Thread by @RhysLindmark

1/ Thread from #CESSummit2019.

Starting with @neha @socrates1024's overview of the "why" for this event:

- Catalyzing a new interdisciplinary academic field to increase signal-to-noise.
- Experimenting with peer review, and how it should interoperate with IRC, forums, Twitter.

@neha @socrates1024 2/ @ittaia on Decentralized Trust. Looking at "who can vote?"

- Proof of Authority (Libra, POA)
- PoW (Bitcoin)
- PoS (ETH 2.0, Tendermint)
- PoSpace (Chia)

All of these abstract to "money". Ittai asks: which ones lead to plutocracy, monopoly, and bribery?

#CESSummit2019

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia 2b/ @ittaia differentiating between voting rights and voting protocol (consensus protocol).

First choose voting right, *then* choose voting protocol.

(Though it seems like PoW strongly implies Nakamoto consensus?)

#CESSummit2019

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia 2c/ @ittaia then gives an overview on SBFT, "Scalable" BFT. 2x latency. It has a variety of advantages:

- "Collectors" to avoid quadratic communication
- BLS sigs to reduce proof length
- One round optimistic path (for latency)
- New view change protocol

#CESSummit2019

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia 2d/ I *really* like 2 of @ittaia's 4 main points:

- Follow the money.
- Who gets a vote and how does that relate to money and plutocracy?

#CESSummit2019

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia 3/ How did @kanzure transcribe two simultaneous talks at once?!? :)

#CESSummit2019

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia @kanzure 4/ @dahlia_malkhi begins her talk: "Byzantine Fault Tolerance Meets Flexibility".

Although this slide has @Libra_ on it, her quote here is:

"Whether its Libra, Bitcoin or whatever, it's clear that this technology will have large impacts on finance and society."

#CESSummit2019

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia @kanzure @dahlia_malkhi @Libra_ 4b/ @dahlia_malkhi references a book she just edited on Leslie Lamport and distributed systems. It will be out next week. (Sounds awesome!)

Dahlia, I couldn't find it on google. Can you link to it?

#CESSummit2019

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia @kanzure @dahlia_malkhi @Libra_ 4c/ @dahlia_malkhi looks "beyond BFT".

- Use a "hybrid fault model" that assume Byzantine failures are worst, but other failures exist.
- Instead, look at a "flexible BFT model", where we *don't* assume that Byzantine failures are the worst.

#CESSummit2019

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia @kanzure @dahlia_malkhi @Libra_ 4d/ @dahlia_malkhi in a nutshell, Flexible BFT has two contributions:

- Stronger resilience to faults.
- Diversity. Allow for a co-existence of different POVs. (Given frame.)

#CESSummit

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia @kanzure @dahlia_malkhi @Libra_ 4e/ @dahlia_malkhi:

Contribution #1: Alive-but-corrupt faults (and adversaries). Attacker wants to attack *safety* but not *liveness* (the opposite of what is traditional).

#CESSummit2019

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia @kanzure @dahlia_malkhi @Libra_ 4f/ @dahlia_malkhi

Contribution #2: Support diversity. Different "learners" can opt-into different assumptions. (Seems similar to how exchanges can set # of blocks to confirm for BTC?)

#CESSummit2019

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia @kanzure @dahlia_malkhi @Libra_ 5/ @LivepeerOrg's @YondonFu on "Fair Service Payments in Decentralized Networks". He proposes open research q's:

- Alternate metering models. (WASM computation models?)
- A framework for provider selection algorithms. (Something sybil-resistant, like stake?)

#CESSummit2019

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia @kanzure @dahlia_malkhi @Libra_ @LivepeerOrg @YondonFu 6/ @gnosisPM's Ben Smith on "A Scalable, Fair & Decentralized Exchange Mechanism".

Lots of cool stuff here. First, it's interesting that they do an auction for the *order matching* itself.

#CESSummit2019

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia @kanzure @dahlia_malkhi @Libra_ @LivepeerOrg @YondonFu @gnosisPM 6b/ @gnosisPM's Ben Smith explaining zk-rollup. (I'm learning about this for 1st time!)

- Account balances represented by merkle root hashes.
- Transactions collected on chain as payload and hashed.
- Proposed state transition, and provide a snark proof of it.

#CESSummit2019

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia @kanzure @dahlia_malkhi @Libra_ @LivepeerOrg @YondonFu @gnosisPM 6c/ @gnosisPM's Ben Smith on batching.

Batch deposits, withdrawals, and then repost merkle root. Post as:

Snark proof
OR
Optimistic version (with a challenge-response mechanism).

#CESSummit2019

@neha @socrates1024 @ittaia @kanzure @dahlia_malkhi @Libra_ @LivepeerOrg @YondonFu @gnosisPM 6d/ In Q&A, @afdudley0 explains a worry about an attack on @gnosisPM's DEX, where the miners AND "solvers" collude. (Given max 1/5th re-org on ETH.)

#CESSummit2019