Bitcoin Forum

The more and more I see the difficulty shoot up to ridiculous levels, the more and more I see the major flaw in BTC. In the end there is nothing stopping a Mega Mining operations from doing whatever they want. Here is why I feel this way.

http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/06/16/how-a-mining-monopoly-can-attack-bitcoin/ <-cred and props to these guys for writing this.

A Mega Mining operations says "trust us", their name is Ghash.io(this violates the trust-less nature of what BTC is supposed to be)...

They say they will "not do a 51% attack", although they could at any time.

"""GHash actually had a fairly sustained 55% last weekend, and there is no reason why it couldn't be, say, 80%. So a 1-confirmation transaction would suddenly take 40 minutes instead of 10."""

Other miners will soon start going out of business (and have been already) and stop mining completely at some point, which will leave Ghash.io or whatever Mega Miners remain to have almost total control.

Now I know a lot of people in these forums always try to play the emotional game(while they try and say it is logical) of "A Mega Miner serves itself better by keeping BTC alive and not doing 51% attacks". That might be true for the time being, but what about years from now? There will be a point where someone gets up to 60% or 70% or even 80% or higher. There will be no room for smaller operations, it will be controlled, therefore changes can be made in their favor. We all know what happens when people get control of something, with great power comes great corruption. There is no law that prevents a Mega Miner from screwing anyone over. In the end it will most likely not be worth it for the Mega Miner to continue, hence where the screwing over comes in. Double spending, not validating transactions, black listing people, big fees if they feel like it(or else your transaction doesn't get processed).

But why doesn't everyone "just choose not to accept those miners". Good question, not everyone knows anything about that and then where do you really go when everything is shut down? The community isn't going to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to hire and create a new Mega Mining operation that could just turn around and screw them over again anyway.

BTC is a very good step forward in the direction of the future of currency. But we all can't sit around and claim BTC is the best when such fatally obvious flaws exist. I don't see any way to fix it, and when quantum computing comes out prepare to really get effed by a Mega Miner. It is not like a Mega Miner needs to screw everyone over royally, it is just that "trusting" them is what BTC is not about.


Extreme Example:

Miner A has 65%
Miner B has 30%
Miner C has 5%

So in this example of the near future or a few years away future, Miner A is control now. Guess what? Everyone agrees to raise the threshold to 71% besides Miner A, but guess what? Miner A does not accept the change so it does not go through. So you see how it would be harder and harder to update the BTC protocol further into the future...


What happens if Miner B and C accept the change? Chaos.


New Block Chain formed that lots of people go to, but some still at Miner A(the dumb people).

Miner B now has about 85% of total miner power
Miner C now has 15% of total miner power.

Miner B controls the network now instead of Miner A, threshold is again voted to be raised to a 91% attack is now needed to double spend...

See how the problem just keeps going with stupid things like this? It needs to be changed to a higher number NOW before the Miners become a more powerful oligopoly.


Miners don't always have to act in the best interests of anyone... Look at MTGOX and other countless examples. Hacking can easily ruin miners too, why not?


People used to think it was impossible to get into space, the earth was flat, that certain races are dumber, that the everything revolves around the earth, even BTC people say is impossible until someone thought of it... etc...

I wouldn't give up hope on an updated protocol that solves more issues, it isn't impossible to make BTC better, it isn't impossible to change the protocol and add new features/voting system based on "X" where x is a section of code that now also validates "BLAH" and confirms "YADDA YADDA".


Tell me, why is it better that Ghash.io can do everything it wants? Why isn't it better to have a floating variable that determines lets say the top 5 Mining Pools and makes them all confirm something instead? How is having one thing in charge better than 5? A system needs to be put into place where more than one mining pool can agree with the others and validate, and if a pool is abusing its power there should also be something that makes gives them consequences for doing so. The logic can and must be expanded to account for the future.

Sorry to disagree with u. I can see the future in P2Pool. P2Pool code is now open and group of miners are joining various new P2Pool. GHash.IO will lead for some more days ...but ultimately they'll surrender to cumulative miner hashpower in P2Pools. In past, we have seen deepbit to vanish after they touched 51%. Nothing is permanent in the Bitcoin world except competition. :)

It must be fun to have such an active imagination...
Or were you using a crystal ball on this one?

You can still redeem yourself by educating yourself.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Backfire_effect

The backfire effect occurs when, in the face of contradictory evidence, established beliefs do not change but actually get stronger. The effect has been demonstrated experimentally in psychological tests, where subjects are given data that either reinforces or goes against their existing biases - and in most cases people can be shown to increase their confidence in their prior position regardless of the evidence they were faced with.

It is all well and great if a bunch of miners join P2P pool, but I am willing to bet you the Mega Miners who spend millions on their machines are not going to give up control to P2P pool. That is the problem I see with what you are saying. Ghash.io is already set to move forward and take even more, there is an unknown % of hashing power out there and many people speculate and seem to be right about it being Ghash.io covering it up to look "unknown". In reality they have hit 51% before a few times on their "Ghash.io" branded servers. Who knows what their other miners are called, only they do, hence the "Unknown %" issue. They most likely have been doing 60% or higher this whole time and just haven't done much yet, there was double spends before through them.

