2023-08-28 Vac weekly

Vac week 35 §

• Vac Milestones: https://www.notion.so/Vac-Roadmap-907df7eeac464143b00c6f49a20bb632
• Vac Github Repos: https://www.notion.so/Vac-Repositories-75f7feb3861048f897f0fe95ead08b06

vsu::P2P §

• vac:p2p:nim-libp2p:vac:maintenance
  • Becaming a Validator in the Nimbus Consensus client (95%)
  • IWANT replies can be bigger than the pubsub message limit (100%, on review) https://github.com/status-im/nim-libp2p/issues/887
  • Improve gossipsub DDoS resistance (98%) https://github.com/status-im/nim-libp2p/pull/920

vsu::Tokenomics §

• admin/misc:
• vac:tke::codex:economic-analysis
  • Timeline of Filecoin vs competitors, IPFS vs Filecoin usage, Filip: miners perspective
• vac:tke::status:SNT-staking
  • Further debugging, verify Multiplier Points calculation (especially gas fee optimization, how GMX implements)
• vac:tke::nomos:economic-analysis
  • Book seperate calls w/ Moh and Marcin to discuss helping them w/ their relative points of focus
• vac:tke::waku:economic-analysis
  • Call w/ Aaryamann on RLN, condense our thoughts to a “proposal” for Waku

vsu::Distributed Systems Testing (DST) §

• vac:dst:analysis:nomos:nomos-simulation-analysis
  • Analysis done, scales to million nodes
  • Exploratory sets of runs done
  • Decided on the parameter set for the final runs
• vac:dst:software-testing:waku:test-plans
  • get familiar with specs for some of the Waku protocols
• vac:dst:software-testing:waku:test-automation-js-waku
  • Setup local env
  • Investigated how the existing tests are running and how the code is structured
• admin/misc:
  • 2 CCs ooo

vsu:Smart Contracts (SC) §

• vac:sc::vac:secureum-upskilling
  • Finished Secureum Slot 6
  • Read a bit into Upgradable contract patterns
• vac:sc::status:community-contracts-maintenance
  • Moved communities-contracts repo to our Foundry template https://github.com/status-im/communities-contracts/pull/1
  • Also implemented additional tests
• vac:sc::vac:maintainance/misc
  • Finished up moving community-dapp/contracts to foundry template
• vac:sc::status:community-contracts-deployer
  • Brainstormed and discussed desired deployer contract with desktop team; Discussion: https://github.com/status-im/status-desktop/issues/11954#issuecomment-1694591812
  • updating ERC2470 https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-2470
• vac:sc::status:snt-staking-contract-maintenance
  • discussing issue with order of processAccount giving advantages on first callers

vsu:Applied Cryptogarphy & ZK (ACZ) §

• vac:acz:rlnp2p:waku:membership-management
  • Wrote a tool rln_keystore_generator : https://github.com/waku-org/nwaku/pull/1925, https://github.com/waku-org/nwaku/pull/1928, https://github.com/waku-org/nwaku/pull/1931
• vac:acz:rlnp2p:waku:rln-relay-enhancments
  • tree metadata should include chainId and contractAddress - https://github.com/waku-org/nwaku/pull/1932
  • set flush_interval appropriately -https://github.com/waku-org/nwaku/pull/1933
  • integrate new WakuRlnRegistry contract - https://github.com/waku-org/nwaku/pull/1943
  • bump zerokit to v0.3.2 https://github.com/waku-org/nwaku/pull/1951
  • tree metadata should include window of roots - https://github.com/waku-org/nwaku/pull/1953
  • sync tree state from contract deployed block number - https://github.com/waku-org/nwaku/pull/1955
  • optimization to waku_keystore - https://github.com/waku-org/nwaku/pull/1956
  • fixed a forceProgression bug in the WakuRlnRegistry contract - https://github.com/waku-org/waku-rln-contract/pull/6
• vac:acz:zerokit:vac:maintenance
  • prevent tree db from being recreated if it exists - https://github.com/vacp2p/zerokit/pull/209
  • released zerokit v0.3.2 - https://github.com/vacp2p/zerokit/releases/tag/v0.3.2
  • merged PR to fix a stopgap introduced by PR 201 https://github.com/vacp2p/zerokit/pull/207
• vac:acz:zerokit:vac:zerokit-v0.4
  • Prepared a PR to deal with message_id range check https://github.com/vacp2p/zerokit/pull/210
  • Researched needed changes to rln-cli

vip::zkVM §

• vac:zkvm::vac:research-existing-proof-systems
  • 40% update of the blog is done, working on finding smoother ways to explain findings and alternatives (focusing on a blog structure rather than a document)
• vac:zkvm::vac:proof-system-benchmarks
  • Added a summary table for different performances
• vac:zkvm::vac:research-existing-proof-systems
  • Finished Plonky2 research document https://www.notion.so/zkVM-cd358fe429b14fa2ab38ca42835a8451?pvs=4#01301b98f3af4157b932112ed998cff2
  • Write notes on Protostar
• vac:zkvm::vac:proof-system-benchmarks
  • minor fixes plonky2 PR https://github.com/vacp2p/zk-explorations/pull/5
  • README’s to make zk-explorations repo public https://github.com/vacp2p/zk-explorations/pull/4
  • merged and closed needed PRs for zk-explorations repo
  • work on Halo2 benchmark

vc::Deep Research §

• vac:dr:valpriv:vac:tor-push-poc
  • dev: fixed bugs related to initialization, changed to building async tor connections, adding direct peers, triaging/debugging issues https://github.com/vacp2p/nimbus-eth2-experimental/pull/2/commits/431a76014b3f584573329993b167fe1118eca6b3
  • test: readied setup o beacon node(s) with validator keys, test attestation transmission over tor. Planning for measuring delays
• vac:dr:valpriv:vac:tor-push-relwork
  • solution section refined with several updates including adding a figure for the Tor-push method.
  • dedicated section on “Theoretical Analysis”
  • four different possible scenarios for the attacker to break the anonymity of the Tor network
• vac:dr:gsub-scaling:vac:gossipsub-improvements-tech-report
  • Literature study related to scalability, overlay design, efficient message propagation in unstructured p2p networks
  • Started writing a survey report on efficient broadcast in large scale p2p networks.
• vac:dr:gsub-scaling:vac:gossipsub-simulation
  • Executed different gossipsub simulations in shadow simulator
  • can now collect different metrics like packet delivery ratio, data overhead, control overhead, network bandwidth utilization, average latency & standard deviations
• vac:dr:consensus:nomos:carnot-bribery-article
• Continue work on the article on bribery attacks, PoS and Carnot. Different examples including one based on game theory were presented to show that bribery attacks are economic attacks and cannot be addressed alone in the consensus layer. Economy based solutions have to be considered at the PoS layer.
• vac:dr:consensus:nomos:carnot-vote-2-3rds-vote-aggregation
  • Begin work on Carnot variant that aggregates the majority of votes.
  • Designing the algorithm.
• vac:dr:consensus:nomos:carnot-paper
  • Analyzing and discussing Carnot tests. There were variance in the latency results. We think it is due to the geographical distribution of nodes. Hence, Gusto was asked to use a single geographic zone to acheive a smooth curve while verifying that the variance is due to the latency cause by geographical distribution of nodes.

vc::RFC §

• vac:rfc:rfc:status:port-status-specs
  • Updated RFC spec for Community History Archive protocol according to PR feedback
    • https://github.com/vacp2p/rfc/pull/610
    • This has been reviewed more and those additional comments need to be addressed as well
• Started porting /spec/6/PAYLOADS to Vac