[VoterApathy] How To Make 51% Attacks A Lot Harder (without more people voting)

[Riverhead]

Well, this took a turn.

[Stan]

The most efficient solution is one run by an impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator.  That Day is coming, but until then

I'm confused on just what this statement is supposed to mean.  Is this some type of bible prophecy?  I don't get it.

Very good!  That was just a little tripwire experiment I conducted for my own purposes.  You were apparently the only one who noticed.

I don't know whether that was because it was completely obvious or completely opaque to everybody else.

Your statement is false, even the most impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator cannot know the values and desires of the population.  Even if he could gather a snapshot, by the time he could process it and issue an edict peoples desires will have changed.  In other words, it requires an all knowing, all powerful, God to do what you want.

Precisely. 

[Thom]

Your statement is false, even the most impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator cannot know the values and desires of the population.  Even if he could gather a snapshot, by the time he could process it and issue an edict peoples desires will have changed.  In other words, it requires an all knowing, all powerful, God to do what you want.

YES, and that type of thinking is dangerous!

[bytemaster]

The most efficient solution is one run by an impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator.  That Day is coming, but until then

I'm confused on just what this statement is supposed to mean.  Is this some type of bible prophecy?  I don't get it.

Very good!  That was just a little tripwire experiment I conducted for my own purposes.  You were apparently the only one who noticed.

I don't know whether that was because it was completely obvious or completely opaque to everybody else.

Your statement is false, even the most impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator cannot know the values and desires of the population.  Even if he could gather a snapshot, by the time he could process it and issue an edict peoples desires will have changed.  In other words, it requires an all knowing, all powerful, God to do what you want. 

[Stan]

The most efficient solution is one run by an impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator.  That Day is coming, but until then

I'm confused on just what this statement is supposed to mean.  Is this some type of bible prophecy?  I don't get it.

Very good!  That was just a little tripwire experiment I conducted for my own purposes.  You were apparently the only one who noticed.

I don't know whether that was because it was completely obvious or completely opaque to everybody else.

[r0ach]

The most efficient solution is one run by an impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator.  That Day is coming, but until then

I'm confused on just what this statement is supposed to mean.  Is this some type of bible prophecy?  I don't get it.

[morpheus]

It would currently take over 370 million bts to take over 51% of the witnesses.  Why in the name of God would someone throw away a million dollars to destroy bts?  Of course we could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  Btc could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  I'm not sure what all the hullabaloo is about.

This is actually quite interesting.  Is this proof that bitshares produces a Nash Equilibrium?  In a Nash Equilibrium, a player is only concerned with the other players strategy and not concerned at all with his/her own strategy.  The largest address is just under 360 mil bts while voters have pushed the threshold to control the network to 370 mil.  If we assume that the stakeholders as a whole are playing against the attacker, then Its as if the stakeholders have decided they need to take action if the number of votes to control the network is below the largest address and no action is required if the number of votes to control the network is above the largest address.  Im sure it is just coincidence but it is interesting. 

I'm not a big fan of classical game theory as I think there are too many variables involved, especially with more complex systems and mixed strategies, but I do believe that a no vote is a real vote and there is no such thing as voter apathy.  It is very far fetched to think that any attacker could gain financially by voting to control the network, but I suppose it is possible.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

Sadly part of the mandate for dposhub was to help improve this. We had plans that included having users when they 'liked' and update it would literally cast their vote for that worker, or witness, or committee member.

@BunkerChain Labs , what is the status of the dposhub project?
Is it discontinued?

It was shelved for several reasons. While the feature I mentioned are useful to the discussion, the budget needed to bring it to life is too much to justify the current market. Crypto_p and I have put it aside for now. Sometime next year after completing some of the other projects now on the go there might be a revitalization depending on where BTS is at by then..its just going to cost quite a bit to get done and we couldn't justify it with the current market.

[Thom]

For those interested in voter apathy you should read https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,20753.0.html and the issues I posted about BSIP 5 on github.

[jakub]

Sadly part of the mandate for dposhub was to help improve this. We had plans that included having users when they 'liked' and update it would literally cast their vote for that worker, or witness, or committee member.

@BunkerChain Labs , what is the status of the dposhub project?
Is it discontinued?

