Summary
Cory Fields highlights the ambitious project led by Hennadii Stepanov to transition Bitcoin Core's build system from Autotools to CMake, aiming to modernize and streamline development. This effort, set to integrate into the master branch after the v28 feature-freeze, underscores a shift towards a more efficient build process while continuing support for Autotools in older branches. The CMake migration represents a significant step forward in Bitcoin Core's development, emphasizing the importance of community feedback and collaboration for a smooth transition.
Amin Bashiri and Majid Khabbazian's paper, presented at the Financial Cryptography and Data Security 2024 conference, addresses the denial-of-service threats in Onion Messaging with proposed mitigation strategies. Their research introduces innovative concepts like the "Hard Leash" and "Soft Leash" approaches to limit message hops and requires proof-of-work for additional hops, aiming to enhance the security of the Lightning Network. These propositions, alongside recommendations for rate limiting and routing based on channel capacities, offer promising avenues for protecting against DoS attacks. The complete paper is available at FC'24 Preproceedings.
The discussion by Murch explores Zawy's Alternating Timestamp Attack on Bitcoin Testnet 4, detailing a sophisticated manipulation strategy that could destabilize the network by altering difficulty adjustments through controlled block timestamps. This attack method, different from the known Timewarp Attack, poses significant risks including the invalidation of transactions and reorganization of blocks. A proposed softfork aiming to enforce consistent timestamp increases across difficulty periods is suggested as a countermeasure to such vulnerabilities, highlighting the critical need for ongoing security enhancements in blockchain technology. Further insights into this discussion can be found at Delving into Bitcoin.
New posts
August 9, 2024 16:00 UTC
delvingbitcoin
- Zawy's Alternating Timestamp Attack exploits Bitcoin Testnet 4 by manipulating block timestamps.
- It diverges from the Timewarp Attack by requiring control of block timestamps, not difficulty periods' duration.
- A proposed softfork aims to prevent such attacks by enforcing consistent timestamp increases.
August 7, 2024 21:47 UTC
bitcoin-dev
- Hennadii Stepanov is transitioning Bitcoin Core's build system from Autotools to CMake.
- The new CMake system promises easier maintenance and modernization benefits for the open-source community.
- Documentation for CMake has been updated, aiming for feature parity and easing the transition for developers.
August 7, 2024 06:47 UTC
delvingbitcoin
- Amin Bashiri and Majid Khabbazian proposed DoS mitigation in OM at the FC'24 conference.
- They introduced a "Hard Leash" for hop limitation and a "Soft Leash" requiring proof-of-work per hop.
- Their research enhances Lightning Network security by addressing routing and traffic flow issues.
Ongoing Discussions
August 10, 2024 18:30 UTC
delvingbitcoin
- Hosted channel clients and conventional LN nodes have significant differences.
- Valet supports both hosted and traditional LN channels, featuring a "Drain fiat channel" option.
- Credit channels provide fiat-denominated liquidity with user's real LN channel as collateral.
August 7, 2024 01:12 UTC
delvingbitcoin
- The focus is on making each coinbase transaction unique to prevent duplication.
- Proposing an OP_RETURN output in coinbase transactions ensures their distinctiveness.
- Setting nLockTime to block height is seen as an improvement but not critical.
August 6, 2024 17:37 UTC
bitcoin-dev
- IBM's Quantum System Two can support up to 16,000 qubits, enhancing computational power.
- FALCON is preferred in Bitcoin's cryptographic development for its balance of size and security.
- Strategies to mitigate quantum attacks on Bitcoin include witness stack size inflation and secure transaction submission.
August 6, 2024 13:41 UTC
delvingbitcoin
- Exploring extra pool sizes' impact on block reconstruction highlights their interaction in blockchain.
- The term "extra pool sizes" may refer to additional transactions or mempool size variations.
- The `feefilter` aids in estimating pool sizes, despite calculation and privacy limitations.
August 5, 2024 21:35 UTC
delvingbitcoin
- The Anti-exfil protocol integration in secp256k1 may boost PSBT v3 and hardware wallet security.
- Recent attacks underline the need for tighter security in crypto transactions.
- Adopting Anti-exfil in secp256k1 could safeguard against broad threats, enhancing overall Bitcoin security.
August 5, 2024 20:53 UTC
delvingbitcoin
- The inquiry examines using cryptographic methods for authentication in financial transactions.
- It suggests a `from` field in encrypted messages for sender identification, raising security concerns.
- The discussion balances the need for security with the convenience of specifying payer identity in transactions.