Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Development & Technical Discussion => Topic started by: jl2012 on March 17, 2013, 04:56:16 PM



Title: Miner messaging system
Post by: jl2012 on March 17, 2013, 04:56:16 PM
With the unintended 0.7 and 0.8 hardfork, I think we need a system for miners to tell the network about the block they are working on.

In this system, a miner will include his GPG key in the coinbase. Signing by this key, the miner will broadcast a message to tell the network the hash and height of the last few blocks which he is mining on. In case something like the last hardfork happens again, miners and merchants on bitcoind 0.7 will find that a large proportion (e.g. 40%) of mining power is working on an "invalid" block, and they will go to safe-mode. The hashing power of different miners could be determined by the last 2016 blocks.

One drawback is an evil miner with high hashing power may launch a DoS attack by telling the network he is working on a non-existing block.