Computer Science Master thesis on Bitcoin

[Nikhil18]

So I have been reading a lot about Bitcoin for the past one month or so and I have come across various topics of research in Bitcoin, I previously thought of studying the deanonymizing attacks on bitcoin, but after some discussion with people over the community channel I realized that carrying out such attacks requires high machine power and simply cannot be achieved with your personal computer. I would like to know what all other aspects of Bitcoin can I research on which doesn't require high machine power? Apart from this how do you actually start the coding part, I have found few tutorials on youtube but they tell you about coding the transactions and stuff ...

[achow101]

So I have been reading a lot about Bitcoin for the past one month or so and I have come across various topics of research in Bitcoin, I previously thought of studying the deanonymizing attacks on bitcoin, but after some discussion with people over the community channel I realized that carrying out such attacks requires high machine power and simply cannot be achieved with your personal computer. I would like to know what all other aspects of Bitcoin can I research on which doesn't require high machine power? Apart from this how do you actually start the coding part, I have found few tutorials on youtube but they tell you about coding the transactions and stuff ...

The way that Bitcoin is designed is that it requires a lot of computing power to execute most attacks. Maybe you can try researching DoS attacks on Bitcoin nodes.

What do you mean "the coding part"? What are you trying to code?

[Nikhil18]

So I have been reading a lot about Bitcoin for the past one month or so and I have come across various topics of research in Bitcoin, I previously thought of studying the deanonymizing attacks on bitcoin, but after some discussion with people over the community channel I realized that carrying out such attacks requires high machine power and simply cannot be achieved with your personal computer. I would like to know what all other aspects of Bitcoin can I research on which doesn't require high machine power? Apart from this how do you actually start the coding part, I have found few tutorials on youtube but they tell you about coding the transactions and stuff ...

The way that Bitcoin is designed is that it requires a lot of computing power to execute most attacks. Maybe you can try researching DoS attacks on Bitcoin nodes.

What do you mean "the coding part"? What are you trying to code?

Actually I was trying to understand how to launch an attack, for that purpose we require coding , so I wanted to know where can I get a start ?

[achow101]

Actually I was trying to understand how to launch an attack, for that purpose we require coding , so I wanted to know where can I get a start ?

It depends on the attack that you want to launch. If you don't know how to program, I would not recommend trying to do this. You will need to know how to do network stuff and sending bytes over the wire. You also need to know how Bitcoin networking works and how Bitcoin itself works in order to find viable attacks.

[Nikhil18]

Actually I was trying to understand how to launch an attack, for that purpose we require coding , so I wanted to know where can I get a start ?

It depends on the attack that you want to launch. If you don't know how to program, I would not recommend trying to do this. You will need to know how to do network stuff and sending bytes over the wire. You also need to know how Bitcoin networking works and how Bitcoin itself works in order to find viable attacks.

Well I am from Computer Science background so I can code, and have undertaken computer networking class and have done some socket programming on Java, well if that's not gonna be sufficient then can you suggest something that is going to be worthy of a master thesis. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[achow101]

Actually I was trying to understand how to launch an attack, for that purpose we require coding , so I wanted to know where can I get a start ?

It depends on the attack that you want to launch. If you don't know how to program, I would not recommend trying to do this. You will need to know how to do network stuff and sending bytes over the wire. You also need to know how Bitcoin networking works and how Bitcoin itself works in order to find viable attacks.

Well I am from Computer Science background so I can code, and have undertaken computer networking class and have done some socket programming on Java, well if that's not gonna be sufficient then can you suggest something that is going to be worthy of a master thesis. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

A good place to start is to look at the documentation on how Bitcoin works on the technical level. All of that can be found here: https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-documentation. Then once you understand how Bitcoin works, you can think of ways to improve it and do that for your research.

[notlist3d]

Actually I was trying to understand how to launch an attack, for that purpose we require coding , so I wanted to know where can I get a start ?

It depends on the attack that you want to launch. If you don't know how to program, I would not recommend trying to do this. You will need to know how to do network stuff and sending bytes over the wire. You also need to know how Bitcoin networking works and how Bitcoin itself works in order to find viable attacks.

Well I am from Computer Science background so I can code, and have undertaken computer networking class and have done some socket programming on Java, well if that's not gonna be sufficient then can you suggest something that is going to be worthy of a master thesis. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

A good place to start is to look at the documentation on how Bitcoin works on the technical level. All of that can be found here: https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-documentation. Then once you understand how Bitcoin works, you can think of ways to improve it and do that for your research.

I think you might have a hard time at this finding an attack that is worthy of a Master's Thesis.   For this I think you would need to find your own attack or at least your own variant, and sounds like a very hard to do.    It might be possible... but I would look at other options then an attack.

Before you get to far in this have you thought about instead of an attack looking at using a study of "Blockchain".  It is kinda all the rage to use "Blockchain" technology when someone launches something that want's investors anymore.   It is something if you had a good thesis in you might be able to use to help get a job.   I think a thesis in "Blockchain" is going to be much more achievable on a master's level then a attack unless you are very talented at finding exploits.

[Nikhil18]

I think you might have a hard time at this finding an attack that is worthy of a Master's Thesis.   For this I think you would need to find your own attack or at least your own variant, and sounds like a very hard to do.    It might be possible... but I would look at other options then an attack.

Before you get to far in this have you thought about instead of an attack looking at using a study of "Blockchain".  It is kinda all the rage to use "Blockchain" technology when someone launches something that want's investors anymore.   It is something if you had a good thesis in you might be able to use to help get a job.   I think a thesis in "Blockchain" is going to be much more achievable on a master's level then a attack unless you are very talented at finding exploits.

Thanks for your reply, Could you please provide me a link to a paper or some article , so I can have a much clearer view as to what you are suggesting