opening a Great Firewall

[usagiplus]

Suppose a Great Firewall splits the world in two, and transactions that are broadcast on one side of the wall aren't heard on the other, and vice versa.  Blockchains are built in parallel in each subworld.

Then suppose a revolution happens and the Firewall opens up.  Doesn't the unlucky (slower) side of the wall lose all their transactions?

Theoretically, someone could read the other side's transactions out of its blockchain and start putting them into the larger blockchain, from which they've been missing.  But does the transaction fee incentivize this?  I think the transaction fees have already been paid to the miners of the losing blockchain (insofar as any transaction on that side of the wall remains "final" post-revolution).

[franky1]

Suppose a Great Firewall splits the world in two,

........................... and we are all dead

but it does also reveal the lack of knowledge of the internet.. so forget cables underground, there are satalites

ok close the thread. as its one of those hypercritical that wont happen and if it did. buying something on a different continent would be no problem, as no one would be alive to sell items, buy items or deliver the items.

edit: oops i thought he meant an apocalyptic event literally splitting the planet in half.

if you meant a tall physical wall.. check out berlin pre-1990's they still done trading, even without the internet or satalites

[pedrog]

The side who has more hashing power wins, the other gets 51% attacked.

[usagiplus]

Suppose a Great Firewall splits the world in two,

........................... and we are all dead

but it does also reveal the lack of knowledge of the internet.. so forget cables underground, there are satalites

Umm, Egypt in 2011?  Even if it happened just for a few days, what would be the incentive to merge?  Basically this means Egypt can "turn off" Bitcoin too just by isolating their network.

[Swordsoffreedom]

So imagine a scenario where internet traffic is regionalized then like it is currently becomes world centralized
Not sure if a dual ledger would even perform the same things block differentiation would make it unlikely to have a compatible blockchain
In that case hashing would cover the 51% gap

[phillipsjk]

Suppose a Great Firewall splits the world in two, and transactions that are broadcast on one side of the wall aren't heard on the other, and vice versa.  Blockchains are built in parallel in each subworld.

Then suppose a revolution happens and the Firewall opens up.  Doesn't the unlucky (slower) side of the wall lose all their transactions?

All it would take is about 5 modem links to leak data through the wall. Radio hams could even broadcast and receive that data. If the outage lasts more than a week, you can start smuggling transactions and block-chain updates by mail (Eg: Micro SD cards).

The Internet was designed to survive a nuclear exchange between the super-powers.