[Empirical1.2]

All you need is the ability to make "voting power" expensive.
In Bitcoin, you need to buy expensive equipment
In BitShares you either need to buy stake or convince people to put trust into you and set you as a proxy.

What would buying 16% stake result in? Is there even 16% available in exchanges (for sale)?
Wouldn't that also lead to passive shareholders to claim their stake and read into voting. Maybe maybe not.
We will see sooner or later what will happen when the price goes up (for whatever reasons)

Alternatively, how would you convince people to trust you with their voting power? Isn't paying for votes perceived
as corruption? Would you vote for a president that pays you $20 right away? Do you think that people with a lot of
stake (face in the game) would take the offer as well?
Why would I want to give control over to someone that I do not trust, that may do no good to the value of my shares?

Any finally, if shareholders are unsatisfied by the voting distribution, it is in their hands to change it. Similar to what Bitcoin has seen with GHash.IO.

Furthermore, Just because the proxies have a lot of voting power does NOT necessarily mean that will use it to replace witnesses and even if that happend, all they can do is halt the network.

In the end, BitShares is way more flexible when it comes to governance even though it may be easier currently to get
dictatorship. But IMHO, it is a good thing that @bytemaster can stear the boat (for the moment) and protect it from
hostile take overs. What we have seen in BitShares 1 already is that someday, he will NOT have the power anymore to
stear the boat alone.

Well you mention Ghash, where we saw hashers will continue flocking to the most profitable pool even to the detriment of their own investment.

I believe the original premise of  was the Bitcoiners would flock to BitBTC for an annual even ultimately to the detriment of their investment.

So it stands to reason small BTS shareholders may be willing to proxy their vote for an annual  paid monthly even ultimately to the detriment of their investment, especially if they thought the pools/proxies intentions were good.

So an example of an attack...

'Hi guys, I think BTS should incentivise voting and give those that vote up to  a year funded through an annual inactivity fee for those that don't vote. Please proxy your vote to me, to give me more impact in making this change that will get more people to vote and make BTS more secure.. To demonstrate how effective this is, I will fund the  initiative myself and pay everyone that proxies their vote to me  p.a paid monthly. If I run out of money or fail in my attempt to help influence this positive change, please feel free to remove your vote. '

Then I may be able to acquire 13% stake for a monthly cost of 0.05% of total BTS. Then once acquired I elect witnesses and if it's not possible to print BTS and send it to the exchanges for sale, I will at least short BTS while the network is being attacked.

Like BTC, there may also be outside influences, like .gov or banks or competitors that would like to target BTS for 0.05 - 0.13%  of stake. We already saw how Rune wanted to perform a hostile takeover of Bitcoin.

Extremely unlikely I guess, but that's the concept.

[monsterer]

Except that if everyone did this BTS would fall more than 1% and thus no one would do it. Hence, it is not profitable for people to proxy.

You've never heard of shorting?

IMO encouraging people to vote is not the answer; they will not vote en masse, which is what DPOS needed to survive. Moving forward I suggest we adopt some parts of NXT:

1. Auto elect N (staking) delegates ranked by effective stake
2. Allow individuals to lease their staking power to whomever they chose
3. Keep the same deterministic block production order

All you need is the ability to make "voting power" expensive.
In Bitcoin, you need to buy expensive equipment

That's a common error people make when comparing POS to POW. They are not equivalent in that way, because in order to vote in bitcoin you need to produce a block, and that is very, very expensive ongoing cost. In POS, once you have your stake, voting costs nothing.

[puppies]

It would currently take over 370 million bts to take over 51% of the witnesses.  Why in the name of God would someone throw away a million dollars to destroy bts?  Of course we could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  Btc could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  I'm not sure what all the hullabaloo is about.

I think if you saw that kind of rush into BTS you would see others buying up as well.

I agree.  For a worst case scenario we would need to assume that they already own the required bts though.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

It would currently take over 370 million bts to take over 51% of the witnesses.  Why in the name of God would someone throw away a million dollars to destroy bts?  Of course we could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  Btc could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  I'm not sure what all the hullabaloo is about.

I think if you saw that kind of rush into BTS you would see others buying up as well.

[puppies]

It would currently take over 370 million bts to take over 51% of the witnesses.  Why in the name of God would someone throw away a million dollars to destroy bts?  Of course we could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  Btc could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  I'm not sure what all the hullabaloo is about.