Is Bitcointalk a place of free and open discussion?

[redsn0w]

....

Anyways,trying to censor it may give it more attention than ignoring it alltogeather i believe.

cheers

Exactly, however like I said previously (in this forum) more trouble , more power!

[ibminer]

I agree with you. Well the alert mechanism is not really often used, and a lot of the people contributing to Bitcoin Core want it removed. There is very little potential for abuse.
If a bad alert is sent a special alert can be sent that disables further use of the alert system and erases all other alerts. As a result, active misuse is effectively not possible.

To be specific about the fail-safes: A maximum sequence-number alert cancels all other alerts, can't itself be canceled, and displays a static "Alert key compromised".

Good to know there is some way to counter it... although seeing 'alert key compromised' on the client probably wouldn't be the most comforting thing for most core client users.

scenario: Gavin sends a maximum sequence-number alert himself and starts spreading FUD that core keys have been compromised and to move to XT immediately  

I doubt it would pay off in high numbers but people react to silly things sometimes around here  

[redsn0w]

I agree with you. Well the alert mechanism is not really often used, and a lot of the people contributing to Bitcoin Core want it removed. There is very little potential for abuse.
If a bad alert is sent a special alert can be sent that disables further use of the alert system and erases all other alerts. As a result, active misuse is effectively not possible.

To be specific about the fail-safes: A maximum sequence-number alert cancels all other alerts, can't itself be canceled, and displays a static "Alert key compromised".

Good to know there is some way to counter it... although seeing 'alert key compromised' on the client probably wouldn't be the most comforting thing for most core client users.

scenario: Gavin sends a maximum sequence-number alert himself and starts spreading FUD that core keys have been compromised and to move to XT immediately  

I doubt it would pay off in high numbers but people react to silly things sometimes around here  

However we should think that a lot of people don't use the bitcoin core client, so *what are you talking about?



PS: *I don't want to be arrogant, but is it possible to know how many users are using bitcoin core ?

[ibminer]

I agree with you. Well the alert mechanism is not really often used, and a lot of the people contributing to Bitcoin Core want it removed. There is very little potential for abuse.
If a bad alert is sent a special alert can be sent that disables further use of the alert system and erases all other alerts. As a result, active misuse is effectively not possible.

To be specific about the fail-safes: A maximum sequence-number alert cancels all other alerts, can't itself be canceled, and displays a static "Alert key compromised".

Good to know there is some way to counter it... although seeing 'alert key compromised' on the client probably wouldn't be the most comforting thing for most core client users.

scenario: Gavin sends a maximum sequence-number alert himself and starts spreading FUD that core keys have been compromised and to move to XT immediately  

I doubt it would pay off in high numbers but people react to silly things sometimes around here  

However we should think that a lot of people don't use the bitcoin core client, so *what are you talking about?



PS: *I don't want to be arrogant, but is it possible to know how many users are using bitcoin core ?

I guess I just don't see Gavin letting XT fall off the map easily and if normal methods of getting people to switch over do not work, would he be willing to go down a more malicious path?    It seems like he has a lot riding on its success...


This may be relevant to your question...
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2zt6ir/how_many_users_does_the_bitcoin_network_have/

[–]theymos 10 points 4 months ago*
According to getaddr.bitnodes.io, there are 6650 listening full nodes. Assuming they're all using default Bitcoin Core settings, they'll each provide 117 connection slots to the network. SPV nodes typically use 4 connection slots, and full nodes typically use 8. So the network can support a maximum of around 194,513 SPV nodes or 90,606 non-listening full nodes at one time. This is roughly the upper limit for the number of network-connected wallets that are online at any one time. (If there were more people online at once than that, people would start seeing various issues.) This doesn't include wallets that don't actually connect to the Bitcoin network, of course.
If I take my long-running listening full node and ignore connections via my Tor hidden service (which is unusual) and apparently-"fake" peers, I currently have incoming connections from 29 full nodes and 7 SPV nodes. So if I assume that my node is typical, it seems reasonable to make a very rough guess that there are at this moment (29*6650)/8 = 24,106 full nodes (6650 listening) and (7*6650)/4 = 11,637 SPV nodes (Electrum, Multibit, etc.) connected to the network.

