need 5000 core for my account to be wittiness :  bue

Done.  [EDIT: I suppose not, I think I was on my own private chain]

If someone needs some CORE, I have abit more this time around, please ask.

My witness will be up any minute...

I'm not sure where the best balance is and what our testing goals should be, but I think we need to get serious very quickly and figure that out, devise a plan to reach those goals and coordinate our efforts to achieve them.

That sounds about right. A launch target TPS could be specified, the minimum requirement to meet that target would be identified, so the recommended witness minimum specification would be ready at launch.

Maybe there should even be a max TPS cap (possibly a votable parameter), to protect the network from overload. Is spam an attack vector into BitShares?

My witness (which was not voted in) currently has the following output, and just keeps going like that... 'bitspace-testaccount1'

3221000ms th_a       witness.cpp:182               block_production_loo ] Not producing block because it isn't my turn
3222000ms th_a       witness.cpp:182               block_production_loo ] Not producing block because it isn't my turn
3223000ms th_a       witness.cpp:182               block_production_loo ] Not producing block because it isn't my turn
3224000ms th_a       witness.cpp:182               block_production_loo ] Not producing block because it isn't my turn

The CLI interface is still working.

spartako, thank you again for sending CORE! I managed to upgrade my account now

Unfortunately, I'm still short 5000 CORE to actually create a witness. Could someone please send another 5000 to account:
'bitspace-testaccount1'?

In case anyone wonders, the total CORE amount needed to register a witness is 15000 CORE. 10k for the account upgrade + 5K for creating the witness (unless I'm missing something)

spartako, thank you for the CORE

I imported account 'bitspace-testaccount1', I think it is working properly, and it is funded.

How much CORE is actually needed to get a witness up and running? It would seem I need 10k to become lifetime member first. After that?

itr->get_balance() >= -delta: Insufficient Balance: bitspace-testaccount1's balance of 5044.50000 CORE is less than required 10000 CORE
    {"a":"bitspace-testaccount1","b":"5044.50000 CORE","r":"10000 CORE"}


Also I feel I need to make a comment to everyone contributing since the early times: Great work on treading the ground and on the documentation! The whole procedure is much easier to follow now than it was in the beginning.

Quote from: Spectral on September 22, 2015, 05:04:03 pm

BitShares may be be doing things more efficiently than Bitcoin, but I'm struggling to see how a big actor will have any problem whatsoever taking down 17 witnesses running on 300$ a month. Now I'm not a hacker or security expert, but I've seen how something so small as the newly set up Norwegian Pirate Party DNS server (combatting Pirate Bay censorship) may quickly find itself under heavy DDOS fire. Why would something like this not pose a danger to the BitShares network, with our portfolio of powerful enemies?

A delegate can move their block signing node to any computer under their control connected to the internet in a matter of seconds. This makes a DDOS attack nearly impossible.

In detail:
1) You notice your node is missing blocks and can't log in to your server due to DDOS
2) Connect to another computer you control, update_witness with new signing key

This allows your new witness to sign blocks and prevents your old witness, in the event the DDOS is not a complete shutout or ends, from double signing.

I guess this can be done in theory, but will it work in practice?
1. Will witnesses respond quickly enough (within seconds or minutes)?
2. Will the alert witnesses have servers on standby, compiled and ready with fully loaded blockchains?
3. Can 17 witnesses defend against a dedicated attacker keeping it up for, say, 48 hours?

If there are all those spare witnesses on standby we're not really talking about 17 witnesses cost-wise anyway. They might as well be signing blocks.

I'm seeing a complete blackout of the BitShares network within minutes, and a serious struggle to get it back up again.

The bitcoin network spends 25 BTC every 10 minutes on security, that's $33k per day. How much does it cost to elect 17 witnesses? ...Once one person does that, it's goodbye chain.

This. 

There is no doubt that Bitcoin has its weaknesses in both decentralization and security (those are not always the same). But anyone claiming that BitShares, as it stands today, has security anywhere near that of Bitcoin is in need of a serious reality check. If you want to attack the Bitcoin network directly (disable it), you need to attack ~6000 full nodes and disable a good chunk of the mining power so that block processing is effectively disabled. With pool-miners essentially able to switch pools at a whim, this must be an extremely difficult operation. If it was feasible (with Bitcoin's 3-4 billion USD market cap) it would have been done already. Let's not arrogantly dismiss Bitcoin's proven security.

As far as I can tell, one of the real dangers to Bitcoin right now is someone controlling a majority of the core devs and driving opinion that way (opinion influences nodes and miners). The recent block size debate has taught us that is still a weakness of Bitcoin. Taking control of mining power is extremely expensive, and can today only be done by huge actors that are good at staying hidden for an extended period of time.

BitShares may be be doing things more efficiently than Bitcoin, but I'm struggling to see how a big actor will have any problem whatsoever taking down 17 witnesses running on 300$ a month. Now I'm not a hacker or security expert, but I've seen how something so small as the newly set up Norwegian Pirate Party DNS server (combatting Pirate Bay censorship) may quickly find itself under heavy DDOS fire. Why would something like this not pose a danger to the BitShares network, with our portfolio of powerful enemies?

I'm thinking that if there is a possible attack vector into BitShares, it will be used. Distributing witness control over several 100 will make it more robust. We need to be proactive with BitShares security, better too much than too little. If the BitShares network is only once attacked and driven to a halt, the crypto community will nod their heads and go "Mhm, that's what we thought. Game over."