so the technical aspect of the scenario is possible, but the question that popup is why ? if I have that kind of power I would just mine and make money, because such operation will cost millions of dollars, who wants to invest (lose) millions of dollars to do such thing ?
the million dollar question is what the government and big organizations think of Bitcoin ? in which position Bitcoin stands ? is bitcoin a threat for them ? will they ever regulate bitcoin ?
it is a serious matter that should be discussed but when you have the answers to these questions it will be easier to imagine the 51% attack.
Thanks for the answers, to diverge again as to why: If bitcoin continues unchecked it will likely displace fiat currency to a large degree. Fiat currency is the main power source for the entire banking industry and to a lesser degree the US Govt. The US / European Establishment are very unlikely to stand by as a large portion of their power structure is dismantled and handed over to diffuse individuals. You can see already with the Mt Gox account seizure, bank account closures, etc. what the govt/banks think of bitcoin - they want to destroy it. They have already done the same with EGold, Liberty Dollar, and many others. However, bitcoin is so widely held, popular, apparently difficult to attack, and clearly a moral good that a traceable attack, at this point, is going to be a last resort. I'd expect to first see a continued propaganda effort and further attacks on the fiat-bitcoin interface. This will drive bitcoin further underground and give impetus to the propaganda that it is the currency of illegal activities. Eventually this can attempt to build public support for destroying bitcoin. So, back to the most important questions... In addition to this, the US gov. and banksters has to take into account that this currency will continue to flourish in China, Russia, South America etc. Trying to destroy it with external measures, like fear mongering and laws, may not be on their block at all. At this point they would probably have to ruin it technically. |
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Starting with the premise that the US Government tries to take down bitcoin entirely.
What would be the most likely form(s) of attack?
Would they be able to keep any viable form of attack secret or shift blame to another entity?
Which if any methods do you believe would have a likelihood of success given a concerted effort?
What would very rough dollar cost estimates be for various methods?
Would there be signals of an attack or could this occur with no warning?
Could any responses be developed within the bitcoin framework or do you see another existing or proposed cryptocurrency that would be safe from such attacks?
Sorry I know it is a messy bunch of questions, but perhaps also the most important to consider long-term.
A couple of thoughts: - The cryptography could be broken. Nobody would know about it. - The block chain gets too big to maintain for the average bitcoin user. We would know about it and possibly be able to fix it in time. |
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Thank you for your share. The ANN thread is here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113400.0Hopefully we won't regret the opinions of those members, too much. At least now we have somewhere to point our fingers at, once this goes wrong. The Linux project is already about to become the backyard project of a few multinational corporations. Its a good model but at some point in the future the community might have to be prepared to fork. What I'm trying to figure out is if there is any way to ruin the currency without breaking the current protocol. If it is, we have a problem. Even the developers knows that One of the things that has been high on my mind since very soon after I studied Bitcoin was what happens in the case of a code fork? That can actually be noted in my post on the aformentioned thread in fact. Because I feel it likely that the existing blockchain will form a value core for whatever fork becomes dominant, I figure that I'll just wait it out. Nobody can transfer value without a secret key, and a fork which makes that possible will probably not become the successful one. (Though it is more possible that the successful fork will force a value transfer which would suck.) The main problem is that sitting on BTC without spending it is quite inconsistent with an _exchange_ currency. Bitcoin being couched as such will lose a lot of credibility and confidence in the case of an otherwise not terribly threatening event such as a code fork. As of a day or two when I thought of it, I like to say "Bitcoin is in it's infancy...it hasn't even hit it's first code/core team fork yet." Just to clearify... What I meant is that changing the current protocol in a non compatible way will force a fork, and the fork will win no doubt. If it is possible to make a change on top of the current protocol that say removes anonymity, a fork is needed, and should technically work side by side with the new version. A fork that is not backward compatible will never work imo. |
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What about the namecoin .bit? Who needs ICANN? Edit: namecoin brings a whole new meaning to cyber-squatting  We should definitely get namecoin going |
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Thank you for your share. The ANN thread is here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113400.0Hopefully we won't regret the opinions of those members, too much. At least now we have somewhere to point our fingers at, once this goes wrong. The Linux project is already about to become the backyard project of a few multinational corporations. Its a good model but at some point in the future the community might have to be prepared to fork. What I'm trying to figure out is if there is any way to ruin the currency without breaking the current protocol. If it is, we have a problem. Even the developers knows that |
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The owners of the mainstream media corps. are the scum of the earth.
Check out Russia Today if you wan't to get an anti-dose
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..."the Russian hackers" who were evil...