This. Hopefully GHash.IO miners consider choosing alternatives to help Bitcoin. About core GHash.IO hardware, it will not stop as long as it is profitable, obviously with same Bitcoin price and continuous difficulty increase there is a point where power bill is higher than mining Bitcoins, and big mining operations cannot afford pay the huge power bills while home Bitcoin supporteers can afford continue to mine in expectation of future Bitcoin price + Bitcoin support

One cannot perform a 51% attack unless one has 51% of the network. Today, 2014 Jun 25, the day you express your woe, here is the reality of the situation:

https://blockchain.info/pools

(following is edit - somehow I saved before including the diagram)

https://i.imgur.com/HPQHL8i.png

Safe for the time being.

Within the past 7 days they were over 51%. This daily chart is meaningless for your example of "trying to prove me wrong". They have been past 51% before as well. Do your homework mister, see my after class, D-.

If you think GHash.io is big, wait til you see IBM, VISA, China, Iceland, etc mining.

You so cute. ::mwah::

Your statement was that they could amount a 51% attack at any time.

They do not currently have 51%. Ergo, they cannot currently mount a 51% attack. Therefore, they cannot mount a 51% attack at any time.

Sorry. You made a false statement. Happens to us all from time to time. Get over it.

LOL ....

All these 51% threads are still better than "ASIC will KILL btc" threads.... dont you agree?

Competition is healthy for business, and it's healthy for Bitcoin. There will be more competition as the base grows and things will average out.

yes ... the main industry with the hellfire debt on it.
they only can buy what they can exchange pay for service.

i hate to say it but i think it foolish to think large corporations are not allready involved

they may not come out and make a public statement about it but anyone who now controls the worlds money supply or charges for financial services

and is cheating the world would hedge their position and be involved in bticoin mining by this point because they leave nothing to chance

OP stop trying to spread FUD. This was talked over multiple times.
It's a flaw in the protocol, but a problem caused by the miners themselves.

Pure logic suggest that this is the case. In years to come, mega miner will control 99% mining power.

it is quite possible

right now any one pool is not a threat but think long term 5, 10 , 20 years from now,

if bitcoins destiny is to become a medium of trust for the entire world to base itself upon the ground work will be laid now for what is to come

i recall other large operations (the guild) getting close to 50% and volunteering to back off,  not this time

So you are telling me in the span of one day when Ghash lowered themselves from the 55% they were at, and put themselves at about 38%, that they couldn't turn everything on again?

Jesus Christ you are a smart one. rofl...

I give you an F- now. If that is even possible. I mean honestly, try thinking in more than a few dimensions... Even logically to someone in like 5th grade you could have a word problem that says, "If Ghash.io has 55% for a day and they voluntarily turn it down to 38%, could they turn it on again to 55%?"

Answer Choice:

A: Yes
B: No

Jesus H man. Get ahold of your logic!

I love when people just say "stop saying something".

Nice counterpoint by saying "OP is wrong". lol so much smartnessssss

I guess my question is why it has to be set as the majority >= 50%?

In other types of determining a majority, some things are done at a 2/3 majority. Is there a real reason we need to have it at 50%? What is stopping a change to make it say 80%?

You make a good point of one pool isn't that bad right now because there still are some other big pools who can take over. I just feel like it is really odd that it isn't change to a higher % right now so we can avoid any further issues. once Ghash.io gets up to 70% things could get pretty ugly and they might not accept the change once they get too big.

The OP has a legitimate point that BTC is supposed to be trustless, so large mining pools pose a major problem for bitcoin. I should not have to trust that GHash.IO will not double spend and damage the network in a "trustless" system.

Also, we have to worry about pool operators colluding with each other to attack the network. In a trustless system, I should not have to worry that the pool operator of GHash.IO may collude with the pool operator of Discus Fish to attack the network.

I would much rather see a system with many more small mining pools than the current behemoths like GHash.IO that control over 40% of the network.

In greed we trust. Who is foolish enough to kill the golden goose?

The reason 50% is important is because whoever controls over 50% of the network can solve blocks faster than the entire rest of the network combined, and work on their own version of the block chain privately while withholding it from the rest of the network. After they do a successful double spend, they can release their version of the blockchain, which will be accepted by the rest of the network because it is longer than the version the rest of the network was working on.

Technically, this attack can be pulled off with less than 50% of the network hash rate if the attacker hits a good luck streak.

It is trustless. In a fiat system there is financial incentive to cheat the system. That's why they attempt to regulate it. Bitcoin has no incentive to cheat. Creating even one false block will be the death of the mining pool. Even if they get away with several blocks by being very lucky, it will spook people away from trusting pools in the first place.

I do like the fact that BTC attempts to have a way of dealing with "rogues". my worry is that it will not be enough in the end. Is there a reason it has to be 50%? Why not make the threshold 70% to be able to double spend?

I completely disagree. Any system where I have to trust a single human being (or even a couple that could collude together) that administer pools with over 50% of the network hash rate to not cheat is definitely not trustless.

it doesn't matter that ghash.io as a company has no benefit from and therefore no interest in a 51% attack. behind the company are people and you trust these strangers that they care about ghash.io's and bitcoin's future. it only needs one pissed ghash.io employee and bitcoin has a serious problem.

compare it to absolute poker's and ultimate bet's super user scandal back in 2007. the companies had no interest in cheating their customers. a few people inside the company had an interest and didn't care at all what their behaviour would mean for the companies or online poker.

Are you saying people don't play online poker anymore? Sure, MtGox cheated customers, but all it did was make other exchanges more responsible. If a pool cheated customers, people wouldn't use that pool anymore. The pool operators better watch their employees just like poker companies watch theirs. Of course there are other cryptographic solutions as well. They will sort out this issue eventually.

