8 ms·

Ripple is officially open-source

84 points by calder 13y ago

ghshephard 13y ago
When GoLang was first announced, it began an never-ending amount of confusion for me (a Go board game player), as I started to see all these articles around Go on HN, just to be continually disappointed. As a Mesh Networking Practitioner, I see I'm once again going to have to deal with namespace collision. (Ripple has been well used name in another domain: http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/75/slides/roll-2/roll-2_files/v3_document.htm http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/75/slides/roll-2/roll-2_file...) Interesting - Ripple the routing protocol is primarily about Directed Acyclic Graphs, while Ripple, the payment network, works with merkle trees. Combine the two concepts together, a directed acyclic graph of tags stored as a merkle tree, and you basically have git.
- maaku 13y ago
  Ripple-the-payment-method is about routing through directed networks. Merkle trees are not really related to the payment mechanism at all.
  - ghshephard 13y ago
    From the article: "Our consensus process uses peering ... instead of mining. The ledger is a data structure that describes the current state of the network as a merkle tree"
    - delinka 13y ago
      And still, merkle trees are not really related to the payment mechanism.
- ics 13y ago
  And all of the architects here have probably bemoaned the sudden shift in interest when "architecture" inevitably refers to software and nothing about buildings. (Though excitement for both is certainly not mutually exclusive!) Sometimes it's just a funny way of getting introduced to something that's really cool.
- lnanek2 13y ago
  As a mobile developer, these Ripple articles always trick me because to us Ripple is the fastest emulator for testing PhoneGap apps (HTML5 that runs on multiple mobiles wrapped inside a native app). An emulator for PhoneGap that runs in Chrome as a plugin basically. From a mobile dev perspective this other Ripple is some worthless alternative payment method no one uses because PayPal has all the accounts so is easier for the user, or iTunes or Google or amazon or Samsung Fusion payments are built into their stores and protected by TOS as being the only payment processor you can use. So an article on another payment method is pretty worthless and the name collision is pretty annoying because I have to sometimes follow the link before I see it for what it is.
- Toenex 13y ago
  When GoLang was first announced, it began an never-ending amount of confusion for me (a Go board game player) I know what you mean, I love Ripple chocolate bars. ;)
dublinben 13y ago
I'm honestly surprised that they ever considered launching a project like this without making it free software.
- Diamons 13y ago
  Open Source !== Free
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- maaku 13y ago
  Well they rather cheaply added on a currency that made no sense, which they issued to themselves and force people to use (or at least hold) to participate in the protocol. If it was open source from day one, the very first thing anyone would do would be to remove XRP. So am I surprised? No.
  - alwillis 13y ago
    XRP exists to help protect the Ripple network by making it costly to mount an attack against the network. The drama that took place earlier this year when there were several denial of service attacks against Mt. Gox, causing the price of BTC to drop so that it could be bought cheaper by the attackers and their friends is way less likely to happen to Ripple. Unlike transfering BTC, sending XRP from one Ripple user to another is free and confirmation is instant—no need for miners to confirm the transaction.
    - maaku 13y ago
      There are so many other, better ways to solve that problem which don't involve an unnecessary transfer of wealth to OpenCoin Inc. Also, I wouldn't even call it a solution: it makes opening accounts costly, which directly hampers scalability and eliminates entire classes of use cases. That's a weakness, not an advantage.
sown 13y ago
So I'm just curious...but how does the ledger work? It's supposed to be eventually consistent, so nodes on the network eventually get a copy. How do they determine that everyone gets one?
- wmf 13y ago
  Distributing information through a gossip protocol is well known. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossip_protocol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossip_protocol The hard part is deciding on the contents of the ledger.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- kylebrown 13y ago
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj1QVb1vlC0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj1QVb1vlC0 - How Ripple Works - The Consensus Process (ADVANCED)
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
sktrdie 13y ago
I'm very interested in this project as it essentially can be used as a currency the same way that Bitcoin is, without any mining required. It uses the concept of trust from a variety of different nodes. If a node acts dishonestly it loses trust and therefore loses reputation which in this system accounts for your actual currency: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7550/how-does-ripple-solve-the-double-spend-problem/#comment19596_16601 http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7550/how-does-rip... The idea that I'm interested in is that it seems to solve the double-spending issue that Bitcoin so eloquently solved, but without all the electricity wasting issue, and the 51% issue, that currencies with proof-of-work (POW aka mining) have. Currencies that use the POW system are designed to work well only if half of the computational power of the network is used by honest nodes. If by any means more than 50% of the network is in control of dishonest nodes, they could do all kinds of things and perhaps even kill the entire currency. Replacing the proof-of-work system with something based on reputation seems very interesting in my opinion: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=10193.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=10193.0
