The Lightning Network FAQ - page 70.

Rath_

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Lnd v0.9.0-beta was released 2 days ago. The update introduced quite a few new features and changes. While 0.9.0 does not support sending MPP (Multi-Path Payments), it does support receiving them. It looks like we will have working MPPs by the end of the year!

Once I have passed all of my exams, I will look into other implementations and see if they also got similar features.

Quote from: Wind_FURY on January 23, 2020, 02:20:56 AM

-snip

I stopped running my node at some point since I didn't need a dedicated server for anything else at that time. I might consider running it again since I have been renting a dedicated server for 2 months now. The resource usage is negligible.

darosior

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Quote from: Wind_FURY on January 23, 2020, 02:20:56 AM

Who among the consistent Lightning users here have been running a node, specialized specifically for routing transactions/providing liquidity, how long have you been running it, and what's the averge cost of running it?

I've been running one (C-lightning) for almost two years now, and it costs me barely nothing : just setup on top of my old computer which already ran core.
So it costed me a low end computer which I had for free (I'm in the process of changing it, but I'm not that well connected after all) and electricity cost for an idle computer.
The bigger cost is the coins to open channels.

Wind_FURY

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Who among the consistent Lightning users here have been running a node, specialized specifically for routing transactions/providing liquidity, how long have you been running it, and what's the averge cost of running it?

DaveF

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Crypto Swap Exchange

Can anyone do me a favor and open up a channel to my node at home?

Whacker
03400a67375da5d5d04dd59514452ce9f0cadb2fbec65863073897d52843b61c80@24.45.24.105:9735
03400a67375da5d5d04dd59514452ce9f0cadb2fbec65863073897d52843b61c80@whacker.cas8.com:9735

I can open channels out and pay invoices, but when I try to open one from my other node at the office it fails.

But, I have done some testing on my node at the office and I don't know if I broke something.

Thanks,
Dave
edit: someone opened one. If it was one of you thanks :-)
Now all I have to do is figure out what I broke on the office one.

Carlton Banks

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Also in relation to privacy/fungibility over Lightning, here is a link to another write-up by the same author (ZmnSCPxj) Darosior linked on a Coinswap-like procedure using the Lightning protocol:

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2019-October/002245.html

Wind_FURY

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Quote from: LoyceV on December 30, 2019, 03:37:04 AM

Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 29, 2019, 05:28:05 AM

But, can it help in making your transactions harder to trace?

Of course

Want to test it for yourself? Try finding my on-chain address connected to this transaction.

I can't, of course.

But that's the beauty if some specialized actors, good or bad, decide to track and breach user-privacy. They're required to stake Bitcoins in Lightning, provide liquidity, which add value to the network. Cool

darosior

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Hi everyone,

As we talked about privacy in this thread, here is a great write up by ZmnSCPxj which summarizes a lot of the known privacy breaches: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2019-December/002408.html.

LoyceV

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Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 29, 2019, 05:28:05 AM

But, can it help in making your transactions harder to trace?

Of course

Want to test it for yourself? Try finding my on-chain address connected to this transaction.

DooMAD

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Leave no FUD unchallenged

Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 29, 2019, 05:28:05 AM

Privacy in on-chain transactions are also the users' responsibility. What's so special about it for the troll?

Thought they were scoring cheap points. Failed as usual. Cheesy

One day they'll learn that they've lost every argument before they've even tried to make it, because their go-to position is to throw decentralisation under the bus. It's the one thing all the Lightning detractors can't get around. LN provides more throughput without placing any additional burden on the non-Lightning users who secure the blockchain.

Wind_FURY

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Quote from: darosior on December 27, 2019, 10:11:52 AM

Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 27, 2019, 01:16:45 AM

Quote from: darosior on December 26, 2019, 09:06:40 AM

Quote from: Rath_ on December 26, 2019, 08:16:31 AM

Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 26, 2019, 04:15:08 AM

I meant, isn't it possible to develop privacy features to hide sender, receiver, and amount, off-chain in the Lightning Network?

Nodes participating in the routing process don't know who initiated the transaction and what the final destination is thanks to onion routing. Transactions are not listed anywhere so they can't be tracked by outsiders. As for hiding the amount, multi-part payments have just become a real thing.

For hiding amounts and CLTV deltas, C-lightning also uses shadow routing.

OK, with all that, can Lightning then be developed into a viable, trust-minimized alternative for centralized mixing/tumbling?

As I said above not really if you want to get back on chain afterwards. But just use joinmarket if you want trustless mixing...

