Re:My professional opinion as a blockchain researcher: I don...
by peterwwillis on Monday February 12, 2018 @03:45PM
(#16361936)
> The word "byzantine" is so over-used as well as abused in this field of research, that for a random paper that mentions that word I can't really tell what actual problem it's solving unless I read through it fully in detail
I wouldn't say this is a problem. It's a useful red flag that you should stop reading this paper, or at the very least question the competency of the authors. Could save hours of your life!
Re:My professional opinion as a blockchain researcher: I don...
by infinity0 on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @04:41AM
(#16365899)
It is a massive problem because it wastes a lot of people's time doing research in this area, trying to read up on previously-done work most of which is uninsightful and useless.
The whole point is that I can't tell if it's a red flag simply by reading the abstract, I have to read the entire paper. The good papers also use the same vague terminology!
Lamport's original paper does seem to treat adversaries appropriately, but I've seen many worse papers from recently failing to consider what happens if a malicious peer specifically tries to exploit your "defence" mechanism.