We ARE under attack.. we NEED to act...

[NewLiberty]

scaling blocks would be the perfect solution. but that's an infinite discussion.

One cannot address a crapflood attack by permantly accepting more crap for all time.

This is where the "Bitcoin Purists" need to admit they were wrong that "there can only be one crypto" and give credit where credit is due. Charlie (coblee) was right from 3 years ago when this spam attack happened. I remember the spam attack when it happened and the fee structure to discourage attacks has worked very nicely to date.

Are you talking about when he stopped ignoring my advice that his slavish copying of Bitcoin's code broke the existing anti-attack mechenisms and rendered them completely and totally ineffectial?-- and applied a patch I provided?  I'm surprised you'd forget that-- because

Go actually look at the litecoin repository. You'll see almost nothing but miles of them copying code from Bitcoin Core.

As mentioned above... We have almost the same protection in Bitcoin being mentioned here; but the attacker is just paying enough to avoid it (partially because it was subsiquently turned too low in anticipation of higher Bitcoin prices); and the latest volly of attack transactions  don't even involve very small payments.

I realize that you're a long time litecoin advocate; but seriously-- pick a argument that actually makes sense.  Otherwise it's just embarassing.

I traced the attacks to my alt-coin mining operation last year to Panama and Switzerland, they went to a lot of trouble to screw me out of $5 worth of doge.

Any idea where these attacks are originating from?

A big chunk of them originate from this transaction: 3bad15167c60de483cd32cb990d1e46f0a0d8ab380e3fc1cace01afc9c1bb5af  if you can figure out whos exchange withdraw this-- since this key immediately began making the attack txn itself is you may have some very concrete evidence about whos attacking here.

The problem you get when you fix something, those without comprehension will blame you for the problem.
"If you could fix it than it is your fault for not doing it earlier"
"Why did you break it in the first place"

Engineering is all about the careful and cautious trade-offs.  Perfect solutions are elusive, but when you come up with one, after the fact folks will claim it to have been obvious, and so not meaningful.

-unsung heroes

[khal]

not it's a bad thing, low fee is one of the advantages of bitcoin, they should stay low, and always customizable, if i want to pay zero fees and wait days for my confirmation, i want do it, i want complete freedom with bitcoin

Yes! So much yes. Making high fee mandatory is just plain stupid. I should be in control always.

Same opinion as both.

Bitcoin clients can detect that lots of tx are pending and propose (and not forcing it) a fee adjusted to this situation and desire of the sender (slow/fast/very-fast confirmation).

[sgk]

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114791/litecoin-shows-there-is-a-simple-fix-for-spam-attacks-on-bitcoin

Coblee has the answer, an elegant and simple fix...

"CT: Can you explain why Litecoin is ‘immune’ to the spam attack?

CL: The fix implemented in Litecoin is just to charge the sender a fee for each tiny output he creates. For example, in this specific attack, the sender is charged one fee for sending to 34 tiny outputs of 0.00001 BTC. With the fix, that fee would be 34 times as much. So it would cost the attacker a lot more to perform the spam attack. The concept is fairly simple: the sender should pay for each tiny output he/she creates."

This simple fix should really work in my opinion.

Let people pay for each and every output they create, no matter how tiny the output amount is. This is a sure-shot way of making sure it doesn't come cheap to spam the network.

And since the tiny outputs will be accompanied by sizable fees, miners too will have a reason to process such transactions without putting unnecessary delays on them.

[NewLiberty]

The fees must go up or some measure to kill spamers.

Larger blocks does not prevent spammers.....

The fundamental premise here (that all attacks need a response) is entirely flawed.
To accept it is to surrender completely to the will of every would-be attacker that can force a response.

If you want your TX processed swiftly, raise your fee.  You can fix this yourself, it needn't be something you ask ANYONE else to handle for you.

[BitmoreCoin]

I don't think spammers are a problem,if there are larger blocks,what does spammers matter?

It will fill my hard disk faster and sooner.

[NewLiberty]

I don't think spammers are a problem,if there are larger blocks,what does spammers matter?

It will fill my hard disk faster and sooner.

Another issue with spam is the UXTO set, which can grow quite large and create problems of its own.

[NoBit]

Just make all wallets detect and suggest fee for fast/medium/long confirmations. Problem solved.

[spud21]

The fees must go up or some measure to kill spamers.

Larger blocks does not prevent spammers.....

The fundamental premise here (that all attacks need a response) is entirely flawed.
To accept it is to surrender completely to the will of every would-be attacker that can force a response.

If you want your TX processed swiftly, raise your fee.  You can fix this yourself, it needn't be something you ask ANYONE else to handle for you.

Exchanges often have a fixed default fee that you cannot change. Implementing your suggestion would require all exchanges and Bitcoin services to update their platforms to allow customers to set their own rate of transaction fees. Ideally they should also warn if the network is under attack and suggest an appropriate fee. It would take some time to get them all to agree to update, but it's possible.

