Merge pull request bitcoinops#67 from harding/2018-09-18-newsletter

Newsletters: add #13 (2018-09-18)

Author: jnewbery

_includes/references.md

@@ -8,7 +8,9 @@
 [output script descriptors]: https://gist.github.com/sipa/e3d23d498c430bb601c5bca83523fa82
 
 {% comment %}<!-- BIPs in order lowest to highest -->{% endcomment %}
+[BIP21]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0021.mediawiki
 [BIP37]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0037.mediawiki
+[BIP61]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0061.mediawiki
 [BIP70]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0070.mediawiki
 [BIP125]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0125.mediawiki
 [BIP133]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0133.mediawiki

_posts/en/newsletters/2018-09-18-newsletter.md

@@ -0,0 +1,201 @@
+---
+title: 'Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #13'
+permalink: /en/newsletters/2018/09/18/
+name: 2018-09-18-newsletter
+type: newsletter
+layout: newsletter
+lang: en
+---
+This week's newsletter includes action items related to the security
+release of Bitcoin Core 0.16.3 and Bitcoin Core 0.17RC4, the
+newly-proposed BIP322, and Optech's upcoming Paris workshop; a link to
+the C-Lightning 0.6.1 release, more information about BIP322, and some
+details about the Bustapay proposal; plus brief descriptions of notable
+merges in popular Bitcoin infrastructure projects.
+
+## Action items
+
+- **Upgrade to Bitcoin Core 0.16.3 to fix denial-of-service
+  vulnerability:** a bug introduced in Bitcoin Core 0.14.0 and affecting
+  all subsequent versions through to 0.16.2 will cause Bitcoin Core to
+  crash when attempting to validate a block containing a transaction
+  that attempts to spend the same input twice.  Such blocks would be
+  invalid and so can only be created by miners willing to lose the
+  allowed income from having created a block (at least 12.5 XBT or
+  $80,000 USD).
+
+    Patches for [master][dup txin master] and [0.16][dup txin 0.16]
+    branches were submitted for public review yesterday, the 0.16.3
+    release has been tagged containing the patch, and binaries will
+    be available for [download][core download] as soon as a sufficient
+    number of well-known contributors have reproduced the deterministic
+    build---probably later today (Tuesday).  Immediate upgrade is
+    highly recommended.
+
+- **Allocate time to test Bitcoin Core 0.17RC4:** Bitcoin Core will soon
+  be uploading [binaries][bcc 0.17] for 0.17 Release Candidate (RC) 4
+  containing the same patch for the DoS vulnerability described above.
+  All testers of previous release candidates should upgrade.  Testing is
+  greatly appreciated and can help ensure the quality of the final
+  release.
+
+- **Review proposed BIP322 for generic message signing:** this
+  [recently-proposed][BIP322 proposal] BIP will allow users to create
+  signed messages for all currently-used types of Bitcoin addresses,
+  including P2PKH, P2SH, P2SH-wrapped segwit, P2WPKH, and P2WSH.  It has
+  the potential to become an industry standard that will be implemented
+  by nearly all wallets and may be used by many services (such as
+  peer-to-peer marketplaces) as well as for customer support, so Optech
+  encourages allocating some engineering time to ensure the proposal is
+  compatible with your organization's needs.  See the News section below
+  for additional details.
+
+- **[Optech Paris workshop][workshop] November 12-13:** member
+  companies should [send us an email][optech email] to reserve spots for
+  your engineers.  Planned topics include a comparison of two methods
+  for bumping transaction fees, discussion of partially-signed Bitcoin
+  transactions ([BIP174][]), an introduction to output script
+  descriptors, suggestions for Lightning Network wallet integration, and
+  approaches to efficient coin selection (including output
+  consolidation). 
+
+## News
+
+- **C-Lightning 0.6.1 released:** this minor update brings several
+  improvements, including "fewer stuck payments, better routing, fewer
+  spurious closes, and several annoying bugs fixed."  The [release
+  announcement][c-lightning 0.6.1] contains details and links to
+  downloads.
+
+- **BIP322 generic signed message format:** since 2011, users of many
+  wallets have had the ability to sign an arbitrary message using the
+  public key associated with a P2PKH address in their wallet.  However,
+  there's no standardized way for users to do the same using a P2SH
+  address or any of the different types of segwit addresses (although
+  there are some implemented [non-standard methods][trezor p2wpkh
+  message signing] with limited functionality).  Picking up a
+  Bitcoin-Dev mailing list discussion from several months ago,
+  Karl-Johan Alm has [proposed][BIP322 proposal] a BIP that could work
+  for any address (although it's not yet described how it would work for
+  P2SH or P2WSH addresses involving an OP_CLTV or OP_CSV timelock).
+
+    The basic mechanism is that the authorized spender or spenders for
+    an address generate scriptSigs and witness data (including
+    their signatures) in much the same way they would if they were
+    spending the funds---except instead of signing the spending
+    transaction, they sign their arbitrary message instead (plus some
+    predetermined extra data to ensure they can't be tricked into
+    signing an actual transaction).  The verifier's software then
+    validates this information the same way it would to determine
+    whether a spending transaction was valid.  This allows the message
+    signing facility to be exactly as flexible as Bitcoin scripts
+    themselves.
+
+    Currently, discussion appears to be most active on the BIP
+    proposal's [pull request][BIP322 PR].
