Re: Ripple/Stellar Consensus System May Have Serious Issues as Stellar Forks

The Ripple whitepaper appears to a) have its main theorem be false, b)
even if so, it's main assumption (eq 3 in the paper) is unjustifiable.
https://forum.ripple.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7801&sid=f7697c03a839e44aad3999ec70a56178&start=10#p57617

There's some discussion with the authors but it hasn't reached a
stable conclusion, especially since David Schwartz seemed to indicate
that the actual code differs significantly from the described
algorithm.

On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 5:13 PM, Melvin Carvalho
<melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 7 December 2014 at 20:15, Evan Schwartz <evan@ripple.com> wrote:
>>
>> Sharing thoughts from Ripple Labs on the issue:
>> https://ripple.com/why-the-stellar-forking-issue-does-not-affect-ripple/
>>
>> "The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) which maintains Stellar, a
>> network built on a modified version of the Ripple code base, recently
>> published a post claiming flaws in the Ripple consensus algorithm. We take
>> any reports about possible security issues very seriously and after
>> reviewing the information conclude that there is no threat to the continued
>> operation of the Ripple network."
>
> Feedback on ripple the consensus algorithm has come up before on this list.
>
> [[
>
> 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.
>
> ]]
>
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments/2013Nov/0041.html
>
> I'm unsure all these concerns were addressed on this list, perhaps the
> subsequent release of the ripple white paper [1] may hold some answers
>
> [1] https://ripple.com/consensus-whitepaper-released/.
>
>
>>
>> On Dec 6, 2014 3:40 PM, <stan.stalnaker@hubculture.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> The fork is a result of a long delay in a transaction block clearing,
>>> after which the consensus network decides it is not valid and ignores it
>>> when it finally does "unexpectedly" clear. The choice is between freezing
>>> the network to wait for the slow block to clear, or to decide to
>>> collectively move on. It's been a theoretical issue since inception but this
>>> is the first time it's actually happened IRL. The solution is to lengthen
>>> the clearing time in a situation like this, slowing the network but reducing
>>> the fork risk.
>>>
>>>
>>> It's time for a new kind of money: Ven.VC
>>>   Original Message
>>> From: Manu Sporny
>>> Sent: Saturday, 6 December 2014 23:06
>>> To: Web Payments
>>> Subject: Re: Ripple/Stellar Consensus System May Have Serious Issues as
>>> Stellar Forks
>>>
>>> On 12/06/2014 05:20 PM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
>>> > Interesting article here
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > http://www.coinsetter.com/bitcoin-news/2014/12/06/ripplestellar-consensus-system-may-serious-issues-stellar-forks-1969
>>>
>>> This has some interesting info:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.stellar.org/blog/safety_liveness_and_fault_tolerance_consensus_choice/
>>>
>>> """
>>> This week, we discovered the first instance of a consensus failure. On
>>> Tuesday night, the nodes on the network began to disagree and caused a
>>> fork of the ledger. The majority of the network was on ledger chain A.
>>> At some point, the network decided to switch to ledger chain B. This
>>> caused the roll back of a few hours of transactions that had only been
>>> recorded on chain A. We were able to replay most of these rolled back
>>> transactions on chain B to minimize the impact. However, in cases where
>>> an account had already sent a transaction on chain B the replay wasn’t
>>> possible.
>>> """
>>>
>>> I can't seem to find any documentation on the actual set of parameters
>>> that would cause a ledger fork to happen. Anyone have a link to a
>>> mathematical formula where it was proven/theorized that the event would
>>> happen?
>>>
>>> -- manu
>>>
>>> --
>>> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
>>> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
>>> blog: The Marathonic Dawn of Web Payments
>>> http://manu.sporny.org/2014/dawn-of-web-payments/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>

Received on Monday, 8 December 2014 23:23:37 UTC