codex-research/evaluations/sia.md

An evaluation of the Sia whitepaper

2020-12-07 Mark Spanbroek

https://sia.tech/sia.pdf

Goal of this evaluation is to find things to adopt or avoid while designing Dagger. It is not meant to be a criticism of Sia.

Pros:

• Clients do not need to actively monitor hosts (§1). Once a contract has been agreed upon, the host earns/loses coins based on proofs of storage that the network can check.
• Denial of service attacks can be mitigated by burning funds associated with missed proofs (§4).
• Proof of storage is simple; provide a random piece of the file, and the corresponding Merkle proof (§5.1).
• Promotes erasure codes to safeguard against data loss (§7.2).
• Suggests to use payment channels for micro-payments (§7.3).
• The basic reputation system is protected against Sybil attacks (§7.4).

Cons:

• Sia has its own blockchain (§1), which makes some attacks more likely (§5.2, §5.3). This can be mitigated by adopting a widely used, general purpose blockchain such as Ethereum.
• Requires a multi-signature scheme (§2).
• The proof-of-storage algorithm requires that hosts store the entire file (§4), instead of a few chunks.
• Contracts can be edited (§4). This feels like an unnecessary complication of the protocol.
• Randomness for the storage proofs comes from the latest block hash (§5.1). This can be manipulated, especially when using a specialized blockchain for storage.
• There is an arbitrary data field that might be used for advertisements in a storage marketplace (§6). This feels like a very restrictive environment for a marketplace, and an unnecessary complication for the underlying blockchain.
• It is suggested that clients use erasure coding before encryption (§7.2). If this were reversed (first encryption, then erase coding) then this would open up scenario's for caching and re-hosting by those who do not possess the decryption key.
• Consecutive micropayments are presented as a solution for the trust problems while downloading (§7.3). This assumes that the whole file, or a large part of it, is stored on a single host. It also doesn't entirely mitigate withholding attacks.
• The basic reputation system favors hosts that have already earned or bought coins (§7.4). It is also unclear how the reputation system discourages abuse.
• Governance seems fairly centralized, with most funds and proceeds going to a single company (§8).