught us anything, its how dangerous it can be to have
this specification hard coded into the software.

Instead remove it and let the miners decide via the longest chain consensus.


So you actually believe there's paid shills (because opinions different than yours couldn't possibly have merit, right?)

What does that mean "validate" ?  It means: write it on their own copy of the block chain.   So if you own a node, you check for yourself that the block chain is validated, instead of having to rely on another node telling you so (with a light wallet).  But that's it.  

But they don't prevent miners anything.  Miners make blocks and set them on their nodes to be distributed on the network.  All USERS agreeing with those miner's rules will take the block chain and the new blocks from those miners' nodes, eventually directly if no other nearby nodes propagate them by configuring their nodes so that they connect directly to the miners' nodes, or by having their wallets connect to one of these nodes.

If you install a node that doesn't validate a block from a miner, that will not stop that miner from making that block and from getting it to the users agreeing with him ; more importantly, it will not stop miners agreeing with the previous miner from building on that block.  

Now, if your node doesn't agree, it stops downloading that block chain.  And that's it.  It won't download it, it won't propagate it.  But that won't stop users agreeing with these miners, and those miners amongst themselves, from building this chain, validating it amongst themselves, and use it as *the* block chain.

"non-validation" by a non-mining node doesn't stop that block from being mined or used.  It is as if your node simply didn't exist.  And it certainly won't stop other miners from mining on top of that block if THEY validate it.  If your node is waiting for a block that is never mined, it simply stops.


No, their fear is that their peers, the other miners, will orphan it.  The only entities in a crypto network that can "orphan" a block are other miners, who build on a previous block to make a longer chain according to their rules.  No non-mining node can orphan whatever block.  It can refuse a block, or it can find a longer chain.  It is the existence of the longer chain (made by a miner) that orphans a block.  Not a non-mining node.

Non mining nodes validate blocks on the network. So non mining nodes prevent the miners from creating larger blocks if they are running nodes that do not allow larger blocks. Otherwise miners would already be creating larger blocks without fear of orphanage.

Indeed.  Although we may be thinking about slightly different aspects.  Non-mining nodes are indeed a form of distributed proxy server of the block chain(s), but the real sources of those chains are the miners.  The distributedness of the network (many nodes) make for an easier downloading, communication and so on, but as long as the principal servers are "up and running", their proxies (the non-mining nodes) are only that: proxy servers.  They copy the block chain of their flavour from their principal server, and help speed up its download.  They also help sending transactions up the chain to their principal "miner" server, but those wanting their transactions to get there, can just as well send it directly.

Again, the amount of non-mining nodes is essentially immaterial - apart for their owners, who use it to verify for themselves the chain they want to use (in as much as one is available by miners), and do not want to depend on unverified third-party information.

BTU.. the reddit script buzzword competition.. along with "ad-hom" "bucoin" "conservative" and the other obvious buzzwords blockstreamers have to use in their scripts.. the buzzword game is getting obvious

the ONE that got rejected in 3 seconds and was of no drama or consequence..
how about the many made by non BU on a more than weekly bases
https://blockchain.info/orphaned-blocks

lol love how you exaggerate one but underplay the thousands when in reality they are all the same... rejected in seconds and of no long term consequence
oh Knots...because its Luke JR... (blockstream contractor)... too obvious

how can you have decentralised network if everything is blockstream.
atleast admit the truth. 'distributed' does not mean decentralised.

a bank with 95,000 bank branches around the world does not make a bank decentralised. it just makes it distributed.

That is like saying that having more people running firefox looking at your web pages makes your server distributed.

Non mining nodes don't contribute anything (or almost anything) to the "decentralized" nature of the network.  And the simple proof for that is that it is extremely easy to "Sybil attack" this amount of nodes.  One can easily fire up 100 000 nodes on Amazon and swamp the entire network.  

It is exactly because of this *unimportance* of non mining nodes, that Proof of Work exists.  Of course, in Satoshi's paper you will read about the importance of many nodes, but that is because for Satoshi, nodes and miners were the same.  All nodes were miners.  THEN of course, it is important.  But non-mining nodes don't contribute (almost) ANYTHING to the decentralization of the coin.  The ONLY thing they do contribute, is communication paths, so that no censoring of communication between the user wallet and the miner can take place.  But with direct connections between miners (who have to be interconnected to not get their blocks orphaned) and every user wallet, no intermediate nodes play any role (apart if the internet were censored and they provide extra pathways).

If the amount of nodes indicated anything about the decentralisation of bitcoin, proof of work would not have been necessary.  It is because it is meaningless, that one needs to introduce it.  

This is a simple aspect of the dynamics of crypto currencies: nodes that don't "vote" (no proof of stake), that do not "mine" and that are only communication hubs that can be bypassed between user wallets and miners, are useless if the direct internet connections are good enough between wallets and miners.  However, full nodes ARE important for their owners, so that they can check FOR THEMSELVES that what their wallet sees, comes from the right block chain and that nobody is talking shit to their wallet.  But it is the only use.

This funny little fact is of course full force denied by people wanting to keep small blocks for other reasons and claim that it would bring "centralization" because there would be less hapless PCs running on the network, downloading the block chain from the miners.  But the "servers of block chain" are the miner related nodes.  And whether more or less "firefox" browers (non-mining nodes) are downloading them doesn't matter.

I run an (empty) bitcoin node at home.  I could fire up 20 of them.  What difference would that make ?  I can switch off my node.  What difference would that make ?  I can run a core 0.14 and a BU node on the same machine (which I will probably do soon).  What does that even mean ?