Crypto Academy Week 16 - Homework Post for @pelon53

INTRODUCTION
Hashgraph is a distributed ledger technology that disseminates information using randomly connected nodes over the network. Interconnected nodes work to provide alternate routes for information ensuring that no one can obstruct a transaction on their end, making it fair.
Hashgraph uses virtual voting and the gossip protocol, its data dissemination system to reach consensus. It is able to achieve its speed through its gossip protocol operation as nodes receive, replicate and transmit information at amazing speeds over the network, making it more efficient. Being able to handle large volumes of information at a time, it is more scalable than the Blockchain.

Explain in detail the Gossip protocol, used in Hashgraph.

Gossip Protocol
From the meaning of the individual words Gossip and Protocol, even the layman can make deductions that the gossip protocol is a means of sharing information. The gossip protocol derives its meaning from the way in which information is shared. If say person A tells his bestfriend B a secret, and B also tells it to his own girlfriend C who in turn also shares it with her friends from school, all her friends from school will know about this secret even though they did not directly hear it from A or B. As time passes, the number of people who know this secret could triple as people gossip about it with others. Take also how quick the human nervous system disseminates information passing it down from one nuerone to the other even though they’re not directly connected. The gossip protocol uses this kind of mechanism to efficiently and quickly disseminate information over the network.

In technical terms, the gossip protocol is an information transmission system that disseminates detailed information about the nodes carrying information(when the information was received, what the node was doing before the information arrived, other nodes that may have interacted with the information) as well as transmitting the information itself through the randomly connected nodes on the network. With the gossip protocol, information is assessed and validated by several nodes simultaneously making information dissemination faster and more reliable compared with that of Proof of Work(PoW) protocol used in some Blockchains. A technical explanation of Gossip Protocol is that if say node A is connected to B, which is randomly connected to C and C to D, B can relay information it received from A to C and from C to D even though D is not directly connected to A. D can in turn disseminate the information to other nodes randomly connected to it.

Transactions are confirmed in seconds combining the gossip protocol and Hashtag technology. The ability and extent to which nodes replicate information is impressive and each node replicates information to the same level or extent it was received. Message replication therefore happens in a quick exponential rate. If a message is destined to reach 20 nodes, each of those 20 nodes will further transmit this message to 20 other nodes and the message will have reached all the nodes in the network in seconds.

Review of Gossip Protocol use in Hashgraph

1. The use of the Gossip Protocol tremendously improves transaction speed.
2. Utilizing the gossip protocol, processing of information simultaneously by several nodes improves scalability on the Hashgraph network as it can allow up to 10,000 Transactions Per Second(TPS).
3. The Random Nature of the Gossip Protocol ensures that if there is a hinderance of a transaction in a certain path, information can flow through different nodes to reach their destination. This makes the Hashgraph fair.
4. Since different nodes work on their own, there is no appreciable information transfer and this reduces the congestion of information over the network.

Explain Tolerance to Byzantine Faults in Hashgraph.
Tolerance to Byzantine Faults in Hashgraph has to do with ability of the network to detect and correct faults in the network. Every system has measures in place to counter faults or issues that arise. Just like Buffers are resistant to things like change in pH, the Hashgraph being Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerant makes it resistant to manipulation of system data.

The Byzantine Failure Asynchronous Tolerance (aBFT) nature of the hashgragh guarantees security of system data on the network. This requires the different nodes within the network reach a consensus before a transaction is verified. This prevents people from manipulating information for their own gain. Without Byzantine fault tolerance, people can transmit false information which can question the reliability of Hashgraph.
To validate a transaction there has to be a minimum of 2/3 reaching a concensus. There should be less than 1/3 malicious nodes detected. It also ensures that once consensus is reached, it can not be reversed and therefore the transaction can not be reversed.

Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance informs us of the following:
A consensus will certainly be reached
Information will be known to the network when consensus is reached.
Mathematically, every node in the network is guaranteed to reach the same consensus

Make a comparison between Hashgraph Vs Blockchain, for a voting process in your country. Which technology would you choose? Why?