Mega miner coming around 2050, my bet. It will happen, matters when

I'm picturing Spaceballs sucking all the bitcoins off the planet.

Also, in case folks were not aware, there are hackers out there that like to break shit and cause as much chaos as they can. They could do some serious damage to Bitcoin if they gained control of GHash.IO.

Your average miner is not too bright. GHash.IO was already caught cheating (see the thread below), but they are still the largest BTC mining pool by far. If miners has any common sense, they would not support a pool that was already caught red handed cheating.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0

One question to Bitcoin and pool experts: is it possible to recognize a block was mined by a P2Pool rather than a centralized pool?

I really want it to be.  It'd be possible to give some incentives to that kind of pools, by making some changes in the core of the bitcoin protocol.

A. Yes.

Now here's one for you.

 "If Ghash.io has 55% for a day, and many of their former hashers decide consequently to mine at a different pool, bringing the pool's capability down to 38%, could Ghash.io merely raise it again to 55%?"

Answer Choice:

A: Yes
B: No

Absent any evidence determining which of these two scenarios is in play, or what the mix between them may be, all your left with is conjecture. Negative conjecture is nothing but FUD.

Of course, if you are in possession of actual evidence, I'm pretty sure that I am not the only one that would be interested in hearing it.

The issue with doing this is that you are acting like a government, propping up others and giving other an incentive but not giving all the incentive. BTC isn't supposed to act like that.

I am rarely ever on here reading anything, yet I have read posts that show it was over 51%. They are not that hard to find. Due diligence sir. I am not paid to educate you, unless you want to send me some BTC then I will.

Can u plz give us a few examples of double spends that GHash.IO has made in recent past ?

If a pool having 51% + has negative aspect on the price, why would the pool to continue to operate in such a manor ? it sounds counter productive.

You were given the answer to this by kendog77 just a few posts ago. It's not a variable in the code, it is an inviolable law of mathematics - 50% is half, so any more than 50% (we shorthand it as 51%) is more than half.

If one has the majority of the hashing power, then probabilistically, one will solve the majority of blocks. I.e. One will solve more blocks than the rest of the network combined.

If one is guaranteed to solve more blocks than the rest of the network combined, one may generate a blockchain which is longer than any other blockchain.

One may:
- spend a certain coin on the 'public' chain, then;
- create  transaction 'spending' the same coin in a transaction not broadcast to the network, then;
- mine privately using that second transaction instead of the first.
When one's chain is longer than the public chain (again, more than half the hash power guarantees this will happen eventually), one releases the private chain. As the previously private chain is longer than the initial chain, the entire network 'snaps' to your new longer chain - with the second spending of that coin.

The new longer chain has not the first spending of that coin, but rather the second spend of that coin.

The net effect is that the recipient of the first 'spend' of the coin has that coin ripped from his wallet, and you get double value for that coin - you have been on the buying end of two transactions involving the same coin.

IOW, it is '51%' because that is more than half.

For someone generating so much heat on this issue, it is kind of funny that this illumination is needed.

The problem isn't the mining pools, it is user error. It is a special case where high risk behavior pushes the technology too far. It was entirely preventable if gamblers were willing to wait for additional confirmations.

I'm writing this off the top, so you are going to be able to find all kinds of flaws in this idea, but here goes.

How about a new crypto called CaptchaCoin, that starts out with zero coins in it. There is no mining as we know it. Rather, the mining end is set up like a captcha, yet a captcha with extremely random settings, so that it is as close to TRUE random as possible.

It would work like this:
1. You launch the CaptchaCoin program on your computer;
2. You go to the CAPTCHA screen in the program;
3. You type in the long captcha that you read on the screen;
4. If you typed it correctly, when you hit ENTER, you get a coin;
5. A new captch pops up on your screen, and you start typing again;
6. Coins are loaded into the non-Bitcoin blockchain, in Bitcoin fashion, added to your CaptchaCoin address, upon Internet connection.

If you want to become rich, you need to learn how to type faster, and how to talk friends and family into working with you on the captcha project. Your kids can type while you are at work, and you give them a percentage.

100% inflation is automatically built in, because the more coins are captcha/created, the less all of them are worth. The more people who work the program, the less your coins are worth. Because of this, you need to trade your coins off frequently/regularly for gold, or land, or cars, or fiat, or whatever, just so there won't be loss due to the built-in inflation.

This kind of coin would cause everyone in the world to be in competition with everyone else. Competition makes for popularity and fame. Might even be able to make audio captchas for the deaf. Because it is easy to mine, there would be no end to the numbers of people who would want to join in. Yet the captchas could be built in such a way that it would absolutely take a human to analyze them. Government couldn't stop it in any way, because people would run right around ALL governmental authority, one way or another.

There would be no advantage to storing (hoarding) the coins. Their value would drop continually if you didn't trade them for real products of one sort or other. Bitcoin wouldn't die, at least not right away. So, CaptchaCoins could be traded for bitcoins.

Soon fiat would be entirely out of business. Trade would abound because of the inflation factor. The whole world picture would change.

Now, some of you thinkers and gurus, take this idea and work out the flaws, and program it into reality. But do it fast, because if you don't, somebody else will beat you to it.

:)

EDIT: Hey, it took Satoshi years to develop Bitcoin into a working operation. He needed the help of the devs. Something like CaptchaCoin won't happen overnight, even though it could be built much faster than Bitcoin, because we have the Bitcoin pattern to follow.