- jaekwon 13y ago
  Double spending isn't really about trust. It's about transactional atomicity. After reading a bit, I've concluded that Ripple doesn't actually solve the consensus problem. Whether it works or not depends on the shape of the graph of the core validating nodes. If the graph is too centralized (as it is now, and probably will always be), it can be controlled by fiat.
  - kylebrown 13y ago
    Transactional atomicity is exactly the reason why ripple needs a native currency - the native currency is what provides byzantine fault tolerance[1], just as in bitcoin. Supposedly, ripple reaches consensus under diverse graphs of validator node networks. But its a research topic still undergoing study (Ripple Labs say they have whitehats closely examining the protocol). 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_failure#Practical_Byzantine_fault_tolerance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_failure#Practical_Byz...
tlrobinson 13y ago
Now it gets interesting. For a long time the lack of an open-source server and the associated centralization was a big point of criticism against Ripple. Personally I don't think we'll see much grassroots adoption of any cryptocurrency technology that can be categorized as "pre-mined" or anything less than full decentralization, and that includes both Ripple and Mastercoin. Now if they're able to get the existing banking system on board they could have some chance. It sounds like they're handing out large chunks of XRP (the Ripple cryptocurrency) to companies that implement Ripple integration as an incentive.
- wmf 13y ago
  Ripple is still semi-centralized. If Alice and Bob trust different nodes they may end up with different ledgers and thus they may be unable to transact. The only way to keep Ripple unified is for everyone to trust the same nodes, which is the definition of centralization.
  - jaekwon 13y ago
    Yup. And this is why it won't gain the kind of adoption that Bitcoin is getting. I don't trust it any more than I trust a human.
  - kylebrown 13y ago
    Everyone doesn't have to trust the same nodes, the network will actually come to consensus with minimal overlap of trusted validators in the UNLs (and more importantly it will detect and halt when the network isn't coming to consensus, instead of forking like the bitcoin blockchain). Besides, the definition of centralization is that there's a central authority with arbitrary power, such as changing balances or freezing accounts.
    - marcell 13y ago
      > minimal overlap of trusted validators Does that mean it does an intersect of sets of trusted validators? How does it determine which sets of trusted validators to use? What if the intersection is the empty set?
rdl 13y ago
The true test will be when someone forks a version and removes XRP. XRP seems like a pretty artificial add-on to the whole system. I'd still prefer something like Open Transactions which supports blinded instruments, though.
- philrapo 13y ago
  XRP is essential as the native currency of the protocol. All other currencies exist on Ripple in the form of balances. (Similar to how I store my money at Citibank in the form of USD balances. This is how our traditional financial system works). The protocol needs a native currency (XRP) in order to pay the anti-DDOS fee. Every payment or trade requires the user to pay a 0.0001XRP fee which the protocol destroys. It's purpose is to create a cost to sending "transaction SPAM" and make it extremely expensive to DDOS Ripple servers for any sustained period of time. This transaction fee is dynamic and scales higher in terms of heavy server load. It's important that this type of fee be paid in a currency that is native to the protocol. This allows the protocol to remain neutral and global.
  - alcari 13y ago
    But why do we need special Ripple servers at all? Couldn't the system have been designed with a larger collection of nodes in mind and simply done without XRP?
    - kylebrown 13y ago
      Ripple is a distributed database of bid/ask offers. A distributed system needs to be byzantine fault tolerant (BFT). Bitcoin achieves BFT by using its native currency (bitcoins) in a proof-of-work scheme. Basically BFT means a malicious node can't do anything which will break the blockchain, because the only way any node can make changes to the blockchain is if it has solved a block (has the private keys to next block of bitcoins). Nodes with private keys to previous bitcoins have to get changes relayed through the node which solves the next block. Likewise, Ripple achieves BFT by using its native currency (XRP) in a consensus scheme. The consensus scheme relies on Unique Node Lists (UNL), instead of proof-of-work. So nodes can only propose changes to the ripple ledger if they are on the UNL of some other node. And changes will only be accepted if they are signed by the private keys of the native currency (XRP). Nodes which aren't on any UNLs have to broadcast their changes to nodes which are on a UNL, and of course, must still have the private keys to make those changes. There are probably other ways to provide BFT, but using a native crypto-currency is one of them.
simlevesque 13y ago
If you want to understand Ripple, the best way is to read the white paper which was released 2 days ago : https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf
- broostoryco 13y ago
  this paper is useless for understanding ripple
aabalkan 13y ago
Note that this news is a month old.
glassdoor 13y ago
How exactly is ripple different than any other payment system?
rainmaking 13y ago
Okay so ripple achieves consensus through network effects: biggest room wins. So far so good. Now Mallory deploys ripple clients, which behave like ordinary ripple clients, but are under her control. After a while, 51% of the biggest consensus room are straw men for Mallory. She "flips the switch" introduces a transaction that places the entire network's balances into her accounts. How does ripple prevent this?

