# kaal:claim:3782203-026

**Claim.** Marketing a consensus algorithm as correct by construction is false advertising, because such proofs establish resistance only to the attacks the theorists considered reasonable at the time, not to all possible attacks.

**Type.** failure  **Support.** argued

**Holds when.**

- correct by construction proof of stake designs
- adversaries able to invent new attacks

**Source quote.**

> In the first place, this is simply false advertising. Most people don't understand that CBC doesn't mean it's mathematically proven to be perfectly resistant to all attacks; it's only resistant to the attacks the theorists consider reasonable at the time.

**From.** Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, *A Technical Perspective on Decentralization* (2021), Application to PoS consensus algorithms, page 18

**Cite as.** Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, A Technical Perspective on Decentralization (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3782203

**Verify.** sha256 of source PDF `ab8a22d0dbb026a09212a4c85963f3c05787cf80775e8613ae3724e3883e7a56` at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wulfkaal/Academic-Papers/main/papers/pdf/Calcaterra%20and%20Kaal%20-%202021%20-%20A%20Technical%20Perspective%20on%20Decentralization.pdf

**Failure mode.** false-security-proof  (family: consensus-and-protocol-attack)

**Topics.** consensus-and-security, risk-and-incentives

**Keywords.** correct-by-construction, proof-of-stake, ethereum, security-proofs, byzantine-behavior

**Canonical form.** This markdown file is the canonical hashed representation of the claim. Its sha256 is the content hash used for attestation.