But is it possible to recognize a block mined by a P2Pool?

That's the first step before even start to discuss anything about this.

Although I see some problems there, it's worth discussing.

But not here, you should create another thread.

Just as long as I get to create the Captchas, I'm down with it. Of course, I will be the only one able to solve them.

Why 70%?  I would turn it up to 110% myself.

The creation of the captchas would, of course, be built into the program. There would always be those few who would believe in it, just as every altcoin has its believers. So, once created, it would grow at least for awhile. I'd do it just for fun, but I am not that big of a programmer.

Somebody, with additional ideas just might think of and add the thing that would make CaptchaCoin have the flair that would grab the whole Bitcoin community, and later, the world.

:)

Lets see here, change the variable. Wow shockingly hard to comprehend right?

I am not sure, are you like new here and just bought your account from someone else to talk down to people about basic things? Just curious.

You will end up with either Hashcash or Bitcoin depending on the algorithm used to create the Captchas.

There are plenty of threads that reference this, I am not paid to help you find information. I will let you find it yourself, knowledge is power.

While you are guaranteed to doublespend with 51%, you can sometimes successfully doublespend even with less % hashrate (under 50%), the less you have, the lower the chance though

Perhaps, a little. The idea in CaptchaCoin is to bypass the mining machines altogether, and use people labor instead. Now, I wouldn't join a mining pool with captchaCoin, unless I were a slow typist. But we'd ALL be slow typists in a pool, because fast typists would make more coins typing on their own.

This is a PEOPLE JOB, not a machine-used mining gimmick. All it does is to free up employment for multitudes of BitcoinTalkers who don't have anything better to do than sit around and wait for Bitcoin to do something big. With CaptchaCoin, they can sit around and earn money by working, all the while keeping an eye on what is happening to Bitcoin.

:)

Well, technically the number could be anything. Could be 99.9999% of miners have to agree and "blah" happens...

I don't really see the point of it being 50% or higher to begin with, it would be much harder to exact a higher percentage attack, like say a 71% attack(at least right now it would be almost impossible). If people are serious about BTC staying around it needs to have a super majority agree on it like 70% to 80%, no more 50% agreement on things is what I say.

In the end there won't be a BTC Guild and a "blah blah" Guild. It will be a few really powerful Super Miner Guilds left, then you would really need to set the bar higher. Only guess what? if there is 3 miners left lets say who are mega size. For example.

Miner A has 65%
Miner B has 30%
Miner C has 5%

So in this example of the near future or a few years away future, Miner A is control now. Guess what? Everyone agrees to raise the threshold to 71% now, but guess what? Miner A does not accept the change so it does not go through.

What happens if Miner B and C accept the change? Chaos. Now two miners are in control.

Miner B now has about 85% of total miner power
Miner C now has 15% of total miner power.

Miner B controls the network now instead of Miner A, threshold is again voted to be raised to a 91% attack is now needed to double spend...

See how the problem just keeps going with stupid things like this? It needs to be changed to a higher number NOW before the Miners become a more powerful oligopoly.


Miners don't always have to act in the best interests of anyone... Look at MTGOX and other countless examples. Hacking can easily ruin miners too, why not?

They do have bots that solve captchas at a pretty reliable rate.

Good point. Can the bots be made good enough to do the job on really difficult captchas?

For example, the captcha could be made with parts of the captcha string located all over the captcha screen. There would be guiding numbers that suggest which captcha symbol would have to be typed next, the one in this block of the screen or the one in that block. The guiding numbers would change, randomly, each time a symbol was typed. This in addition to goofy looking symbols that bots would have a hard time reading or recognizing.

There is no Javascript here. We are open to anything that we can program. The devs would have a team designing new kinds of captcha types for the next version of CaptchaCoin. Users who felt that they had been discriminated against by fellow users, would be ready to point out flaws. Complicated captchas would slow down the whole process of typing in the symbols. This would keep CaptchaCoin inflation from rising too fast.

CaptchaCoin is an idea. If it's not practical, it will fall by the wayside. But don't be surprised...

:)

Not sure if serious. O.o

Please refer to the bolded portion above. And for god's sake, think before spewing.

Re: "Talk down" - you're the one who waded into this with guns blazing.

While true, this is of limited value in answering the question of 'why 50%?'.

Certainly, a 71% attack would be quite a lot harder to mount than a 51% attack.  However, I don't see how such a "super majority" mechanic could work here.  Are you suggesting something like: transactions only get confirmed if they are backed by 70% of the network?  If so, couldn't a pool with 40% of the hashing power attack the network by vetoing all transactions?

It was suggested that Ghash.io split some of its hashers into a new "unknown" pool in order to appear to have less than 50%. This shows they may be thinking the same way you are.

I think Ghash.io didnt even think about option they will be so successfull to have 51% at some time. Otherwise they started running second seemingly independed pool when around 30%

Ironically, they are the one that pointed out the "backfire Effect (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=665316.msg7508490#msg7508490)" earlier in the thread.
Suggestions on the linked page are to let tempers cool down a bit, or if it suits your purposes, make them look like an idiot.

Edit: on the original topic: Bitcoin is supposed to avoid the mega-miner scenario by lowering the barriers to entry. I don't think Satoshi anticipated the rise of mining pools where people blindly point hash-power at a few "trusted" entities.
If the hashers don't smarten up, something will happen to crash the price. Hopefully after 2-3 years of sliding value, hashers and pool operators will know to not concentrate hash-power again.