+    
+- **Bustapay discussion:** a simplified alternative to the proposed
+  Pay-to-Endpoint (P2EP) protocol [described in newsletter #8][news8
+  news], Bustapay provides improved privacy for both spenders and
+  receivers---and also allows receivers to accept payments without
+  increasing the number of their spendable outputs, a form of automatic
+  UTXO consolidation.  Although [proposed][bustapay proposal] to the
+  Bitcoin-Dev mailing list a few weeks ago, several aspects of the
+  proposal were [discussed][bustapay sjors] this week.
+
+    Although P2EP and Bustapay could end up being implemented by only a
+    few wallets and services similar to the [BIP70][] payment protocol,
+    there's also chance they could end up being becoming as widely
+    adopted as wallet support for [BIP21][] URI handlers.  Even if they
+    don't see general adoption, their privacy advantage means they could
+    end up well deployed among niche users.  In either case, it may be
+    worth dedicating some engineering time towards tracking the
+    proposals and proof of concept implementations to ensure your
+    organization can easily adopt them if desirable.
+
+## Notable commits
+
+*Notable commits this week in [Bitcoin Core][core commits], [LND][lnd
+commits], and [C-lightning][cl commits].  Reminder: new merges to
+Bitcoin Core are made to its master development branch and are unlikely
+to become part of the upcoming 0.17 release---you'll probably have to
+wait until version 0.18 in about six months from now.*
+
+{% include linkers/github-log.md 
+  refname="core commits"
+  repo="bitcoin/bitcoin"
+  start="cb25cd6aa18c69918176d68e36e26f7e373aa48c"
+  end="c53e083a49291b611d278a8db24ff235c1202e43"
+%}
+{% include linkers/github-log.md 
+  refname="lnd commits"
+  repo="lightningnetwork/lnd"
+  start="1941353fb28755a170793e43595601d75c8f3dda"
+  end="3b2c807288b1b7f40d609533c1e96a510ac5fa6d"
+%}
+{% include linkers/github-log.md 
+  refname="cl commits"
+  repo="ElementsProject/lightning"
+  start="634f19a7b230edc686be56ab950b80784e56252c"
+  end="36eab5de26e203311ceeb65c94ec5beb9c94ff5d"
+%}
+
+- [Bitcoin Core #14054][]: this PR prevents the node from sending
+  [BIP61][] peer-to-peer protocol [reject messages][p2p reject] by
+  default.  These messages were implemented to make it easier for
+  developers of lightweight clients to get feedback on connection and
+  transaction relay problems.  However, there's no requirement (or way
+  to require) that nodes send a reject message or an accurate reject
+  message, so the messages arguably only end up wasting bandwidth.
+  
+    It's recommended that developers connect their test clients to their
+    own nodes and inspect their nodes' logs for error messages in case
+    of problems (perhaps after enabling debug logging).  Users who still
+    need to send `reject` messages can use the `-enablebip61`
+    configuration option, although it's possible that `reject`
+    messages will be removed altogether in a release after 0.18.
+
+- [Bitcoin Core #7965][]: this long-standing issue tracked the removal
+  of code in the libbitcoin_server component to handle whether the wallet is
+  compiled or not.  The issue was finally closed this week by the merge of
+  [Bitcoin Core #14168][]. This issue, along with a number of other issues such
+  as [Bitcoin Core #10973][] (Refactor: separate wallet from node) and [Bitcoin
+  Core #14180][] (Run all tests even if wallet is not compiled) are part of a
+  long-term effort to disentangle the wallet code from the server code. Doing so
+  provides a number of benefits including easier code maintenance, better
+  opportunities for testing individual components, and potentially more secure
+  software if the wallet component is moved to its own process.
+
+- [LND #1843][]: a configuration option intended only for testing
+  (`--noencryptwallet`) has been renamed to `--noseedbackup`, been
+  marked as deprecated, and had its help text updated and changed to
+  mostly uppercase warning text.  Developers are worried that ordinary
+  users are enabling this option without realizing that it puts them
+  only one failure away from permanently losing money.
+
+- [LND #1516][]: thanks to updates in the upstream Tor daemon, this
+  patch makes it possible for LND to automatically create and set up v3
+  onion services in addition to its existing v2 automation.  For the
+  automation to work, users must already have Tor installed and running
+  as a service.
+
+- C-Lightning: for testing, an RPC proxy is now used to simplify mocking
+  responses to various RPC calls, making it easier to test lightningd's
+  handling of things such as fee estimates and crashes of bitcoind.
+
+{% include references.md %}
+{% include linkers/issues.md issues="14054,1843,1516,7965,14168,10973,14180" %}
+
+[bcc 0.17]: https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.17.0/
+[workshop]: /workshops
+[news8 news]: {{news8}}#news
+[c-lightning 0.6.1]: https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning/releases/tag/v0.6.1
+[BIP322 proposal]: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2018-September/016393.html
+[BIP322 PR]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/725
+[trezor p2wpkh message signing]: https://github.com/trezor/trezor-mcu/issues/169
+[bustapay proposal]: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2018-August/016340.html
+[bustapay sjors]: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2018-September/016383.html
+[p2p reject]: https://btcinformation.org/en/developer-reference#reject
+[dup txin master]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/14247
+[dup txin 0.16]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/14249
+[core download]: https://bitcoincore.org/en/download