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Just an official statement that PowerCoin PWC did suffer a 51% by an individual from a Chinese IP. I just wanted to clarify the rumours and to thank the community for their continued support over the months. What a journey it has been!  ;D

From this point forward PowerCoin will cease to exist. I will be in talks with Paul (BigVern) about a resolution for funds in cryptsy.

Let it be known that this was not only an attack on PowerCoin, but an attack on the crypto community. Who are we to dictate which coin lives or dies, the markets and the people will determine a future online currency. Just how Bitcoin is an experiment for something even greater to stand upon it.

Excellent news!  Looking forward to seeing the next copy-coin getting killed, and the one after that...

Not sure to be happy or not right now. Sucks to be one of the people that lost money...

I'm sure it sucks to lose money.  However, people dumb enough to invest their time, money, and resources into these insecure copy/paste coins have it coming to them.

I've made money on some of the copy-coins, particularly Feathercoin when I dumped my instamine on BTC-e the minute it was listed.  I don't hold copy/paste coins for more than 24 hours after mining them but only mine LTC these days anyhow.

there was a powercoin?

Yep. i heard the same comments made about dot com stocks. People dumb enough to invest their time, money, and resources into these fly by night dot com stocks have it coming to them. You are such a genius!!
I bet you shorted Amazon!

No risk, no gain!!!!

Oh sorry, maybe you weren't around for the dot com stock thing!

What were the improvements of Powercoin again?

Yes :)

It had power in its name.

Why, what was the benefit to the killer? Other than to eliminate the coin?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OyrX11cMkE

Powercoin isn't an altcoin I played with personally, but why is a single attack cause to shutdown?  Is that even possible?  Wouldn't the coin keep going as long as people mine and run nodes?

i lost out on this deal.

Exactly just to do it

Never had even 1 PWC and don't like NWO but 51% attackers are utter cunts.

That's correct but there will no longer be developer support.

Who wants to buy my PWC?  ;)

It is a bad news.

In my opinion, this is a good thing. It is the law of natural selection in the digital crypto world. The strong traits "coins" survive, the weak ones die off. This is critical in evolution! Look for much more of this to happen.

What if the coin you invested got attack still a good thing?

Sorry, the term "good thing" was a bad choice. I feel for those invested who lost out and hate to see anyone lose money. That part I would never say is good. I should have used the term "necessary thing". With all of these coins showing up so quickly, something has to give. My understanding is that the only way to secure a coin from these types of attacks is to have the ability to overpower them. If there is not enough hashing power going to the coin to prevent such a destruction, then it can be taken over and destroyed. Like it or not, that is the same we see in mother nature. It is cruel, it is harsh, but I think it will make cryptos more powerful in the long run.

Sorry for the insensitivity and sorry for your loss my friend.

I think your understanding is flawed. From a evolutionary perspective, only strong coins would survive through the support of the populous. Where the unsupported weaker coins would just die off from no support. In this instance PWC was targeted and killed. For example, DGC has picked up some steam recently and who knows it may do great things someday but no one will ever know if it got attacked. I purely used this example because DGC is on the radar for the next attack.

I appreciate your input. We invested heavily in PWC and this was just one more setback for us. BigVern messaged me that the attacker had indeed manipulated the chain and created hundreds of thousands of coins out of thin air. The landscape is very different now and altcoins are commonplace, the next successful coin has to bring something truly innovative to the table just like LTC did back in 2011.

Hey NWO where is that court order you were supposed to send me?

I think you quivering and running for the hills was hilarious enough  ;D Though I wasn't lying about my family of lawyers.

No hard feelings, PWC is now the past and the drama along with it.

Yes I clearly ran for the hills.

I still think you're actually 14 or something.

It is not possible to create hundreds of thousands of coins out of thin air in a 51% attack. They can mine from a point further back from the main chain and when they surpass the main chain a reorganization occurs which would result in their chain being the main one. The coins they legitimately mined are then real and those that are on the losing chain lose theirs. It's not really 'out of thin air' though. They genuinely mined them.

This is probably what you meant but it's good to be specific otherwise people spread FUD about what can happen in 51% attacks on other coins.

EDIT: I guess they could double spend which is a form of creating coins out of thin air. Spending them once, rolling back, then spending them again. Is that what happened?

