Quote from: nickgogerty on May 26, 2016, 01:05:02 PM

Quote from: lfloorwalker on May 26, 2016, 07:04:03 AM

Quote from: corather on May 26, 2016, 06:35:26 AM

Quote from: Luckybit on May 26, 2016, 05:52:58 AM

Quote from: CryptoNick on May 25, 2016, 10:06:25 PM

Quote from: Luckybit on May 25, 2016, 05:53:57 PM

If I know more about the attack vectors maybe I can help more or maybe if there is a list of attack vectors for the community to research that would work. But my guess is the concerns are hardware and software vulnerabilities. Software you can solve by formal verification and correct by construction to make it bug free. Hardware it really depends on what you can afford and how determined the adversary is. Economic incentives can also be put into play to improve security. Incentive centered design can take care of that part using smart contracts: https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/hotsec06/tech/full_papers/wash/wash.pdf

Aren't we also talking about emulation of the actual device too? Plug in an emulator pass through behind your TV or Computer or every outlet in your house. Claim to have solar panels and then gain reward of the $20 per SLR price levels that everyone will be buying and vying for pushing the price to $40 then $60 upwards to $400 a coin to compete with BitCoin even though it has to sell to Bitcoin, the selling could actually hurt Bitcoin markets so SLR will have an edge there. Seeing that there will be Billions of dollars of SLR dumping on Bitcoin and lowering the price it gives SLR an opportunity to catch up

That is to say that people will be buying Bitcoin at that point when they could just have an epiphany and use their money to buy Solar and then Claim and then Sell SLR for Bitcoin. At that point we have another problem no one will be buying Bitcoin to sustain the sale of SolarCoin

Or perhaps they don't have to buy Solar and just buy the emulator to plug into every outlet in their house in order to gain the $400 SLR Coins. They still get to use the power they emulate too as a pass through since it only monitors.

So SLR price should sky rocket and Bitcoin price will dive since it has to provide the capitol for the exodus of Bitcoin from the sale of the expensive SLR. Make it happen!

Each device would have to have a cryptographic identifier and you can secure these devices from emulation to a certain extent but the question is at what cost? Even now people can find ways to leech free electricity if they are willing to go through extraordinary effort. What matters is how much fraud is there and is it beyond acceptable levels? At what point is it worth the cost to do something about it?

This is a bit like the botnet problem in Proof of Work mining.

It has to be worth it. At a certain point in scale, you have to provide name plate identification. Would it be economical to simulate a few watts of electricity generation below the threshold? Probably not because the cost of doing something like that will outweigh any potential ill gotten gains.

Yes, it is something we noted in our analogue attack vector SWOT on the input current sensor. The benefits of the analogue attack do not outweigh the costs.

IN terms of generation fraud, its also important to remember that once nameplate capacity is verified, its pretty easy to estimate production. As things get more robust, estimates can be made based on irradiance factors, nearest neighbor generation etc. There will always be some fraud, the trick is to make the balance correct between system integrity and ease of use for customers. We will strive to get more robust and scale the security with the scope and scale of the claim. In addition periodic audits and true up details will be vital. Solarcoins are granted on a conditional basis, so any hints of fraud jeapordize future claims. Hopefully for most users, Falsifying a few months of claims at at the upper bound of estimated generation isn't likely worth jeapordizing 20 years on a go forward basis.

If they never owned Solar and when SolarCoin replaces BitCoin it will be worth it. $500 a coin for 1KWH is definitely worth it. I would think someone could make a hack and mass produce it at that point. Then they could also average the output and make it go even lower for radiance. Then if your output is lower than your neighbors you are not committing noticable fraud. Being that you may have a faulty panel or a tree in the way or a bad piece of equipment. All they have to do is stay under the radar and no one would know any difference.

But there is no monitoring at the moment. So anyone can claim to have solar to claim solar coin. Who will police millions of so called claimers? And it is not like a crime is being committed since you are just giving away something for free. And they can say they only Claimed to have it and they could Claim to sell it after they Claimed.