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Topic: Vitalik proposed new algorithm for ETH - requires 99% nodes to attack! (Read 93 times)

legendary
Activity: 1134
Merit: 1010
BTC to the moon is inevitable...
first of all a miner is not a validator! i am surprised that the quote is from a developer! a node is a validator and a miner is a worker finding blocks, nothing more.

i also have some concerns about this.
i am wondering what that "validator node" is going to be. for example who chooses that node? ethereum network is already headed towards centralization of nodes because of the extremely large size of its blockchain (1.1+ TB) and soon it will turn into a master node kind of thing where only exchanges and mining farms and web wallets would run a full node and the rest will use pruned and web wallets version.
so the decision would already fall to the centralized master node.

now the concern is that if someone already has enough money to own 51% of the hashrate they also have enough money to attack those "centralized observer nodes" and put them effectively out of the network by isolating them and have their own nodes replace them effectively succeed in their attack.

of course this could work only if the network was actually decentralized and people were running enough number of full nodes (not pruned ones) to prevent these types of isolating attacks.

just my 2 satoshis. thanks for sharing the article.
legendary
Activity: 3080
Merit: 1500
On August 7th, ETH Co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a new kind of consensus algorithm which requires control over 99% of nodes to carry out an attack. Vitalik called it as "observer nodes" and with the implementation of this idea, ETH can become the most secure public blockchain in the world. With this consensus algorithm, 51% attack can be the thing of past!

How it works:
The new algorithm introduces a new kind of validator nodes called as the “independent observer nodes”. These nodes observe the chain in real-time and detect inconsistencies in when the message appears. This works because, Double Spend attacks are slightly quicker (or slower) compared to normal transactions, and the special nodes in Vitalik’s solution detect just that.

Ethereum developer Conrad Barski further explains,
Quote
“Usually, all blockchain consensus[algorithms] care about is what the validators (i.e. miners) of a chain do. Vitalik is proposing that if an independent observer of the network traffic (i.e. just the blockchain client a user is running, not a miner/validator) watches what’s happening in real time and pays attention to when messages appear, they can detect ‘foul play’ by miners performing a 51% attack and this can provide additional safety guarantees that can protect against such an attack. This is similar to this is somewhat similar to how merchants are already checking for 51% attacks themselves, only Vitalik’s version is more large-scale and complex“

Link to Vitalik's paper:
https://vitalik.ca/general/2018/08/07/99_fault_tolerant.html

News Source:
https://blockmanity.com/news/ethereum/vitaliks-new-consensus-algorithm-make-51-attack-obsolete-requires-99-nodes-attack/

Vitalik has always been my favorite guy in the world of Blockchain. Even though the paper is fairly complex and didn't yet understand it completely. But this algorithm has the capability to change the ETH blockchain into the most secure public blockchain in the world. It is just a proposal and implementation has not yet decided.
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