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I'm making a few assumptions here as I want to keep this worst case scenario.  I'd like some input.

Looking at Monero pools here - http://minexmr.com/pools.html - if BCX were able to take out one or more of the big pools with DDOS it would significantly lower the hash needed.  

If he manages to take out moneropool w ddos - that brings the network hash down to 13.4Mh/s.  So he needs 14Mh/s ish.
If he manages to take out the top three pools out - that brings the network hash down to 3.94Mh/s.  So he needs 4Mh/s ish.


Looks like an r9 290 = 600h/s & c38xlarge = 785 h/s.

Making the assumption he has a 1,000 GPU farm equivalent of R9 290's - that's 600 kh/s.  (5 200Amp panels should run this if the cards are pulling 300watts ea)

Making the assumption he has a huge botnet of 100K mid-range computers that get around 150 h/s.  1,500 kh/s

Making the assumption he is willing to burn 500 bitcoins/$200,000 on AWS (I have NO clue on if he would be able to scale it this big - pretty sure he couldn't get spot instances and would have to pay full price.  Now that I think about it - I'm not sure what it takes to get all limits removed on your aws account).  

c3.8xlarge = $1.68 an hour.  If he needs 48 hours that's $80.64 per instance.  So he'll be able to pay for 2,480 instances.  This adds another 1,946 kh/s

total = 4.046 Mh/s.

references

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=638915.0
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MI-ic0Os25hgGUImW54sUIjZY_pUNQNa_W8Se5pRGBs/edit?pli=1#gid=0


Will revise OP as I get input / try to figure out if this is possible.  

With those numbers he couldn't even do a proper timewarp attack, let alone 51%.  I think he has more resources than you are counting, however.

By some estimates, BCX might be worth as much as $100,000,000+. He could get any amount of hash power he needs for a trivial (relative to him) amount. And, as Aminorex alluded to, he has a large network of other resources at his disposal.

I can't begin to analyze the numbers. However the network hash rate of Monero screams SCAM!  ;D 16MHs !!
There just isn't the community or interest in Monero outside of the sad little shills and sock puppets of the Bitcointalk world to produce this kind of rate organically.

Whilst whales like deplete-ila might be able to afford substantial AWS spends - this would not come near to the above figure. Which leaves either illegal bot farms or something even more sinister. Maybe 51% are closed clients reporting bogus net hash rates? After the last 3 months of Monero scamming I wouldn't put anything past this bunch of crooks.  ???

If the network is 13.4 he would need 13.4 to have 50%. Or did you mean that he only needs 33%?

ah yes.  I'm being dumb ... he needs the full hash to achieve an additional 50% - not half of it. 

ugh sry.

The network is now 26 mhps.  I expect it to go over 30 mhps by the time the "time to kill xmr"  clock runs out.  32 mhps seems more reasonable for estimations.

BCX said he has 19% of network hash rate. 

Maybe he meant 19% of Stolli inventory.

Where are you getting your hashrate from?  I would like to follow it live.  i got mine from http://minexmr.com/pools.html

do you think it's bcx ramping his hashrate up?  or people adding to it to secure the network?  or both  ???

#2.  if i were bcx i'd be working on a testnet until i was ready to slam it hard.  a timewarp is in large part a readjustment exploit.  you don't want the difficulty to go high beforehand because of hysteresis.

chainradar.com/xmr/blocks

He estimated that 19% or perhaps less was required to do a timewarp.  He implied that he had enough.  That's a lower bound, not an upper bound, on his hash power, but it incorporates an unknown linear factor (the perhaps less factor).

The longer you run a timewarp attack, the more likely it is to succeed.  That scales linearly because each trial is independent. (To a first approximation which fits this part of the actual distribution.)

so you're saying he needs 6mh/s to do a timewarp attack (assuming he's right about the 19%)?

edit:  do we know who owns the top 3 pools?  buying a pool might be cheaper than hashrate if the owner is willing to be bought off ...

Yes this is much better idea. Or better to rent it. He dont need to keep it forever. Just rent it for a few days.

So if you're holding XMR and mining to a pool, it might make sense to solo mine?

And if you're holding and not mining, it might secure the network for you to set up mining, at least for a short time?

