A thought about recent STEEM bandwidth issues ...
So, the other night I had a great idea...
Create a way to store arbitrary data on the STEEM blockchain that can later be retrieved.
Sounds great in theory. The blockchain provides data integrity and validation via the witnesses, thus, providing an unbreakable form of security. With this knowledge in mind, I enacted a test on the blockchain to see if it could handle me creating some large transactions that stored data on the blockchain.
Well, the test was a raving success. I was able to chunk a particular file into pieces of base64 encoded data and upload them to the STEEM blockchain. As well, I was able to download and reassemble this data for viewing.
What it looks like when you upload 60KB transactions
One of the transactions example
@nettybot handled the transaction creation
So what is the point of this post?
Not totally sure. However, very very soon after my testing, I began to notice low level users complaining about bandwidth exhaustion. I naturally got a little concerned because I know that I myself had recently received the bandwidth error.
@timcliff has made a post about a potential fix that is upcoming that will likely address the issue.
If this event can somehow be attributed to myself, then hopefully it is something that will be good that was uncovered sooner rather than later. On the night the bandwidth errors began to appear, I uploaded roughly ~8-10MB to the blockchain of various data in a short period of time. It seems likely to me that I may have triggered a reaction in the underlying algorithm of the STEEM network that is responsible for adjusting bandwidth requirements for transacting data via the blockchain.
As the days move forward...
I will be keeping a very close eye on the network. I run a witness myself and am developing applications and programs that will benefit all users of the community as well as the STEEM network itself. When problems are uncovered, you can trust that I will be there to contribute in any way that I can.
Vote for @netuoso as Witness
- Go to the witness voting page on SteemIt.com
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and locate the vote box (shown below)
- Input my name (netuoso) and hit vote.
- Give yourself a high-five for making such an awesome decision
MinnowSupport Witness List
- @aggroed
- @ausbitbank
- @followbtcnews
- @neoxian
- @netuoso
- @someguy123
- @teamsteem
- @thecryptodrive
- @theprophet0
PS: Special credit to @SirCork for letting me bounce ideas off of him AND FOR HIS OWN IDEAS and encouragement while I was performing this test.
Some Notes:
- The first data upload test began at
2017-07-15 20:22:51 UTC - The larger uploads began the next day around
2017-07-16 05:44:09 UTC - Bandwidth issues were reported to mods for the first time in @minnowsupport Discord shortly after
Thanks, I've written a lot about this issue recently. Following now.
Yes, you seem very informed regarding the issue.
So ... reading thru your information kind of solidifies my conclusion. I think its increasingly feasible that my (very minor) actions resulted in this response from the bandwidth algorithm.
Think it is possible? Just one account with ~100SP could do that?
so it's Your Fault?!!! somebody grab the rope! hahaha
Seems likely. I haven't seen anything to disprove it yet.
I'll forgive you.... maybe. ;) Actually I want to say thanks, both for finding the weakness, and for giving me an opportunity to grow closer with this community. It's been a time of bonding :-D
this article has been referenced in: down the rabit hole -
the case of the bandwidth bug
Thanks for writing!
I got the bandwdith limit crosses errors for more than few 3-4 hours. And that is why I couldnt publish my post.
For a moment I thought Steemit got hacked, thank God that didnt happen.
This is certainly interesting and it would be highly coincidental for the problems to begin right after you do this without being related, but on that note it's a little disappointing that your data save/load idea potentially causes problems. Judging by the responses to my posts about the bandwidth limits a lot of people are running into that error now, very unfortunate.
Good test anyway, thanks for telling us white hat
This post has been resteemed by @msp-lovebot courtesy of @netuoso from the Minnow Support Project ( @minnowsupport ). Join us in Discord.
Appreciate your honesty @netuoso
Not mad at you!
Keep STEEM N ON,
Frank
That is interesting. How could trying the storage of arbitrary data in the STEEM blockchain be used to benefit Steemit users?
Potentially could be used as a CDN to store images on instead of another cloud service. There is no cost to download data off the blockchain, and there is only minimal requirements to upload to it.
I can think of hundreds of implementations of the use of storing arbitrary data on the chain. (Those images would never risk being lost as long as STEEM is available)
Def am going to give this a follow. Seems hella interesting..!
Always a pleasure to participate in projects with you dude. And yeah, it's probably good we started with a static image and not an MP4 eh?
Reach for the stars.
Quite a few files scattered about now.
Useful information, I want to follow them
This post has been resteemed by @nettybot courtesy of @netuoso from the Minnow Support Project ( @minnowsupport ). Join us in Discord.