Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ripple is officially open source

ripple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 45 posts

Re: Ripple is officially open source

#31

Post by EarthLaunch »

kylebrown wrote: post #25
rxl wrote: post #11

Ripple has several huge problems that will prevent it from gaining as much steam as other cryptocurrencies. First, OpenCoin pre-mined the XRP's so they could hack the cryptocurrency trend and make tons of money if their currency took off. Second, Ripple is NOT a decentralized currency, but in fact a "distributed" currency, which is actually a much bigger deal than you might think. This means it has a single point of…

First it was bitcoin being decried as a "scam currency". Then bitcoiners called litecoin a "pump n dump" alt-chain. Now its BTC and LTC promoters campaigning against Ripple. Quite interesting...

That's not information worth noticing, because facts aren't relative. One could easily be a scam, justifying such a campaign.

Re: Ripple is officially open source

#33

Post by mrb »

SJoelKatz wrote: post #14
nullc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The Ripple network works a lot like the Bitcoin network It doesn't work like the Bitcoin network at all. Except that its computer software for handling transactions. Bitcoin is based on a primarily zero trust model, where every node validates all the data completely and cannot be tricked— except for transaction ordering which (due to relativity) can't be evaluated like that, and so Bitcoin uses a computational lotte…

Each Ripple server does validate all the data completely and cannot be tricked. Ripple uses consensus to establish transaction ordering. Ripple does have only a small number of server nodes today, but that should be growing over time. A node cannot freely set balances. Each node signs each ledger and any change to a ledger entry (such as a balance) must be accompanied by a signed transaction justifying that change or…

The way I see it --correct me if I am wrong-- is that Ripple has zero defenses against an attacker controlling many public IPv4 or IPv6 addresses and broadcasting his transactions to effectively control what the consensus is.

IOW, attacker-controlled Ripple nodes can outnumber legitimate Ripple nodes, therefore legit Ripple nodes are forced to accept transactions broadcasted by attacker-controlled nodes.

Re: Ripple is officially open source

#34

Post by thisiswrong »

glitch003 wrote: post #32

When will the creators of Ripple explain why they've premined all the Ripples and kept most of them for themselves?

I have been following the progression of Ripple for some time. But I also get the feeling that Ripple is a huge pyramid scheme. To quote the 2 main criticisms from Wikipedia:

1. Ripple Labs will hold half of all the XRP in existence, in the hope that they will gain value

2. Ripple Labs have repeatedly made claims that they would give away 50 billion Ripples (XRP), but have not done so.

So rather than reward early adopters of the currently (with future deflation), like Bitcoin did, Ripple Labs will hold onto 80 billion XRP in hope that its value will increase.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_monetary_system

Re: Ripple is officially open source

#35

Post by [deleted] »

gwern wrote: post #8
Sidnicious wrote: post #5

For anyone who doesn't grok Ripple, I looked into it a bunch a while back. (Feel free to correct me on any of this.) The Ripple network works a lot like the Bitcoin network: units of value can be stored at a wallet address, and whoever owns the wallet's private key can send funds to other wallets. The big difference is that while Ripple does have its own, internal currency (XRP, which right now is used mainly to pay…

It is cool, but the irony is, the IOU stuff will soon be mimicked by Bitcoin with 'colored coins', and Ripple will lose the last major feature it had over Bitcoin. And at that point - who wants a pre-mined backdoored e-currency which can't be made anonymous or used places like Silk Road?

[deleted]

Re: Ripple is officially open source

#36

Post by makomk »

SJoelKatz wrote: post #20
rxl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, let me quote http://ripplescam.org/ : But wait – you can become your own validator! [...] The consensus system ensures there is only one ledger – the most accepted one. If you run your own validator, you must connect with OpenCoin Inc servers, or you will be building a different ledger. In practice, it is not possible to “dethrone” OpenCoin Inc as you have to co-operate with OpenCoin Inc. Second, I'll point ou…

The quote from ripplescam.org just says what we all know, we all have to agree on a blockchain (in the case of Bitcoin) or a ledger (in the case of Ripple) or the system breaks. Part of it is false though, you can connect to servers not run by us. So long as they're also trying to agree with us (or those who are trying to agree with us), it will work. Ripple uses a distributed agreement protocol to order transactions…

No, it isn't in any way similar to Bitcoin's blockchain consensus - that's is designed to have blockchain disagreements which are resolved eventually by some of the nodes rolling back their blockchain and moving to the consensus one. As I understand it Ripple doesn't do that - once nodes have agreed on a ledger version they won't roll it back, and even if they did the OpenCoin Inc-controlled nodes don't care what non-OpenCoin-approved nodes think when forming their consensus.

