Author: Rusty Russell 2019-12-03 00:26:11
Published on: 2019-12-03T00:26:11+00:00
The post is a discussion between Sergi Delgado Segura and Rusty Russell about the appointment messaging system in Lightning's WatchTower protocol. In their conversation, they cover appointments' sending and receiving, the `appointment` message, requirements for clients and servers, and rationale behind each requirement. They also discuss the appointment_accepted and appointment_rejected messages, their types, data, and requirements for both the client and server. One of the important aspects of the WatchTower protocol is accountability QoS. This is defined as a pair of blobs: customer_evidence and tower_evidence, associated with two messages – appointment and appointment_accepted. The watchtower can decide whether or not to accept the appointment depending on the value of the fee_rate. If the request for accountability is not made, the server will reject the appointment. The encryption algorithm used by all clients and servers should be either ChaCha20 or AES-GCM-256.The context mentions the need to implement chacha20 for communicating with other peers. The given python code helps in preparing the encrypted data that can be transmitted securely. The payment modes for rewarding WatchTower are discussed; on-chain bounty, micropayments, and subscription. Both micropayments and subscriptions are more favorable for a WatchTower than an on-chain bounty approach. Additionally, the DoS attack is possible using the on-chain bounty method. Lastly, the storage requirements of WatchTower can be reduced by implementing shachain, but as it is simpler to store the full transaction, the hiring protocol has been kept simple. Throughout the post, the authors provide links to related topics and documents while also highlighting some issues that need to be addressed in the protocol.
Updated on: 2023-06-02T22:05:26.918948+00:00