Hey folks,
I was checking out the GingerWallet LND Quest and a thought popped into my head about verification.
I observed that while synced_to_chain often turns true after a bit, lots of users have a tough time getting their synced_to_graph status to show true. For some, it seems to stay false for ages.
So, here’s my question: If someone gets a little too clever and tweaks their output or uses Photoshop to make it look like synced_to_graph is true, can we actually catch them?
Since we can't see their screens live, is there a way to tell apart a genuine result from a fake one? Just curious if we’ve got any way to spot this kinda tricky behavior.
No, there isn't. There have been concerns about cheating in the other Bitcoin Node challenge of this kind too. At some point there could be even organized farming of merits this way, as someone who is savvy could prepare and sell information or proof for each of the steps that are required in a challenge. NotATether made some changes to the Bitcoin Node challenge to limit the cheating, but they are never going to be bullet proof. They may just reduce cheating from the less savvy users.
Whatever method is applied, it will only have some effect. For example, changing from allowing text-based outputs to screenshots only would limit the number of users who could cheat this way. Many people do not have the expertise to make a proper edit of a non-browser based value. Still users who are experienced with image editing could bypass this rule or even provide this as service to others.
You can close this thread now, most replies will be pointless as there is no method of providing objectively verifiable information of this kind.
There are some methods to trivially check if the node is synced to some degree, but none can verify whether it's completely synced.
Obvious indicators:
- If you cannot connect to the LND node address, then its channel graph has definitely not been built.
- Similarly, if the list of peers is zero or perhaps one (I could ask for this information for instance), the node is obviously not reachable so and therefore not likely to be synced, as LND nodes need to be online 24/7.