We may add some checkpoints to fix this issue. I've added two more lines from the original list (35305 & 35600):

    static MapCheckpoints mapCheckpoints =
            boost::assign::map_list_of
            (  1, uint256("0xeaffe76c4e3ff3c814c94ce46732f887bb1bc8242b50c581445db0d6d6f76801"))
            ( 99, uint256("0xa922607fc2fe50fd30b7f043953cc045405919620e35db9274dbccb633c8a13d"))
            (127, uint256("0x94a069f3f8e4f9efa95d4e9fa700daf65b28d1cff4e62f4e2401598d2bd2ad6f"))
            (159, uint256("0x5c77fd4033fd7f8ceaa7748202d741d9b1d431a18d6f3cfbbade5878f5aa0157"))
            (226, uint256("0xc9f61ecaf05662a7cb59ca404ec8aa94404ba602605500f8d8da6fe65ea741e5"))
            (35305, uint256("0x323f211cf941f05062885a0f0fde9c8b9368ec2cc423df802b5d5c06269c0620"))
            (35600, uint256("0x12c5e6f9e8dccfaa0ebc0b5ba3be2a7e16089e1c3a6cc565b22c8082f8342656"))
                      ;
        /*

I repeat
What were the improvements of Powercoin again?

From my understanding of the analysis made by BigVern, the culprit created new coins by double spending.

I've sent you a PM BCX.

Even if someone tried to double spend through Cryptsy, so what? If you're going to give up the project after this, you shouldn't have started it at all.

The plot thickens.

First of all:


I just want to agree with this loudly. Although TBH I think a lot of these coin "devs" aren't in it for the "love of their work".

If you can't be bothered to hand it off to someone (or no one will take it) at least go out with a bang and completely fuck up your coin like an angry teenage GLD developer.

Back on topic, I'm interested about this "analysis of the blockchain".  The block chain would, of course, hide any evidence of a successful double spend that's the nature of the thing.

And here's this "51%" bogeyman again.  It must have been AWS guy right?

Now I like cryptsy, and haven't found BigVern to be anything but a straight shooter. But it seems to me it would be a lot easier to "51%" a single client than it would be to do it to a whole network.

And of course the only person who would have evidence of it would be the owner of the gang-raped node. And as far as that node is concerned , it might as well be the whole network.

Interesting.


"PWC got 51% attacked"

Bcx , please see my topic about a checkpoints system and a blockchain audit system .

I'm looking to pay someone to dev a system or cut and paste etc , maybe you want to show the community you can do something good for it ?

If your intention to 51% attack a system is to show its flaws , why not help legitimate currency for the future ?

Actually the love for my work in PWC cost me a hell of a lot more than what I made. We were trying to bring a whole range of services to the community and build more of a following but the rumours about a 51% attack has spooked most of the investors and followers. It is nothing but an upward battle which is why I decided to discontinue the work as my team has vanished. I can't do this on my own. 

I completely agree and I appreciate your input. I think someone with significant hashing power has accumulated A LOT of coins as no signs of an attack were found. However, the damage is done, most of the PWC team have now disintegrated.

Hey NWO
Can you tell me what were the improvements of Powercoin?

That confirms you have no real understanding what a 51% attack is. It's very unwise to make public statements like "OMG PWC is destroyed by some evil Chinese hacker" without any research done. You're an incompetent project manager even if you've had any development team which I really doubt.

Feathercoin has survived several 51% attacks with DDoS attempts on the largest pools, site and forum. The attackers tried to double spend through BTC-e, to destroy the network by orphaning valid blocks continuously, and to damage the reputation by spreading FUD among investors everywhere they could. Their actions were acknowledged and addressed accordingly, additional security features are in development now, the community support is strong. That's the way to go.

Obviously I'm confused now NWO was there are was there not an attack on Powercoin? Your mixed signals seem to be confusing folks.

You're right but you're part of the problem, trying to act all mysterious and uber.

I wish that people would stop saying "51% attack".

WTF are you talking about?

In a double spend, the blockchain wipes the evidence that's the point.

In a blockchain takeover it's only apparent to someone who has both copies of the chain, or was familiar with the old one.

Since you continue to deride rather than explain, I'm calling bullshit. Stop trying to sound important.


I can describe at least one theoretical method of doing this. It does not, in fact, require "a 51% attack" on the blockchain.

