hidden pool collaboration

[David Rabahy]

Can mining pools be collaborating behind the scenes?  If so then would this be detectable?

[Neuroticgrim]

Hello,

It's possible for the pool operators to collaborate, though unlikely, it would be quite obvious as soon as a single pools hashrate doubled or tripled in a matter of moments (non asic based) when the pools joined. In most cases the miners affected would either swap pools or raise flames.

Even as it is most miners tend to monitor pool percentages of the network to prevent any one pool from controlling 51% of the hashrate.

[David Rabahy]

Couldn't a secret collaboration just not report their combined hash rate?

[ibite]

What would be the gain for the pool owners?

It would be very easy for a pool owner to cheat by not declaring a valid hash as beeing mined by the pool, but the most popular pools have been around for years and are trusted by the community.

[David Rabahy]

Suppose a solo miner setup two mining rigs; is there any advantage whatsoever possible to forming a pool with them?  Is there any advantage whatsoever possible to keeping them not pooled?