Bitcoin Forum

The idea:  Bitcoin is mature enough that it really needs to be tested against attempts at disruption.  This would include attempts to create forks and to seed  malicious versions of the software.  Other attempts would actively create Satoshi dust, inflate the block chain, flood the network, and just in general, disrupt its smooth functioning.  The benefit of course would be to reveal weaknesses now so they can be addressed.  The alternative feels like just sitting around, waiting for the inevitable attack and not being truly battle tested.

I don't know, is this happening already?  There have been all kinds of attacks related to exploiting the Bitcoin system for personal gain, but how about attacks aimed at hurting or causing a lack of trust in the system?  Would attacks of this nature be a positive development for Bitcoin?

Every time I see blatant problems not being fixed, specifically in places like the games industry, that immediately affects the prospects of how well a piece of code is going to do. One great example is when I see glitches in MMORPGs which allow people to duplicate items and sell them over and over, now the developers 'could' ignore this but what's going to happen then? The problem will get worse and worse, everyone else will leave out of frustration because of the people abusing these glitches to cheat through the game and then they'll be forced to shut down.

It's the same thing here, every time a flaw is discovered in the Bitcoin code and it's fixed, that fixes up everything, the code is the infrastructure and keeps everything together, if they don't fix a reported problem then it's just going to get worse and worse until they couldn't do anything about it. Imagine if we had a problem where someone had found a glitch in Bitcoins code that allowed them to endlessly duplicate coins in seconds, that would be a disaster wouldn't it? It's in everyones best interest, even hackers and criminals to fix up Bitcoin every time there is a problem so the currency maintains its value.

Either that, if the devs decide to mutiny and completely abandon us, someone will provide an alternative because Bitcoin is of course open source.

The truth is that most of bitcoiners don't want such a testing. They want $1000 price to cash out. There u can find only a few ppl who support ur idea.

Well nobody's spending $100,000 on mining hardware or buying BTC at USD 40+ just so they can buy a pair of shoes with Bitcoin, that's for sure.

Socks. Its to buy socks. First things first, after all. Once everyone has socks, time enough then for shoes.

-MarkM-

I would donate to create a good testing platform.

But testing shouldn't be conducted on the network, and testnet is too open.

A rack full of cores and RAM is what might prove to be useful:  running a few thousand VMs with clients and miners of different release numbers, five or six pools, a few trojans, a few exchanges, segmented networks representing governments, and so on.  And some people with access, directed to make it break.

That might be useful.

I do support malicious testing, but I think it is underway already. The lure of easy money ensures that bitcoin security will be tested every day for the rest of it's life.

You presume to know the truth? You get your "facts" from some people posting on a public forum? Give me a break. You have no idea what I, as a bitcoiner, do or do not want.

Of coz I don't know what u want. Does it make my statement incorrect?

There are incentives for some malicious testing, but the truly destructive attacks against the protocol itself really don't benefit anyone, until bitcoin becomes big enough to threaten the established players in the payments and financial world. I'd rather be prepared for that when it comes... better deal with vulnerabilities, bugs, downtime and other adverse effects now than when Bitcoin has 10 million users.

Yes, it does. You are making assumptions.

Bring on the attacks (as if hackers have been holding off until now).

S.Dice has done a fantastic job of pushing the envelope. Hopefully a few more such popular sites show up to really push the limits. Let's see some billion dollar company create a block chain gambling site and advertise daily on the public TV.

Hopefully a few governments outlaw Bitcoin today so people start to understand what they are up against.

I personally would like to know if there are any major flaws sooner rather than later. I believe many people are in this camp.

Yea it does, like most of your troll posts.
I doubt we will ever reach $1000, specially if the network isn't thoroughly tested and patched when problems are discovered.

People use word "TROLLING" when they have no other counter-arguments. Do me a favour, click the [Ignore] button under my avatar.

I would like to see a few more ASICs going live, and an updated client which addresses the blocksize limit first. By confidence as a Joe-average would rise then.
Purposely stressing things would see my holdings fall in value in the short term I think as people would panic sell.
Surely these things can be tested on a separate network though? It must be fairly easy to simulate scenarios such as a massive surge in transactions etc? I would download a test client to run a parallel blockchain and send play Bitcoins if it would help the community.