[–]theymos 1 point 4 months ago*
I don't keep stats over time. I've seen more SPV nodes than that at times, but I don't know exactly when or how many.
You can get this data by giving Bitcoin Core the getpeerinfo command. Then look in "subver" to see what software that peer is running. "Satoshi" (aka Bitcoin Core) is the most common type of full node, and "bitcoinj" is the most common type of SPV node. You won't get many SPV connections unless your node has been online and stable for (I think) at least a couple weeks, though.

https://getaddr.bitnodes.io/nodes/

[Lauda]

Good to know there is some way to counter it... although seeing 'alert key compromised' on the client probably wouldn't be the most comforting thing for most core client users.

scenario: Gavin sends a maximum sequence-number alert himself and starts spreading FUD that core keys have been compromised and to move to XT immediately  

I doubt it would pay off in high numbers but people react to silly things sometimes around here  

I think that you did not understand my original post. A maximum sequence-number alert can not be changed and it only states "Alert key compromised". Basically in this scenario Gavin would cause the least amount of damage. He could issue that and make a post on reddit, BTCT, or somewhere else that people should switch to XT. However, people would catch on within a minute and expose him.
I'd realize this as soon as a saw the post.

-snip-
PS: *I don't want to be arrogant, but is it possible to know how many users are using bitcoin core ?

No, not really.

[ibminer]

Good to know there is some way to counter it... although seeing 'alert key compromised' on the client probably wouldn't be the most comforting thing for most core client users.

scenario: Gavin sends a maximum sequence-number alert himself and starts spreading FUD that core keys have been compromised and to move to XT immediately  

I doubt it would pay off in high numbers but people react to silly things sometimes around here  

I think that you did not understand my original post. A maximum sequence-number alert can not be changed and it only states "Alert key compromised". Basically in this scenario Gavin would cause the least amount of damage. He could issue that and make a post on reddit, BTCT, or somewhere else that people should switch to XT. However, people would catch on within a minute and expose him.
I'd realize this as soon as a saw the post.

Well my off-the-wall thought was that Gavin would do this in a more educated way and have many alt accounts (or friends/XT supporters) throughout reddit/btctalk/etc ready to start spamming/FUD'ing the message, not just himself posting. There are probably smarter ways to try and cause some form of panic/distrust amongst core clients and at least cause a temporary shift to XT.

As stupid as it sounds, some people may interpret that static message as "Alert: key compromised" I realize there is no ":" in it, but people panic over less if you combine it with many threads being posted by *whomever* saying "keys are compromised on the core!" and then they look at the client and see 'Alert key compromised'

... I realize its far-fetched, and I would hope the majority of the community is not this dense.  

[Anarchy101]

Vote Bitcoin-XT. Just because I hate people who think they are dictators.

[RocketSingh]

Vote Bitcoin-XT. Just because I hate people who think they are dictators.

There is another dictator waiting for you in XT coin. He wants to ignore the longest chain. Good luck with him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB9goUDBAR0

Decentralization and anarchism are good in theory. In reality, they gives rise to dictatorship. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[Lauda]

Well my off-the-wall thought was that Gavin would do this in a more educated way and have many alt accounts (or friends/XT supporters) throughout reddit/btctalk/etc ready to start spamming/FUD'ing the message, not just himself posting. There are probably smarter ways to try and cause some form of panic/distrust amongst core clients and at least cause a temporary shift to XT.

As stupid as it sounds, some people may interpret that static message as "Alert: key compromised" I realize there is no ":" in it, but people panic over less if you combine it with many threads being posted by *whomever* saying "keys are compromised on the core!" and then they look at the client and see 'Alert key compromised'

... I realize its far-fetched, and I would hope the majority of the community is not this dense.  

You are now being pessimistic. Basically whatever the outcome of such action, Gavin would lose all credibility and be blacklisted even if he succeeds. Even if this event does happen and people switch to XT, in the meantime the others would find out what he did. After everyone becomes aware that they were deceived by Gavin, they would either stay on XT or revert to core.
Either way doing so Gavin would weaken both chains and lose everything that he has worked for in the past few years.

However, I'm not sure maximum sequence-number alert works nor if he can issue it on his own.

[ibminer]

Well my off-the-wall thought was that Gavin would do this in a more educated way and have many alt accounts (or friends/XT supporters) throughout reddit/btctalk/etc ready to start spamming/FUD'ing the message, not just himself posting. There are probably smarter ways to try and cause some form of panic/distrust amongst core clients and at least cause a temporary shift to XT.

As stupid as it sounds, some people may interpret that static message as "Alert: key compromised" I realize there is no ":" in it, but people panic over less if you combine it with many threads being posted by *whomever* saying "keys are compromised on the core!" and then they look at the client and see 'Alert key compromised'

... I realize its far-fetched, and I would hope the majority of the community is not this dense.  