And if you're just mining, and mining to a pool, it might make sense to preserve the value of what you're mining by switching to solo?

how easy is it to purchase cloud power? I may throw down some usd on tuesday. Links?

If theres a real successful full-blown attack it truly doesn't matter if you mine or not. The coin's network will then be broken and can only be revived with a hardfork, blockchain roll-back, patched new version of the Monero codebase. If the latter is not innovated quickly, Monero would be dead.

Was this ever answered?

perfect is to solo mine. so if your pool goes off, is only you on it. if you are on bigger pool that goes off, many miners goes off. But if you mine on smaller pool is OK. Just try to avoid top few. And you already make network stronger.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=653467.msg8919354#msg8919354

You are presuming there is a successful attack.

However, whether or not there is a successful attack may depend on whether you mine and how you mine. If you want to help support the coin, please mine it.

Best: Solo mine.

Better: Mine on small pool with backup pools configured.

Okay: Mine on big pool with backup pools configured.

Worst: Mine on big pool with no backup.

Solo mining is likely significantly better than the others given the possibility that an attack may compromise one or more pools and use their hash rate for the attack instead of just DDoSing them or fighting against them.

This all applies forever, not just in response to this immediate threat.

Going solo does matter because if bcx ddos the major XMR mining pools it will make it easier to attack the chain.

Is it possible to provide us a fast AMD GPU solo miner?

In the future, you can consider moving to a GPU friendly PoW mining algorithm, such as Scrypt-N, which is ASIC resistant and botnet unfriendly. I believe the reason why the present CPU friendly mining is used is that the creator of Bytecoin would like to introduce a deoptimized miner for their own profit.

Hmm.. BCX's puppet account spreads fud - this makes it even more obvious he is full of hot air.

what large raise?
hash rate follows price, price decreased for 30% in last days because of FUD, so is hashrate.
Maybe you were looking some other coin?

I would love to but it isn't possible to do that right now. Best case at the moment for AMD miners right now is to configure smaller pools with backup pools.


Anything is possible, and we will definitely consider it. We have some other ideas to improve mining though, so not sure which direction we will go.

Interesting to note here that with the large amount of people dealing with Claymore's GPU miner, surely someone could have organized a campaign by now for the ones that are not paying the dev fee of 5%, and deal with a 10% lower hashrate where these same people would instead be using his program with the dev fee and set aside the extra 5% they're getting extra because of it for an open source AMD miner. Imagine all the extra security the network would likely get in a time like this, where people like me won't run, or are seriously considering not running, the software because it's closed source in order to secure the network.

Looks like we got so many people caught up in not paying a fee at all that they didn't even think ahead.

oops.

I think some people cheat on it somehow, but I don't know the details. But that reduces the incentive to pay for an open source miner.

I'm with you, and my pledge for the open source AMD bounty is still unclaimed.

I found this interesting (troll aside) - I verified the ArtFonz quote.  I really have no idea how large botnets get or what their availability for sale are.  Or if they would be ideal for an attack (maxing out CPU is liable to hint/reveal malware where a DDOS would not)

http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2012/11/05/where-to-rent-a-botnet-for-2-an-hour-or-buy-one-for-700/

Edit:  This was another interesting article.  I know this borders on fear mongering.  I'd just like to understand what's at the root of BCX's power.  I honestly don't like the feeling that a coin like XMR may be at his mercy

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eliseackerman/2012/05/19/i-run-a-small-botnet-and-sell-stolen-information-ask-me-anything/

There are two pools that bypass Claymore's 5% fee: noclaymorefee.com and monero.rs (fee optional)

Also, this was suggested to me in the Monero Mining Thread as a solution to solo GPU mining: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=735738.0

Right, so let's have the community act as thieves and children and then support them in doing so.

That's not the right way to fix this problem.

You're still dealing with a closed source GPU miner from a totally unknown person. Then you're saying it's okay to steal this person's money because fuck him I want my money.

Of course people would rather steal, cheat and lie than prevent themselves from ever having to in the first place. Just a total lack of forward thinking, like I said. Plus, in a situation like the one happening in 24 hours, people like me don't care fuck all about the miserable 5 or 10% extra. We care that I can go and look at the source code and compile directly from it and feel safe because other people, or myself may have observed the source code and made sure that nothing fishy is going on like in Claymore's miner.

