Topic: The size of the blockchain... (Read 4119 times)

stop being an asshole.

this whole discourse btwn us began with my comment here not even directed at you:


it's clear to everyone else here i am talking about a no tx processing , no btc full node.  these nodes are setup voluntarily by ppl like me solely to relay and verify tx's for the network.  and it's a well-known and accepted way to help the network by many, many ppl  as indicated in those 3 links i provided of how to set these nodes up.

then, you engage me by saying this:


i don't see any distinction on your part whether we're talking about a no tx, no btc full node or one that does both those things.  all you talk about is that it's bad b/c you don't have control.  even Massimo80 has no idea what you're talking about:


i happen to agree with him.  and then you go off talking about the insecurity of full tx nodes holding btc when that type of full node wasn't even what i was talking about in the first place.

then this comment made me speak up b/c you're just scaring ppl who want to help the network by setting up a vps no tx, no btc full node:


again, where's your distinction btwn a no btc, no tx full node and one that does both those things.?  oh, there is none.  all you're saying is that a full node out of your control is bad.  and that is just wrong.

it is well known the # full nodes is decreasing.  by setting up these vps controlled no tx, no btc full nodes, we are helping the network.   that's b/c the vps operator has no reason to hack that acct b/c there is nothing to steal.  And in that sense it is secure. your mind is stuck on the fact that a hack is technically possible. but like so many things in Bitcoin, it's not just the technical facts that matter in isolation.  it's the economic incentives combined with the technical facts that make it secure.

Even if the vps provider hacked the full node, the worst that can happen is that it will be ignored by the rest of the network. Eventually I would find out by cross checking reality with the network, close my account, stop paying fees, accuse them publicly of being scammers, and they'd lose business.

You think that is the majority use case of full nodes?  I never said nobody on the planet is running non-transactional full nodes.  I said it isn't the most common use case.   Everything I said was about the risk to transactions.

So as this point you either lack basic reading comprehension or are just trolling for trolling sake.   Either way I am done. 

that wasn't an answer.  

there are lots of folks running vps full nodes simply to help the network.  go thru the threads linked below.  we're not stupid.  
none of us are holding btc or processing tx's on those vps providers b/c we know what happened with Linode.  i run 4 myself.  Morblias runs 17.  coalacanth just setup 2.  and on and on.  it's a cheap simple way to help.  and there is just no economic incentive for the vps provider to hack the node just to show us inaccurate data.  

there's nothing to steal.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/psa-add-a-full-node-for-just-19year-582817

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/24645i/psa_the_amount_of_full_bitcoin_nodes_is_dropping/

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1se3zd/how_to_create_a_full_bitcoin_node_in_a_5_ubuntu/

Almost nobody is running nodes just to relay tx.  If they are running a node it is to process transactions.  If you control the node you can subvert the information given to the transaction processor to steal money.

As for a VPS operator compromising a bitcoin node, this isn't academic.  It has happened in the linode hacks (and countless hacks since then).  They did it to STEAL MONEY!  That is a pretty good motivation.  It doesn't have to be the VPS owner, it can be a disgruntled employee, or someone who uses social engineering to gain super admin access to the VPS.

of course a vps operator "could" do these things but you've not answered the most important question of all.

what economic motive would drive them to compromise a paying customer's node that is not performing tx's and stores no btc?

I doubt very few people are running full nodes just to relay tx.  You claim that most full nodes are running on VPS also misses the mark.  The easiest way to run a full node is download bitcoin software and run it on your local machine so I would guess that most full nodes are running on local machines for the purpose of transacting.  If you don't want to run a full node on hardware you control then use a SPV client.  


Your missing the point.  If this node you are checking by RPC is running on a VPS you have no idea if it is really connected to anything.  Any "stats" you are getting by RPC can simply be whatever the VPS operator wants you to think it is.  You have absolutely no security.  Worse if you are transacting using that RPC connection you actually have LESS security than you would running a local SPV client.  The VPS could inform you of anything it wants.  Provide you completely bogus transaction notifications.  If you are running a service this way (imagine an exchange) it would be downright trivial to steal from you.


Which means absolutely nothing.  Ok you SSH in to a virtual environment controlled completely by a third party.  Guess what said third party can show you anything they want.  Yup you are "installing" bitcoind.  Here are some stats, oh and here is a transaction paying you.  You have no assurance that any of that is real.  If you want proof I will setup a VPS for you which on the hour will show you that you receive 1,000,000 BTC.

Running a node on a VPS is security theater.  If you haven't been compromised it is simply because you aren't worth enough to be compromised.  You aren't secure you are just hoping nobody every decides they want to compromise you.   Information security begins with physical security.  One would think after all the linode hacks this would be self evident.  If you don't control the hardware you have no assurance that anything you see is "real".

