CHIP-0032: Block NoSSD #111
Conversation
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Here are a few reasons I think this is a terrible idea:
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This is very well written and I completely understand your rationale I just think it is the wrong direction because I have never seen censorship advance human civilization like, ever And for that reason I am out |
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Disappointing proposal. NoSSD in current format hurts NC but censorship hurts Chia more. |
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I'm not a fan of NoSSD because of their past behavior and the fact that they kept their tech closed source, but censorship is not the answer. Better technology however is in the end, always the answer. NoSSD won the race because it had better tech, and farmers trying to maximize profits went to it. It will eventually fail to new better tech. GH and DrPlotter are better techs, so it's up to the farmers to switch. Trying to pin the current low NC on NoSSD is if not malicious, at least misleading. We want a higher NC, but the way to achieve it is through better technology and farmer adoption. I'm disappointed in this CHIP proposal. |
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It seems you haven't examined too closely how NoSSD works and what they have done to obfuscate their key to prevent CNI from doing exactly what you propose here:
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I expect this CHIP to attract more attention than most, so I'll be a little more thorough than usual here. @evergreendrose This comment is mostly for your benefit, but others can feel free to follow along. This will be CHIP-0032, or CHIP-32 if you like. I have made a few edits to the formatting to make the markdown happy, but otherwise I have not edited the content. I have taken the liberty to assign myself as the editor for this CHIP. This means that I will be a neutral arbiter for this CHIP as it goes through the usual process. I realize I have already given my opinion on X, but I will refrain from further doing so. Dylan -- if you feel that this disqualifies me from being an editor, or if you feel that I'm not faithfully acting as a neutral arbiter, let me know and a new editor will take over. This CHIP is now a
Other questions may surface during this process as well, but this seems like a good starting point. |
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A few things to clarify for everyone: At this point in the CHIP's process, it is a draft proposal. This does not mean it will be implemented. In order for that to happen, more info is needed (see my previous post), and we'll need to have general consensus from the community. That's where you come in. Everyone should feel free to review this CHIP. Add a comment to let us know if you agree or disagree with it, and why. You can also comment in the #chips channel in our Discord. Comments act as a quasi voting system. Engagement in these two locations will be considered in how broadly this CHIP is being supported. The timelines for finalizing CHIPs is fairly open. Once there appears to be broad consensus for this proposal, as well as a working reference implementation and test cases, we can move it into The real "voting" mechanism will occur if/when this CHIP is moved into |
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@nossdpool I'm pinging you as this CHIP pertains to your software. Feel free to comment as desired. |
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I don’t agree with this current proposal as its completely missed the step dialogue with nossd. This proposal should only be the last resort and this chip or another one should be created to get consensus first to approach nossd to change their protocol. As I'm not technical in side things and nossd has closed sourced software from what scrutinously said regarding blocking one address it wouldn't work anyways due to “It is suspected that the plotter and farmer are using a deterministic approach to assigning unique public keys (Farmer public key and Pool public key) to every single plot to prevent anyone from blocking their farm from producing blocks. I have also theorized that this additionally prevents anyone from discovering them skimming because they could easily not report some won blocks.”. While I agree broadly with what was mentioned by creator of the chip I believe dialogue first is paramount instead going straight to a ban. |
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I will add my two cents to this proposal. First, as most of you know, I replotted to NoSSD. So there may be a presumed underlying bias with my opinion. But I want to say that even if I didn't have 35 PiBe of NoSSD plots right now, I would still be against this proposal because censorship would become a slippery slope. Who gets to define what is a sufficient "problem" to block someone from the blockchain. As SlowestTimelord pointed out, an NC of 6 is likely less of a problem than being known as a blockchain that can be censored. Second, also already pointed out, superior technology is going to be what beats NoSSD. It's analogous to freedom of speech - rather than allow the government to control speech, we have ideals that more voices with the truth will win out in the end. With this new technology (DrPlotter and GH 3.0), the better tech will win out in the end. We don't have to manipulate or force anything. Finally, this proposal would wipe out 11 EiB of netspace if it was even possible. It would certainly stir up massive conflict with the mega-whales on NoSSD. All of this would be terrible for the health of the community and health of the network. Even without my NoSSD farm, I would be against this proposal set forth in CHIP-32. |
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It won't work. |
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I am disappointed to see this proposal. Of course we want to encourage decentralization as much as possible, but the censorship approach is misguided in spirit and problematic in implementation to say the least. I hope this proposal is forcefully rejected. |
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Farmers are free to pick their tools: and if you'd prefer they pick different ones... then build better ones. NoSSD isn't doing anything wrong: just offering an option that many farmers are choosing for themselves to use. I haven't had to login to github for years: but this proposal was so poorly thought out I had to go find my creds. The idea that a project that's interacting properly with the Chia community would get censored is ludicrous. |
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I think scrutinous made some strong points on the tech side of things why this won't work, and it seems max thinks so as well. Since this seems to be a more community oriented chip, and I feel there are repercussions in general just from the ideas mentioned in, I will still post my thoughts around it that may be more "lateral" to the actual proposal.
