I also think that it's not worth helping you because when you ask for help and then disregard the answers you get, it's just rude. This is like stopping someone in the street to get directions and then walking the opposite way.

And even worse, you end up with some ridiculous rant about the core client based on your 'technical skills'. Obviously, it has no merit and simply shows that not only you don't know, but you don't even know that you don't know.

The last block you downloaded failed validation, was marked as invalid and written to disk. At this point, you are stuck behind it.

1. Install the latest official client.
2. Then use the RPC command "reconsiderblock lastblock you have", i.e. reconsiderblock 331000 (or 330299 or 331001)
You get the right number with "getinfo".

And if the infrastructure isn't ready for it and is damaged as a result, how would you fix it? I could be misunderstanding something but it seems like inoculating someone with a disease in order to study how he will react in real conditions.

@OP
Could you explain what you are trying to show?

The lack of central point of command is the reason why Gavin is 'threatening' to leave bitcoin core.
He can't get agreement to change this code base but he can start or in this case join another one.
If he gets enough miners to switch to his version, by virtue of the decentralization, it becomes the new
standard.

Obviously, he can choose to work on whatever he wants but in my opinion it should not be called Bitcoin
anymore. It is a new coin since the change in the consensus rules were not approved by a majority of core
developers.

Did you try looking at the github autobuilder log? I think that if Travis can do it, it should be easy to do manually too.
https://travis-ci.org/bitcoin/bitcoin/jobs/62665884

I don't disagree with you on this. You have said it a million times. If you haven't noticed no one defends the NSA on this.

Instead of repeating the same thing over and over because you think that we are not listening to you, maybe you should try listening to what other people say.

I'll try to summarize.
- NSA works on crypto. They produce algos and make recommendations.
- We don't know the extend of their knowledge. They have people working on every popular encryption.
- Cryptographers dislike "security by obscurity". They believe that an encryption should be judged by its own merits.
- They studied SHA and estimated that its security was sufficient.
- They think that using it in bitcoin is safe under the current parameters

What they don't say:
- It will never be broken. Never is a long time. But they estimate that it will be safe for many years.
- It is the best algo because other factors participate (speed, memory usage, existing hardware, etc.)

By the way, discrediting the NSA is nearly as bad as giving them credit. If we followed your blind recommendation, we would be choosing another algo because it's not published by the NSA.
Well, the NSA can easily publish under a fake name.

Anyway, I'm sure I won't change your views. Every post you make gets more illogical. So the ignore button is my best defense against this barrage of insanity.

Well - I guess you feel the need to attack me personally. I don't really care about what you think. I'm just gonna put you on ignore. Judging from your post history, I won't miss much.
Incidentally, I know that cryptography is paramount for national security. People have been sacrificed to protect ciphers.
Still it would be good to have the facts right. SHA isn't even an encryption scheme!

Hmmm. I don't know how to say it nicely but if you think that, I don't think you have studied cryptography (Browsing the web doesn't qualify).

Without specialists looking at my 'unbreakable code', I wouldn't think that it's unbreakable. Hiding the algorithm doesn't do anything to make stronger.

No, I want a peer reviewed article that shows a viable attack on SHA rather than dubious news site that claims that since the NSA has made SHA, they must have a backdoor.
You keep repeating the same thing as if it makes it more valid: "NSA is evil - don't use anything they touch". The other coins that are using non gov algo are equally likely to be cracked, if not more. Just because the NSA hasn't invented an algo doesn't make stronger. If you can't understand that, continue your picket protest.

1. Lots of people (including myself) gave reasons why the current consensus is that bitcoin is not 'cracked' by the NSA but whoever doesn't agree with you is a shill for the NSA.
2. You list 'articles' to defend your point. None of these are of any reputable source. I challenge you to provide a single peer reviewed research paper.
3. You say that bitcoin shouldn't use a hashing algo created by the NSA but don't have any better alternative.

Essentially, it is pointless to discuss with you.

FYI,

Xiaoyun Wang; Hongbo Yu (2005). "How to Break MD5 and Other Hash Functions" (PDF). EUROCRYPT. ISBN 3-540-25910-4.

Yeah, you're right.

I wonder what prevents a miner from noticing that and claiming the full reward for himself as if he was solo mining. In other words, claim shares through the pool but if you find a block, submit it directly.

Edit: I guess it's difficult to find the list of transactions that the pool used to calculate the merkle root.

That's messed up but SPV wallets can miss transactions if they happen to connect to a node that doesn't implement the bloom filter properly/at all. It's not their fault. In this case, you can just resync from the block you know has the missing transactions.

Yesterday? These transactions are from 4/19.

The NSA has deep pockets for sure. They are the #1 employer of mathematicians in the US and their budget though classified is estimated at around 50 billion US$.

But have they managed to push a flawed encryption standard through? I don't think we can know. They were caught red handed once but it could be trick too. Get caught on a small lie so that the bigger lie goes undetected.

I see you don't want to touch the NSA with a 10-ft pole. What are the alternatives?

* You choose another hash scheme. I already said that it would be hardly possible to prove that the NSA  was never involved in its development. Even if they weren't, they could still know a way to crack it.
* You choose a 'provably secure hash function'. Well - they are just as secure as another problem deemed to be hard. Then again, the NSA could have solved it.

In short, no one knows what they can do and can't do.

So, we use blind tasting.

What the community has done is to pick a few hash functions: SHA-2, RIPEMD-160 and apply them several times. Each of these functions has had ample public analysis. To keep a weakness secret, they would have to design/find a flaw that is so crafty that no other person can see it. They have many enemies in the world, therefore I think that if there was such a flaw someone else would have pointed it out.
Even if they managed, well, in bitcoin you hash the hash.

The flaw would need to be gigantic.
Much bigger than the MD-5 weakness - and in several unrelated hash functions - and somehow every mathematician in the world is part of a conspiracy of silence.

I don't trust the NSA, but I think that the fact that they were the creator of SHA-2 doesn't impact its applicability in bitcoin.

So, no - I don't think the NSA has broken bitcoin.

PS: I intentionally didn't use any jargon. I believe the concern that the OP has is not related to cryptography details.

No crypto is trusted whether it comes from the NSA or not. Let's say SHA-3 gets preferred treatment because it was not from the NSA. Well, who can be sure that they were not involved at all? With the spy stuff going on, it's better to stick to the math.

Timestamps don't matter. The 1st transaction is the coinbase and it's ordered by position.