SYBILing nodes! 😱 Exploiting IC Network... Community Attention Required!

[Lorimer]

I would like to clarify that I am not responsible for the recent motion proposals either.

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My intention has always been for this discussion to be productive. I’m glad to see the conversation finally moving along, after more than a month of unwillingness from certain individuals to comment on key points (and some very dismissive comments along the way). I hope my frustration has not come across as unproductive. This is an important topic, and I think it needs pushing forward.

I haven’t got much time to catch up on everything tonight, but I would like to pick up on a few things.

@sat

It’s only possible to prove an existing link in some cases, and have suspicion otherwise. In this thread there is a lot of suspicion and little proofs, but even suspicion is actionable IMHO

I completely agree - I don’t really think proof is possible (or realistically obtainable) in most cases. We need suspicions to be able to be broached and explored in the open, and for that to be normal and acceptable, as a means of combating complacency (we currently have too much of the latter, not the other way around).

I’m very much a fan of your suggestions @Sat (it’s along the lines of what I was originally suggesting when I started this thread).

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Thanks for your post @GAbassad. If the community is going to establish a means of homing in on potential threats of this sort, it would be helpful to gain an understanding of some of the legitimate reasons for peculiar commonalities. Your answers might help serve as context for evaluating other suspicious cases now or in the future. Some of these questions may seem pointless, and/or the answers obvious, but I’d appreciate you entertaining them if you would.

• Could you explain the reason for the naming convention used in the forum accounts discussed above? In Geeta’s case a prior account was created on the same day using her full name, but then abandoned in favour of the “{name}23” format. Can I ask why there was a need to go out of the way to establish consistency in this respect? What’s the meaning of the 23 suffix?
• Would you also be able to comment on the motivation for posting practically identical onboarding statements? Most other statements have significantly more uniqueness to them.
• Have you ever taken responsibility over managing the affairs of any of Geeta’s nodes for her?
• Could you provide some specifics regarding your motivations for creating the GeoNodes node provider? What was stopping you from onboarding more nodes under your existing Node Provider entity? If you could provide the concrete reasons and specifics (rather than generalities) that would be very helpful. Please note that I’m asking about the decision (and reasoning) to onboard that company as a distinct Node Provider (not the decision to found the company). It has always been clear that Node Providers are meant to represent independent entities.

@GAbassad

Even if all our nodes were consolidated under Tina and myself, we would still be well below the 42-node threshold (and the 42-node threshold wasn’t even in place yet when we onboarded). The suggestion that we are over represented is factually incorrect.

You only need 13 sybiling nodes to control a subnet, and fewer to attack a subnet. In any case I gather that the limit has been a matter of interest to you?

@katiep

we have told him that we—DFINITY—would not vote in support of him running more than 42 nodes no matter how many businesses it is or people that he’s assisting

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Similarly, @roald-av8, are you able to respond regarding the non-disclosure agreement you have with the node provider that gave you your nodes? Why do the terms of your node transfer need to be kept secret?

This question, and others, have gone unanswered for quite some time now (and nobody seems to mind).