But, can it help in making your transactions harder to trace? I believe that's the whole point I was arriving at.

Quote from: DooMAD on December 28, 2019, 12:50:54 PM

Quote from: ?? on ??

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/lightning-network-traffic-analysis-raises-questions-fees-privacy
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1911.09432.pdf

Quote

this paper’s findings currently put the responsibility of privacy on users selecting their payment routes.

Oh, no! Responsibility?! What a catastrophe! Roll Eyes

Responsibility is something that generally comes with freedom. It's only natural. Even if no further advancements were made towards privacy from this point forwards, it's a fair price to pay (and I suspect the majority of users on this chain would rather take on some additional responsibility, rather than sacrifice decentralisation, which is a much higher cost to bear). But I suspect we'll be making continued advancements in privacy anyway, both on-chain and off.

Privacy in on-chain transactions are also the users' responsibility. What's so special about it for the troll?

DooMAD

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Leave no FUD unchallenged

Quote from: ?? on ??

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/lightning-network-traffic-analysis-raises-questions-fees-privacy
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1911.09432.pdf

Quote

this paper’s findings currently put the responsibility of privacy on users selecting their payment routes.

Oh, no! Responsibility?! What a catastrophe! Roll Eyes

Responsibility is something that generally comes with freedom. It's only natural. Even if no further advancements were made towards privacy from this point forwards, it's a fair price to pay (and I suspect the majority of users on this chain would rather take on some additional responsibility, rather than sacrifice decentralisation, which is a much higher cost to bear). But I suspect we'll be making continued advancements in privacy anyway, both on-chain and off.

darosior

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Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 27, 2019, 01:16:45 AM

Quote from: darosior on December 26, 2019, 09:06:40 AM

Quote from: Rath_ on December 26, 2019, 08:16:31 AM

Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 26, 2019, 04:15:08 AM

I meant, isn't it possible to develop privacy features to hide sender, receiver, and amount, off-chain in the Lightning Network?

Nodes participating in the routing process don't know who initiated the transaction and what the final destination is thanks to onion routing. Transactions are not listed anywhere so they can't be tracked by outsiders. As for hiding the amount, multi-part payments have just become a real thing.

For hiding amounts and CLTV deltas, C-lightning also uses shadow routing.

OK, with all that, can Lightning then be developed into a viable, trust-minimized alternative for centralized mixing/tumbling?

As I said above not really if you want to get back on chain afterwards. But just use joinmarket if you want trustless mixing...

Quote

Even at low LN-fees, I assume nodes will charge a percentage because that's how they earn (and they need to balance their channels again), so for high amounts, on-chain fees will be much lower.

It depends, I expect most of routing nodes to remove (most of?) their base fee in the future, and thus thanks to multi part payments you could make big payments as well.
As the network grows there will be more and more alternative paths from you to your destination (and even more with smaller payments if you use MPP!), and if some node owners rise their fees too much they wont be chosen into routes anymore. So I don't expect fees to rise that much.
Nonetheless I hope the base layer will still be used because... Grin

LoyceV

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Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 27, 2019, 01:16:45 AM

OK, with all that, can Lightning then be developed into a viable, trust-minimized alternative for centralized mixing/tumbling?

I don't expect LN to be used for many large transactions, so it might be used to hide the ~~coffee~~ beers you bought from your wife, but not to hide your yacht.
Even at low LN-fees, I assume nodes will charge a percentage because that's how they earn (and they need to balance their channels again), so for high amounts, on-chain fees will be much lower.

Wind_FURY

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Quote from: darosior on December 26, 2019, 09:06:40 AM

Quote from: Rath_ on December 26, 2019, 08:16:31 AM

Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 26, 2019, 04:15:08 AM

I meant, isn't it possible to develop privacy features to hide sender, receiver, and amount, off-chain in the Lightning Network?

Nodes participating in the routing process don't know who initiated the transaction and what the final destination is thanks to onion routing. Transactions are not listed anywhere so they can't be tracked by outsiders. As for hiding the amount, multi-part payments have just become a real thing.

For hiding amounts and CLTV deltas, C-lightning also uses shadow routing.

OK, with all that, can Lightning then be developed into a viable, trust-minimized alternative for centralized mixing/tumbling?

darosior

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Quote from: Rath_ on December 26, 2019, 08:16:31 AM

Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 26, 2019, 04:15:08 AM

I meant, isn't it possible to develop privacy features to hide sender, receiver, and amount, off-chain in the Lightning Network?

Nodes participating in the routing process don't know who initiated the transaction and what the final destination is thanks to onion routing. Transactions are not listed anywhere so they can't be tracked by outsiders. As for hiding the amount, multi-part payments have just become a real thing.

