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IOTA actually seems pretty revolutionary. I don't think it's a finished product yet but if you want some info then it's a DAG ("tangle")[1] instead of a blockch

by redka 9y ago

IOTA actually seems pretty revolutionary. I don't think it's a finished product yet but if you want some info then it's a DAG ("tangle")[1] instead of a blockchain and offers 0 fees and possibly huge scalability. There are some products already using it: RuuviTag[2], Bosh XDK Iot[3], PoC ElaadNL charging station[4], Modum[5]. Once they prove they can go without the "Coordinator"[6] I'm going to be completely sold on the project. [1] https://iota.org/IOTA_Whitepaper.pdf https://iota.org/IOTA_Whitepaper.pdf [2] https://lab.ruuvi.com/iota/ https://lab.ruuvi.com/iota/ [3] https://xdk.bosch-connectivity.com/ https://xdk.bosch-connectivity.com/ [4] https://medium.com/@harmvandenbrink/how-elaadnl-built-a-poc-charge-station-running-fully-on-iota-and-iota-only-e16ed4c4d4d5 https://medium.com/@harmvandenbrink/how-elaadnl-built-a-poc-... [5] https://www.reddit.com/r/Iota/comments/6vl57m/iota_modum_ask_us_anything/dm14etf/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Iota/comments/6vl57m/iota_modum_ask... [6] https://domschiener.gitbooks.io/iota-guide/content/chapter1/current-role-of-the-coordinator.html https://domschiener.gitbooks.io/iota-guide/content/chapter1/...

espadrine 9y ago
The principles could be relevant (although I haven't verified (or read an independent review of) the proofs). However, at least the execution is dubious: not only was a major cryptographic vulnerability found a few months ago[0], it highlighted that 1. they made their own unproven crypto hash, which is a red flag, (in production, you should always prefer crypto that has survived many years of cryptanalysis) and 2. they were really not up-to-date on cryptanalysis techniques, as being vulnerable to differential cryptanalysis is, as Bruce Schneier puts it, "a rookie mistake". Worse than that, they seem to rely on security through obscurity, purposefully making it hard to analyse their systems by making it base 3 (instead of the obvious base 2 that all of practical computer science relies on). Finally, their justification for the coordinator is also a red flag[1]. [0] https://medium.com/@neha/cryptographic-vulnerabilities-in-iota-9a6a9ddc4367 https://medium.com/@neha/cryptographic-vulnerabilities-in-io... [1] https://medium.com/@ercwl/iota-is-centralized-6289246e7b4d https://medium.com/@ercwl/iota-is-centralized-6289246e7b4d
- dutchbrit 9y ago
  The coordinator will be open-sourced and in all seriousness, even bitcoin had a sort of coordinator in the beginning, people aren't even forced to use it/can bypass it, but it's recommended to use it for now. So your statement isn't 100% valid. Regarding crypto, you can read their response & reasoning here: https://blog.iota.org/curl-disclosure-beyond-the-headline-1814048d08ef https://blog.iota.org/curl-disclosure-beyond-the-headline-18... "The replacement Kerl hash function is unmodified KECCAK-384 that only converts its input and output from/to 243 trits to 48 bytes using basic two’s complement. KECCAK-384 is well vetted and researched."
  - runeks 9y ago
    1. It doesn’t matter whether the software that implements the central coordinator is open source, because the entire challenge of creating digital money is decentralized trust. Chaumian Cash solved digital money with a central issuer long ago. 2. Bitcoin had no privileged nodes, nor does it now. All miners compete on the same terms. A central coordinator by definiton does not, or it wouldn’t be centralized.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - comex 9y ago
    Just to clarify, since I misread your quote and think others might as well: > "The replacement Kerl hash function is unmodified KECCAK-384 that only converts its input and output from/to 243 trits to 48 bytes using basic two’s complement. KECCAK-384 is well vetted and researched." "Replacement" really does mean replacement, i.e. what they substituted in after the researchers successfully attacked their original hash function. (The new one is called "Kerl" and the old one is called "Curl", which seems confusing.) I'm not sure how asserting that the replacement is well-researched addresses the OP's point that their history of (a) rolling their own hash function, and (b) not adequately considering differential cryptanalysis, is a red flag. True, that specific vulnerability can now be considered fixed, which might not be clear from the OP's post - but it's still evidence of incompetence, which doesn't bode well for the quality of the rest of their design.
runeks 9y ago
> […] offers 0 fees […] I’m highly skeptical of this claim since there’s a cost to running any system. It seems more likely that they just made fees implicit rather than explicit (as in Bitcoin) but, regardless, someone needs to be paid to keep servers running.
- Muanh 9y ago
  In bitcoin you don't get paid to run full nodes. Only the miners get paid for verifying transactions. Verifying transactions is done by the users themselves with iota, so there is no need for miners and no need for fees.
  - cryptodogemoon 9y ago
    Their claim of 0 fees will not last. It means DDOSing will be trivial, and their network will be crippled.
    - Muanh 9y ago
      You have to do PoW when submitting a transaction. So DDOSing will not be trivial.
      - the_stc 9y ago
        But the PoW is for small IOT devices right? Or at any case it is for regular users, and does not take them minutes to compute. I cannot see how that is resistant to an adversary with dedicated hardware.
      - runeks 9y ago
        > You have to do PoW when submitting a transaction. Then there is a price; it's just measured in watt-hours of energy spent instead of denominated in cryptocurrency.
  - runeks 9y ago
    > Verifying transactions is done by the users themselves with iota [...] Unless the cost of verifying transactions is zero, this just means that the cost is now measured in CPU cycles at the client. In the end, this may be higher than whatever you pay with Bitcoin, depending on how much work you need to do. This is what I mean by "making fees implicit" - there's still work to be done, but not putting a price on this work doesn't mean it's free.
wslh 9y ago
IOTA, and others, were not analyzed from adversarial known/expert researchers yet. Period. For more serious DAG oriented research you can check SPECTRE and the papers in this list [1]. [1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J8hehbnZWzcIUMQcxMiGbjz86wDu3zDFF7UtkR0XjGE/ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J8hehbnZWzcIUMQcxMiGbjz8...
- Aledgerly 9y ago
  Bullshit. IOTA has been analyzed by numerous, not to mention the 1+ billion dollar bounty on its head which has lead to serious inspection. SPECTRE on the other hand is a pseudo-DAG which only exist on paper, with known vulnerabilities. I prefer proven science over hypothesis any day.
  - wslh 9y ago
    Show me the references...

