If a single producer becomes corrupt the community can vote it out. However my understanding is that this happens via on-chain transactions. If 2/3 of the producers are corrupt and working in tandem how can the community vote them out? Since there are only 21 producers it seems possible that someone can take over 14 of them and censor all votes against them. How does EOS handle that situation?
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It does seem as though once 14 nodes are controlled they can never be voted out, which compared with a 51% attack enacted via mining pools still at least leaves the possibility of miners moving to a different mining pool. So even if a 51% attack were pulled off on a PoW chain, at lease it could be remedied, as in this case, I don't see a way out of it.– Jackson KelleyMay 20, 2018 at 16:54
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That's... problematic– StilgarMay 20, 2018 at 18:12
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1 Answer
The network would indeed be in trouble if over 2/3's of the Block Producers are corrupt and collude together.
However, this is quite a big if statement, especially when compared to Proof of Work Blockchains like Ethereum or Bitcoin where only 2 or 3 mining pools would have to collude to achieve a 51% attack and control the network.
If any one Block Producer started to act unreliably or hostile they can easily be replaced by another Block Producer waiting in the standby pool by Voting of the community. These Block Producers are all quite public as well, should they misbehave the community is a lot more likely to know who's door to knock on! Just look at the team of EOS Canada!
The underlying software of EOSIO is very flexible and can adopt new updates as technology grows more powerful over time. Should the community feel more than 21 Block Producers or a whole new consensus method is warranted, this can be upgraded without creating hard forks and splitting communities which usually makes a Blockchain more vulnerable.
answered Jun 4, 2018 at 2:35
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The claim that Bitcoin and Ethereum is in a worse position is quite dubious since the controlling entities are pools and as soon as misbehavior is spotted the actual miners will switch pools. In fact in the past people switched to other pools simply because one pool was approaching 50%. The network will autofix because the proper chain will become longer. With EOS there doesn't seem to be a mechanism to fix it even though it is harder to take over.– StilgarJun 4, 2018 at 12:33