Quote from: TanteStefana2 on June 06, 2014, 08:51:53 PM

Quote from: TsuyokuNaritai on June 06, 2014, 05:19:40 PM

Quote from: splawik21 on June 06, 2014, 04:46:29 PM

Quote from: eduffield on June 06, 2014, 04:42:41 PM

We want to make it clear that automatic checkpointing is a temporary solution that will be removed from the code as soon as we feel it is safe to do so. Though it is clearly beneficial for use as a failsafe mechanism while we perfect the code that powers Darksend, in the long term, the presence of a centralized checkpointing server on the network is unacceptable.

Sorry for my ignorance if this is covered elsewhere, but why is a centralised server necessary? Why couldn't for example new versions of the mining code contain a key which must be included in each solved block after a certain date for that block to be considered valid by those that have updated correctly? Thanks.

Because not everyone updates their client in a timely manner. If the miners do not update, then the blockchain will fork. It will fork until most of the clients are updated and it has a strong enough blockchain in the system to resist any forking. This should only be required until all the dust settles. I think Evan will keep it in place a little longer so that if there are any other issues while perfecting DarkSend, it will be there to keep things going. Once Darksend is opened sourced it will be removed if not before then.

I'm guessing that it forks when multiminers come in to mine. Those are pools that don't follow what is going on and are not part of our community, so the drop in, with old clients and a lot of hash power, and screw everything up. Not on purpose, but that is the result. I believe Evan said in another post, that the client will eventually ignore bad players like that, but don't think that's working yet

But that doesn't matter once the identifier is implemented since it will pick correct fork and return orphans and redirect to identified?