EditL Also to address the point made that NoSSD chose not to implement CHIP-22, which I personally don't think is grounds for blocking them either way. Chia-22 has been in the client for around 2-3 weeks? Even less as the release was rolled back for part of that time. So it's really soon too soon to judge if they will implement it or not. So I think its misleading at best to say they chose not to implement it. |
Thanks for clarifying. Do you believe there is an alternative solution they could implement that would improve NC and not require a replot? |
As scrutinous pointed out, this is not technically viable so I wont address that. I generally agree that its hypocritical to try to improve censorship resistance via censorship, this is something that comes up a lot in public blockchains, and it becomes a blurry line when ultimately the decision is made by farmers. The same farmers would heavily benefit from a 11 EiB drop in netspace, so its not out of the questions that this would get broad support amongst farmers who are ultimately seeking financial viability of their farm. I also generally agree that decisions that this directly hurts farmers who made a rational economic decision, and appreciate that you are not taking these decisions lightly. It's to hard gauge one class of farmers incentives above another, especially when they understood the risks of a centralized entity owning their farm. This segways into the ethos discussion. When you say it would harm the ethos, its again hard to gauage of class of farmers 'ethos' over another. Its clear NoSSD farmers ethos is profit at all costs, I do wonder how far this ethos extends to the rest of the network, and how we consider what THE ethos is generally. |
I agree censorship is generally bad, but yet it is a reality we live with. Bad actors should have the right to speak, until they lose it. Law and Order is a necessary function in society, and while I love freedom of speech, i don't think there should be no form consequences to actions or proclamations that do great harm to a group. How that patterns to chia is unkown, but I am aware of many public blockchains that consider censorship as a form of punishment or dissuasion for bad actors. Of course 'bad' is subjective. But in a perfect system, the will of the majority of farmers is exercised, even if that means censorship. This is a really tough balance to strike, freedom of the farmers to run the chain vs freedom of its users to not be censored. |
I can't say for sure that GH and DrPlotter will beat NoSSD, because we don't know what NoSSD has behind the scenes. They are not destined to fail. We keep underestimating them and suffer the consequences. Yes a low NC is directly because of them, if you have another take please comment but otherwise i dont believe that's a misleading statement. Is censorship the answer? Thats the question of this chip. Its unclear why you would be disappointed, after all this is a public forum to discuss ideas, you should be happy to see an idea that is a bit more controversial especially if you are against censorship. |
I feel this is a last resort, as NoSSD has not been active in discussions at all, and CNI has not shared any update on their plans for adopting chip 22, or the new plot format, which is a huge concern but less related to this chip. If you have any suggestions on interim steps we can take to help the NC or at the very least get NoSSD to communicate, I am eager to help. |
To answer your first question, I think ultimately the farmers decide if a problem warrants action. Being known as a chain where farmers censor bad actors is probably better than a chain where 1 entity makes majority of decisions and proposals, but both of these comments are speculative. If NoSSD 3.0 came out and was better than GH3 or DrPlotter would you switch back to that? |
Censorship only exists as long as it is supported by somebody. In this case, that somebody is you.
Who gets to decide this? I hope it's me. (Narrator: it wasn't)
Language does not do harm. That's people and their physical violence that you are thinking of, similar to our government backing up laws with guns.
Please list your top three examples of censorship actions on other blockchains that resulted in a net positive.
