OK, but the devil is always in the detail. What's going to be the actual impact of moving to this solution? Thinking of all the moving parts, what is the journey we would need to go on to end up with a scenario such as that?
Is the cost and impact of this journey less than all the benefits gained?
The actual impact is that we would no longer have all our Darkcoin vulnerable to the 'security' of
3 servers.
Evan is going the right way I think with the block reward structure, and assuming InstanTX works reliably dependence on miners is going to diminish greatly, but as long as blocks can be generated by centralised pools the coin remains intrinsically insecure.
The cost of my proposed solution is a rewrite of the p2pool code to make sure it can cope with the demands placed upon it and to include privkeys for each p2pool node, with a corresponding check on the Masternode side. Whatever that cost is, within reason, it's worth it IMO to have an actually decentralised consensus system with no easily targeted centralised points of failure.
What are your DRK going to be worth if those 3 servers ever get compromised? Bugger all, very quickly, I think.
Remember not too long ago when the whole PSN got taken down for weeks by a few script kiddies from 4chan? Do you really think a serious adversary is going to struggle with a few shitty mpos servers? Assuming some unpleasant people don't just come physically knocking at the door.
I certainly don't have the credentials to weigh in on any specific solution, but on a purely philosophic level have to agree with the Crouton (lonely though he be), that this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. I am most concerned about what is behind door number three, namely " some unpleasant people... just come physically knocking at the door." As I alluded to earlier.
Whether the solution is the one thelonecrouton proposes, or the earlier mentioned tendermint (
http://tendermint.com/docs/tendermint.pdf), or something else; I do not know. I do however, think that the originality brought to the table by Evan and the rest of the crew is more than up to the challenge. I also suspect that the Master Node concept and existing infrastructure, uniquely positions DRK to deal with this problem. I understand that instanTX is in the works and needs to be brought to completion, but strongly believe that the mining pool situation, and IP obfuscation need to be next, or at least very high, on the list of priorities.
Those knocks on the door might be closer than we think.
Oh, and while I have my tinfoil hat on, an early job for any DRK foundation should be to purchase ... (ed. redacted lest it give the wrong people ideas. ;-)
Peace to you all...
Strix