I disagree. I believe Bitcoin is becoming more decentralized. More Asics companies equals more consumer adoption for mining hardware.

I have thought about this also.

Is it better for double spends to happen and a 51% miner is in charge of everything? Or is it better for a super majority rule to be imposed, implying 70% must agree on transactions. If the 30% keeps vetoing it, this doesn't cause harm to bitcoin because they only hold veto power, not the power to do everything. I say it is better to have a rogue Mining Guild abuse veto power(then people stop using them) than it is for a rogue Mining Guild to have all the power.

I say this because having no transactions confirmed is an immediate thing to notice for anyone using it, and is probably a better thing to happen than lots of small scale double spends and obfuscation. Not everyone keeps track of double spending or is interested in it, but everyone is interested in transactions going through. Management by exception, IE if the block chain isn't confirming transactions a whole ton of people will notice within the hour and do something about it.

If the Rogue 51% Mining Guild keeps messing around for small amounts or does something not many people will care about, I feel like that will be a lot harder to combat and get enough people to rally behind fighting the 51% Mining Guild.

Let us think critically for a moment. This is all open source code we are talking about, the BTC Protocol can be changed. If the majority agree to lines of code that validate transactions based on a larger percentage than 50%, the change will go through.

I am not sure if you are serious, if you were any kind of coder you would realize EVERYTHING about the BTC Protocol can be changed and that changes are still pushed through from time to time. There is no "inviolable law of mathematics" to invoke here, it is CODE, code can be changed.



What you seem to be "trying to argue" is that it won't be changed or that you disagree with everything I type because you don't like thinking critically.

I wonder if way back in the day as GPU capable miners where first starting to hit the scene if similar arguments to this where raised regarding the centralization of mining power into huge GPU farm's and then ultimately from GPU to FPGA and obviously now from FPGA to asic?

This is the reason why we need a coin that is only mineable by GPU. But no such coin exist.

That code fragment you liked in the other thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=659720.msg7527841#msg7527841) was a joke.

I suggest you try to read and understand the Original Bitcoin Whitepaper (https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf).

There is no variable for deciding to trust the majority of the hash-power. It is inherent in the design of Bitcoin that the majority of the hash-power will be trusted. If that trust is not viable, then neither is Bitcoin.

People interested in preserving Bitcoin's value should work to reduce mining concentration as much as they are able.

Yes, code can be changed. But it cannot be changed in a manner that accomplishes that which is impossible.

It is harder to change a protocol (in a workable way) than it is to change code. Nevertheless, it is possible to change a protocol. But that protocol cannot be changed in a manner that accomplishes that which is impossible.

For all science knows at this point, in a Proof-Of-Work system, the 51% attack is indeed an inviolable property of the system.

Until a few scant years ago, mankind new of no way to solve the general double spend problem without appeal to central authority. _Anyone_ - owner of all the global hashpower, or owner of none of the global hashpower - could double spend in all decentralized systems.

Satoshi solved the generalized double spend problem. The corner he was unable to solve is the case where one aggressor has a significant portion of the global hashpower.

By all means, change the code. If indeed you can make the change you suggest is possible, you will no doubt be hailed as a hero to the entire cryptocurrency community. Your name may go down in history right alongside Satoshi's. If indeed you can perform this feat, you will deserve such accolade.

To be successful in this endeavor, however, it is going to require some critical thinking ^[tm].

With that, I think I'm out.

The 71% wouldn't have the power to do everything.  They couldn't, for example, increase their block reward, or spend coins they don't own.*

A small number of 0-confirmation double-spends sounds plausible, but repeatedly double-spending transactions with 2 or more confirmations will be noticed quickly (depth 2 block re-orgs are very rare).

Notice also that 31% could attack with equal subtlety by freezing a small selection of bitcoin accounts.


* The mechanics of a protocol change are practically orthogonal to those concerned with hashrate.  If some users (users/merchants/wallets/exchanges/pools) want to change the protocol, and other users want no change, then we'll have a hard-fork.  It will be as if those that wanted the change created an alt-coin with a pre-mine distributed among all bitcoin holders in proportion to their holdings.  If GHash.io wants to create GHash.io-coin and start mining it right away then I expect that many miners there will leave; who would want GHash.io-coins?  Such an attack would be roughly equivalent to GHash.io sending all their blocks to /dev/null.

Kicking out all the other miners by denying them any rewards and then reduce the online miners to a bare minimum would probably be profitable enough.

This is the whole point. "MAJORITY!" How big of a majority does a mining company really need? And if we want to change the protocol, what percent of the users and developers need to be in the majority? 51%? 66%? 75%?

If 51% of the people want some kind of protocol change, and I am in the 49% who want a different change, will I be happy? Now we're starting to talk politics, and we're heading for semantics.

20 / 20 hindsight. The guys who put the whole thing together used a lot of hindsight from previous programming experience, right along with the hindsight of living life experience. Yet, we now see that their hindsight didn't cover some things, and it is only this present hindsight that is uncovering those things.

What we need is a conference made up of anyone who has hindsight experience. It needs to be a cool, logical discussion, with as many points as possible being brought into view. Advantages and disadvantages need to be weighed. The scary thing about doing it this way is, we may find that the whole Bitcoin project might need to be scrapped, replaced by something different and better.