A perfect system would be one devoid of censorship. The current protocol does not meet the definition of censoring in any aspect. A new protocol that requires a new plot format for all is also not censorship any more than Apple deprecating support for an old iPhone is censorship. |
Its hard for me to sympathize with your disappointment. While this is a 'fringe' idea, I think its better to discuss in the open and run through the paces of the CHIP process than roll over out of fear of disappointing management. I care enough about the issue to spend time writing about it, and personally was very disappointed about how CHIP-22 played out, which lead to me looking for alternative solutions. Now, it's clear this solution is technically not viable, but I think you'd agree that a technically viable solution is desirable. A socially viable solution (one that doesn't break the ethos) is entirely based on how you define the ethos, and who you believe controls the chain. Ultimately farmers, a group of free think, economically motivated individuals decide what they support. In a scenario where farmers had the wherewithal to dramatically increase their profits AND a key metric on the chain, maybe they would go for it. But its unlikely to get support at the core development level, so it won't get there. Ultimately I'd like for any and all ideas to be presented to farmers so they, the ones with ultimate discretion, can decide for themselves. I apologize for the disappointment, but hope you trust that I am engaging in this discussion in good faith. |
In the same vein, farmers are free to censor an entity if they so chose, if it benefits them. Im sorry you felt this was poorly thought out, it was definitely cooked up in a few hours but I felt it was a really important discussion to be had. You proved that by logging in to comment! And I disagree that NoSSD is interacting properly with the Chia community, and I believe I'm in the majority there. |
Im very disappointed that a crux of your argument points to how Evergreen handles their fleet of decentralized devices. I don't believe this is related to NoSSD, and is an attack on the author, not the argument. I didnt even mention Fast Farmer, and believe that the better tech will win. I am speaking for a subset of farmers who of course would want to see their farm rewards increase by ~30% quickly, and see a rapid rise in the NC. Your post points out how Chia Inc is reponsible for changes getting pushed and could be held liable. This is ironic, because to my understanding Chia Inc does not have unilateral decision making about what gets merged into their client. I believe that is what the CHIP process is for, which is why I proposed this as a CHIP. I am eager to understand what threshold of proof that NoSSD is a 'bad actor' it would take for the community to vote. I am not sure there is a mechanism to do that today, so we are really left with CNIs opinion of NoSSD and their willingness to pursue a path that goes against their ethos. This is all moot given it is not a viable technical solution, however I am glad you brought up several points of concern that I believe need to be addressed regardless of this CHIP. |
That somebody would be the farmers. A perfect system would exercise the will of the farmers, in which they are free to censor anything they like. Language (content) gets censored all the time on the internet, and I believe blockchains are a way to go beyond that. However farmers can, and will censor what they don't support, it inevitable as people will try to push the limits of the content that can go on a distributed network. Great discussion but don't want to get too far off topic. |
The mechanism today is that you first "print the ballot" by making a fork of the Chia blockchain with your proposed change. Voting then is how many downloads you can get vs the original. If you can't even technically "print the ballot" then we aren't going to be able to ever vote. |
Not with that attitude ;) |
But with magical thinking? If anything you allow NoSSD to play the victim now, well played. |
Yes, you raise a good point here. NoSSD might release version 3 -- who knows, it might be even more efficient than Pro4x or GH 3.0 -- and if it is, I'm a greedy farmer. |
I am sorry you are disappointed and take the mention of conflict of interest or how parallels of your own business tie into this as a personal attack and that they should be dismissed. You even mention in another comment:
Which makes this seem more like it is related to your business offerings, as there has not been a single vocal supporter of these measure. You have mentioned your concerns around having to re-plot your customers as well. While other in the community may share this concern, so far no-one has and it would be every welcome for them to state so here if they feel that way. That said the NC is not the reason for Chia Inc. wanting to implement a new plot format, this is rooted in the security of the chain, and it has been down that 6-10 after launch there would likely need to be a re-plot to address security. By bringing this into a CHIP proposal, it is quite valid address parallels and conflicts of interests as you are now escalating these ideas one step further into implementing them in practice. I hope you don't take what I say as a personal attack, and I am making my points and arguments in good faith from a neutral, yet critical context as this is how a CHIP should be approached. The context of which is I don't know your motives if any, and I don't know NoSSDs motives, some of which have been presented as assumptions in your CHIP, which is also arguably is a personal attack NoSSD and is making baseless accusations at points. I will address the points you brought up and hope you can understand I am not attacking you and understand given this is a proposal process, some things do need to be reviewed critically. I also don't like that this is how this CHIP needs to be addressed, but it comes with the nature of a very impactful change being proposed that has nothing to do with actual tech, and is solely based around sentiments outside of nakamoto coefficient, which is still not being address from a true technical change other than a coordinated strong armed action against 30% of the network and a single entity
It doesn't matter if you mentioned Fast Farmer or not, you can't expect a conflict of interest not to be brought up just because you didn't mention it. If anything not addressing it explicitly in your CHIP is a cause of more concern not less. I would argue you do need to address the conflict of interest, even more so that you are now submitting a chip that would fork out the competitor directly through chia, who also gave your business a grant to develop a competing technology. This also further adds to the fact that in the case Chia inc directly implemented such a chip it would show centralized control of the chain by Chia Inc. As they would then be forking out a competitor to a product they helped fund.
