How could we further decentralize the codebase for bitcoin?

278 sats \ 30 comments \ @itsrealfake 26 May 2022 bitcoin

Suppose GitHub decided the legal risks of hosting bitcoin/lightning/liquid were too damned high. It would be a pretty much overnight decision.

Where would we host?

I'm well aware that it's possible to host git repositories with relative ease (for a dev, at least they could figure it out in a few hours).

What am I misunderstanding that would allay my concerns?

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66 sats \ 2 replies \ @sam 26 May 2022

The code itself is perfectly safe. With the way Git works, everyone that has pulled down the latest code has a copy of the entire history of the codebase. If GitHub decided to delete the public repo, it would be trivial for one of the maintainers to push it to a different host.

What’s more concerning are the issues, pull requests, discussions, etc. But GitHub has a really robust API that could be used to write an export tool. I’m daft, there are already some in existence. This seems like a good starting point: https://github.com/topics/github-issues-export

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @sam 27 May 2022

I just reread this. I have no idea where “I’m daft” came from.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @itsrealfake OP 27 May 2022

hehe

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @nullama 26 May 2022

Bitcoin Core is not only in GitHub. Every person that has ever cloned the repo has a full copy of the source code and the history of changes. That's how git works.

It's also available from bitcoincore.org, and from there you can see that it's also available as a torrent.

And that's just the most common implementation of Bitcoin, but there are other implementations, like Bitcoin Knots, btcsuite, libbitcoin, and others. Note that these are not forks of Bitcoin, they are Bitcoin because they follow the same rules, they are just a different code base.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kilianbuhn 27 May 2022

Yes, having the current code is decentralized. But the distribution method is a broadcast from a centralized source.

Also, almost everybody is using the same implementation instead of just the same protocol.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @zuspotirko 26 May 2022

Btw, another idea is the Bitcoin Gossip Network.

The Bitcoin Gossip Network actually fulfills "Continuous Byzantine Agreement" which would theoretically allow to send source code around and hash-and-sign it.

The only infrastructure missing would be software that lets users easily choose updates that came in via peers from UI. The user could choose his own threshold of signatures from people he knows, big miners, public keys in the blockchain etc.

The advantage would be how f*ing elegant it would be when the whole Bitcoin ecosystem is bootstrapped and works in the spirit of Bitcoin. Everyone plays by his own rules.

The disadvantage would be that it could clogg gossip network traffic which we do not want at all cost - stuff is already spammy enough.

30 sats \ 9 replies \ @zuspotirko 26 May 2022

Torrent

P2P torrenting is one of the oldest, most resilient and decentralized technologies that mankind created.

The Bitcoin community stands on the shoulders of giants from the linux community, tor, cryptography, open source and torrenting. We should embrace that.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @zuspotirko 26 May 2022

Early days Linux Kernel Code was just mailed around via Email. And torrents (also usenet but we don't talk about bruno) were there for distros from the very beginning.

I'm so convienced that all major Bitcoin projects should embrace that - I would actually argue we should switch to torrent first, github second right now.

4 sats \ 4 replies \ @maxtrotter 27 May 2022 freebie

how about a node for plebs that acts as 1. Tor gateway 2. Torrent server with everything Bitcoin needs (is every block automatically a torrent?) 3. gossip server may help full nodes in someway 4. i'm sure it could do many other things.

Plus 'the Bitcoin backup node' should be able to fully spawn Bitcoin from scratch

The key is the simplicity that software like Umbrel etc. installs and can be run by the plebs like me, they are growing in number just look at the pace Lightning nodes have grown over the last year.

3 sats \ 3 replies \ @itsrealfake OP 27 May 2022

i appreciate the response.

careful about assuming the value of the raspberry pi. it isn't a secure computing environment. 2 of its 6 cores are closed source, and those are the cores used to boot the machine. (3)

tor, it appears, has been owned for a long time. (1)

in the event of a network warfare event, i assume that every internet connected rPi will be susceptible to being consumed (then attacked in retaliation) as part of a botnet.

imo, simple software is great. yet Umbrel is also a centralized service provider (for now, i'm aware there are efforts underway to resolve that to some degree). how many Umbrel (or any software we rely on as bitconers) devs could be coerced, or fooled to incorporating seemingly innocuous changes to the stack that are chained together to result in calamity. (2)

tl;dr- bitcoin itself needs to be hardened. relying on the rest of the porous web technology stack to support bitcoin in the event of a sustained, coordinated, multi-party network war is a hazard.