84 points by calder 13y ago

When GoLang was first announced, it began an never-ending amount of confusion for me (a Go board game player), as I started to see all these articles around Go on HN, just to be continually disappointed. As a Mesh Networking Practitioner, I see I'm once again going to have to deal with namespace collision. (Ripple has been well used name in another domain: http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/75/slides/roll-2/roll-2_files/v3_document.htm http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/75/slides/roll-2/roll-2_file...) Interesting - Ripple the routing protocol is primarily about Directed Acyclic Graphs, while Ripple, the payment network, works with merkle trees. Combine the two concepts together, a directed acyclic graph of tags stored as a merkle tree, and you basically have git.

maaku 13y ago
Ripple-the-payment-method is about routing through directed networks. Merkle trees are not really related to the payment mechanism at all.
- ghshephard 13y ago
  From the article: "Our consensus process uses peering ... instead of mining. The ledger is a data structure that describes the current state of the network as a merkle tree"
  - delinka 13y ago
    And still, merkle trees are not really related to the payment mechanism.
ics 13y ago
And all of the architects here have probably bemoaned the sudden shift in interest when "architecture" inevitably refers to software and nothing about buildings. (Though excitement for both is certainly not mutually exclusive!) Sometimes it's just a funny way of getting introduced to something that's really cool.
lnanek2 13y ago
As a mobile developer, these Ripple articles always trick me because to us Ripple is the fastest emulator for testing PhoneGap apps (HTML5 that runs on multiple mobiles wrapped inside a native app). An emulator for PhoneGap that runs in Chrome as a plugin basically. From a mobile dev perspective this other Ripple is some worthless alternative payment method no one uses because PayPal has all the accounts so is easier for the user, or iTunes or Google or amazon or Samsung Fusion payments are built into their stores and protected by TOS as being the only payment processor you can use. So an article on another payment method is pretty worthless and the name collision is pretty annoying because I have to sometimes follow the link before I see it for what it is.
Toenex 13y ago
When GoLang was first announced, it began an never-ending amount of confusion for me (a Go board game player) I know what you mean, I love Ripple chocolate bars. ;)

dublinben 13y ago

I'm honestly surprised that they ever considered launching a project like this without making it free software.

Diamons 13y ago
Open Source !== Free
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
maaku 13y ago
Well they rather cheaply added on a currency that made no sense, which they issued to themselves and force people to use (or at least hold) to participate in the protocol. If it was open source from day one, the very first thing anyone would do would be to remove XRP. So am I surprised? No.
- alwillis 13y ago
  XRP exists to help protect the Ripple network by making it costly to mount an attack against the network. The drama that took place earlier this year when there were several denial of service attacks against Mt. Gox, causing the price of BTC to drop so that it could be bought cheaper by the attackers and their friends is way less likely to happen to Ripple. Unlike transfering BTC, sending XRP from one Ripple user to another is free and confirmation is instant—no need for miners to confirm the transaction.
  - maaku 13y ago
    There are so many other, better ways to solve that problem which don't involve an unnecessary transfer of wealth to OpenCoin Inc. Also, I wouldn't even call it a solution: it makes opening accounts costly, which directly hampers scalability and eliminates entire classes of use cases. That's a weakness, not an advantage.

sown 13y ago

So I'm just curious...but how does the ledger work? It's supposed to be eventually consistent, so nodes on the network eventually get a copy. How do they determine that everyone gets one?

wmf 13y ago
Distributing information through a gossip protocol is well known. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossip_protocol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossip_protocol The hard part is deciding on the contents of the ledger.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
kylebrown 13y ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj1QVb1vlC0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj1QVb1vlC0 - How Ripple Works - The Consensus Process (ADVANCED)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

sktrdie 13y ago

I'm very interested in this project as it essentially can be used as a currency the same way that Bitcoin is, without any mining required. It uses the concept of trust from a variety of different nodes. If a node acts dishonestly it loses trust and therefore loses reputation which in this system accounts for your actual currency: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7550/how-does-ripple-solve-the-double-spend-problem/#comment19596_16601 http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7550/how-does-rip... The idea that I'm interested in is that it seems to solve the double-spending issue that Bitcoin so eloquently solved, but without all the electricity wasting issue, and the 51% issue, that currencies with proof-of-work (POW aka mining) have. Currencies that use the POW system are designed to work well only if half of the computational power of the network is used by honest nodes. If by any means more than 50% of the network is in control of dishonest nodes, they could do all kinds of things and perhaps even kill the entire currency. Replacing the proof-of-work system with something based on reputation seems very interesting in my opinion: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=10193.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=10193.0

jaekwon 13y ago
Double spending isn't really about trust. It's about transactional atomicity. After reading a bit, I've concluded that Ripple doesn't actually solve the consensus problem. Whether it works or not depends on the shape of the graph of the core validating nodes. If the graph is too centralized (as it is now, and probably will always be), it can be controlled by fiat.
- kylebrown 13y ago
  Transactional atomicity is exactly the reason why ripple needs a native currency - the native currency is what provides byzantine fault tolerance[1], just as in bitcoin. Supposedly, ripple reaches consensus under diverse graphs of validator node networks. But its a research topic still undergoing study (Ripple Labs say they have whitehats closely examining the protocol). 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_failure#Practical_Byzantine_fault_tolerance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_failure#Practical_Byz...