If we were only a handful of devs, sitting around the table and brainstorming, things would be different. As it stands now, the fortunes of many people are tied up in Bitcoin, and whomever takes it upon themselves to make changes, better do a real good job of it.

:)

Having the highest proportion of hashpower will attract more miners to point to their pool which has more chance to mine btc than other small pools.  On the other hand Ghash.io reluctantly splits  some of its hashers into independent pool in order to grab more profits.

How don't you understand this. BTC Protocol is code, CODE CAN BE EFFING CHANGED TO ANYTHING.

A VARIABLE CAN BE MADE TO HANDLE THIS LOGIC.

Jesus H. Christ people....

I agree, I only make these posts to facilitate discussion. I am by no means any kind of expert in this field at all. I merely think too much sometimes. Sometimes I have a pretty good grasp on a situation, but other times there are a few things I am missing(information wise) to make the best decision.

I still argue it would be better to have confirmations not confirmed than to have double spends and other BS happen. At least with transactions not getting confirmed a lot of people notice right away and will deal with it within hours.

Another thing to add to your above^.

If Ghash.io tried to do something like that, there is nothing preventing them from coming back from the Hard Fork they created, and getting back on to the "legitimate" Block Chain. it might be a pain in the ass to code themselves back into it and reset whatever they have to reset, but they could do it.

If it is in the best interests of all Miners to always agree Ghash.io on transactions(which it currently is), then you won't have someone with 30% not agreeing. You see what I mean, I am taking the inverse of what most people argue. They argue that since Ghash.io says "they are not bad" then they will not be bad and that it is in the interest of Ghash.io to always be "good". Ghash.io can run the show fully right now if they wanted to and that should scare people, but they haven't really double spent many times yet(google it and see they have double spent).


The inverse is also the same in an odd way. A 71% rule or whatever number implemented would still hold the smaller miners to keeping to the "legitimate" Block Chain and wanting to agree with the majority of miners, only now you have a better chance at 2 or 3 miners being the "Super Majority" now instead of just Ghash.io... The smaller miners wouldn't want to try and go against the 71% because then they would be left out and would not want to create their own "Ghash.io coins" as you reference above. So if this universal law holds true and all players want to stay on a legitimate Block Chain, there will never really be major problems. But if later down the road Ghash.io decides to mess around at a larger level, the recourse of corrective action will be harder and harder to take and might ruin Bitcoin for a long time.

It only takes one major event to put a bad taste in dumb peoples' mouths and have them running for the hills.

just my 2 centz

Right, there is an inherent flaw in the BTC protocol that as time goes on needs to be "patched/fixed" I would say.

I mean, there is already a kind of "voting system" in BTC, like nodes and where people point their miners and all the other stuff.

People used to think it was impossible to get into space, the earth was flat, that certain races are dumber, that the everything revolves around the earth, even BTC people say is impossible until someone thought of it... etc...

I wouldn't give up hope on an updated protocol that solves more issues, it isn't impossible to make BTC better, it isn't impossible to change the protocol and add new features/voting system based on "X" where x is a section of code that now also validates "BLAH" and confirms "YADDA YADDA".

But as more time goes on something else will be created that is better than the BTC protocol, which is why it is imperative it be updated/upgraded/whatever to have it stay competitive.

Bitcoin was never trustless. People who tell you otherwise are ignorant and delusional.

If you have a significant amount of wealth in BTC you better hope that the majority of the network have your best interest in mind or that your interests align.

I call that blind faith. Bitcoin has no defense against human nature.

Right, it might have been put into the minds of everyone that it is trustless, but in reality it is not. We have to trust an exchange or a BTC ATM to get BTC, we have to trust Miners will "do the right thing because they should".

I am glad to see another realist on these boards, welcome lol.


Sometimes I feel like so many people on here are just wishing so hard BTC will make them wealthy(they don't care for what BTC really is) and they convince themselves BTC is THE BEST THING EVER(its not, something else will come along or is already here).

At this point the common person doesn't have enough money to get into buying Asics, especially right now I wouldn't wish anyone to waste their money on Asics, it is pure money loss. I dunno if you are keeping up to date with the difficulty level, but you will certainly lose a lot of money buying any mining hardware(unless bitcoins shoot up to like 5,000 dollars each).

I feel like I'm reading a Dilbert comic strip and iluvpie60 is Dilbert's boss.  Since I like Dilbert comic strips, this seems like a good way to subscribe to this one...  Actually, I like being trolled and I feel that iluvpie60 is an awesome troll.  I mean, it must be a lot of work to troll this hard.  I almost believe iluvpie60 actually thinks iluvpie60 has logic.  Quite frankly, since iluvpie60 knows that code can do anything, I wish iluvpie60 wanted to fix the world instead of bitcoin.  I, for one, hope that iluvpie60 does not ever read the bitcoin whitepaper.  It would be a pity if iluvpie60 could actually understand the mechanics of a "51% attack" and how an entity with 25% of the networks hash power could actually pull off a "51% attack" if it attempted to do so and got extremely lucky.  Then I would have no thread to watch...   ::)

Here is a response to each of your sentences in order.

