Author: Rusty Russell 2015-06-27 05:30:53
Published on: 2015-06-27T05:30:53+00:00
The Lightning Network is a payment channel that allows transactions to be made instantly and cheaply. However, questions have been raised about security when rerouting payments. For example, if A wants to make a payment to E but finds a payment channel route through A->B->C->E, but C becomes unresponsive before the full payment has been made, A may want to re-route the payment to avoid delays. If A re-routes the rest of the payments through A->B->D->E, can't C reveal the pre-image to B, who then reveals it to A? This would effectively steal an extra 0.01 BTC from Alice and give it to E, and C and E could have been colluding to do this, splitting the profits.To solve this problem, each message needs a separate preimage. The simplest method is for E to provide A with (say) 100 hashes to use as she wishes. However, in practice, producing 100 preimages is pretty easy using crypto rather than hashes. For example, hashing a per-payment secret + counter.
Updated on: 2023-05-23T17:53:22.761714+00:00