3 ms·
That's right. The first time you sync up, you're particularly vulnerable. You need to authenticate first against a trusted source.
by coinculture 9y ago
That's right. The first time you sync up, you're particularly vulnerable. You need to authenticate first against a trusted source.
- runeks 9y ago> You need to authenticate first against a trusted source. If the system depends on a trusted source, why not just have this trusted source sign blocks, thus solving the double spend problem without further ado?
- coinculture 9y agoIt's not some single centralized trusted source. It's a local trusted source. Like a friend or a shop or a website you make payments on that uses the network and has been keeping up to date. Ideally folks should check multiple sources to ensure they agree. In the same way folks need to figure out which software to download when they join the Bitcoin network.
- sunnya97 9y agoAlso, two other comments regarding weak subjectivity: When you join the bitcoin blockchain, you need some trusted source to tell you the hash of the correct genesis block. Also, if you want to follow a shorter fork chain like Ethereum Classic, you also need weak subjectivity to tell you the first block immediately after the fork, otherwise you might be tricked onto the longer malicious fork, Ethereum :P
- runeks 9y ago> When you join the bitcoin blockchain, you need some trusted source to tell you the hash of the correct genesis block. No, you don’t. There’s nothing special about the Bitcoin genesis block, it’s a block like any other. Whether you follow a chain that builds on top of this block or some other block has no bearing on the security of the system. It contains no keys that get to decide anything later on.
- XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y agoBecause it's much easier to find an arbitrary source to trust in a one off transaction than to find a source that has perfect reliability moving forward.