Was Bitcoin shut down for 8 hours?

[YuKiang]

Bitcoin CEO found dead somewhere deep in Amazon.
Is bitcoin doomed? Is it going to die now?

[umairsaleem]

I'm sure you're talking about Bitcointalk instead of Bitcoin.

[tokeweed]

Bitcoin is also bankrupt.  It's true.  It was in the news somewhere..

[YuKiang]

Bitcoin is also bankrupt.  It's true.  It was in the news somewhere..

Was that after bitcoin CEO's death, or before? Maybe he committed a suicide after he went bankrupt?

Bitcoin CEO found dead somewhere deep in Amazon.
Is bitcoin doomed? Is it going to die now?

[dothebeats]

Is there any truth to this tweet?
https://twitter.com/patio11/status/583701441866371073

Patio11 is generally well respected and even though I have been in Bitcoin for a long time, I never heard of this 8 hour shutdown.

His tweets are getting lots of coverage right now.

(The entire tweet storm starts here: https://twitter.com/patio11/status/583696870704152576)

He seriously needs to know the difference between the Bitcoin network and bitcointalk.org
It is true that the website is down for several hours, but the bitcoin network isn't. If that happens, that means all the miners in the world turned of their hardware or a major hack happened (which are very unlikely to happen). Get some facts straight before posting anything to the social media or else you'll get criticized by many people.

[Carlton Banks]

If you want to forcibly shutdown the bitcoin network temporarily, you can do so with a 51% attack, a Sybil, or exploiting bugs/exploits in Bitcoin Core (which is arguably what the March 2013 issue was, someone could've exploited the situation to double spend coins, IIRC OKPay had a transaction double spent). It is incredibly difficult to do, but it is POSSIBLE, and those who say otherwise are misinformed.

So, we're establishing facts here.

It's incredibly difficult/highly resource intensive to do, and only temporary. Whereas, when everyone is convinced to co-operate, the network can be shut down very effectively.

"Impossible to shut down" makes it sound like some kind of perpetual motion runaway train, and that's clearly absurd.

So, in summary, the network is exceptionally resilient in practical terms, but also not so unwieldy that it can't be stopped when the actors agree to do so. And also that absurd comparisons are absurd.

[tokeweed]

Bitcoin is also bankrupt.  It's true.  It was in the news somewhere..

Was that after bitcoin CEO's death, or before? Maybe he committed a suicide after he went bankrupt?

Bitcoin CEO found dead somewhere deep in Amazon.
Is bitcoin doomed? Is it going to die now?

It was before.  Bitcoin had no CEO that's why it went bankrupt.

[tokeweed]

If you want to forcibly shutdown the bitcoin network temporarily, you can do so with a 51% attack, a Sybil, or exploiting bugs/exploits in Bitcoin Core (which is arguably what the March 2013 issue was, someone could've exploited the situation to double spend coins, IIRC OKPay had a transaction double spent). It is incredibly difficult to do, but it is POSSIBLE, and those who say otherwise are misinformed.

So, we're establishing facts here.

It's incredibly difficult/highly resource intensive to do, and only temporary. Whereas, when everyone is convinced to co-operate, the network can be shut down very effectively.

"Impossible to shut down" makes it sound like some kind of perpetual motion runaway train, and that's clearly absurd.

So, in summary, the network is exceptionally resilient in practical terms, but also not so unwieldy that it can't be stopped when the actors agree to do so. And also that absurd comparisons are absurd.

Yup.  Looking at the big picture, 10,000 years from now, civilization as we know it has been shutdown.

[S4VV4S]

What a nerd.



^ @patio11

Not a nerd, he is uneducated....
Nerds know the difference when a website is down and when a P2P system (that cannot and will not ever be down) being down.

Apart from that, the answer to this crap was already given by Franky:

bitcointalk (this website) which is only a forum and NOT a blockchain NOT a currency.. just a website... was down for several hours a couple days ago...

seriously people need to learn the difference or if they know the difference, atleast explain it better.

its like saying wall street trading markets stalled.. where the reality would be that the financial times newspaper was late to press

[Amph]

Read the rest of the little tit's tweets. It's one long line of bitterness and FUD. And don't you think you would've heard something about it in a rather loud manner on every single thread on every single bitcoin forum and news source if it were true?

Is this even possible to shut down whole system by anybody?

you know that bitcoin is decentralized? no one can forcibly shut down anything, that's the point of a decentralized system, totally detached from anyone

the OP is referring to the forum btw

You are both wrong:

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/3668/bitcoin-network-shaken-by-blockchain-fork/

It is posts like these that I don't particularly like, people stating facts about Bitcoin that seem true, others see them and also believe them, yet they are furthest from the truth and the answer was already posted in the thread. This is the reason that people like patio11 exist.

FTFY

That's usually what is meant when someone says "impossible to shut down".