I am not interested in your "feelings".
I love Dilbert and have actually read a very high percentage of the comics(I also buy the Dilbert Books that have a full year in each book and have 6 or 7 + of these).
I don't care you "feel" that I am a troll, you're the one trolling with your reply.
I wouldn't know about hard work trolling, maybe you can tell your tales of that.
I do not think my username "iluvpie60" has logic, however I do posses logic myself.
No idea why you wish me to fix the world, when you went ahead and just said I have no "logic"... Nice fallacy bro.
You don't want me to read the Bitcoin White Paper(which I have), so you don't want me to become more educated, yet you are saying I have no "logic" and I am stupid. So your recommendation is for me to remain stupid? lol... nice
I already know smaller parties can do an attack, I kinda you know... POSTED A LINK IN MY OP... ROFL...
Your last sentence is fractured and doesn't make any sense.

eh, D- for the effort, I have seen way better trolling tbh tho. TBH ;)

Yeah...  Let's pretend I believe that you really believe this needs fixed by changing the protocol...

Nevermind that the protocol adjusts difficulty based on the amount of time it took to submit a specific number of blocks to the active chain.

Nevermind the fact that each block was generated by one device and accepted by all the others with no consideration for what the human-conceived hashrate is (a calculation based on the time it took to generate already gathered results with no way to factor out luck).

Nevermind the fact that all valid blocks are valid because their hashes say so.

Nevermind the fact that a malicious pool could mostly hide the 50+% human-conceived hashrate by submitting blocks from multiple IPs and showing different users different pool data based on which IP their miner submits through.

Nevermind the fact that the potentially malicious pool in question is technically buying computing power from users and doesn't need to show them any information regarding it's mining even though that would mean it could actually submit blocks from multiple IPs that appear to be slow solo miners while still pulling off the exact same attack.

Nevermind the fact that a malicious third party with enough resources could generate enough hashing power to effectively double the hashrate and never submit anything to the network until they wanted to double spend.

Let's set up a central authority that can decree that a given pool has too much power and uses specific IP addresses.  Let's then set up all of the nodes to reject any block from those addresses that would make the blocks submitted from them equal to more than half of the blocks accepted in the last 6 blocks.  That way 6 confirmations is secure because the central authority says it is.  That's way better than having 6 blocks be secure because the math says it is.

Also, as an added benefit, the central authority can take bribes to not call out specific pools and specific IP addresses, and that bribe money can be used to advertise how much better the central authority is than the rules of mathematics.  Then we'll be more secure because the central authority says so, right?

-----------------------------------------------------

OR, you could come up with a workable solution, search the forums to see how many times it has already been posted and shot down for all the flaws it contains, and post it if your search doesn't turn up such results so it can treated as what it is (and based on the number of smart people who have already wrestled with this in the past several years, that would most likely not be a decentralized workable solution).

Then you could rinse and repeat.

This forum is covered with junk, but since you like reading and learning so much: here's a conversation about why a suggested solution wouldn't work (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140695.0).  Oh, and look at that, it was being discussed 10 months before you even had a forum account, and it was started by someone who had then had a forum account for about as long as you have.  Maybe that's because showing up and wanting to fix something simply because "code can fix anything" doesn't magically fix it.

-----------------------------------------------------

Quite frankly, your first post had a valid point that a better algorithm could theoretically exist.  Beyond that, even though you don't care what I think, I think everyone who has tried to explain the problems with "requiring more hashrate to perform the attack" already knows that you're trolling based on your responses.  Sorry about trolling a troll, I should have known I'd be bested since I normally contribute instead of trolling.

Basically all you are typing is that YOU ARE RIGHT and that I AM WRONG. So why are you even posting in "Bitcoin Discussion" section of this forum? All you are trying to do is NOT DISCUSS anything, which isn't helpful. I can point out all the flaws in everything you say, but that doesn't HELP BITCOIN GET BETTER. Sorry I am doing that, and apparently that bothers you, I could care less about your feelings though baby boy.

It might not be easy to write code so complex to account for so many variables and what the future holds, but Bitcoins dev/devs certainly put forth a very good effort did just that(but according to your "logic" it is impossible). By the logic of everything you are typing here you are saying there will never be something better than Bitcoin or an update to the code that can make it more fair and more trustworthy. That is your fallacy and YOUR problem.

Now whether or not the update to the code fixes more problems than it causes is the subject of debate. A portion of code could be written to judge Mining Pools by their trustworthiness(surprised this hasn't happened yet), then algorithms and other formulas can easily derive how much percent of trust it should have. Just because you have hashing power doesn't mean you are trustworthy. It does mean that you have a vested interest in BTC, or maybe it means you want to destroy it, or maybe it means X number of things, but you cannot "trust" the intentions of miners because Hashing Power != Trustworthiness

Therefore we can logically conclude the "highest hashing power" current model is going to be outdated at some point, E.G. when the next "GOX" happens but in the mining world. Do we really have to all sit around with our thumbs parked up our asses and wait for a Miner to do something really bad? Satoshi was very forward thinking and couldn't account for everything(who can it is really hard to do that), so how about we think forward? I am, why do you refuse to?

Wow!  Name calling!  Aren't you advanced...Nice to see that you read my post before responding...Why is it impossible for you to see that you can only see the results of mining power and luck?

How can you not understand that when you refer to hashrate, what you are really referring to is already solved blocks on the chain.

How can you not understand that this "hashrate" has already been used?

How can you not understand that you wouldn't see any "hashrate" being used for a 51% attack until after the attack was mounted?

Why do you think there is a "highest hashing power" model?  The system was designed for individual mining, and pools were invented later.  Human greed is what drives people to give hashpower to someone even when that power could turn that someone into their attacker, and you can't fix that with code.  If people understood what their hashpower was for and how variance works, they could switch to any number of other pools and make the same amount of money.  Unfortunately, people don't understand, so they flock to the biggest pool, just like they flock to Wal-Mart or NewEgg thinking they are getting the best prices.  Changing the protocol "because humans" is like changing umbrellas "because drought".

