Author: Braydon Fuller 2019-10-15 00:38:55
Published on: 2019-10-15T00:38:55+00:00
In a recent discussion on the bitcoin-dev mailing list, Tier Nolan suggested that parallel downloading would be better than relying on only one peer initially. This is because a dishonest peer could slowly send their headers to prevent moving to parallel mode. However, the current implementation includes a timeout for the loader peer based on the expected time it should take to request all the headers. The timeout is calculated as a base time plus the number of expected headers multiplied by an expected amount of time per header. For instance, if the base time is 15 minutes, 1 millisecond is allotted per header, and 600000 headers are expected, the timeout would be 25 minutes. This discussion highlights the importance of considering potential attacks when designing and implementing software systems, especially in decentralized networks like bitcoin. It also demonstrates the need for ongoing development and evolution of these systems to address new challenges and threats.
Updated on: 2023-06-13T21:46:29.566245+00:00