So I'm wondering if there are any good guides to running a 51% attack on BitCoin?
Might seem a bit daft and implausible for Bitcoin but I could use this guide to inform myself of the possible threats to Bitcoin and I can re-purpose it to test alt-coins. There are some alt-coins with very low hashrate, I'd be interested to see if I could take over an alt-coin for a small while.
You would ignore any blocks mined by the rest of the network and mine on your own until your chain is longer than the rest of the network which given you control 51% of the network hashrate is statistically inevitable. You would then spend some coins somewhere, wait for however many confirmations your recipient requires and receive your irreversible goods. You can now broadcast your longer chain and in one of the blocks include a transaction that spends the coins elsewhere so the original recipient never gets to claim them.
Okay. I get this. Mine with 51% but do not broadcast the block chain. Spend old coins on the network and then broadcast my chain without those coins being spent.
I'll now go find a suitable atl-coin testnet to try this out. Thanks for the help.
If someone does find a comprehensive guide for doing such dastardly deeds please do post a reference to it here.