hi,

I have been reading these forums the last couple of weeks, its been extremely interesting to follow the Mining section.
Now I decided to participate actively in the discussions, so this is my first post. nice to be here

Could you please help me understanding how a possible 51% attack could work? Following scenario....

Someone controls enough hashing power 3 subsequent blocks with a realistic probability. This hashing power is distributed over the network, i.e. in different mining pools, such that it is not obvious that the block were generated under the control of the attacker.

the attacker adds a manipulated transaction to the block the he is working on, i.e. transferring 100 bitcoins from a random address to an address that he controls. he solves this block and submits it to the network. In the next 20 minutes he is able to solve another 2 blocks, building up on the first malicious block, but without further manipulations.

how will the network react to that? does every honest bitcoin node verify the transactions, and will thus reject the first malicious block? how long does this verification last at the current network size? will honest nodes also reject the subsequent blocks coming from the attacker? how does this relate to the principle that the longest chain "wins"?

thanks