There is little to say here other than the argument this is good because it increases rewards for other farmers at the expense of others seems inconceivable to me as a good and fair argument. They are not exploiting the chain, every thing is valid consensus, the only reasoning here is the NC and wielding power to increase the rewards of some at the expense of others.
I don't see how this is disappointing and not a valid point. Most of your companies users are not choosing what transactions to include either, for all anyone knows the node they are running already doesn't include NoSSD blocks, or could have any type of arbitrary control over what gets included. Its not a 1-1, as your users do get the choice of picking a node, but it is still fully valid to mention this parallel imo.
I very well may have a misunderstanding of CHIPs, but from my understanding they are to submit an implementation and sometimes an idea for chia to implement into their client. There is no reason to bring a chip if you have a service or product that interacts with the chain that isn't looking for direct protocol implementation or software support via Chia Inc. Like said by Dan Perry, Chia Inc doesn't get to choose if people support those changes, as its still the community that choose to run them. But just the act of Chia Inc implementing a change does mean Chia is trying to influence the chain in that manner. And implementing a direct ban of NoSSD would be them attempting to use the influence in a non neutral way, not tied to a technical improvement. I don't think chia would touch implementing a proposal like this, unless it had near full support of the community and even then I assume they'd be weary.
I'd say the start would just be any proof, claims take evidences. And going back to the ethos, it seems a large part of the community feel like the ethos of non-censorship is more important than the NC . The threshold of proof it would take for me to agree that NoSSD is a bad actor, is the same as it would take for me to believe evergreen were a bad actor when it comes to including transactions in their provided node. That said with NoSSD there is the fact that they also sign the block, which is a huge difference than just censoring transactions. I bring up that many evergreen farmers are also using a centralized node that chooses the foliage as that was what was mentioned in your CHIP. But I do agree that there is a valid concern around the fact that NoSSD also signs the blocks as well and farmers can't just easily switch. That said I don't think this is a concern given no proof and they are still a good bit away from the threshold where they could attempt any kind of attack on the chain. I hope you understand why I have to bring parallels of your business operations into this discussion, as these are concerns behind the motive and possible conflict of interest. In the case of this chip, as you are a representative of a business presenting a non technical proposal that solely targets another party, I can't focus solely the argument being made as that argument is not for implementing some form of technical change that can reviewed solely from a technical level. I have stated how I personally feel around censorship on the chain and well as others. But when submitting something as drastic as forking out a specific entity you have to review the possible motives behind it. I personal don't think you have hidden motives, but these issues and conflicts of interest have to be addressed, brought up and known to those reading this discussion and during the consideration of such a proposal. We can't expect Chia and the community to hold up a ethos of transparency and not bring this up. I don't know your true motive, I don't know NoSSDs true motives. All I know is that there is a good case of a conflict of interests around Fast Farmer and such a chip would benefit you financially as well as other competitors in the compression space . I can't personally consider the chip as separate from your business offerings, while you may very well be doing this solely from your personal stance in the community. No one else has yet to support this chip, discussions on twitter before hand had no vocal support, so its easy to assume there is business motive behind it. Either way starting a chip process is going to involve critical review of both the tech and impact. As being solely a CHIP targeting 30% of the network and against a single entity in the business sense, the critical review is going to center around possible motives and how it affects the chain and community as a whole. You can't represent a business, and bring a proposal advocating a ban of a personal entity on the chain even if they are unknown and then wonder why personal conflicts of interest and motives are being brought up. The more I think about it, this 100% shouldn't be a CHIP, as everything about this is personal, there is no technical change or improvement offering. It is solely based around an ___ vs them argument and everything about this would increase or decrease personal rewards of individuals themselves and directly target a participator of the chain based on nothing but unproven assumptions and maybes. AS I've stated before I personally think this is something user should do themselves, or should be done separate from Chia Inc. And it seems it can technically even be done via a top down change. But if users want to play wack-a-mole with NoSSD the client is open source and there are various was detached from Chia Inc for the community to shape their own consensus. I personally don't mean any of this as an attack on you, I'm just trying to have a critical discussion I'd honestly rather not have. I think your business has done a lot for the chain, and I have no hard feels. I honestly wish you hadn't brought this chip as I feel like it is very shortsighted and hurts evergreen optics more than anything. But also a CHIP process escalates the idea more than just a discussion happening in a twitter space, and thus opens up the need for critical and dissective review. |