For hiding amounts and CLTV deltas, C-lightning also uses shadow routing.

Rath_

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Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 26, 2019, 04:15:08 AM

I meant, isn't it possible to develop privacy features to hide sender, receiver, and amount, off-chain in the Lightning Network?

Nodes participating in the routing process don't know who initiated the transaction and what the final destination is thanks to onion routing. Transactions are not listed anywhere so they can't be tracked by outsiders. As for hiding the amount, multi-part payments have just become a real thing.

Wind_FURY

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Quote from: darosior on December 25, 2019, 12:56:11 PM

Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 25, 2019, 01:50:51 AM

Quote from: darosior on December 24, 2019, 12:33:09 PM

Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 24, 2019, 04:42:31 AM

Possible use-case for Lightning. Viable as a trust-minimized alternative to mixing/tumbling if privacy features are developed.

Your thoughts?

Viable if you never get back on chain (or spend everything on the Lightning Network) Wink

But privacy features *are needed* a step before accessing the LN anyway, and it is not an alternative in any way.

Never? What/how would someone track my transactions to myself in Lightning, with privacy features enabled?

What do you mean by "with privacy features enabled" ?

I meant, isn't it possible to develop privacy features to hide sender, receiver, and amount, off-chain in the Lightning Network?

darosior

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Quote from: LoyceV on December 25, 2019, 04:49:07 PM

So you open 2 channels on different devices: 1 channel to Bob, who runs a well-connected node, and another channel to Alice, who also runs a well-connected node. From your device connected to Bob, you send funds to your device connected to Alice. After you close the channels, there is no direct blockchain connection between your transactions.

But you can't receive on your channel to Alice until you make some payments, and you'll be able to only receive as much as you pay. So you basically get back at spending your bitcoins on the LN.
This also assumes the output you used to fund the channel to Alice is not tainted in any way.

Quote from: LoyceV on December 25, 2019, 04:49:07 PM

So the question is: who's going to keep track of all LN-transactions, and for how long?

What do you mean by LN-transactions ?
If you mean LN payments, they (normally) cannot be linked.
If you mean Bitcoin transactions opening or closing (in any way) channels, then I think already-mentioned-above companies already do.

Quote from: LoyceV on December 25, 2019, 04:49:07 PM

And although I'm not sure if LN works like this: if your channel to and from the node is not public, only Bob and Alice know the exact connection.

You should not rely on unpublished channels, they are biggest (potential) privacy leaks than they seem to be (in addition to having many other downsides). (Non-related to the initial subject, but if you are interested

https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lightning-rfc/pull/681)

LoyceV

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Quote from: darosior on December 25, 2019, 12:56:11 PM

However, if you fund a channel with a so-called tainted output, close the channel with remaining funds on your side then nothing was mixed at all.

So you open 2 channels on different devices: 1 channel to Bob, who runs a well-connected node, and another channel to Alice, who also runs a well-connected node. From your device connected to Bob, you send funds to your device connected to Alice. After you close the channels, there is no direct blockchain connection between your transactions.
So the question is: who's going to keep track of all LN-transactions, and for how long? And although I'm not sure if LN works like this: if your channel to and from the node is not public, only Bob and Alice know the exact connection.

darosior

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Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 25, 2019, 01:50:51 AM

Quote from: darosior on December 24, 2019, 12:33:09 PM

Quote from: Wind_FURY on December 24, 2019, 04:42:31 AM

Possible use-case for Lightning. Viable as a trust-minimized alternative to mixing/tumbling if privacy features are developed.

Your thoughts?

Viable if you never get back on chain (or spend everything on the Lightning Network) Wink

But privacy features *are needed* a step before accessing the LN anyway, and it is not an alternative in any way.

Never? What/how would someone track my transactions to myself in Lightning, with privacy features enabled?

I meant from the Bitcoin network (/block chain) point of view the channel is just a transaction with a P2WSH output, if you spend all your funds on the Lightning Network then it means that you locally transferred funds to your channel peer. When closing, the transaction output will belong to the peer and you effectively spend funds without the observer knowing where they were going (once again for a Bitcoin network observer, with no knowledge of the Lightning Network).
However, if you fund a channel with a so-called tainted output, close the channel with remaining funds on your side then nothing was mixed at all.

What do you mean by "with privacy features enabled" ?

PS: I didn't want to even mention it but Khaos77's message above is of course nonsense...

Topic: The Lightning Network FAQ - page 70. (Read 32053 times)