I'm not aware of any way (from a single copy of the blockchain) to detect a double spend after the network has had a chance to re-sync. The only people who would have evidence are the person who made the spend, and the merchant who released goods and then found their transaction had vanished.

If you are, that's great I'd like to hear it. At this point you seem to be trying to protect an investment in PWC or some other agenda...

or do you just mean something entirely else when you say "51% attack" and you're too hung up on yourself to bother explaining?

I'm going to go ahead and double post instead of editing since this is another subtopic:


It seems the person who actually made this claim is not here sharing any evidence or posting on the thread.

NWO repeated the claim, and the end of PWC is apparently is the result.

I for one, would love to see a post from BigVern, who has apparently reached the point that if he has a problem with a coin, everyone gives up and it dies.

Ill see what info I can get as far as real facts. I think folks with money in the coin and perhaps the perpetrators are trying to stir up more about it in order to protect their interests. I think the Network had a hashrate under 10MH's a good bunch of folks could with some effort have attacked this coin. There are others that are pretty weak I encourage everyone to research what it is you are trading before spending your money. PWC was NEVER a safe investment I can name a good number of other coins that are also VERY risky and one coin currently is plain suicide to trade for. Again High Risk High reward.

No, it was an attack on your piece of shit coin.


Niggas with a fucking high ass hashrate, that's who.


Dude, you're not some philosopher. Just stfu.

WTS: Powercoin, inquire within :)

Hi guys,

Could anybody send me some PWC for free? I need them for a game with friends.

Love

Just Pm your address  ;D

Thanks Man! Just send as much as you can the more we have the better :)

I PM my address

PM me your address.

Thanks Jason! Just PMed!

This was an intentional attack on PowerCoin and on Cryptsy.   The reason you do not see the attack on the current blockchain, is because a checkpoint was released after the attack occurred which corrected the blockchain.

The 3 BigVern Questions - What Happened?  What Did We Do In Response?  How Do We Prevent This From Happening Again?


What Happened?

- The attacker captured 51% or more of the network hash and manipulated it in a manner in which they were able to send Cryptsy several large deposits of PWC after confirming that Cryptsy was now on their chain.


What Did We Do In Response?

- We became aware of reports of the possible attack, I messaged NWO.   He released a client update with new checkpoints, which we updated to right away.

- After updating, those transactions in the blockchain became unconfirmed, which reduced the Cryptsy wallet balance.

- The attack then withdrew their Cryptsy balance back to their wallet, which they had also apparently upgraded with the new checkpoints.


How Do We Prevent This From Happening Again?

I have since implemented measures on Cryptsy to immediately cancel any deposits which go from being confirmed in the blockchain to unconfirmed.


---

Why Can't We Just Start Using This Coin Again? 

- Because there is a holder of this coin who can dump these at any time and any price for him would be profit.   Therefore, this coin no longer has real work value.

Can't I Just Withdraw My Balance From Cryptsy?

- Crytpsy does not have the PWC available after the attack to fulfill this.

So what is the final resolution for PWC and Cryptsy?

PWC will not be actively traded on Cryptsy.   However, I will be opening limited trading for you to trade your PWC balance into BTC.   Deposits of PWC to/from Cryptsy will no longer be allowed.   The last trades happening on Cryptsy for PWC were around 0.00000400 BTC each.

I am offering to buy your PWC balance on Cryptsy at the price of 0.00000400 BTC each.    This offer will open in the next 24-48 hours and remain open for about 2 weeks.  This market will only be accessible for users who have PWC balance.  No buy orders other than from Cryptsy will be allowed.

After this final exchange of PWC, Cryptsy will destroy all PWC in it's possession and the client software and wallet will be deleted.

It is at your own discretion if you want to continue to mine Powercoin and trade/hold it between yourselves, but I certain do not recommend it.



Can this happen again on Cryptsy?   It's very unlikely that it will be as easy for an attacker to repeat this particular attack again on Cryptsy after we have added the reversal process.   HOWEVER, there are new exchanges emerging that may be targeted. 


