Published on: 2022-12-02T23:25:16+00:00
Antoine, in a recent exchange on the Lightning-dev mailing list, expressed his support for the gradual generalization of Lightning onion messaging as a transport network for Bitcoin-specific traffic. He suggested that this extension could include various features such as offers, offline receive control flow, credentials tokens, and potentially even DLC offers in the future. However, Antoine also voiced concerns about the extension being used as a fully-fledged anonymity network like Tor or I2P, as this could lead to issues with denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.In response to Antoine's comments, Loki Verloren announced that he was working on a project to build an independent, Lightning-funded onion routing relay network. The primary goal of this project is to support LND/BTCD/Neutrino initially and offer key innovations in terms of security and functionality. One significant innovation is the development of a mechanism for path tracing, which would allow the identification of nodes that are not functioning correctly or may be malicious.One of the main advantages of this proposed overlay network is that channels running across it would be difficult to jam. With a large number of nodes, a significant amount of traffic would pass through opaque tunnels, making jamming attempts more challenging. Additionally, the payment scheme implemented in this network could serve as a comprehensive solution against attempts to jam channels.Regarding node reputation, Loki's idea involves creating a loose consensus on the network regarding which nodes are better connected and dependable. This reputation ranking would be based on the recent and reliable performance of nodes. To ensure fairness, the evaluation process would use a median/zip merging process, making it difficult for adversaries to damage the reputation of good nodes without having to run multiple nodes themselves and develop a good reputation.Overall, the discussion revolved around the potential benefits and challenges of using Lightning onion messaging as a transport network, as well as the need for reliable and secure path-finding mechanisms. The proposed independent, Lightning-funded onion routing relay network aims to address these challenges by providing secure and efficient routing for all kinds of traffic, while also ensuring the reputation and reliability of participating nodes.
Updated on: 2023-08-01T00:53:31.942210+00:00