[Cryptography] More efficient block-chain ledger: Micali's "Algorand" ?

[Perry E. Metzger]

On Sun, 26 Feb 2017 22:32:40 +0100
Natanael <natanael.l at gmail.com> wrote:

> Den 26 feb. 2017 20:39 skrev "Henry Baker" <hbaker1 at pipeline.com>:
> 
> This approach cryptographically selects ---in a way that is provably
> immune from manipulations, unpredictable until the last minute, but
> ultimately universally clear--- a set of verifiers in charge of
> constructing a block of valid transactions.  This approach applies to
> any way of implementing a shared ledger via a tamper-proof sequence
> of blocks, including traditional blockchains.
> 
> 
> This isn't the first attempt to do this. The arguments against it are
> old.

But apparently not very good if I'm to judge by what you've posted.

> Here's a good article on why everything that isn't centralized
> degrades to proof of work when there's an incentive to influence the
> globally shared output;

I don't think yhou've shown this.

> http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/

This linked article doesn't seem particularly rigorous. It also seems,
quite frankly, rather slanted.

> Some examples of why this is flawed;
> 
> 1: Sybil attacks. We could just stop here, but...

There are defenses against Sybil attacks.

> 2: NSA (or any other entity with similar technical capabilities) can
> just hack the current leader nodes. They're just a bunch of random
> nodes in the first place, so they're unlikely to be highly secure.

But they'd have to hack all of them, and quickly.

> 3: There's no way their proof will be meaningful in any way, because
> it implicitly assumes that all nodes are secure

I don't think it does, no.

> This is both because of the above mentioned Sybil attack,

There are, again, defenses against Sybil attacks known.

Anyway, without going on further, I think you're throwing things at
the wall, not addressing the original paper in a rigorous way.


Perry