BigVern

+1 Well put

+1

This is why the coin cannot be revived as it is an upward battle - as stated. It has nothing to do with not wanting to try anymore, this individual will just keep dumping and profiting on other people's money. I would rather let the coin die than this to happen.

hey this is great work - i take note that Cryptsy is on the ball with this sort of thing - this will only make that exchange more popular in my opinion .  i posted a request to pay a developer for security - if there is a responsive exchange that will take action in these events , this effectively means that , there is a possibility to create an attack proof sCrypt currency.

aside of course,  from making your own exchange ...

Thanks for dropping in BigVern and helping to clarify.

How much coin are we talking here?  strictly a matter of curiosity at this point. It sounds like it must be a significant percent of the coinbase.

In excess of 2M

This coin was never under a 51% attack, my daemon running days and nights was always synchronized on the right block chain without any updates (nevertheless updating the checkpoint file is a good idea)  , and the block explorer below is on the right block chain too.

http://block.al.tcoin.info/chain/PowerCoin?hi=37762


If we look at the 'height' of the peers, we have two block chains:
        "startingheight" : 376882,
        "startingheight" : 37965,


   "startingheight" : 376882 is the wrong block chain, and contains a huge number of blocks... If your daemon lost the synchronization, and if you want to re-sync on the right block chain, you just have to add the checkpoints given before.

It is pretty obvious that the vast majority of scrypt coins are vulnerable to attack, even with merged mining they might not be able to muster enough hashing power to secure themselves, without it they are pretty much begging to be attacked.

-MarkM-

Is this true for ltc too?

Give a good Proof of Stake coin a try like Novacoin, Bitgems or Bottlecaps

How bout a round of applause for big vern. such a noble gesture indeed. i'm impressed

It could maybe become so if enough scamclones manage to divert enough hashing power, maybe.

However I think it is also possible that litecoin, like bitcoin, imagined itself to have such a huge amount of hash power that it might have deliberately avoided fixing at least one known attack, known as the timetravel exploit, and seemingly no one has yet managed to timetravel either bitcoin or litecoin yet as far as I know so maybe litecoin really does have "enough" hashing.

But, if it is true that litecoin, like bitcoin, felt that fixing the timetravel exploit was not necessary due to their massively huge amount of hashing power, how many clonecoin authors will have even known about the timetravel exploit, let alone about bitcoin and litecoin not having bothered to fix it 9due to arrogantly assuming their own hash rates are too huge for anyone to make use of the exploit) and thus actually bothered to puthe timetravel fix into their clonecoin?

I am thinking few, if any. Thus that probably almost all these recent scamclones are basically begging to be timetravel-exploited...

I am not actually sure though that litecoin never did get around to including a fix for the timetravel exploit. (An excuse for not fixing it would be that it would be a hardfork change, thus maybe not worth doing if there seemed negligible chance anyone could muster enough hashing power to use the exploit.)

-MarkM-

So let's be clear:

1.  PWC, with the new checkpoints, is perfectly valid.  Anyone can mine it.  Anyone can use it.  It will, like the other 40 or so low hash rate coins, remain vulnerable to further 51% attacks

2.  An attacker was able to steal coins from Cryptsy using an exploit where they deposited coins on a forked block chain and then proceeded to withdraw those coins on a real blockchain

3.  Vern has fixed the vulnerability in #2 but does not have sufficient PWC to pay everyone their full balance

While this particular attack is unlikely to occur again, a far more common one is far an attacker to do a 51% attack, deposit coins to an exchange, immediately convert to BTC, and then withdraw the BTC.  That attack is easier to pull off and much harder for an exchange to protect against.

Anyone trading alt coins on an exchange needs to be aware coins can effectively be stolen from an exchange in this manner resulting in a loss of capital for the traders.  That is why there are very few exchanges that allow low hash rate coins to be traded.

so would anyone be open to another sha-256 coin?

Most of the recent bitcoin clonse probably also are vulnerable to the timetravel exploit since they pretty much just cloned bitcoin. For good SHA256 coins look for the merged mined coins, most of them added the timetravel fix way back when they added merged mining, and some of them are very low difficulty still since so few people bother merged mining. As actually getting the most out of your SHA256 hashing power becomes more important (as more and more hardware starts finding electricity bills significant) it seems likely that more and more pools and solo miners will pick up more and more of the merged mined coins so picking them up now before everyone does could be a good strategy...

-MarkM-

Oh cool if Lolcust was involved in that then maybe Tenebrix also has the fix, heck maybe even Fairbrix has it.

