>50% attack

[Serenata]

You are right to say that the software supports backup pools, but I'm not sure how many people have set it up to backup to p2pool if everything else fails.

The reason for me being sceptic about this is because I've seen huge fails securing email servers, not using two step verification, hard-coding keys into the code and the such. I suppose you can understand what/who I'm talking about. If those peeps, who used to handle too many coins (or other values) in a daily basis, were so careless, what to expect from "smaller" bitcoin players? I'm sure there are plenty of miners with backup plans setup and tested and I surely hope they're the majority. It's just I'm not sure about it...

Edit for clarification
I'm not talking about the 51% attack as this is not feasible as it was already noted (DoSing pools for a certain amount of time, would just slow down block generation). Just commenting about how I don't feel that secure that most of the miners do have rock-solid backup plans.

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You are right to say that the software supports backup pools, but I'm not sure how many people have set it up to backup to p2pool if everything else fails.

The reason for me being sceptic about this is because I've seen huge fails securing email servers, not using two step verification, hard-coding keys into the code and the such. I suppose you can understand what/who I'm talking about. If those peeps, who used to handle too many coins (or other values) in a daily basis, were so careless, what to expect from "smaller" bitcoin players? I'm sure there are plenty of miners with backup plans setup and tested and I surely hope they're the majority. It's just I'm not sure about it...

Edit for clarification
I'm not talking about the 51% attack as this is not feasible as it was already noted (DoSing pools for a certain amount of time, would just slow down block generation). Just commenting about how I don't feel that secure that most of the miners do have rock-solid backup plans.

I agree that it is unlikely that the majority of miners have configured backup pools at all. And I question if that is a problem.

Most miners probably monitor their machines regularly and can and will switch to other pools manually within a couple of hours, if the need arises. Taking a risk of a few hours downtime is not that big of a deal for small-time miners. Is it probably not even worth the time to configure backup pools.

[AmDD]

I consider myself a small-time miner, 4GH/s in total. Ive got my miners setup with 2 backup pools...

[Meatball]

I agree that it is unlikely that the majority of miners have configured backup pools at all. And I question if that is a problem.

Most miners probably monitor their machines regularly and can and will switch to other pools manually within a couple of hours, if the need arises. Taking a risk of a few hours downtime is not that big of a deal for small-time miners. Is it probably not even worth the time to configure backup pools.

Ah, I disagree.  First, I would think most miners have some basic technical chops or they (A) wouldn't know about Bitcoin, and (B) never be able to figure out how to set up a mining rig.

I agree that a lot of people probably mine without backups at first, but the first time they notice they've not been mining for a few hours, they'll figure out they can setup backups.  Even small time miners, any downtime is a big deal.  If you're only making 1 BTC a month, every .01 BTC is important.

[cunicula]

Jesus...  I don't have many people ignored on this forum, but subSTRATA immediately made the list.  Perma-mute this guy.

Anyone who attacks the usefulness of proof-of-work as a security mechanism is a friend in my book. I am certain it will fail within my expected lifetime.
I wish the subsidy would drop quicker so we could get it over with.

...mines PPCoin while waiting for something better than PPCoin to come along...