The whole point of every single person detracting your suggestions regarding "hashrate" is that you can't fix/prevent a 51% attack based on hashrate.  If you want to fix/prevent a 51% attack, you need to start from a different angle.  In my post that you so clearly read, I not only stated that you should try to come up with other solutions, but even linked to asother suggested solution with discussion about why it won't work.

Moreover, even if you could set up "rules" to prevent entities from having too much "hashrate," you couldn't tell what submitters were what entities if they wanted to randomly move about, and you couldn't prevent entities from teaming up to form an attack.  As such, you couldn't prevent a single entity with 50%+ power from acting as if it were several different entities in order to do the same.

As if all that weren't enough, even if you could solve all of the above, it wouldn't be fair to a legitimate entity that had a majority of the power, and fairness in mining is just as important as fungibility in coins.  Arguing that doing anything based on the hashrate of a block submitter is acceptable is no different than arguing that blocking the FBI coins would be acceptable.  Neither of those arguments reflect the premise / core values of bitcoin, and if implemented, either could easily spell doom for the project.

Alternatively, as you mention the protocol could be changed, but also acknowledge that it may have taken a lot of effort to create and implement the original protocol, search the forums with these words:
hard fork alt coin
You will see all manner of "I want bitcoin to do this/that" threads with arguments about why the protocol can 't be changed.  All of those arguments basically say the same thing, which is something to this effect:
"You can't get consensus and the old protocol will live on, so the new protocol won't be bitcoin, it will be an altcoin."
Given that, yes - BTC could fail because of the 51% attack, yes - something else could take its place, yes - it could start from the existing bitcoin blockchain right at the block where the detrimental 51% attack occurred (or anytime before or after that point), but no - bitcoin would not be "fixed" by that action.

However, as I still think you're trolling, and also find that I'm out of troll food, I won't be posting in this thread again until/unless I feel that you have done something besides what I have witnessed thus far:
*attempt to spread fud
*argue that we should try to do something based on "hashrate" (which isn't logical since we're apparently still talking about logic)
*name-call
*suggest we should "change the protocol"
*continue to suggest we should "change the code" without any constructive suggestion as to how

The answer is simple:  the protocol assumes that people are generally "good" (trustworthy). As long as bad actors control less than about 25% of the hash-power, everything is working as intended. Obviously, one large pool can invalidate that assumption.

On the troll question, I don't think you are deliberately trolling. I have been accused of trolling myself in the past: I looked it up, and believe I came accross this page (http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html):

In other words, your post/response ratio is way too high :)

When I deliberately try to troll (as I have in the past week), I am usually too subtle. If anybody noticed, they did not comment yet.

I don't usually quote a post without adding something, but I think what you said (above) may have gotten lost in your large post.

Until you said it, I didn't know why one pool had so much power, but the Wal-Mart analogy make perfect sense. We should be working on getting this message out to miners that it's easy and no less profitable to switch to a smaller pool, and will help Bitcoin.

There are plenty of ways something can be quantified.

In logic and things related to it, quantification is essentially the binding of a variable that can range over a domain of discourse. The variable would then become bound by an operator  which is the quantifier. So to sit here and claim Hashrate cannot be quantified, is to admit you don't know the definition of the word.

Please stop trolling this thread, MODs who read this please delete all of his posts as they serve no purpose.

While his analogy might make sense, his logic on why people go there is flawed. They go there for the benefits, the benefit IS that they get more blocks solved on average.

50 petahash added per month?!?!  Are you freaking kidding me?

If people consider me a troll for being mean/annoying to them, it is only because they were mean/annoying/whatever to me first. You are ok honestly. This other guy on the other hand gets back what he dishes out. They might think they are smart, but all I see the other guy spewing is CONJECTURE. I have when people conject, makes me sad.

I suppose I respond to my post too much idk. I don't usually like to comment on other posts very much, I usually just read them.

Actually that would be good if they all started mining. They would bring the 51% down to 10% each.

It would be an interesting exercise. What really is there to protect a Miner from malicious Miners? If Visa or whoever waged a war on BTC and legit took it down and screwed everything up, there isn't really any law that they violated is there? I am not sure if there is or not but it doesn't sound like there is yet anyway.

IIUC, the "51% attack" is a double-spend attack. That is, if the attack is successful, it allows the attacker to replace the last few blocks with his own new blocks, which re-spend the coins that already appeared as inputs in a transaction in a block that will now be orphaned.

In order to profit from such an attack, the coins spent in the orphaned block must be exchanged for something (such as fiat, or a balance in an exchange that is later withdrawn). This would clearly be fraud, and there are already laws against that.

The "51% attack" cannot "screw everything up", only those transactions that are double-spent.

Of course there is the secondary effect of public relations for Bitcoin, which admittedly could be "screwed up."

That's a good point. It just means that Bitcoin is not 100% fraud proof. It just costs millions of dollars worth of equipment and energy to perpetrate something that can still be traced by shipping records, electric bills, and invoices. It's a good thing that Bitcoin is Proof of Work, because there are real world ways to keep it honest.

Hah, professors and postdocs at Cornell! How would they know anything about how Bitcoin works? It's all FUD! Don't they know that Bitcoin is built on maths by the great Satoshi?