Re: Ripple

On Nov 14, 2013, at 3:30 PM, Andrew Miller <amiller@cs.umd.edu> wrote:

> I think everything *except* the consensus algorithm is terrific. The
> consensus algorithm though, in my opinion, is completely nonsensical
> and no one seems to be allocating any attention to it. The problem is
> not with the algorithm itself, but with the assumptions about what
> parties are chosen to participate.
> 
> 1. In ordinary distributed systems (a topic with 30 years of academic
> research, the kind involving Byzantine consensus and Chubby locks and
> fault tolerant databases etc.,) there is a global system administrator
> who simply designates N servers to participate in the consensus
> protocol.
> 
> 2. But this doesn't work for public/anonymous networks. So Bitcoin is
> based on a very novel alternative, where the participants are
> self-selected, their input is weighted according to the "hashpower"
> they invest, and participation is rewarded with Bitcoins which
> encourages lots of individuals to participate. This is cool!
> 
> 3. Ripple, on the other hand, takes yet another approach. There's no
> global administrator, but nor is there a well-understood public
> competition. Instead, individual users are supposed to configure their
> clients to identify particular servers they have determined they
> trust. Here's where it gets really murky, and I can't figure out any
> set of assumptions that actually lead to robust functioning of the
> network. What if users entirely disagree with which servers they
> trust? Are they on two different networks or the same one? If an
> individual doesn't do their due diligence, and carelessly approves bad
> servers, are they individually affected or does it affect the overall
> network? I really wish more people were looking into this rather than
> ignoring it, because I suspect it's not sound (although I haven't come
> up with a super clear explanation why not), and if the underlying
> assumptions aren't sound then does it matter if the frontend UI is
> great?
> 
> Unfortunately the only set of assumptions I can think of that lead to
> this actually working is where every one essentially picks the same
> default list, and the servers on that list are actually trustworthy.
> This is the "centralized" option, where the default list determines
> who participates, and no user has any incentive to deviate from the
> default list, either by adding some newcomer they individually trust
> or by removing default servers they don't trust.
> 
> https://ripple.com/wiki/Consensus#Not_colluding
> """
> In real world terms, people should select a UNL list of 1,000
> validators. They should choose 200 validators from 5 different
> continents. They should choose a mix of validators with different
> interests: merchants, financial firms, non-profits, political parties,
> religious groups, etc... By choosing a large number of reputable
> parties who are unlikely to lie or be coerced as a group and that are
> unlikely to collude to defraud us we can be assured the ledger is
> accurate.
> 
> In practice, most people will use the default UNL supplied by their
> client. But, the software will enable them to choose specific
> validators if they'd like.
> """
> 

I agree. Ripple's model seems to be too centralized. It's distributed not decentralized. Also, as I understand it, Ripple is reserving some currency for itself which seems to give them (as a corporate entity) an unfair advantage.

> 
> 
> On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 3:56 PM, Melvin Carvalho
> <melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 14 November 2013 21:01, Margaux <margaux.r.a@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> I was wondering what people's thoughts were on Ripple. Here is video and
>>> slides from the developer conference in Las Vegas
>>> https://ripple.com/blog/ripple-developer-conference-2013-replay/
>>> 
>>> My interest in it is regarding the protocol for currency exchange.
>> 
>> 
>> Am a fan of both the original protocol, and the ripple.com implementation.
>> The server has just become open source so many people are giving it a try
>> now.  I've run it and I have to say I was impressed.
>> 
>> There are many innovations in ripple.  Things I like are : ability to give
>> credit lines, ability to issue IOUs, ability to create new currency, the
>> consensus algorithm.
>> 
>> I've been intending to translate ripple core concepts to the web, so that
>> any of the features can be used in a modular way.  I'm doing bitcoin fist
>> tho, and expect to have most of ripple done Q1 or Q2 next year.
>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Thanks!
>>> Margaux
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Andrew Miller
> 
>

Received on Friday, 15 November 2013 18:48:55 UTC