d_eddie
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January 22, 2018, 02:58:31 PM

Yay! Another quality post. I wonder why every LN howto I've come across involves cloud computing. Is building and running a LN node on a consumer grade box/connection unrealistic? It doesn't look that bandwidth-hungry, at least for now. More or less like a moderately active Tor Browser session, likely?


Thanks for the props.  I think it’s the requirement for an “always online” connnection. Just easier with cloud.  

Don’t ask me to explain what happens if your node goes offline.  I don’t know.
I do, at least qualitatively.

In Alice's absence, some malicious counterparty (say, Bob) might try to cheat by broadcasting a previous channel state to undo his latest spend. However, if Alice - or anyone else, for that matter - notices and broadcasts the legitimate, later state as signed by both Alice and Bob, cheater Bob loses everything and the whole channel amount is forfeited to Alice. So you either have to stay online or hire some bounty hunter to patrol the network while you're away. Of course, the hunter gets a piece of the cake.

The deadline for catching such cheating is one week. I believe a bounty hunter market will arise, with aggressive price competition. In principle, it should be possible to hire a multitude of hunters. The first to out the perp wins. No single hunter needs to be online 24/7, as long as there are enough of them (including Alice herself).