BitCloud

[Troy Benjegerdes]

On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 05:45:13AM -0500, fred concklin wrote:
> from
> https://github.com/wetube/bitcloud/blob/master/bitcloud.org#protected-routing
> —proof-of-bandwidth "Basically, the law is applied by judging (checking)
> that every node and client is doing the work as it should, so, when asked,
> it should answer with the truth of what is asked. If it is found that the
> node or client is lying, it is penalized or banned, and its transactions
> rejected are not included in the blockchain.
> 
> Laws are written in the source code in the form of *generics* and the
> corresponding *methods*. A *method* is a specific application of a *generic*.
> For example, for the *generic* of the Law of Bandwidth there are going to
> be several *methods* for judging nodes, users and publishers."
> 
> 
> ----------------
> 
> It all breaks down there. You can attack by polluting the network with
> nodes that share no bandwidth but report fraudulent bandwidth statistics of
> honest nodes. Moreover, fraudulent node collections can overreport their
> bandwidth capabilities, thus funneling all traffic into chokepoints. You
> can disrupt the network as well as build attacker controlled majority
> routes for traffic analysis and subsequent deanonymization of hidden
> service protocols and/or onion routing. They are describing a MIX network
> but they've removed the routing properties of an effective MIX network with
> their prioritization of nodes (thus partitioning traffic heavily in a
> nonuniform manner as it passes through the MIX). If they are not mixing and
> instead onion routing they sacrifice the beneficial property of onion
> routes being difficult for an adversary to observe by performing route
> selection in a geospatially indiscriminate manner.

I'm convinced (for the moment) that the anonymity cost is going to kill the 
project. For http://minco.me (which I wrote in a fit of political speech), I
came to the conclusion that there must be some sort of 'local authority' as 
a 'method' to evaluate human-usable proof-of-work, and this would have to 
utilize the pre-existing legal and court infrastructure. If you can sue the
operator of a node fraudulently collecting 'proof of bandwidth' rewards for
theft, it might work.

However, in a global network with no clear idea where (or who) the node 
operators are, it's going to take a lot more human mathematical and crypto
work to prove bandwidth.

All that being said, I'm encouraged that there is wild-eyed optimism and 
excitement about what's possible, so between my pet project for per-packet
micropayments (I might as well call it IPv7), and bitcloud, we might collective
make enough mistakes to learn how to make it happen.