-MarkM-

You don't get how hilarious the story is. I've spent some time on analysis of the Powercoin's block chain. This is not a single exploit or security breach, this is something really outstanding :)

They say someone with huge hash power took control over the network, so here we have a 51% attack. That evil guy double spent his coins through Cryptsy. He forked the block chain, deposited coins at Cryptsy, mined new blocks until it confirmed, then switched to the original block chain, withdrew coins to his address, and continued to mine until the withdrawal confirmed. It seemed no one cared to process such high deposit and withdrawal manually, so the evil guy got away with over 2 million PWC. Cool, yeah? Now they feel pissed off extremely and ready to destroy the whole currency to make sure the hacker never profits. Good guys with PWC deposits at Cryptsy are going to receive some kind of compensation, other good guys out there get nothing. And the story ends.

Wait, 2 million coins moved at once? Get ready for real fun now. They weren't hacked once or twice. They were hacked a couple dozen times! The bad guy worked hard 2 days long forking and orphaning the block chain, depositing and withdrawing coins. The 1st attempt was at block #29294 (http://block.al.tcoin.info/block/d323e688aa2861c8bf66be3c47d0565b541b2e84e09825b76bc6c2fdeedc528d), time stamp 2013-06-15 00:38:00. He started with some 20K PWC to double spend. It worked out, cool. He tried it again a few more times. No problem. The dude decided to raise stakes. Again and again. The last double spends were over 200K each: #29669 (http://block.al.tcoin.info/block/9f32cf6a5e743ea8cd6d9734df0c93ab24ff3202190304c229c8a182c4df2bae) (2013-06-16 11:55:17) and #29706 (http://block.al.tcoin.info/block/d243bf00e5abdd1fb78807ecce966f856b8e30d3d97403d1ab9700fa5b795392) (2013-06-16 15:42:35).

His highest withdrawals went to this address: p5p53rioyjqyuwbySUzZAeX2JU4778yECZ (http://block.al.tcoin.info/address/p5p53rioyjqyuwbySUzZAeX2JU4778yECZ)

2 days under attack and no one gave a shit! They didn't care even to increase the number of confirmations for deposits, say, to 100 like BTC-e did with Feathercoin recently. Now they tell stories and the community is at loss.

Blockchains are insanely expensive to secure.

It is crazy to launch some new crapcoin and expect anything other than absymal failure, possibly with a quick dump on the way if you're lucky and you premine or instamine a lot of coins.

This stuff should be happening constantly. Get ready for it...

-MarkM-

No way man didn't you know?


The ultimate authority assured us there was no attack. And that anyone who thinks there was obviously doesn't have a clue about crypto.

 ::)

Alright, how can you explain all those block chains forked and dropped? One of them was 67 blocks long forked at #29516 (http://block.al.tcoin.info/block/31c1ec6906f596933cb4d71d6664483fa818501477c5ba5c75eeb954d1e75d40).

The PowerCoin client wait for a 100 blocks confirmation. A smaller fork is not an issue.

You mean this fix from 2 years ago? https://github.com/coblee/litecoin-old/commit/b1be77210970a6ceb3680412cc3d2f0dd4ca8fb9
Litecoin was launched with it already fixed.

Mined balance only. Some cryptos set it even higher like 520 blocks for NVC and YAC. 100 blocks to confirm regular transactions is a disaster.

Well shame to see this one go it did look promising however just because of an attack now kills the coin seems that their was  not enough development oh wel. Bring on the next one.

It's a shame for the attacker for attacking it. Who can not play a fair game. They must know that their scamcoins has no chance against powercoin. They must see it as threat. If powercoin has given enough time. The promotion and projects we are on the line must have make powercoin soared above the rest. But before we execute our plan they already killed it. If we reincarnate it back they will attack it again. Poor bastard losers instead making projects and promoting their own shitcoin they attack others. But we will not stop here because of this set back but will back with more better coin.

Actually, the attacker should award him because he found the security flaw.  ;D
He should re-brand the whole chain of Powercoin and push it to the market just as premined!  ;)

Ps, the idea is coming from the traditional stock market indeed... repackage and on-shelf.

I don't think its dead someone still mining it and it was currently traded in http://www.coins-e.com/exchange/PWC_BTC/ .