If you want to forcibly shutdown the bitcoin network temporarily, you can do so with a 51% attack, a Sybil, or exploiting bugs/exploits in Bitcoin Core (which is arguably what the March 2013 issue was, someone could've exploited the situation to double spend coins, IIRC OKPay had a transaction double spent). It is incredibly difficult to do, but it is POSSIBLE, and those who say otherwise are misinformed.

51% isn't shutting down, it's just a cintrol over the network, if you stop the attack the network will return alive

let me rephrase it, it's impossible to shutdown bitcoin permanently

[Blazr]

51% isn't shutting down, it's just a cintrol over the network, if you stop the attack the network will return alive

let me rephrase it, it's impossible to shutdown bitcoin permanently

With a 51% attack you can prevent people from spending coins by not confirming their transactions. If you can't spend your Bitcoin I don't see how you can say the Bitcoin network is up.

Yes you are correct, you cannot shut down the network permanently unless you kill every Bitcoiner and destroy all Bitcoin clients and any evidence of bitcoin ever existing, probably would also be a good idea to outlaw all forms of electronic communication, encryption and privacy to prevent anyone from building something similar to Bitcoin. Anything less than that can be recovered from with enough time and resources. One copy of the Blockchain would be needed to preserve balances, we have atleast 7000.

But the Bitcoin network CAN be down and has been down in the past, it isn't magic, it is vulnerable to attack just like everything else in the world.

[RealMalatesta]

Okay kids, now that the truth is out, I will show you how easy it is to switch off Bitcoin:

Here's how it's done: http://tinyurl.com/ik7r

[WhatTheGox]

Is this even possible to shut down whole system by anybody?

Its possible if everybody decide but doesnt seem possible from a single entity or worth the hassle.

[dothebeats]

If you want to forcibly shutdown the bitcoin network temporarily, you can do so with a 51% attack, a Sybil, or exploiting bugs/exploits in Bitcoin Core (which is arguably what the March 2013 issue was, someone could've exploited the situation to double spend coins, IIRC OKPay had a transaction double spent). It is incredibly difficult to do, but it is POSSIBLE, and those who say otherwise are misinformed.

So, we're establishing facts here.

It's incredibly difficult/highly resource intensive to do, and only temporary. Whereas, when everyone is convinced to co-operate, the network can be shut down very effectively.

"Impossible to shut down" makes it sound like some kind of perpetual motion runaway train, and that's clearly absurd.

So, in summary, the network is exceptionally resilient in practical terms, but also not so unwieldy that it can't be stopped when the actors agree to do so. And also that absurd comparisons are absurd.

What other users don't know about is the fact that hacking or compromising bitcoin's security is theoretically possible. But to be able to achieve such a feat, one must have a very powerful machine or machines to aid them in computing the necessary prerequisites before you can disrupt the whole network. I doubt it is achievable within a span of 10 years, but who knows? With the technological advancements mankind had within the last century, everything is possible.

[juju]

I call this FUD

The OP, and the person posting to twitter need to invest more time researching the Network. I doubt they have spent hundreds of hours reading material, watching videos, and writing computer code to interact with the Network in any shape or form, to develop original abstract thoughts on the technology and how it can play out in our society. However they are certainly quick to inform others on their baseless uninformed opinion. I have always wondered why people are so quick to accept the given 'truth'. Sounds like someone who likes watching television and blindly accepts what they hear as factual.

Bitcoin's fundamental solution is going nowhere, it will only be improved and matured as we have seen over the past 5 years. FUD

[Mitchell]

Read the rest of the little tit's tweets. It's one long line of bitterness and FUD. And don't you think you would've heard something about it in a rather loud manner on every single thread on every single bitcoin forum and news source if it were true?

That's exactly what I thought. I mean, this tweet should say enough about that person: "4/ Bitcoin presently costs on the order of $6.5k per megabyte of data added to the block chain" or "5/ The entire market cap of Bitcoin as of 4/1/2015 is a fee paid to someone for work already done between 2009 and 4/1/2015". Dafuck does 5 even mean? Is he trying to say that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, that we are redoing work?

That guy clearly has no idea what Bitcoin is and how it works. I have no idea how someone like that could be "generally well respected" like OP said.

[xDan]

Negatives are misrepresented or overblown.

Positives are entirely omitted.

= Politically motivate troll

[crazyivan]

No, this is not possible and it did not take place. This is just another nerd searching for attention, twitter followers etc.

[dothebeats]

No, this is not possible and it did not take place. This is just another nerd searching for attention, twitter followers etc.

No. Theoretically, shutting down the Bitcoin network is possible. It's just that he got confused between bitcointalk.org (which was down for 10 hours, at least for me) and the whole Bitcoin network.

[Hazir]

It appears that OP has no common sense. Everybody knows that a P2P network with 7000 connected peers can not simply be shutdown.

It appears you are the one without sense as you haven't even read the thread.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/3668/bitcoin-network-shaken-by-blockchain-fork/

Anyone remember Napster?

Napster was nothing alike blockchain. Napster was p2p network with CENTRALIZED core service. It is easy for US government to kill services like that. Just unplug server and whole p2p network is dead.