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Title: Bug in Bitcoin algorithm! Post by: rezilient on February 10, 2014, 10:00:56 PM Article here: http://www.coindesk.com/price-drops-mt-gox-blames-bitcoin-flaw-withdrawal-delays/ (http://www.coindesk.com/price-drops-mt-gox-blames-bitcoin-flaw-withdrawal-delays/)
Quote from coindesk article: Quote Mt. Gox offered two explanations for laymen and tech-savvy users. In essence, Mt. Gox says it identified a bug in the Bitcoin software that makes it possible for someone to use the network to alter transaction details, making it seem like bitcoins had not been sent to a bitcoin wallet, when in fact they had. “Since the transaction appears as if it has not proceeded correctly, the bitcoins may be re-sent. Mt. Gox is working with the Bitcoin core development team and others to mitigate this issue,” Mt. Gox said. The technical explanation is a lot more detailed. It points out that bitcoin transactions are subject to a design flaw that has been largely ingored, although it was known to “at least a part” of the Bitcoin core development community. The defect is known as “transaction malleability” and it allows third parties to alter the hash of a fresh transaction without invalidating the signature. Mt. Gox explains: “Of course only one of the two transactions can be validated. However, if the party who altered the transaction is fast enough, for example with a direct connection to different mining pools, or has even a small amount of mining power, it can easily cause the transaction hash alteration to be committed to the blockchain.” The “sendtoaddress” API returns a transaction hash as a way to track the insertion of the transaction into the block chain. Since most wallet and exchange services keep a record of this in order to respond to users who make inquiries about their transactions, they could assume that the transaction was not sent – as it would not appear in the block chain with the original hash. For the time being, there is no way of efficiently recognizing alternative transactions. “This means that an individual could request bitcoins from an exchange or wallet service, alter the resulting transaction’s hash before inclusion in the blockchain, then contact the issuing service while claiming the transaction did not proceed. If the alteration fails, the user can simply send the bitcoins back and try again until successful.” Can someone more technical than myself please weigh in? Thanks. Title: Re: Bug in Bitcoin algorithm! Post by: pheaonix on February 10, 2014, 10:18:31 PM i don't understand the mechanics 100%, but this seems to be bullshit. buying time. if it was a legit problem, other exchanges would be doing the same.
edit: did some reading, problem lies in gox's shitty custom scripts. normal qt wallet has code to verify the transaction id. Title: Re: Bug in Bitcoin algorithm! Post by: Kenshin on February 10, 2014, 10:20:08 PM i don't understand the mechanics 100%, but this seems to be bullshit. buying time. if it was a legit problem, other exchanges would be doing the same. Yes, simple explanation. Buy as much btc as you can while you can. :) Title: Re: Bug in Bitcoin algorithm! Post by: rezilient on February 10, 2014, 10:40:18 PM Found this follow up article. Seems to squash the bullshit Gox claim neatly.. Well done Gavin and Jeff.
http://www.coindesk.com/gavin-andresen-jeff-garzik-mt-gox-wrong-bitcoin-isnt-broken/ (http://www.coindesk.com/gavin-andresen-jeff-garzik-mt-gox-wrong-bitcoin-isnt-broken/) Title: Re: Bug in Bitcoin algorithm! Post by: guybrushthreepwood on February 10, 2014, 10:45:13 PM You could read all the other threads about this.
Title: Re: Bug in Bitcoin algorithm! Post by: keithers on February 11, 2014, 12:23:12 AM I don't understand all of the computer coding and lingo of it all, but basically what I understand is that this was already a known issue to the bitcoin developers (and also already currently being worked on). They have also publicly stated that it should have no affect on an exchanges ability to process withdrawal requests..
Title: Re: Bug in Bitcoin algorithm! Post by: _Miracle on February 11, 2014, 01:58:44 AM This isn't the first time MtGox has failed in a big way.
Even "if" there is a problem with programing, MtGox as an exchange...dealing with other peoples money and should have built in safe guards. They have failed before, are failing and based on their current responses to this failure; will fail again. If they even recover this time. Title: Re: Bug in Bitcoin algorithm! Post by: pungopete468 on February 11, 2014, 02:26:56 AM This story is so absurd...
They are insolvent. They took what little liquidity they had left; crashed the surrounding markets and bought as much of the triggered stop losses as they could... Chances are they will pay out the largest investors and everybody else will burn up in Gox's insolvency... This "bug" isn't even a "bug." Why would an exchange like gox allow the withdrawal of coins which haven't been confirmed yet? They wouldn't... It's way too early in this game to make accusations like this as Bitcoin is still mostly owned and used by a technologically savvy user base. Good riddance; we all saw it coming. We were hoping Gox could recover but apparently it's given up the fight... Title: Re: Bug in Bitcoin algorithm! Post by: _Miracle on February 11, 2014, 08:10:11 AM This isn't the first time MtGox has failed in a big way. Even "if" there is a problem with programing, MtGox as an exchange...dealing with other peoples money should have built in safe guards. They have failed before, are failing and based on their current responses to this failure; will fail again. If they even recover this time. Title: Re: Bug in Bitcoin algorithm! Post by: skivrmt on February 11, 2014, 12:13:47 PM Not sure too many people use itBit exchange, but they issued a PR basically calling out Mt. Gox and saying everything is fine with Bitcoin and Mt. Gox has its own issues. :)
http://us3.campaign-archive1.com/?u=0bb2d75783bccf5d0feedf3ed&id=bb87384196&e=cf173d21dd Title: Re: Bug in Bitcoin algorithm! Post by: leannemckim46 on February 11, 2014, 02:57:51 PM Never trusted MtGox so nothing happen
Title: Re: Bug in Bitcoin algorithm! Post by: pera on February 11, 2014, 03:09:16 PM There is no bug in Bitcoin but in how MtGox was confirming transactions... and they want the core dev to modify bitcoin's protocol to solve their (gox) own incompetence.
MtGox is pathetic: sql injections, preventable ddoses, poor software design choices, administrative problems, terribly bad PR.. Personally I don't want to see them die only because I believe that wouldn't be good for the market in a short to mid term, but they are being really painful :-\ |