I don't think that's realistic.  my bet is that a majority of the nodes in the network are running off vps.

First of all, it's highly unlikely a vps provider is going to take the time to tamper with your full node if all you're doing with it is acting as a full relay node and not transacting on it.  Secondly, what would be the point besides just fooling me as to it's valid functioning?

I check my nodes connections constantly via rpc and vnstat and they've regularly got 40-50 connections. Any backdoored version whose purpose is to relay false tx's would immediately have its connections and malicious tx's terminated as invalid by the network.  Sure, i suppose the vps provider could instead feed me false connection data but again what would be the point?   i also routinely ssh in and check statistics and update/upgrade.  

The key difference is that my node (under my control) independently verifies all the data it receives.  It implicitly distrusts anything it gets from other nodes and only acts upon data after it verifies it.   Peers which send it false data are tagged, disconnected, and ignored.  Part of the assumption in the security model for a full node is that the node is actually validating all data and that implicitly requires the node to be running on a system you control.  If your node is running on someone elses system you don't even have assurance they haven't swapped it out for a backdoored version which copies your private keys, logs yours passphrases, or simply feeds you what they want you to see.

If you aren't going to run a full node under your direct control you are better off running a SPV wallet.  Running a full node on hardware you don't control if security theater.

I'm surprised they're that well spec'ed already. That is probably nearly enough RAM to run a node with no wallet code, I recall that the RPi struggles a little with 512MB while using the wallet code in the 0.8 version of Bitcoin Qt (while running the Debian desktop at the same time, of course).



p2pool and bitcoind (and internet routing) would be a stretch too far on 2014 hardware, that kind of setup really benefits from multicore processing at faster clockspeeds, as well as the fastest storage tech you can give it. Running bitcoind and cgminer would be well within reach though, and maybe there might be enough resources left over to allow those two applications to run in a solo mining configuration (low overhead solo mining is built into cgminer as of recently). USB stick miners would be happy with that product.

Maybe any new developments in p2pool software and falling prices for fast flash storage might meet each other in the middle within 5 years. The expectation is that stacked flash cell tech should be available in the next few years. A high performance, low cost version of that technology could really help make a device like that viable (the blockchain could easily be 50-100 GB by the end of the decade).

This is what I would like to see as well. Modern routers nowadays have dual core 1 GHz+ ARM processors and up to 256MB of RAM so they are getting close. It is not too much of a stretch to imagine an open source router firmware like OpenWRT to support bitcoind, bitcore, cgminer, p2pool and other bitcoin goodies. A router might even be a fairly secure place to run a intranet 'web' wallet on. (no malware, viruses or keyloggers)

If someone decides to build a Bitcoin Router and crowdfund it on KickStarter I'd be the fist to back it.

You are always accepting data from nodes under someone else's control. That's what "peer-to-peer network" means.
Where do you think your node will get its data from?

It isn't the centralization it is the fact that someone else has control over it.  I would use a SPV client before I accepted data from a bitcoin node under someone elses control.

i'm not so sure size of a node is so important at this point.

at $19 per YEAR for a vps full node, it's cheap to run one right now.  that's where my Top image came from above:  

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/psa-add-a-full-node-for-just-19year-582817

of course there's some centralization but i don't see that as a problem.  it's decentralized enough.

No, not a wallet. A node on the network. Typical wallets are combined with a network node in a single piece of software right now. This would let users run a wallet only app without waiting for blocks to download, the node is doing it for them in the background. Solo miners or p2pool miners could also make use of a low cost network node.

a bitcoin wallet the size of a pendrive
this reminds me of the trezor.
 

That's why we need to educate bitcoin users that mining is not about profit.

Well, it's not really 64 MB (MegaBytes), it is 64 Mib (MebiBits). If you've not budgeted this accordingly, your DRAM cost just went up by a factor of almost 8.

Note that I'm not casting aspersions upon the appliance idea.

I'm quite skeptical about this.


The reason mining is becoming increasingly centralized is related to equipment costs, power costs and equipment delivery times; mining is simply not profitable on a small scale, and nobody with a little common sense would buy an ASIC miner to run it at home. The availability of a cheap stand-alone Bitcoin node is not going to change this at all.

...and the benefit would be?


This makes very little sense. Running multiple wallets on multiple computers in the same network? I can actually think of a few use cases, but 99% of Bitcoin users would never have such a need. Assuming that they'd want to run a full node at all, which most of them just wouldn't.

 I wish it be vastly smaller, cheaper. as a node is a good idea