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我认为这不是一个好的想法，我不支持这个想法。 |
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Others have more eloquently expressed my concerns. I am strongly against this proposal. |
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I don't want to talk on the merits of the conversation as this is all a trolling taken way too far IMO. I do have an important question for @danieljperry here. Do we give a CHIP number to technically impossible ideas? |
Either way... I hope this chip stays up. Censorship will be proposed again, and the community comments and sentiment here needs to stand as a warning to others. |
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I enthusiastically support NoSSDs right to be as toxic as they want 👍 |
Yes. They are given the number √-1 , √-2 , etc. |
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In response to a few of the comments here, CNI (Chia Network, Inc.) has not yet taken a stance on this CHIP, though some of its employees have. Even if this CHIP were to be finalized, CNI would be under no obligation to add it to their code base. This is true for all CHIPs, and all software vendors. If the CHIP were finalized, and CNI agreed with it, then the company would add it. If it got to this point, then there would (by definition) already be consensus from the community, and it would be adopted. However, if the company disagreed with it, then the company would ignore it (even after it was finalized). In this case, if someone else wanted to adopt it, they could either fork CNI's code, or write their own client that included the CHIP, and push for community adoption thereafter. |
Did I get this right? The new plot format is the best change. Just let your customers mail you the hardware they purchased and replot it for them. Your margins appear high enough to support this all things considered. Or just turn off the website... |
Interesting. I have some additional thoughts around that specifically I will put in a less derailing the thread place. Would hate to see the CHIP process get gamed for marketing purposes and a few other things that jump out around this. Seeing as it is being taken seriously then I will add a hard NO on blockchain censorship in all forms, including this one. |
That was my attempt at a joke (those are imaginary numbers). |
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Back to being serious. I'm not here to judge whether the CHIP is a good idea. The reason it got assigned a number was because it met the threshold of becoming a CHIP that was outlined in CHIP-1. One could argue that it is not valuable or congruent, but those would be subjective judgements. It might also not be feasible, but this wasn't brought to our attention until after the number was assigned. And I don't think this has been confirmed yet. I have rejected many other attempts at CHIPs because they didn't meet this threshold. If someone tries to game the system, then either their proposals will be rejected, or they will have provided a potentially valuable idea to the community. And simply assigning a CHIP as a draft is in no way an endorsement of the ideas contained within. |
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I'm just wondering about the reference implementation aspect of it. I actually like having the discussion on it archived here. The CHIP didn't appear to present a reference implementation code for the patch in question, or is it fine to fill in those details in a CHIP as it progresses? |
A working reference implementation would be required in order for the CHIP to be moved to the |
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Well file this under TIL I have not suggested several ideas as I thought I had to have a working prototype! Great to know. |
Sorry this wasn't clearer. Looking forward to seeing those ideas!Caveat it needs to be "We plan to build this thing. We have not fully built it yet, but we do have a good idea of how to do so, as demonstrated here." If it's "I want someone else to build this thing," then it should be a feature request. |
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@evergreendrose On Discord you indicated that you wanted to withdraw this CHIP due to it not being technically feasible. Can I get you to confirm that here? If so, I'll handle the rest. |
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Yes! Thank you.
…On Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 6:03 PM Dan Perry ***@***.***> wrote:
@evergreendrose <https://github.com/evergreendrose> On Discord you
indicated that you wanted to withdraw this CHIP due to it not being
technically feasible. Can I get you to confirm that here? If so, I'll
handle the rest.
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This CHIP is now |
What gets done on-chain should be dictated by the code of the chain. Any other form of arbitration is bound to end poorly. We don't want to be a blockchain or community that claims code is law, but hypocritically seeks out human arbitration. Historically, such chains tend to centralize and lose their vitality, k? |
This is a first cut at a CHIP to block NoSSD from continuing to damper NC. This was a quick cut, and the implementation seems straightforward, so I felt it was better to publish quickly and get feedback even prior to having a complete implementation.