[Cryptography] Standards Trolls: Re: Bitcoin is a disaster.

[Ben Laurie]

On Tue, 12 Jan 2021 at 01:43, Peter Fairbrother <peter at tsto.co.uk> wrote:

> On 11/01/2021 09:57, Ben Laurie wrote:
>
> > I'm not sure how I can be more clear - if a system has no central
> > control (distributed, federated or otherwise), then there is nothing
> > that can stop it from having two or more partitions that stay
> > partitioned forever. A partitioned system cannot successfully process
> > all authorized messages - assuming that "success" includes, for example,
> > prevention of double spend.
>
> True in theory, but a bit nitpicky - in practice things can be arranged
> so that if part of the system is separated then eg it can't do
> transactions with the rest of the system, which can be quickly spotted.
>

How, in a decentralised system?


>
> Parts of the system connected with other parts can share lists of
> connected parts, and authorise them - if you don't get an authorisation
> including xyz then you know the system has been partitioned.
>
> If the system is densely connected then it can be impossible to
> partition part of the system and not have a part of it say "hey the
> system was 200 nodes big yesterday, how come it's only 10 nodes today?"
>
> Of course then the system has to do something about that, which may be
> control...
>

Exactly. How do you know that 10 nodes today is wrong?
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