Re: Ripple

On 17 November 2013 23:24, Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@opman.ca> wrote:

> Melvin, Can you point to the specific documentation about how Ripple
> determines XRP inter-currency spot exchange rates with all the central bank
> currencies,and for BTC? And is there a documented policy for choosing the
> official source of exchange rate data for any other present or future alt
> crypto currency out there would be added to the Ripple portfolio of
> currencies?
>

AFIAK it doesnt use a spot rate, it has an order book and the market
determines the price.


>
> Tx,
>
> Joseph Potvin
>
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 4:32 PM, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 17 November 2013 22:27, Fabio Barone <holon.earth@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I should do this as a homework, I apologize,
>>>  but I'm currently pretty busy.
>>>
>>> Would someone be so kind and answering these questions about Ripple:
>>>  - Is the code open source?
>>>
>>
>> Yes
>>
>>
>>> - Is the protocol they use openly documented,
>>>   as openly as bitcoin is?
>>>
>>
>> I can only answer this superficially as I've not written a web ripple
>> implementation (yet)
>>
>> But it seems to be yes: https://ripple.com/wiki/
>>
>> You only ever know after you've drilled down into every last detail ...
>> something I plan to do next year ...
>>
>>
>>>
>>> thanks
>>>
>>>
>>> 2013/11/17 Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
>>>
>>>> On 11/14/2013 04:30 PM, Andrew Miller wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> 2. But this doesn't work for public/anonymous networks.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Why doesn't it work for public/anonymous networks? Link? This is Web of
>>>> Trust stuff we're talking about, isn't it (chained trust metrics)?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  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.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Isn't this a good thing? If you allow anyone to pick who they trust, you
>>>> force cooperation in the system, don't you? The idea being that for the
>>>> system to be useful, people need to coordinate and thus won't pick
>>>> participants with whom they entirely disagree with.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  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?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Why would someone deliberately do this? If you have to pick from 32
>>>> servers, why would you pick from 32 servers that are in a completely
>>>> different trust set? It would be incredibly difficult to do that in a
>>>> dependency chain based system, wouldn't it?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  Are they on two different networks or the same one?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> No idea.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  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'd expect that in the worst case, the overall network suffers. However,
>>>> the likelihood of this is in the 51% attack against the Bitcoin network
>>>> category, isn't it?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  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?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Well, yeah, if the algorithm is broken then no UI in the world is going
>>>> to save it. However, I don't think you've explained quite why Ripple's
>>>> consensus algorithm is broken. Why is allowing individuals to pick whom
>>>> they trust a bad thing (when the number of servers is large enough)?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  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.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think the problem surfaces when a group of servers create a trust set
>>>> that has no intersection with another set of servers. With that said,
>>>> why would anyone do this? What's the attack?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  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.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I thought that only a subset of the list needs to be trusted for Ripple
>>>> to function, and all trust sets that all servers choose have to overlap
>>>> by at least a small degree. Is that not true?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -- manu
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
>>>> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
>>>> blog: Meritora - Web payments commercial launch
>>>> http://blog.meritora.com/launch/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> <http://goo.gl/Ssp56>
>