So the net result is that, since everyone - including the exchanges - trusts the OpenCoin-run nodes, the only safe thing to do is wait for OpenCoin's servers to come to a consensus amongst themselves and then accept their ledger updates in their entirety. There is no way for anyone outside of OpenCoin Inc to influence what gets included in the ledger except if you allow it.

Re: Ripple is officially open source

#37

Post by kylebrown »

mrb wrote: post #33
SJoelKatz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each Ripple server does validate all the data completely and cannot be tricked. Ripple uses consensus to establish transaction ordering. Ripple does have only a small number of server nodes today, but that should be growing over time. A node cannot freely set balances. Each node signs each ledger and any change to a ledger entry (such as a balance) must be accompanied by a signed transaction justifying that change or…

The way I see it --correct me if I am wrong-- is that Ripple has zero defenses against an attacker controlling many public IPv4 or IPv6 addresses and broadcasting his transactions to effectively control what the consensus is. IOW, attacker-controlled Ripple nodes can outnumber legitimate Ripple nodes, therefore legit Ripple nodes are forced to accept transactions broadcasted by attacker-controlled nodes.

Transactions are accepted if they are signed by private keys, it doesn't matter who broadcasts them. But the reason for fees is to prevent DoS attackers overloading the consensus process with spam transactions. Also, just running a node on an IP address doesn't give you any amount of control. That IP address also has to be other validators' UNL (unique node list).

Re: Ripple is officially open source

#38

Post by rxl »

kylebrown wrote: post #25
rxl wrote: post #11

Ripple has several huge problems that will prevent it from gaining as much steam as other cryptocurrencies. First, OpenCoin pre-mined the XRP's so they could hack the cryptocurrency trend and make tons of money if their currency took off. Second, Ripple is NOT a decentralized currency, but in fact a "distributed" currency, which is actually a much bigger deal than you might think. This means it has a single point of…

First it was bitcoin being decried as a "scam currency". Then bitcoiners called litecoin a "pump n dump" alt-chain. Now its BTC and LTC promoters campaigning against Ripple. Quite interesting...

Bitcoin, Litecoin, Feathercoin, etc. are all decentralized currencies, and this fact should give you at least one very good reason to trust them.

Ripple has been pre-mined and is not decentralized, but in fact controlled by one entity (regardless of what the creators may claim).

There is a huge difference here. Not even a comparison.

Re: Ripple is officially open source

#39

Post by SJoelKatz »

makomk wrote: post #36
SJoelKatz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote from ripplescam.org just says what we all know, we all have to agree on a blockchain (in the case of Bitcoin) or a ledger (in the case of Ripple) or the system breaks. Part of it is false though, you can connect to servers not run by us. So long as they're also trying to agree with us (or those who are trying to agree with us), it will work. Ripple uses a distributed agreement protocol to order transactions…

No, it isn't in any way similar to Bitcoin's blockchain consensus - that's is designed to have blockchain disagreements which are resolved eventually by some of the nodes rolling back their blockchain and moving to the consensus one. As I understand it Ripple doesn't do that - once nodes have agreed on a ledger version they won't roll it back, and even if they did the OpenCoin Inc-controlled nodes don't care what non…

All the servers are agreeing with each other. You could just as well wait for any other reliable servers to come to a consensus amongst themselves and it would work just as well.

It is true that today we control the majority of validators that other important servers trust. We're working now on increasing the number of validators because that will improve the reliability and robustness of the network. We absolutely do not want people to have to trust us, or even think they have to trust us, so this is a real priority for us. Open sourcing the server was, obviously, a step in this direction.

Re: Ripple is officially open source

#40

Post by kylebrown »

rxl wrote: post #38
kylebrown wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First it was bitcoin being decried as a "scam currency". Then bitcoiners called litecoin a "pump n dump" alt-chain. Now its BTC and LTC promoters campaigning against Ripple. Quite interesting...

Bitcoin, Litecoin, Feathercoin, etc. are all decentralized currencies, and this fact should give you at least one very good reason to trust them. Ripple has been pre-mined and is not decentralized, but in fact controlled by one entity (regardless of what the creators may claim). There is a huge difference here. Not even a comparison.

The main thing which makes bitcoin decentralized is that there's no central authority which can seize your coins. Its the same with Ripple, XRP at a ripple address cannot be seized or moved (without the private key for that address).

Issues of coin distribution and mining versus no mining is a separate concern. From my vantage point, the great majority of LTC belong to Litecoin founders/investors/miners while the great majority of XRP belong to Ripple founders/investors/gateway-partners. There are trade-offs with either distribution scheme, but "coins to miners" is just one scheme (not the defining criteria for decentralization).

Post reply on HN