1 - https://www.pcmag.com/news/black-hat-cancels-presentation-on-cracking-tor 2 - https://www.theregister.com/2001/01/25/directv_attacks_hacked_smart_cards/ 3 - https://ownyourbits.com/2019/02/02/whats-wrong-with-the-raspberry-pi/

6 sats \ 1 reply \ @LaserStack 28 May 2022 freebie

Tor isn't pwned, stop FUDding. Even the article itself says that the bug isn't all that bad and that they are working on fixing it. And besides, almost every time the government has deanonymized Tor users it was because of their shitty OPSEC. And we have I2P anyway, so we aren't fucked even if Tor gets broken.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @zuspotirko 28 May 2022

This. Side channel attacks on Tor to break unlinkability are certainly possible in theory. But in practice the Tor network is pretty strong.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @premitive1 30 May 2022

I don't know much of anything about Tor, but a cancelled presentation evidence does not make. I did find this https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9343014

3 sats \ 2 replies \ @nullama 26 May 2022

You can already download Bitcoin like that: https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-23.0/bitcoin-23.0.torrent

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kilianbuhn 27 May 2022

"can" is nice but "does as the default option" would be better.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kilianbuhn 27 May 2022

"can" is nice but "does as the default option" would be better.

6 sats \ 5 replies \ @fiatjaf 26 May 2022

Read about radicle.xyz. That model could work.

But filter out all the shitcoin stuff.

Radicle would be great if it didn't have so much shitcoinery, but since it has I think it probably makes more sense to rebuild its core ideas on top of Nostr.

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @itsrealfake OP 26 May 2022

i really appreciate scuttlebutt, but i feel like the Nostr fam understands why it's got limited viability.

scuttlebutt was/is using git-ssb which is pretty awesome. something like that might port well to Nostr.

1 sat \ 3 replies \ @fiatjaf 27 May 2022

Yes, I looked at it but I don't quite understand it.

With that said, congratulations!, you have been chosen to implement the Nostr backend for Git.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @itsrealfake OP 27 May 2022

Around mid September (godwilling) I'll quit my full time job, and begin working exclusively on opensource. No idea how well that's gonna work for me, but it's something I've wanted to do for about a decade (and been saving up to do for about 3 years).

As that time gets closer, I'll start evaluating options for projects... Nostr is on the list. I'll be at btc++ getting some familiarity with the bitcoin codebase, too.

Always open to suggestions for what to work on & eager for some handholding/encouragement/etc... as I begin to explore outside the corporate world.

1 sat \ 1 reply \ @fiatjaf 30 May 2022

Great to hear! Join https://t.me/nostr_protocol to talk more about Nostr stuff IG you feel like.

My worthless advice is to start by making cool small tools or contributions instead of jumping directly into a big project.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @itsrealfake OP 31 May 2022

oh neat... i just realized you're the maintainer. swag :) pleasure to meet you... i really liked the intro that you wrote to the package.

i love agreeing with people. this is the part that got me most interested (several weeks back when i first heard about it on RHR i think... or maybe dispatch... i don't remember): https://github.com/fiatjaf/nostr#the-problem-with-ssb-secure-scuttlebutt

the scuttlebutt community is quirky, and wonderful in what they're up to. however, they seemed to loath the idea of bitcoin... which kinda turned me off from getting involved with them even though there's a lot of js overlap for me. and couchDb looks awesome.

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @nerd2ninja 26 May 2022

Day one, they would probably post core releases to bitcoin.org directly, but bitcointalk.org is also a possible solution.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @zuspotirko 26 May 2022

Yeah, but domains are always owned by someone...

1 sat \ 2 replies \ @k00b 26 May 2022

Git is designed to not need centralized hosting. Centralized hosting emerged after Git was created because:

the UX was better
discovery was better
coordination was easier (alternative is email patches)
features could be added easier (e.g. a GUI for pull requests, issues, discussions, reputation, etc.)

We never needed GitHub. We can easily live without it if need be.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @0260378aef 27 May 2022

It would be a big blow to lose the coordination features in github. To be fair though, there are several alternatives that offer something at least very close to the same level of tooling:

gitlab, gitea for example? A very quick ddg search threw up this table (which may be biased given its source, so pinch of salt!):

https://docs.gitea.io/en-us/comparison/

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 27 May 2022

Gitea is still centralized, but yeah, it could at least be hosted by someone who doesn't have GitHub's (owned by Microsoft) incentives.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @EnormousPony 27 May 2022

Git protocol is already a decentralized system, it's easy to setup and create different forks, branches.

We can easily go back to mailing lists and using tor for a central address if that's necessary or simply using a torrent and seed/leach from it

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Eminem 26 May 2022

To be honest, this would be against the law to ban Bitcoin code. Code is speech and they need to respect freedom of speech.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @JustDavids 26 May 2022

Strap it to a nuke. I have nothing to add since everyone else’s replies are intriguing.