[Meuh6879]

I hate litecoin to be honest, but in this case i believe Coblee is correct. 23 000 of unconfirmed transactions, and 42382.330078125 (KB) ..
blockchain.info freezes just by me thinking of opening it and so on..

... use this before send bitcoins ...

http://bitcoinexchangerate.org/fees


Actual fees to emit in 10 min : 0.32 mBTC

[NewLiberty]

The fees must go up or some measure to kill spamers.

Larger blocks does not prevent spammers.....

The fundamental premise here (that all attacks need a response) is entirely flawed.
To accept it is to surrender completely to the will of every would-be attacker that can force a response.

If you want your TX processed swiftly, raise your fee.  You can fix this yourself, it needn't be something you ask ANYONE else to handle for you.

Exchanges often have a fixed default fee that you cannot change. Implementing your suggestion would require all exchanges and Bitcoin services to update their platforms to allow customers to set their own rate of transaction fees. Ideally they should also warn if the network is under attack and suggest an appropriate fee. It would take some time to get them all to agree to update, but it's possible.

What exchange do you use that has a fixed TX fee?  Don't use that one.

For the exchange:
Any decent exchange will have the ability to set the fee, though it may be an "advanced" option.
If they do not do this, they have the burden themselves as part of the service to include an appropriate fee.

Badly coded exchanges fixing poor interfaces should happen long before protocol changes.

This is not the crisis you are thinking it is.

[BitmoreCoin]

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114791/litecoin-shows-there-is-a-simple-fix-for-spam-attacks-on-bitcoin

It will cost mining pool (miners a lot) if they have to send multiple payments to miners each day.

[johnyj]

Someone is cashing out litecoin big time 

[bank of bits]

The fees must go up or some measure to kill spamers.

Larger blocks does not prevent spammers.....

The higher the blocksize, the more transactions can be processed and the more expensive a spam attack is per minute.

[NUFCrichard]

The fees must go up or some measure to kill spamers.

Larger blocks does not prevent spammers.....

The higher the blocksize, the more transactions can be processed and the more expensive a spam attack is per minute.

But it is all a nominal amount of money in the grand scheme of things.
Bitcoin should be secure against government attacks, let alone someone with a few grand lying around.

If it currently costs a few thousand $ to clog up the blockchain, even increasing it 20 fold wouldn't stop someone with deep pockets.
A work around needs to be found, not just a simple block size increase (though that should happen too)

[tss]

allowing more spam to be handled faster is not a solution for stopping spam.  i liked someones proposal of dropping dust transactions from the mempool once per day. 

none of my non penny transactions have had a problem with confirmation given a proper fee.  so far the only real transactions that are affected seem to be those coming from exchanges and dice sites where you aren't able to set the fee.  if the spam continues and there is no real fix i am sure the affected systems' owners will update to allow proper fees and "normal" transactions will continue just as they are now.  UNAFFECTED.

[BitmoreCoin]

The fees must go up or some measure to kill spamers.

Larger blocks does not prevent spammers.....

The higher the blocksize, the more transactions can be processed and the more expensive a spam attack is per minute.

But it is all a nominal amount of money in the grand scheme of things.
Bitcoin should be secure against government attacks, let alone someone with a few grand lying around.

If it currently costs a few thousand $ to clog up the blockchain, even increasing it 20 fold wouldn't stop someone with deep pockets.
A work around needs to be found, not just a simple block size increase (though that should happen too)

That is right. Increase the cost of spam is a better way.

[fairglu]

If it currently costs a few thousand $ to clog up the blockchain, even increasing it 20 fold wouldn't stop someone with deep pockets.
A work around needs to be found, not just a simple block size increase (though that should happen too)

Indeed. A simple fee increase is not a solution, as it would be discouraging bitcoin use long before it could discourage someone with deep pockets.

[NewLiberty]

I think one possible solution would be to have a temporary high transaction fee during times where there are a lot of transactions to be processed. Something similar to the concept of surge pricing. It's not elegant or desirable, but it could work.

This is what has always been the case, with no change to the protocol.
You can always pay a higher fee.

And yes, the feature of wallets telling you what fee to use would be a nice addition.

[NewLiberty]

If it currently costs a few thousand $ to clog up the blockchain, even increasing it 20 fold wouldn't stop someone with deep pockets.
A work around needs to be found, not just a simple block size increase (though that should happen too)

Indeed. A simple fee increase is not a solution, as it would be discouraging bitcoin use long before it could discourage someone with deep pockets.

What sort of transaction censoring are you contemplating now?

[scarsbergholden]

Just make all wallets detect and suggest fee for fast/medium/long confirmations. Problem solved.

not a bad idea, Someone could defendly get this done fast in a plug in for electrum i know a lot of people would love it at the current state of transactions confirmation length