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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2024.11

Bribe & Fork: Cheap PCN Bribing Attacks via Forking Threat

Authors: Zeta Avarikioti, Paweł Kędzior, Tomasz Lizurej, and Tomasz Michalak

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 316, 6th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2024)

Abstract

In this work, we reexamine the vulnerability of Payment Channel Networks (PCNs) to bribing attacks, where an adversary incentivizes blockchain miners to deliberately ignore a specific transaction to undermine the punishment mechanism of PCNs. While previous studies have posited a prohibitive cost for such attacks, we show that this cost can be dramatically reduced (to approximately $125), thereby increasing the likelihood of these attacks. To this end, we introduce Bribe & Fork, a modified bribing attack that leverages the threat of a so-called feather fork which we analyze with a novel formal model for the mining game with forking. We empirically analyze historical data of some real-world blockchain implementations to evaluate the scale of this cost reduction. Our findings shed more light on the potential vulnerability of PCNs and highlight the need for robust solutions.

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Zeta Avarikioti, Paweł Kędzior, Tomasz Lizurej, and Tomasz Michalak. Bribe & Fork: Cheap PCN Bribing Attacks via Forking Threat. In 6th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 316, pp. 11:1-11:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@InProceedings{avarikioti_et_al:LIPIcs.AFT.2024.11,
  author =	{Avarikioti, Zeta and K\k{e}dzior, Pawe{\l} and Lizurej, Tomasz and Michalak, Tomasz},
  title =	{{Bribe \& Fork: Cheap PCN Bribing Attacks via Forking Threat}},
  booktitle =	{6th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2024)},
  pages =	{11:1--11:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-345-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{316},
  editor =	{B\"{o}hme, Rainer and Kiffer, Lucianna},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2024.11},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-209473},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2024.11},
  annote =	{Keywords: Blockchain, Payment Channels Networks, Timelock Bribing, Feather Forking}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2023.17

Non-Atomic Payment Splitting in Channel Networks

Authors: Stefan Dziembowski and Paweł Kędzior

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 282, 5th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2023)

Abstract

Off-chain channel networks are one of the most promising technologies for dealing with blockchain scalability and delayed finality issues. Parties connected within such networks can send coins to each other without interacting with the blockchain. Moreover, these payments can be "routed" over the network. Thanks to this, even the parties that do not have a channel in common can perform payments between each other with the help of intermediaries. In this paper, we introduce a new notion that we call Non-Atomic Payment Splitting (NAPS) protocols that allow the intermediaries in the network to split the payments recursively into several subpayments in such a way that the payment can be successful "partially" (i.e. not all the requested amount may be transferred). This contrasts with the existing splitting techniques that are "atomic" in that they did not allow such partial payments (we compare the "atomic" and "non-atomic" approaches in the paper). We define NAPS formally and then present a protocol that we call "EthNA", that satisfies this definition. EthNA is based on very simple and efficient cryptographic tools; in particular, it does not use expensive cryptographic primitives. We implement a simple variant of EthNA in Solidity and provide some benchmarks. We also report on some experiments with routing using EthNA.

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Stefan Dziembowski and Paweł Kędzior. Non-Atomic Payment Splitting in Channel Networks. In 5th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 282, pp. 17:1-17:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)

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@InProceedings{dziembowski_et_al:LIPIcs.AFT.2023.17,
  author =	{Dziembowski, Stefan and K\k{e}dzior, Pawe{\l}},
  title =	{{Non-Atomic Payment Splitting in Channel Networks}},
  booktitle =	{5th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2023)},
  pages =	{17:1--17:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-303-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{282},
  editor =	{Bonneau, Joseph and Weinberg, S. Matthew},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2023.17},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-192068},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2023.17},
  annote =	{Keywords: Blockchain, Payment Channels Networks}
}

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Documents authored by Kędzior, Paweł

Bribe & Fork: Cheap PCN Bribing Attacks via Forking Threat

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Non-Atomic Payment Splitting in Channel Networks

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