It seems that many people behave better when they feel that they are being observed by an omnipresent being. That is something that the Spanish developer Sergi Delgado, who is the founder of Talaia Lab, creators of The Eye of Satoshi (El Ojo de Satoshi) has learned. It is an implementation of watchtower or watchtowers for the payment channels with bitcoin of the Lightning network, which it considers necessary for when the world reaches the massive adoption of the cryptocurrency.
It will be as if the gaze of the creator of bitcoin neutralizes bad behavior in payment channels and ensures that acts of fraud will not go unnoticed. The above, in part, explains the importance of Delgado’s work, while keeping the analogy on the surface : Satoshi’s Eye will prevent someone from closing a channel and taking advantage of it.
As they are now, the payment channels of the Lightning network are opened through a 2 of 2 multi-signature transaction, which is handled by both parties. Either party has the secret to revoke the multiple signature contract and close the channel at any time.
So far everything seems fine. The problem It arises when a malicious actor tries to close a channel arbitrarily without the other party noticing. In this case, you can try to close the channel with a false balance status, and if your counterpart does not connect to broadcast and claim the real balance in the indicated time, the offender will be able to put all the balance that he had indicated on his side, it is that is, you will have stolen the balance that was in the possession of your channel partner.
That is where the watchtowers of the Lightning network come in, a development that Delgado considers of great importance , although for now, it is seen as a secondary job for the bitcoin ecosystem, as he explained to CriptoNoticias. By clicking here you can see it on video.
āThe watchtowers are seen as secondary, but if we think of hyperbitcoinization, where billions of people are Using Lightning, it is a fact that they are required so that everyone could be protected. This type of infrastructure is necessary, especially if what everyone is using is mobile nodes, which will be the most common in a hyperbitcoinization that will hardly be achieved only with people running nodes at home. ā
Sergi Delgado, developer of The Eye of Satoshi .
Satoshi’s eye punishes the offender and protects Privacy
If a bad actor closes a channel while his counterpart has an active watchtower on their Lightning node, he will be instantly penalized. Then the honest actor will keep his funds, while the offender will keep the punishment.
“The grace of this is that I running a watchtower can cover some people and that they, with another watchtower , can cover other people, then we cover each other . Also, there could be paid services, or just altruistic people who want to have a watchtower because they want to cover the network. ā
Sergi Delgado, developer of The Eye of Satoshi.
The design space of watchtower is very wide and there may be different types of implementations where some guarantee privacy, but others will not. However, Sergi Delgado told CriptoNoticias that he is ensuring that El Ojo de Satoshi is a watchtower that guarantees data protection.
āThe design of the watchtowers is much more complex than I could initially imagine, although at first glance it did not seem to be so complex. But when you want to do it anonymously respecting the privacy of the user, trying to protect the minimum amount of user information so that the tower does not have any type of advantages, then the design becomes complicated. In addition, I work so that the tower is protected so that the user cannot attack it. ā
Sergi Delgado, developer of The Eye of Satoshi.