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Low 37 Bitcoin

Accountable HTLCs (#3217)

Public commit record

What the developer wrote

Authored by Thomas HUET

58/100 · Thin
Accountable HTLCs (#3217)

Add accountability signal for HTLCs, it replaces endorsement.
See https://github.com/lightning/bolts/pull/1280
✓ Descriptive subject✓ Provides an explanatory body✓ Links an issue, advisory, or supporting reference
The short version

What changed, and why it matters

This commit replaces an older 'endorsement' anti-jamming signal with a new 'accountable' signal for Lightning HTLCs, following a draft specification update. It changes how invoices, payment onions, and channel messages carry and propagate this signal. Importantly, the release notes state the protections are not yet enforced: the node only collects data and logs what it would have rejected. The change is a protocol update and data-collection feature, not an active enforcement that directly blocks payments today.

Recommended action

Review the new TLV type numbers and codec choices for compatibility with the draft BOLTs PR 1280 and other implementations. Confirm that the disabled-enforcement shadow mode is intentional and that metrics/logging do not leak sensitive routing data. Before enabling enforcement, validate the reputation algorithm and reserved bucket thresholds with collected data. No immediate patch is required because active protections are not enforced.

Security signals we found

01

Protocol-level anti-jamming signal redesign (endorsement -> accountable)

02

New TLVs added to HTLC, payment onion, route blinding, and invoice codecs

03

Reputation algorithm simplified to binary accountability and outgoing-only scoring

04

Active jamming rejection is explicitly disabled; only data collection and logging

05

IncomingConfidenceTooLow exception removed; OutgoingConfidenceTooLow retained but not enforced in relay path

06

Non-regression test data updated to treat old Endorsement TLV as unknown

Risk score

Why this scored 37/100

Our methodology →
Potential impact 5/30
Exploitability 5/25
Stealth signal 5/15
Affected reach 10/15
Confidence 8/10
Evidence quality 4/5
Human-validated context

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