[Cryptography] Proof of Work is the worst way to do a BlockChain

John Levine johnl at iecc.com
Mon Feb 12 13:27:06 EST 2018


In article <CACMCW-PHGXRjqck3mzvs7EsBYxZ=VT_p29xSPMdBE5hRSHq45w at mail.gmail.com> you write:
>1. PoW can be good to fight against SPAM/DOS attacks where you distribute
>the load to the endpoint/user rather than concentrate it on the system. ...

This is a WKBI.  The original proof of work idea to deter spam was
Dwork and Naor's Pennyblack in 1992.  While it was certainly clever,
it didn't work and doesn't work.  I ran into Dwork at a conference
some years later and she agreed that it's too easy to circumvent.

Ben Laurie and Richard Clayton hammered stakes through it
in 2004, but nothing of importance has changed since then.

https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/proofwork.pdf

R's,
John



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