For my comparison I will be taking certain parameters into consideration.
• Nature of data stored on nodes: Blockchain and Hashgraph are similar in a sense that the nodes on both networks store exact replicates on data recorded.
• Consensus Algorithm: Blockchain uses different approaches like Proof of Work and Proof of Stake Consensus implementation protocol where new blocks are generated within the blockchain to validate information. Hashgraph on the other hand, uses virtual voting and gossip as an approach to reach consensus.
• Programming language: On the basis of the programming language they’re written, the two differ. Whereas Blockchain is written with different programming languages, Hashgraph is written in Java and Lisp languages.
• How they Work: On the Blockchain, operations are synchronous in a sense that events are related. With Hashgraph operating Asynchronously, the processing of events are independent of each other.
• Scalability: The Hashgraph using the gossip protocol with several nodes working at the same time is able to process huge amounts of information at a much faster rate than the Blockchain which might suffer from a lagging miner response rate. The assymetric algorithm technology of the Hashgraph makes it more scalable.
• Security Mechanism: As explained earlier, Hashgraph uses Asynchronous Byzantine Tolerance to ensure the security of the network by. Blockchain uses cryptographic methods to ensure security on its network by voiding data signatures once data is tempered with. These are both strong security mechanisms.

Voting is how citizens of countries elect their presidents or governing board. In my country Ghana, the normal and popular way people vote is by going to election centers and casting their votes. This method is okay for normal times but for a situation like what we’re in today with covid, an electronic voting system could really come in handy so that citizens can stay at home and still vote.

Between Blockchain and Hashgraph, I will choose Hashgraph for a voting process in my country and my reasons are below.

My country recorded a total voting population of 17,027,655 people as of last year when our last election was held according to wikipedia. With a huge population like that, We will need the most scalable system to handle the huge amounts of votes coming into the system in the shortest possible time. As I explained earlier, Hashgraph is more scalable than Blockchain. Hashgraph can handle over 10times of what the blockchain can.

Even if we could improve the scalability of the Blockchain to be able to handle huge numbers of volumes of votes, the cost of computing power to make this happen would still be too high as Blockchain requires immense amount of power to run especially with numbers this high.

Also we will need a system with speed to process the huge number of votes coming into the system at once and comparing speed, the 10,000 processes per second speed of Hashgraph makes it the desired voting for the voting process. Being asynchronous also makes it faster as votes do not have to wait for other votes made ealier to be processed before they’re.

Because nodes are randomly connected, it is fair and everybody can vote like democracy suggests. Random node connection and communication will ensure that a vote can not be hindered or blocked from processing as it will take another node pathway to enter and be processed into the sytem. Time delay will be avoided or shortened at worst because as long as less than 1/3 of the nodes are not invalid(2/3 of nodes are valid) a consensus will be reached and fair results of the election or voting will be obtained.

Explore Hedera Hashgraph. Show screenshots.

To explore Hedera Hashgraph, I first visit hedera.com and this is what the homepage looks like.

On the homepage I see a 3d globe with locations of some places on it.

I I explore the different menus one by one.
NETWORK
The network categories takes us to pages where we can learn about the following:
• Hadera token service: the token service enables us do transactions involving fungible and non-fungible tokens without a smart contract.
• Hadera Consensus Service: Creates log or records of messages so that assets can be traced over a supply chain in an advertising platform
• Dashboard: This provides per-second Hedera network activity

DEVS
The following is entailed under the Devs category.
• Docs: You can learn moreabout the Hedera Hashgraph here and give feedback and suggestions to improve.
• Hedera SDK: over here you can find your favorite languages as well as some of the community supported development tools
• Hedera Plugins and Microservice: You can integrate your already existing application with the hedera network with the help of plugins and microservice
• Fees: This shows fees schedules in USD set by the governing council.

USE CASE
Some interesting menu under this are:
• Payment: You can information on how to use the Hbar, hadera’s currency or your own cryptocurrency.
• Permissioned Blockchain: You can learn how to control information shared with a group of people here.

HBAR
This is where you can learn more about the Hadera’s currency, create wallets and find exchanges where you can trade Hbar.

GOVERNANCE
The Governing Council of Hadera is made up of upto 39 organizations and enterprises, constituting 11 sectors and non-profits aroud the world. The stability of the Hedera network is solely monitored and improved by the Governing council.

ABOUT
This is where you can learn in detail about Hadera. It offers information about their team, jourey, roadmap, usergroup, careers, media, press, news, blog and papers.

CONCLUSION
Hashgraph theoretically has some really good advantages over the blockchain like being more scalable due to its ability to handle large volumes of operations at a time with a 10,00Transactions per second. This is however like mentioned, theoretical and the actual results are yet to be proved.
My exploration of the Hadera Hashgraph has led me to discover the HBAR, Hadera’s cryptocurrency. I will be looking at how to create a wallet in the future. Also exploring Hadera Hashgraph, I stumbled upon and learned about gaming on Hadera.
Thanks to @pelon53 for the lecture