What about a catastrophic event that wipes out millions of nodes

[tfa]

@neo

Can you please link to this discussion as I was under the distint impression that the number of chunk copies is four at the moment and that it is to be 8 later on

It is the contrary: the replication factor is going from 8 to 4.

Here are some links about current value:

@dirvine

So there are 8 copies of each chunk all geographically distributed due to xor space etc.

@neo

You see there are 8 or more copies of any particular chunk and they are spread across different vaults.

and some links about its future decrease:

@dirvine

Number of chunks will be (in alpha 4) liely be 4

@dirvine

It is OK that is what we do. So imagine 4 copies, likely different continents existing at one time.

@dirvine

the replication factor only need be as large or small as the number of nodes that cannot vanish before the network can act. That should be a relatively small number.

I completely agree with you, when you say that 4 copies are insufficient for a secure system.

My other issue is that the replication factor should be an independent parameter. If tests or simulations show that this parameter should be increased, this can be done without impacting anything else (like the number of elders in section).