Author: Rusty Russell 2015-10-20 23:15:26
Published on: 2015-10-20T23:15:26+00:00
In a discussion between Rusty Russell and Mats Jerratsch, the topic of an attacker being able to MITM an internet connection was raised. The concern was that the attacker could build a network pointing to the same node and potentially block payments. While there is no way to prevent dishonest nodes from joining the network, making it expensive to attack would be a good start. To protect against this type of attack, bitcoin uses centralized checkpoints. However, Peter Todd points out that these checkpoints are not as centralized as one might think because if they come into play for any reason other than initial bootstrapping, an active attacker exists with sufficient hashing power to destroy Bitcoin anyway. Thus, checkpoints do not need consensus between different implementations. Bitcoin implementations could specify how much total work is expected to be done but this still allows for nuisance attacks with alternate chains. Rusty’s point is that “it's good enough for bitcoin” so hardcoding details about the lightning network they expect to connect to (at the very least, its size) is reasonable.
Updated on: 2023-05-23T20:58:45.501172+00:00