by redka 9y ago

espadrine 9y ago

The principles could be relevant (although I haven't verified (or read an independent review of) the proofs). However, at least the execution is dubious: not only was a major cryptographic vulnerability found a few months ago[0], it highlighted that 1. they made their own unproven crypto hash, which is a red flag, (in production, you should always prefer crypto that has survived many years of cryptanalysis) and 2. they were really not up-to-date on cryptanalysis techniques, as being vulnerable to differential cryptanalysis is, as Bruce Schneier puts it, "a rookie mistake". Worse than that, they seem to rely on security through obscurity, purposefully making it hard to analyse their systems by making it base 3 (instead of the obvious base 2 that all of practical computer science relies on). Finally, their justification for the coordinator is also a red flag[1]. [0] https://medium.com/@neha/cryptographic-vulnerabilities-in-iota-9a6a9ddc4367 https://medium.com/@neha/cryptographic-vulnerabilities-in-io... [1] https://medium.com/@ercwl/iota-is-centralized-6289246e7b4d https://medium.com/@ercwl/iota-is-centralized-6289246e7b4d

dutchbrit 9y ago
The coordinator will be open-sourced and in all seriousness, even bitcoin had a sort of coordinator in the beginning, people aren't even forced to use it/can bypass it, but it's recommended to use it for now. So your statement isn't 100% valid. Regarding crypto, you can read their response & reasoning here: https://blog.iota.org/curl-disclosure-beyond-the-headline-1814048d08ef https://blog.iota.org/curl-disclosure-beyond-the-headline-18... "The replacement Kerl hash function is unmodified KECCAK-384 that only converts its input and output from/to 243 trits to 48 bytes using basic two’s complement. KECCAK-384 is well vetted and researched."
- runeks 9y ago
  1. It doesn’t matter whether the software that implements the central coordinator is open source, because the entire challenge of creating digital money is decentralized trust. Chaumian Cash solved digital money with a central issuer long ago. 2. Bitcoin had no privileged nodes, nor does it now. All miners compete on the same terms. A central coordinator by definiton does not, or it wouldn’t be centralized.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- comex 9y ago
  Just to clarify, since I misread your quote and think others might as well: > "The replacement Kerl hash function is unmodified KECCAK-384 that only converts its input and output from/to 243 trits to 48 bytes using basic two’s complement. KECCAK-384 is well vetted and researched." "Replacement" really does mean replacement, i.e. what they substituted in after the researchers successfully attacked their original hash function. (The new one is called "Kerl" and the old one is called "Curl", which seems confusing.) I'm not sure how asserting that the replacement is well-researched addresses the OP's point that their history of (a) rolling their own hash function, and (b) not adequately considering differential cryptanalysis, is a red flag. True, that specific vulnerability can now be considered fixed, which might not be clear from the OP's post - but it's still evidence of incompetence, which doesn't bode well for the quality of the rest of their design.

runeks 9y ago

> […] offers 0 fees […] I’m highly skeptical of this claim since there’s a cost to running any system. It seems more likely that they just made fees implicit rather than explicit (as in Bitcoin) but, regardless, someone needs to be paid to keep servers running.

Muanh 9y ago
In bitcoin you don't get paid to run full nodes. Only the miners get paid for verifying transactions. Verifying transactions is done by the users themselves with iota, so there is no need for miners and no need for fees.
- cryptodogemoon 9y ago
  Their claim of 0 fees will not last. It means DDOSing will be trivial, and their network will be crippled.
  - Muanh 9y ago
    You have to do PoW when submitting a transaction. So DDOSing will not be trivial.
    - the_stc 9y ago
      But the PoW is for small IOT devices right? Or at any case it is for regular users, and does not take them minutes to compute. I cannot see how that is resistant to an adversary with dedicated hardware.
    - runeks 9y ago
      > You have to do PoW when submitting a transaction. Then there is a price; it's just measured in watt-hours of energy spent instead of denominated in cryptocurrency.
- runeks 9y ago
  > Verifying transactions is done by the users themselves with iota [...] Unless the cost of verifying transactions is zero, this just means that the cost is now measured in CPU cycles at the client. In the end, this may be higher than whatever you pay with Bitcoin, depending on how much work you need to do. This is what I mean by "making fees implicit" - there's still work to be done, but not putting a price on this work doesn't mean it's free.

wslh 9y ago

IOTA, and others, were not analyzed from adversarial known/expert researchers yet. Period. For more serious DAG oriented research you can check SPECTRE and the papers in this list [1]. [1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J8hehbnZWzcIUMQcxMiGbjz86wDu3zDFF7UtkR0XjGE/ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J8hehbnZWzcIUMQcxMiGbjz8...

Aledgerly 9y ago
Bullshit. IOTA has been analyzed by numerous, not to mention the 1+ billion dollar bounty on its head which has lead to serious inspection. SPECTRE on the other hand is a pseudo-DAG which only exist on paper, with known vulnerabilities. I prefer proven science over hypothesis any day.
- wslh 9y ago
  Show me the references...