tlrobinson 13y ago

Now it gets interesting. For a long time the lack of an open-source server and the associated centralization was a big point of criticism against Ripple. Personally I don't think we'll see much grassroots adoption of any cryptocurrency technology that can be categorized as "pre-mined" or anything less than full decentralization, and that includes both Ripple and Mastercoin. Now if they're able to get the existing banking system on board they could have some chance. It sounds like they're handing out large chunks of XRP (the Ripple cryptocurrency) to companies that implement Ripple integration as an incentive.

wmf 13y ago
Ripple is still semi-centralized. If Alice and Bob trust different nodes they may end up with different ledgers and thus they may be unable to transact. The only way to keep Ripple unified is for everyone to trust the same nodes, which is the definition of centralization.
- jaekwon 13y ago
  Yup. And this is why it won't gain the kind of adoption that Bitcoin is getting. I don't trust it any more than I trust a human.
- kylebrown 13y ago
  Everyone doesn't have to trust the same nodes, the network will actually come to consensus with minimal overlap of trusted validators in the UNLs (and more importantly it will detect and halt when the network isn't coming to consensus, instead of forking like the bitcoin blockchain). Besides, the definition of centralization is that there's a central authority with arbitrary power, such as changing balances or freezing accounts.
  - marcell 13y ago
    > minimal overlap of trusted validators Does that mean it does an intersect of sets of trusted validators? How does it determine which sets of trusted validators to use? What if the intersection is the empty set?

rdl 13y ago

The true test will be when someone forks a version and removes XRP. XRP seems like a pretty artificial add-on to the whole system. I'd still prefer something like Open Transactions which supports blinded instruments, though.

philrapo 13y ago
XRP is essential as the native currency of the protocol. All other currencies exist on Ripple in the form of balances. (Similar to how I store my money at Citibank in the form of USD balances. This is how our traditional financial system works). The protocol needs a native currency (XRP) in order to pay the anti-DDOS fee. Every payment or trade requires the user to pay a 0.0001XRP fee which the protocol destroys. It's purpose is to create a cost to sending "transaction SPAM" and make it extremely expensive to DDOS Ripple servers for any sustained period of time. This transaction fee is dynamic and scales higher in terms of heavy server load. It's important that this type of fee be paid in a currency that is native to the protocol. This allows the protocol to remain neutral and global.
- alcari 13y ago
  But why do we need special Ripple servers at all? Couldn't the system have been designed with a larger collection of nodes in mind and simply done without XRP?
  - kylebrown 13y ago
    Ripple is a distributed database of bid/ask offers. A distributed system needs to be byzantine fault tolerant (BFT). Bitcoin achieves BFT by using its native currency (bitcoins) in a proof-of-work scheme. Basically BFT means a malicious node can't do anything which will break the blockchain, because the only way any node can make changes to the blockchain is if it has solved a block (has the private keys to next block of bitcoins). Nodes with private keys to previous bitcoins have to get changes relayed through the node which solves the next block. Likewise, Ripple achieves BFT by using its native currency (XRP) in a consensus scheme. The consensus scheme relies on Unique Node Lists (UNL), instead of proof-of-work. So nodes can only propose changes to the ripple ledger if they are on the UNL of some other node. And changes will only be accepted if they are signed by the private keys of the native currency (XRP). Nodes which aren't on any UNLs have to broadcast their changes to nodes which are on a UNL, and of course, must still have the private keys to make those changes. There are probably other ways to provide BFT, but using a native crypto-currency is one of them.

simlevesque 13y ago

If you want to understand Ripple, the best way is to read the white paper which was released 2 days ago : https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf

broostoryco 13y ago
this paper is useless for understanding ripple

aabalkan 13y ago

Note that this news is a month old.

glassdoor 13y ago

How exactly is ripple different than any other payment system?

rainmaking 13y ago

Okay so ripple achieves consensus through network effects: biggest room wins. So far so good. Now Mallory deploys ripple clients, which behave like ordinary ripple clients, but are under her control. After a while, 51% of the biggest consensus room are straw men for Mallory. She "flips the switch" introduces a transaction that places the entire network's balances into her accounts. How does ripple prevent this?