The Russians, those dirty bastards. I would expect Sarah Palin to have taken care of them by now! |
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I haven't been around here long enough to say for sure but I wouldn't criticise the foundation without a good reason.
The way I see it, the only way the foundation or the developers can make any harm to the currency is to make a change to the protocol that is not backwards compatible.
Like changing the encryption scheme from binary field curves to something more mainstream
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The Foundation often makes it appear as if they represent all of Bitcoin and they state that at their web site. Sometimes they say they represent just their members but they only do that when they are pressed or when they are in a defensive posture like this thread. When they say "Bitcoin", they mean the software, not the people using the software. The main developer of the Bitcoin software is paid by the foundation. I do not think they try to represent all the people which uses the "Bitcoin" software. The word software is misleading. Its not the software, its the combination of encryption, distributed networking and mathematical truths that makes the protocol useful. The software is just a manifistation of the protocol, which is just a manifistation of those elements. |
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I don't understand where some of you guys are coming from. If bitcoin can be regulated or controlled, bitcoin is literally a failure.
The combination of encryption, distributed networking and mathematical truths is supposed to make this impossible.
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I ran cgminer on a nvidia card last week and the payout after 30 hours was like 0.00004 btc or something like that.
You would probably get more bitcoins if you put a sign and a cup on the sidewalk saying "Give me some money please", and buy bitcoins for the profit.
...or just sell the cup right away
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There is a 0% chance that you can recover any files from her PC without paying - the people that code these viruses do know their stuff and crypto.
Even if you pay, there is a chance that you won't get any decryption key. After all, customer service is not exactly what these guys are up to, as most of their customers don't want to deal with them in the future again.
You help her best by getting her a backup software, reformatting the PC and showing her how to do backups in the future. If you want to, you can try to pay the criminals instead, though I have my doubts that it'll work. Once Bitcoin ATMs become more widespread, these kinds of "data kidnapping" will also spread out, they already accept other digital payments like paysafecard for quite some time now.
The fact that bitcoins is still hard to use for the average person probably saved her some money. If the ransom was in dollars, the money would be lost already, and the kidnapper would be asking for more as we speak. |
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Thank God she didn't loose her entire house to some banksters
Its amazing how bad security is on todays operating systems. How can we possible prevent stuff like this from happening?
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and we end up entering a era worse than the great depression.. would there even be electricity or internet service? if there isn't, would bitcoin be worth anything? some might believe me to be crazy, but there are 7 billion people on this planet.. if food production tapers off, there would be lots of people dying.
No. It would be heaven on earth once again. Nothing like the Hollywood movies  |
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Guys, do u remember the native Americans? They did have agreements with US govt. How many of them really worked? None.
U r going to repeat the history mistake.
It doesn't really matter. We already have government controlled digital currencies. Allowing government control of bitcoin would be unacceptable and lead to several forks. There is no point going down that road. There is no need for it. |
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I don't know how these Senate hearings go down, but I would be very conservative about what I would be willing to talk about.
If a discussion starts to stray into issues like crime, money laundering, hacking and the like, I would constantly refuse to have an opinion about it as I can not not talk on behalf of others.
This is not something bitcoin can or should answer for.
That might be something worth preparing for.
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You can also post ideas here, of course. Although I think Patrick prefers to use the Foundation forum, I read both.
... - Bitcoin was NOT developed to undermine the utilization of fiat currencies or replace money transmission business (this is one of the more common misconceptions about the Bitcoin software. People believe that Bitcoin was made to replace business like Visa, Paypal, Western Union, etc. This is, of course, a delusional belief. The Bitcoin software could never replace such business because it not offer the necessary structure required to operate such business. So it is important the enquirers understand that the Bitcoin software was initially developed to offer an alternative way to transmit money. I would tell the enquirers that any financial institution today could use the Bitcoin software to transmit money, including any departments of the federal government such as the IRS.) ... You make some good points here. Still, I have to say that fiat based businesses is doing just fine replacing them self these days. While that is not a good argument at the Senate, I hope bitcoin has what it takes to replace them if the time comes. |
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The senate will be making a choice: - Try to profit from it
- Try to ban it
And this hearing might have some influence on which path they will walk. We as a community should think hard about which we want them to try first. In the long term we all hope that, if Bitcoin works as we hope it does, governments will lose power either way... But which scenario gives Bitcoin a higher probability of creating value (either for you personally or for society) sooner rather than later? You forgot one other choice: - Go home thinking that bitcoin is a computer amateurs toy that will go away in a year or two |
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They can't understand it themselves like the member here did?
A significant percentage of Bitcoin users don't understand Bitcoin, let alone the masses who haven't even tried. Yet I do. This means that I'm smarter than the members of the US Senate, correct? I'm afraid so... |
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