Below I transcribe my final comments on the implementation of MESS (Modified Exponential Subjective Scoring) on Ethereum Classic (ETC).
The original thread on Github is here: https://github.com/ethereumclassic/ECIPs/issues/374#issuecomment-701025288
My Comments:
I see MESS is already “Active” and is a “best practice”, i.e. optional for some nodes and miners to use. However, I have some comments:
– As @SergioDemianLerner is showing there may be unknown attack vector when gadgets that seem simple start to be added to the network. The solution of the solution may turn into a complexity snowball scenario.
– MESS is a change in the consensus mechanism, although engineers don’t see it that way because of how it is activated or segregated from the core code. But when an incoming reorg is rejected, and that rejection can be exercised by a subset of network nodes and miners, and the rest of non-MESS nodes are induced to follow that subset, we have a completely different network and consensus mechanism. That is not ETC nor Nakamoto consensus.
– I understand that MESS is being used as a “temporary” solution to a specific low hash rate problem of ETC, and am willing to live w/ it if limited in time as I wrote on #387 but I think it’s important to acknowledge Nakamoto consensus is being bypassed here, however temporary, and it doesn’t matter that while there is no attack the network is mimicking Nakamoto consensus, that’s just proof of work theatre.
– Potential economic consequences of MESS as a temporary solution:
• That it becomes a permanent crutch if hash rate never picks up
• That the subset of nodes and miners who use MESS become the de facto central controllers of the network
• That if a subset of nodes have the ability to mark what is the good chain for present & new joining nodes, why pay miners to spend energy in hashing blocks?
• The above applies to POS as well
• If there are partition attacks, how are the splits resolved? With a phone call?
• If a subset of nodes and miners tell the rest of the world which is the good chain, what stops them from becoming the bad guys? In that case, how do the “honest” nodes solve that? With a Zoom call?
Code [Was] Is Law [on Ethereum Classic]
