Bitcoin Forum

I've seen a lot of post here about botnets that actually attempt to mine bitcoins. The authorities recently identified a 2 million machine botnet. Couldn't that present a totally different threat if the true purpose was to controll the network consensus? What if they all advertised the same longest (but unproofed) blockchain? How would the system counter that? How many nodes are there currently?

2 million PCs owned by people too clueless to realise they've been compromised (i.e. not geeks with i7s overclocked to 5ghz) is going to be lucky to produce half a percent of network hash, never mind 50%

Does not matter how may botnet nodes use incorrect blockchain, true nodes accept block only if it is valid. So you need computing power if true nodes has to accept your blocks

And 2mil CPUs is nothing for Bitcoin hashrate

In a peer-to-peer network I dont see how hashrate makes a difference to consensus. Isn't every node equal? One node doesn't know how fast another node is. If they're all equal, then what is a "true" node? Isn't that the same as a "central authority"? Anyone know how many nodes there are?

That's not technically possible, because each node independently verifies the blockchain. There is nothing that a botnet could possibly do that would force your node to accept an invalid blockchain.


Hashrate is central to consensus because it determines the probability of any given miner finding valid proof-of-work for any given block. Nodes achieve consensus by accepting the longest chain with valid proof-of-work. The node function and mining function are not the same thing.

There are already invalid blocks in the blockchain, so I don't think you need to "force" a node to accept a bad blockchain. It has already happened. (A mystery to me, BTW). Also if you have a 2 million machine botnet accepting your bad blockchain and readvertising it as the longest, what happens? The biggest node I saw had only 1000 connections.

Wouldn't it be more profitable for the botnet owner to mine some CPU coins? Are any of those vulnerable to 51% attack?

And if you own a mining botnet wouldn't it be counterproductive to mess the coin up, wouldn't that also decrease the value of the coin?

The true danger lies, in my humble opinion, in the wallet stealing capabilities of coin related malware :D

Wallet stealing is possibility. If they have control over your computer they can easily take over your wallet. So I bet in those 2 million they got at least a few BTC.

No the most profitable system is the one that controls it, altering the blockchain at will without any CPU effort. Yes, you might not want to destroy it but if you know someone else will figure it out eventually, you need to go while the going is good. Maybe buy a Tesla or two. You don't want to be the last one out of the gate.

Are you suggesting that there are blocks on the main network consensus blockchain that don't have a valid nonce for the target difficulty?

Hey. I'm a newbie. I've just looked at some blockchain display tools on websites that come back with a designation of invalid at points. Maybe I wasn't looking at the REAL blockchain but I'm not sure how I'd figure that out without buying a $10,000 computer and compiling all my own software from source code (after looking at it in detail). You do compile all your own software from source code, don't you?

Indeed they could be a totally different threat if the true purpose was to control the network consensus.

I get it now, this is all trolling!

Hey, I'm willing to learn. I don't understand it now and that's the problem. Instead of trusting a central bank should I just trust you, a stranger or a bunch of mathematicians who haven't a clue about economics? I think 99%+ of those buying bitcoins don't understand how it works. That is dangerous regardless of whether it's foolproof. It is a "tyranny of experts". A system this complex is more like a contest daring someone to break bitcoin with the prize going up everyday. Unless it's been "proved" it should be nipped in the bud before a lot of people get hurt. Imagine finding the vulnerability in 2140 when the world depends on bitcoin. Right now I'm still trying to find someone who knows how many nodes there are. No takers so far. It's kinda like the argument "nobody's broken bitcoin yet" (well with the prize going up all the time you might want to wait...an interesting mathematical puzzle).