You are now being pessimistic. Basically whatever the outcome of such action, Gavin would lose all credibility and be blacklisted even if he succeeds. Even if this event does happen and people switch to XT, in the meantime the others would find out what he did. After everyone becomes aware that they were deceived by Gavin, they would either stay on XT or revert to core.
Either way doing so Gavin would weaken both chains and lose everything that he has worked for in the past few years.
However, I'm not sure maximum sequence-number alert works nor if he can issue it on his own.

Optimism gets me burned too much.

He would just do what everyone else does... blame losing his key to a hacker, he never sent the alert. I am sure he is clever enough to maintain some of his credibility, but yes it would be tarnished. No doubt it would be a last ditch effort, I think he has already lost a chunk of credibility to bitcoin core folks... not sure what he is going to do when XT crashes and burns, so he might not have much to lose if he can't get people to move over to XT willingly.

EDIT: I'm not sure how the maximum sequence-number alert works either, obviously a moot point if it requires more than just him

[iCEBREAKER]

If a compromise could be realistically reached (which is hard to see lately), then I think many users would be greatly relieved.

There will be a compromise, but not in the direction you are imagining.

Hint: Bitcoin is about power, not popularity.   

[iCEBREAKER]

What is stopping Gavin from broadcasting an alert to core clients saying an upgrade is required in an attempt to move people to XT?

Antifragility.  And wildfire.

[RoadTrain]

What is stopping Gavin from broadcasting an alert to core clients saying an upgrade is required in an attempt to move people to XT?

Antifragility.  And wildfire.

Jesus! That made my day, thank you! Thermos!

[smoothie]

I'm impressed at the level of Bitcoin knowledge of bitcointalk.org users compared to /r/Bitcoin users. Most of the people in this thread and other similar threads are interpreting the issues correctly (or at least with some evidence of actual thought), unlike most Redditors.

I don't think it makes sense to call Bitcoin XT an alt-coin anymore than it does the current version of Bitcoin Core, which has hard-forked several times since it was introduced.  Furthermore, Bitcoin Core will only fork away from Bitcoin XT when XT has 75% of the hash power behind it.

Bitcoin's hardforks (though some people don't classify them as hardforks) were done with consensus among the the Bitcoin community/economy/experts. In the current state of the debate, any max block size increase won't have consensus, though I think that consensus on a compromise proposal might be achievable in 6-18 months.

Activating a hardfork based on what miners do is really bad. You could easily have a situation where 75% of miners support XT but none of the big Bitcoin exchanges or businesses do. Then miners would start mining coins that they couldn't spend anywhere useful, and SPV users would find that they can't transact with the businesses they want to deal with. The currency would be split, and in this case XT would be in a far weaker position than Bitcoin. The possibility of this sort of network/currency split is what makes XT not a "legitimate hardfork", but rather the programmed creation of an altcoin. A consensus hardfork can only go forward once it has been determined that it's nearly impossible for the Bitcoin economy to split in any significant way. Not every Bitcoin user on Earth has to agree, but enough that there won't be a noticeable split.

Bitcoin is not ruled by miners. In a hardfork, miners barely matter at all. (Softforks are different.) What's important is what the economy does.

What makes you think merchants won't switch to xt if the majority of miners mine on xt and not on core?

Would it not be in the merchant's best interest to accept coins on the chain that is more time efficient?

Coins being sent on the old chain would be super slow. Can't see why merchants would not switch of the majority of miners processing transactions moved to xt.

Please respond/ retort.

[smoothie]

I pity the fool that accepts BTC using the Bitcoin XT client (post fork)...

After the fork coins would be stuck on their respective chains.  I do look forward to the watching the Core/XT exchange rate.  Tell me OgNasty... would you sell all of you XT coins for Core coins at a 1:1 ratio?

I will sell all of my XT coins to whatever poor sap wants to buy them, at whatever price I can get for them.  I don't hold altcoins.

I distinctly remember you buying one of my loaded physical litecoins a few years back.

Correct me if I am wrong.

[Lauda]

Optimism gets me burned too much.

He would just do what everyone else does... blame losing his key to a hacker, he never sent the alert. I am sure he is clever enough to maintain some of his credibility, but yes it would be tarnished. No doubt it would be a last ditch effort, I think he has already lost a chunk of credibility to bitcoin core folks... not sure what he is going to do when XT crashes and burns, so he might not have much to lose if he can't get people to move over to XT willingly.

