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

My understanding on Ripple is that it has not forked only because it’s like a handful of centralized servers that are allowed to take part in the consensus, and it’s difficult for others to join.

This new Ripple protocol was designed explicitly to make it simple for newcomers to join in the consensus, and in this case that is actually a very bad thing because the protocol is extremely fragile.

There is no sense in comparing it to Bitcoin because the two are completely different (Bitcoin has a blockchain and the other does not).

Bitcoin is not fragile in the way this new Stellar protocol is. It cannot “break” into multiple “valid” but irreconcilable states. That’s all there is to it.

- Greg

--
Please do not email me anything that you are not comfortable also sharing with the NSA.

> On Apr 25, 2015, at 12:32 PM, Stan Stalnaker <stan.stalnaker@hubculture.com> wrote:
> 
> Stellar did actually fork dec 2014 but it was apparently solved. Ripple has not yet forked and their team is reportedly mitigating those risks - given their talent pool I wouldn't worry any more about that than I would a consensus override on bitcoin from concentrated mining, which also happened last year.
> 
> 
> 
> On 25 Apr 2015, at 20:26, Tao Effect <contact@taoeffect.com <mailto:contact@taoeffect.com>> wrote:
> 
>>> An article from 2013, and it is currently the year 2015. Not to mention a
>>> comparison to birth defects and abortions. Great.
>> 
>> 
>> The latest Stellar Consensus Protocol also has serious issues.
>> 
>> It appears to have no way to deal with forks, which appear likely to happen.
>> 
>> This means the history of payments is likely to diverge, and once it does it’s unlikely to be reconciled.
>> 
>> - Greg
>> 
>> --
>> Please do not email me anything that you are not comfortable also sharing with the NSA.
>> 
>>> On Apr 25, 2015, at 10:39 AM, Mitchell Callahan <callahan@saucal.com <mailto:callahan@saucal.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> No offense, but you see things completely backwards.
>>> 
>>> The fact that he pointed out the deficiencies as early as 2013 and people are only realizing then now, should be alarming to you.
>>> 
>>> "Newness" of the post does not reflect its quality. I can point out several pieces of literature to prove that, which need not be mentioned, as this point is blatantly obvious.
>>> 
>>> When it comes to payments, it's merely 1's and 0's. Emotions are irrelevant.  Furthermore, Mircea being one of, if not the largest holder of bitcoin, makes his comments incredibly relevant, whether you like them or not.
>>> 
>>> Best,
>>> Mitchell
>>> 
>>> On Saturday, April 25, 2015, Torrie Fischer <tdfischer@hackerbots.net <>> wrote:
>>> An article from 2013, and it is currently the year 2015. Not to mention a
>>> comparison to birth defects and abortions. Great.
>>> 
>>> I have to say I don't really appreciate reading something like that and would
>>> prefer a much more constructive discussion about web payments.
>>> 
>>> On Thursday, April 23, 2015 11:45:11 AM Mitchell Callahan wrote:
>>> > My advice is to quit while you're ahead.  As pointed out in 2013 by Mircea
>>> > Popescu, RIPple has serious congenital defects:
>>> > http://trilema.com/2013/ripple-the-definitive-discussion/ <http://trilema.com/2013/ripple-the-definitive-discussion/>
>>> >
>>> > Best,
>>> > Mitchell
>>> > ᐧ
>>> >
>>> > On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 10:56 AM, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com <>>
>>> > wrote:
>>> > > On 7 December 2014 at 00:04, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com <>>
>>> > >
>>> > > wrote:
>>> > >> On 12/06/2014 05:20 PM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
>>> > >> > Interesting article here
>>> > >>
>>> > >> http://www.coinsetter.com/bitcoin-news/2014/12/06/ripplestellar-consensus <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_consensu <https://www.stellar.org/blog/safety_liveness_and_fault_tolerance_consensu>
>>> > >> s_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.
>>> > >> """
>>> > >
>>> > > Some more issues reported between the founders of ripple and stellar
>>> > >
>>> > >
>>> > > http://insidebitcoins.com/news/not-so-decentralized-ripple-freezes-1m-in-u <http://insidebitcoins.com/news/not-so-decentralized-ripple-freezes-1m-in-u>
>>> > > ser-funds/31862
>>> > >
>>> > > Without knowing all the details, it would appear that in decentralized
>>> > > systems, centralized artifacts can creep in.
>>> > >
>>> > > It's also been particularly difficult to keep the web centralized.  I
>>> > > wonder if decentralization through incentives (ie payments or block chain
>>> > > technology) could be used to make the web more decentralized.
>>> > >
>>> > >> 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/ <http://manu.sporny.org/2014/dawn-of-web-payments/>
>>> ᐧ
>>