Quote from: presstab on July 14, 2016, 05:45:54 PM

Quote from: iamnotback on July 14, 2016, 10:07:10 AM

kiklo, you can't just claim that 'difficulty' field has any relevant meaning in PoS, unless you know what in code is driving the value of that field. Programming isn't like "the UI is always correct". We have to actually understand what the hell "difficulty" means in this PoS algorithm your code is using. Who knows maybe the programmer is setting some value there what is random or just some gibberish hash of some other data. The programmer might have just wanted to use a consistent set of fields between the two UI (PoW and PoS). I really can't determine any thing from that. I'd have to dig into the code, which really isn't fair since I am not being paid to do that.

Every reference I have studied on PoS has never mentioned a difficulty. There is some talk about strategies that an attacker might use which end up using a lot of computation thus being sort of like PoW, except these aren't in the official client and there is no record of the level of that difficulty recorded (since it is an attack, thus not designed into the protocol).

I am sorry but your point about PoS having difficulty doesn't make sense as far as what I know about PoS and the numerous references I have read. The reason your coin hasn't been attacked is it isn't worth doing so. Ethereum wasn't attacked until the marketcap reached $billion and DAO $160m. It has nothing to do with you not needing to use checkpoints. You just got lucky because your coin doesn't have a large enough marketcap to be worth attacking.

That is not intended to be an insult to your coin effort. Everyone should be free to create and market an altcoin. I am not out to destroy all these smaller coins with my words. If you ever manage to reach your larger goals with it, I assume you'll hire a full time programmer then you will start to deal with some of the issues I am pointing out.

Frankly it is pretty rude of you to argue programming issues with me, as I have written perhaps a few 100,000s lines of code in my lifetime ranging from 68000 assembly to C to C++ to PHP to SQL to Android to Java to Javascript to Scala to Haskell, etc, etc, etc

Not trying to get in a heated debate or anything, but trying to wrap my head around the claims that difficulty is different from PoW to PoS.

From my understanding, both difficulty adjustment algorithms (although altered from coin to coin) are looking at the time it took to produce a new block. If the time is greater than the targeted block time, then difficulty goes down so that it is easier to produce the next block, if the time it took was less than the target difficulty goes up so that it is harder to produce the next block. I don't see any real conceptional difference in the difficulty adjustment algorithms.

I suppose that maybe its an argument about the valid proof required to create that block rather than the adjustment algorithm itself (sorry the thread has been a bit difficult to follow).

Admittedly, I am not a crazy expert programmer. I am still working on my masters in CS, and learn new things all the time. I have however, what I consider a pretty good fundamental understanding of Bitcoin and Peercoin code bases.

As I explained already (see quote below), the coin age time employed to threshold the delay for signing in the variant of PoS you are using, isn't delayed by PoW computation delay. The coin age delay is a fabrication of the UXTO at that point in time. Since the attacker can construct a UXTO from his own stake and since in PoS there is no PoW computational delay impeding the attacker from rebuilding a Long Range chain attack, then the only way to prevent such an attack (i.e. the nothing-at-stake problem) in PoS is to employ checkpoints. This is is known to every expert who has studied PoS.

Quote from: iamnotback on July 14, 2016, 11:41:13 AM

I was also referring to the accumulated sum of the thresholds you call difficulty. That is irrelevant and that you don't understand why, goes directly to the heart of your slobbering Dunning-Kruger ignorance.

I already explained to you there is no computational cost. Adding thresholds which have no computation cost does not prevent the fast construction of a chain from any point in history. The coin age delays are entirely relative to what the attacker constructs on the chain of transactions.

Unlike your Dunning-Kruger idiot troll colleague kiklo, at least you are apparently smart (humble/wise) enough to understand you should phrase your thoughts as an inquiry and see what my rebuttal is, so I can explain to you what your myopia is. I can appreciate a calm and rational discussion with you, if you keep it that way. Thank you.

Tangentially, note I am in some areas of programming, "a crazy expert programmer". Did you not for example see my schooling of Bitcoin core developer (also key member of Blockstream) Gregory Maxwell on the cost of a correct index missing from the Ogg container format for which he is supposed to be a resident expert given he was the co-inventor of one of the Ogg codecs. Did you not see where I was designing a new programming language which is one of the most expert tasks in computer science. I don't say this to be boastful, but because it is an enormous waste of my time when someone doesn't respect that I am, and trolls their slobbering ignorance on one of my threads, dragging me into wasting hours and hours of my scarce time. kiklo has now earned the asshat medal, which will be permanently affixed to his reputation from my perspective. After this debate has concluded with kiklo walking away with his tail between his legs, he will go on my Ignore and disappear into a black hole far from my productive life because he has negative worth in life (from my perspective). I make mistakes like any human. None of us are omniscient and I am not expert about every corner of the programming universe (e.g. I am not a cryptographer nor am I a networking expert), but I am orders-of-magnitude more knowledgeable about programming issues than kiklo and in his messed up sense of pecking order; he seems to somehow think I would go on for 4 pages in a thread if I were not expertly 99% confident that I am correct about the issue he and I have been debating.

Quote from: kiklo on July 14, 2016, 06:35:56 PM

Would not be the 1st Time, I corrected People who thought they knew everything and they were wrong.
Been doing that for ~80 years now. Cheesy

That is your own Fault ,
No one told you to spread misinformation about a topic, even you admit you do not have a complete understanding of.
Take a pill and calm down or pop a blood vessel , your choice , but don't expect me to let you spread misinformation like it is gospel when it is not.

Nice fantasy you have asshat.