Topic: Paying for Bandwidth in Anonymous Network (Read 1455 times)

I understand that your intelligence is too limited to assess content, so you rely on use of terminology to evaluate other people.
This is actually a good example of a reading comprehension failure.

I responded in the other thread as well. I'm moving my reply to your idea to the other thread.

I moved my discussion to the other thread, but you responded here first so...

I don't see the inefficiencies associated with mining as a big deal. If you have a GPU, then you can generate enough to pay for some bandwidth. It doesn't matter that much if it is inefficient as long as the cost is sufficiently low. e.g. People still use incandescent lightbulbs. For TOR users, I don't think that having a GPU will be at all unusual. I like proof of work better payment because it is more anonymous. However, there is no sense debating this because we agree on the basic facts.

Instead of debating, let's consider a pseudonymous alternative:

A central party sells redemption codes that can be exchanged for bitcoin. The codes are micro redemption codes, so maybe 10000 codes = 1 bitcoin. Users purchase the codes in bulk and stream them to nodes. The nodes redeem the codes with the central party for bitcoin. The use of disposable coupons keeps bloated microtxns out of the blockchain. The central party will know the pseudonymous identities of users and nodes, but not their real identities. To make it a business, the central party can skim some off the top.

I understand why you want to avoid transferring bitcoins directly, with the fees in small value transactions being proportionally larger. That being said I don't think your proposal is going to work out. Clients need to have easy access to the source of payment. And this isn't the case when the source of payment is nonces that produce work with a certain difficulty (proof of work). In essence, the average client lacks the proper production equipment. Most clients will not have GPUs (much less the right GPUs) or dedicated hardware to do this, and thus the cost for them of producing bitcoins will be orders of magnitudes greater than that of dedicated miners. And so, they will probably pay at least an order of magnitude more than the market price of bitcoins if they use their CPU for mining.
In essence it would be a bit like me, when I need to pay someone in gold (let's say we use gold as a currency), travelling to some remote location and start digging in the ground looking for gold. I would probably not find any, and if I did it would have cost me so much more than I could have bought the gold for at an exchange, or it will take way longer digging up the same amount of gold that I could make by working for someone for an hour or two.

I think the idea of funding Tor nodes is very interesting though, and I really think it would help make the Tor network more efficient. A worry could be if it could compromise the anonymous nature of the network. I believe it doesn't have to necessarily, but it might provide extra tools for those interested in stripping away the layer of anonymity.

I do believe the solution lies in bitcoin transactions still. Distributed in some clever way, or with some other twist that avoids large fees and avoids overloading the network.

Thanks. Reading this now!

You are an idiot, but that was already well known from your posting history. At reading comprehension, you fail. You should know that from standardized test taking. Beyond that, I don't think I've much else to say to you.

I think it's useful and workable.  We talked about it some before:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=62107.0;all

Is there a good mechanism to pay for TOR bandwidth?

I am ignorant about computers, so please point me somewhere to learn as necessary. Anyways:

Say Computer A wants to pay Computer B for bandwidth.

1) Computer A engages in an expensive handshake with Computer B. Both computers need to transfer say 1 MB of useless info to each other. The handshake establishes terms of the agreement between the two computers. The handshake is a waste meant to establish investment in the relationship. Wasteful investment discourages people from ripping each other off and then immediately looking for new partners. (In economics this is called entry cost)

2) Computer A now begins streaming proof-of-work to Computer B. Computer B submits this to a mining pool for verification. At the same time Computer B streams bandwidth to Computer A.

3) If the proof-of-work doesn't provide valid shares some threshold specified in the handshake, then Computer B stops providing bandwidth and looks for another customer to perform a costly handshake with.

4) If the bandwidth stream isn't above some threshold specified in the handshake, then Computer A stops providing proof-of-work and looks for another computer to perform a costly handshake with.

Is this a useful idea? Has it been proposed before somewhere? Or is there some better mechanism?