I heard that the Claymore GPU miner opens a direct pathway for an NSA control interface. Is it true?


cowards.

Or even one better!

I heard that Claymore was taking bids on putting a killswitch in his GPU miner, so that anyone that wanted to pay him enough could just tell him to shut them all down and instantly 51% attack the coin!

Yeah, that's what I heard! Is it true?

look, I'm not gonna tell you how to run your coin. but this is just a stupid thing that people let go on for too long. it's a problem and a massive security flaw, even bigger than than one you may or may not be dealing with right now.

sorry for striking while the iron's hot, but what if, tomorrow, if anything really does happen, all of your GPU mining programs close down at once?

youd never fucken see it coming.

enjoy your damn 10%

I don't think the community wants that.
What the community does want is the freedom to decide for themselves.
I use Claymore, and pay the fee.
Claymore also provides an option to drop the fee, but slow the mining 10%. 
This is a useful option for those who think Claymore is accumulating too much XMR.
If he were to provide evidence that he sold his XMR at market, that would probably mean fewer people used the 10% penalty option.
I would prefer that Claymore open-sourced the miner. 
I would pay the 5% happily then.  Now I do it grudgingly.
But he prefers another choice.
That's freedom, and it is very good.

The simplest way to solve this problem is to use a tested and proven to work open source PoW mining algorithm such as Scrypt N which is ASIC resistant.

I don't think they do either, but what could I be left to think, when the first two responses I get about it are either passive-aggressively saying I could bypass the fee, or flat out giving me an open source 'solution' FFS to a self made problem. I know smooth has an open bounty, but i really can't think that people are exercising their 'freedom to decide for themselves' when they've put themselves in a situation where possibly 50% of the hash power can disappear in an instant.

even if claymore was the pope i wouldn't give him that kind of power, so my freedom is best spent point out that keeping it closed source is inane whether or not people don't agree with me. Especially when those that are choosing to use the slower miner can be monitized in a neutral fashion that reflects forward thinking.

We can't settle for being lulled into the buzz of everyday business anymore, given the current situation. Regardless of the authenticity of the threat, this is something that has been a long time a part of the buzz.

Just as any upstanding individual would do, but the points raised remain valid. People are stealing from the guy and in this type of situation, they are actually incentivizing him to lower his price as a purchasable attack vector. Every Monero he's lost is one that someone else now doesn't have to pay to potentially buy him out. Would you be open to raising awareness that an open source miner is an achievable goal for this community of otherwise reasonable, motivated and decent people?

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear as to my agenda, yes I have one. I'm saying that if every single person that is using the 10% slower miner currently, or think that they could get by using it were to instead collude with the pool operators and put that 5% they've stolen from Claymore and put it toward something useful rather than their pockets only to trade to fiat, we might very well end up in a situation where we would not have to collude to steal from the guy anymore, because the money that is put aside could go to properly paying a developer to open source a miner.

Or, for those that aren't stealing and have chosen to go 10% slower, they can change to the developer fee model that is 10% faster and let Claymore get his 5%, but take the extra 5% that miner would get and instead put it toward an open source miner.

I highly doubt he would provide the benefit to those that are being upstanding individuals at the expense of those that are not being upstanding individuals.


He will not, as it is not his business model. You may confirm with him privately.

As would I

We should exercise our freedom, rather than defending Claymore's in this situation. Again, he might be the best person in the world, but knowing that 50% of the hashrate is living on borrowed time doesn't bode well for my freedom.

I'm not saying we should steal, I'm saying those that are stealing should work toward preventing themselves from continued theft. I'm saying that those who are tired of dealing with thieves, and defending someone else's freedom, can instead pay the developer and get their fellow human beings out of a shitty situation, and can do so in a neutral way that doesn't effect their wallet.

Claymore has provided an excellent service, and again might be the best person in the world. But the fact of the matter is that we don't know what's in the program. So, I'm gonna repeat myself: sorry for striking while the iron's hot, but what if, tomorrow, if anything really does happen, all of your GPU mining programs close down at once?

Or, we can deal with continued compromises, settle for the buzz and forever hand him his well deserved 5%. Likely forever.