EDIT: I'm not sure how the maximum sequence-number alert works either, obviously a moot point if it requires more than just him

There is a difference between optimism and realism. That would not work. He'd lose credibility in my eyes for not having proper security measures in place. XT can not work without proper consensus, and trying to force it means that we lose consensus and decentralization.
I'm not against a increase, however I'm definitely against the initial plans of its implementation. Doing this without consensus could do much more damage than any previous hack/problem in the past.

[theymos]

What makes you think merchants won't switch to xt if the majority of miners mine on xt and not on core?

Would it not be in the merchant's best interest to accept coins on the chain that is more time efficient?

Coins being sent on the old chain would be super slow. Can't see why merchants would not switch of the majority of miners processing transactions moved to xt.

A chain with more miners is not more efficient. It is more secure, though there would be very few things that could attack even 25% of the network's hashing power.

Blocks would be slower (25 minutes on average instead of 10), but this would only last for a few weeks until the difficulty goes down. Even today it's common for blocks to take 25-60 minutes, so this wouldn't be Earth-shattering.

This wouldn't actually last for long in the scenario where 75% of miners switch but no big economic actors do because the miners who switched will switch back very soon after they realize that they're mining coins that no one will accept.

[iCEBREAKER]

What makes you think merchants won't switch to xt if the majority of miners mine on xt and not on core?

Would it not be in the merchant's best interest to accept coins on the chain that is more time efficient?

Coins being sent on the old chain would be super slow. Can't see why merchants would not switch of the majority of miners processing transactions moved to xt.

A chain with fewer miners is not more efficient. It is more secure, though there would be very few things that could attack even 25% of the network's hashing power.

Blocks would be slower (25 minutes on average instead of 10), but this would only last for a few weeks until the difficulty goes down. Even today it's common for blocks to take 25-60 minutes, so this wouldn't be Earth-shattering.

This wouldn't actually last for long in the scenario where 75% of miners switch but no big economic actors do because the miners who switched will switch back very soon after they realize that they're mining coins that no one will accept.

Smoothie has already switched over, so XT miners will always be able to trade their XTcoins for silver and Hawaiian real estate, no problem.   

[smoothie]

What makes you think merchants won't switch to xt if the majority of miners mine on xt and not on core?

Would it not be in the merchant's best interest to accept coins on the chain that is more time efficient?

Coins being sent on the old chain would be super slow. Can't see why merchants would not switch of the majority of miners processing transactions moved to xt.

A chain with fewer miners is not more efficient. It is more secure, though there would be very few things that could attack even 25% of the network's hashing power.

Blocks would be slower (25 minutes on average instead of 10), but this would only last for a few weeks until the difficulty goes down. Even today it's common for blocks to take 25-60 minutes, so this wouldn't be Earth-shattering.

This wouldn't actually last for long in the scenario where 75% of miners switch but no big economic actors do because the miners who switched will switch back very soon after they realize that they're mining coins that no one will accept.

This is of course assuming that ZERO merchants choose to accept XT fork coins.

That has yet to be seen. No one knows that.

Should be interesting to see what exchanges/businesses do when some accept XT and some dont (assuming that scenario plays out).

[smoothie]

What makes you think merchants won't switch to xt if the majority of miners mine on xt and not on core?

Would it not be in the merchant's best interest to accept coins on the chain that is more time efficient?

Coins being sent on the old chain would be super slow. Can't see why merchants would not switch of the majority of miners processing transactions moved to xt.

A chain with fewer miners is not more efficient. It is more secure, though there would be very few things that could attack even 25% of the network's hashing power.

Blocks would be slower (25 minutes on average instead of 10), but this would only last for a few weeks until the difficulty goes down. Even today it's common for blocks to take 25-60 minutes, so this wouldn't be Earth-shattering.

This wouldn't actually last for long in the scenario where 75% of miners switch but no big economic actors do because the miners who switched will switch back very soon after they realize that they're mining coins that no one will accept.

Smoothie has already switched over, so XT miners will always be able to trade their XTcoins for silver and Hawaiian real estate, no problem.  

LOL just because I switched doesn't mean I will accept payment on a fork. The outcome remains to be seen once the blockchain forks. Any merchant accepting payment on a fork before consensus has been made is retarded.

I support bigger blocks that's the only reason I switched.

If the network decides against larger blocks I will then switch back to core.