mimblewimble/grin

Identify and ban total proof of work cheats

Open

#1139 opened on Jun 5, 2018

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 (4 comments) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)Rust (4,876 stars) (991 forks)batch import
enhancementhelp wanted

Description

During header sync, we trust the total difficulty given by peers during the handshake to select who to get headers from. This is easy to lie about. We need to identify when a node fails to send us headers to match that total difficulty and ban them.

Contributor guide

Tech stack
rust
Domain
blockchain
Issue type
feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
4
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
over 1 week
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
needs investigation
Prerequisites
RustMimblewimble protocolGrin's p2p header sync
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
20
Research direction
The issue requires implementing a mechanism to detect when a peer provides an inflated total difficulty during header sync. Start by examining the header sync code in `src/peers/handler.rs` and the handshake protocol. Check the existing ban logic in `src/peers/peer.rs`. The goal is to verify that the total difficulty sent in the handshake is consistent with the headers subsequently provided. If the peer fails to deliver headers that match the claimed difficulty, they should be banned. Look at comments and previous PRs for any related work.