And we're back

Looking into pool server issue right now.

Hmm, then I'm not sure what the problem is. Does it get gradually slower, or does it just suddenly freeze up?

Could you take a look at the memory usage and see how high it is when the client is frozen like that? (You can see that with windows task manager)

That's the current round. Change the filter to "all time" and you will see more accepted work.


New beta version with Antminer U1 support coming soon.

If you didn't believe the explanation that blockchain.info is wrong about where the blocks come from, then look at our hashrate and look at how many blocks blockchain.info is saying we made. Watch this over some time. Then ask yourself: is it more likely that we have incredibly good luck at mining every day, or is it more likely that blockchain.info is wrong?

Are you mining with BFL ASICs at home? There's a memory leak in the BFL mining code. This is fixed in the next version - beta coming very soon.

Looks like it was a local Cloudflare server that failed. One user reports not being able to access the website for 30 minutes. But the logs show user activity the entire time.

There are many advantages to using Cloudflare. But it's annoying when this sort of thing happens.

Mining is unaffected by the website.

I didn't notice any problem with the website.. could be a problem with a local cloudflare server. Did you all get the cloudflare page?

Try Bitminter. The only pool recommended by gummibears.

I tried contacting blockchain.info about this problem, but they didn't bother to reply.

Best is to not use their website - the information is bad.

This site is much better at finding out where a block came from: http://blockorigin.pfoe.be/

Maintenance Feb 7, 04:00 to 08:00 UTC. We may have brief (max 10 min) mining server downtime.

The block listed at the top of the blocks list is the latest one we found/created.

We are always mining to create a new block at the end of the block chain, and the transactions we are attempting to include in the block change while we mine (the server pushes out new work data).

Hi, and thanks for being part of the pool

You can use Verisign with a browser certificate, or Steam which sends the code by email.

OpenGL is for graphics. OpenCL is for computations (open compute language).

Please enable 2-factor authentication (2FA) with your OpenID provider to make it harder for hackers to abuse your OpenID identity.
Note that many of these identity providers won't require the second factor of authentication when you log in over and over on the same computer.
Don't worry, a hacker who stole your password is still required to do the full 2FA. Unless they are logging in through your computer.

Don't depend on 2FA to "fix everything". You still need to keep your computer secure.
See Bruce Schneier's essay "Two-Factor Authentication: Too Little, Too Late" for more information: https://www.schneier.com/essay-083.html
That said, 2FA *will* make you a harder target for hackers.

Below is information on how to enable 2FA with various OpenID identity providers.

Google - https://google.com

Google calls it "2-step verification". They have instructions on how to enable it here:

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/180744?hl=en&rd=1

The more you use your Google account for (Gmail, Google docs, etc.) the more important it is to enable this.

Yahoo - https://yahoo.com

Go to https://edit.yahoo.com/commchannel/sec_chal_manage and turn on "second sign-in verification".
They will ask for your phone number and send you a code in an SMS. Get the code from your phone and give it to the website.
When you log in from a new computer Yahoo sends a code by SMS (text) to your cell phone.
You do not need a smart phone for this - there's no need to run an app.

There are also other useful settings at https://edit.yahoo.com/config/eval_profile
"Create a sign-in seal" helps to prevent hacker sites from posing as Yahoo to steal your password.

Verisign/Symantec - https://pip.verisignlabs.com

Open vip.symantec.com in the browser on your smart phone. Install Symantec's "VIP Access".
Log in to pip.verisignlabs.com and click "My account" in the navbar on the right.
Under "VIP Credential" click "Add credential". You will be asked for two tokens.
Start the "VIP Access" app on your smart phone and enter the two tokens in the "add credential" form.
From now on you will need a one-time token from your smart phone when you log in,
in addition to your user name and password.

There are also some other options you may want to look at. "OpenID sign in security", "browser certificate", "information card".
If you don't have a smart phone, you could use a browser certificate.
"OpenID sign in security" helps to prevent hacker sites from posing as Verisign to steal your password.

Steam - https://steamcommunity.com

Go to "Steam" -> "Settings" -> "Manage Steam Guard Account Security" in the Steam client. Turn on Steam Guard.
Steam will send you a one-time 5-digit token by email as a second factor when logging in from a new computer.

I removed it last night. It was the slowest loading page on the website. Someone set up an Amazon EC2 instance to bombard the website with requests for these block pages, in an attempt to destabilize the website. I banned their IP, reported them to Amazon, and made some changes to the block page to speed it up and make the website less vulnerable.

Maybe I can bring back the payouts list if I can make it run faster.

I'm not sure how popular a feature that is, though. I'm considering instead displaying your own payout, and the 10 shifts that got paid, with your average hashrate in the shifts, etc.

It's an altcoin. Can someone move this to the altcoin subforum?

All links to blockchain.info has been removed from bitminter.com. Perhaps that will help reduce the confusion.

I encourage all other website owners to do the same. Even having no information is better than linking to misinformation.

Alternative for block, transaction and address information: http://blockexplorer.com/

Alternative for block origin information: http://blockorigin.pfoe.be/

Someone got paid for those "missing" blocks. The people mining in the pool where they were made.

It's not easy to detect with 100% certainty which pool a block is coming from, but blockchain.info does a really bad job, it's like they are not even trying. I contacted them about this, but they didn't bother to reply. Of course it makes Bitminter look bad when they identify so many blocks from other pools as ours. But there's not much I can do about it. I guess I could remove all links to blockchain.info from bitminter.com. It's just a shame blockchain.info is so much more user-friendly than blockexplorer.com.

If you want to know where a block is coming from, forget blockchain.info and instead use http://blockorigin.pfoe.be/


I'm sorry to hear this.

It is possible to enable 2-factor authentication for logging in, if you use an OpenID identity provider that supports it. I know Google supports this, and I believe Verisign does as well - perhaps also others. This has to be enabled at google.com, verisign.com, etc. not at Bitminter. This is also very useful if you use Gmail. I saw someone recently lost their coins on an exchange after an attacker got into their Gmail account. The attacker used the "password reset" feature on the exchange, which sent a password reset link to the Gmail address. Enabling Google 2FA makes this attack much more difficult.

I'll be adding 2-factor auth directly to bitminter.com, requiring 2FA for "send coins" and for changing auto cash out settings. If your PC is compromised by a trojan they could still abuse the one-time password (OTP) as soon as you type one in - but at least this would require some work on the part of the attacker.

I'm also considering daily withdrawal limits or something similar. Perhaps a limit per transaction would also be helpful. This could limit the damage if you are using the website from a compromised PC and the attacker is grabbing your OTPs as soon as you type them in, and using them to send coins to the attacker. But I suppose it would also generate a lot of angry complaints if the BTC/NMC market was crashing and people couldn't move all their coins quickly to exchanges to sell.

Is bitcoinnews.com a scam site, or was the mail just pretending to come from them?