Bitcoin Network is under sybil attack

[chek2fire]

I think bitcoin network is official under sybil attack atm. We have atm 1137 (13.84%) nodes from a single provider Choopa, LLC

https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/?q=Choopa,%20LLC

and next we have 917 (11.16%) nodes from Amazon.com, Inc.
This is a very dangerous situation and i dont know how anyone cant react to this.

[Jet Cash]

Well I'll try to run my core 0.12 node as much as possible. I'm afraid I am only able to run 1 node, but I'll do that if it will help.

[--Encrypted--]

forgive my ignorance but how dangerous is this kind of attack? I've just read about it here and looks like the worst the attackers can do if they're succesful is not relaying anything to anyone. which sounds pretty bad.

[xhomerx10]

Well Choopa (via VULTR) has virtual private servers from $0.007 per hour (1 CPU, 15GB SSD, 768MB memory and 1TB bandwidth) and they give you $5 for signing up (which is also the monthly cost of the server listed above) and dedicated servers (beefier) starting at $.089 per hour.  Seems like somebody should inform them of the abuses happening on their service.  It might even save them some money.

[BARR_Official]

So it could be hundreds of different people renting these nodes, and not Amazon trying to attack Bitcoin

[Alley]

Here is my reaction.  Yawn...

[exstasie]

So it could be hundreds of different people renting these nodes, and not Amazon trying to attack Bitcoin

Classic nodes went up 1300-1400 in a day. You saying 1300-1400 people brought nodes online all at once? Not saying it's impossible, but pretty unlikely. There is someone now boasting on reddit about owning 800 nodes in the cloud, paid through May.

It shouldn't need to be said, but one person controlling 800 nodes can do more harm to the network than good. Sure, they can help bootstrap new nodes and relay blocks. But that level of centralization means that nodes that are predominantly communicating with his nodes are open to Sybil attack.

I validate on a listen-only node, so my Core node does not count towards "reachable nodes." But I assure you, I will only be running Core. In any case I don't find one person running hundreds of nodes a compelling reason to support a Classic fork. LOL. Sybil away, Classikkers! We'll see how far you get.

[Hirose UK]

I think bitcoin network is official under sybil attack atm. We have atm 1137 (13.84%) nodes from a single provider Choopa, LLC

https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/?q=Choopa,%20LLC

and next we have 917 (11.16%) nodes from Amazon.com, Inc.
This is a very dangerous situation and i dont know how anyone cant react to this.

let me make something clear here. what is sybil? is that an organization, a community, a system or a name? because I thought it was a system, but I found a thread in Press section that said that sybil is a woman's name. so tell me what sybil is.

then how dangerous is the situasion? what can we do for the solution?

[exstasie]

I think bitcoin network is official under sybil attack atm. We have atm 1137 (13.84%) nodes from a single provider Choopa, LLC

https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/?q=Choopa,%20LLC

and next we have 917 (11.16%) nodes from Amazon.com, Inc.
This is a very dangerous situation and i dont know how anyone cant react to this.

let me make something clear here. what is sybil? is that an organization, a community, a system or a name? because I thought it was a system, but I found a thread in Press section that said that sybil is a woman's name. so tell me what sybil is.

then how dangerous is the situasion? what can we do for the solution?

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Sybil_attack

Named for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_(book)

[Kakmakr]

These people did the same thing, when we had the XT vs Core battle and they ran several virtual XT servers running to bump the XT statistics. I do not know how effective this strategy will be, because Bitcoin makes these attacks more difficult by only making an outbound connection to one IP address per /16 (x.y.0.0). Incoming connections are unlimited and unregulated, but this is generally only a problem in the anonymity case, where you're probably already unable to accept incoming connections.

I wonder how strong these services are against Denial of Service (DoS) attacks?

[chek2fire]

Nodes is a very important part of bitcoin ecosystem and the last defend in malicious attack from miners. For example in 51% malicious attack nodes can prevent the miner to destroy the network. In a hard fork scenario again nodes can block to relay the the new blocks and transactions.
The other danger think with such a sybil attack is that someone can easy use all of this nodes to get some informations from bitcoin transactions like to identify from where this transactions came from

[Lauda]

Here an nice article that does some analysis in regards to this problem: A date with Sybil.

Classic nodes went up 1300-1400 in a day. You saying 1300-1400 people brought nodes online all at once? Not saying it's impossible, but pretty unlikely. There is someone now boasting on reddit about owning 800 nodes in the cloud, paid through May.

All their nodes are controller by less than 300 people. They're using this to show that there is "support" for Classic. However, they're just trying to manipulate people as this is not really the case (read the linked article). I've actually read a claim (somewhere on /r/btc) from someone saying that they're behind 800 of such nodes (I have no idea whether this is true).

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

Is there a range of IP addresses that can be blacklisted in the client to avoid connecting to nodes on these cloud providers?

I'd rather not connect to nodes that are mass produced not knowing what their intentions might be.

Sure it is doubtful all 8 of my connections will end up with one of these clowns, but I want the redundancy of 8 nodes that are not up to no good.

[hdbuck]

yawn.

such impotent forkers

[Zarathustra]

Here an nice article that does some analysis in regards to this problem: A date with Sybil.

Classic nodes went up 1300-1400 in a day. You saying 1300-1400 people brought nodes online all at once? Not saying it's impossible, but pretty unlikely. There is someone now boasting on reddit about owning 800 nodes in the cloud, paid through May.

All their nodes are controller by less than 300 people.

70% of hash power is controlled by 3 Chinese people whith whom Blockstream/Core signs backroom deals.

[valiz]

95% of Classic nodes are in tech clouds. A phonecall and they're finished.

[chek2fire]

Here an nice article that does some analysis in regards to this problem: A date with Sybil.

Classic nodes went up 1300-1400 in a day. You saying 1300-1400 people brought nodes online all at once? Not saying it's impossible, but pretty unlikely. There is someone now boasting on reddit about owning 800 nodes in the cloud, paid through May.

All their nodes are controller by less than 300 people.

70% of hash power is controlled by 3 Chinese people whith whom Blockstream/Core signs backroom deals.

This is not a problem at all because no one node control more than 30% of this hash power. Expect that you think chinese people act like zerg. What will you say if the same power controlled from white people in Zurich or in Usa? I am very sure that then you will have no problem with this situation. To find a centrilized mining problem look to any other altcoin not to bitcoin. For example in ehtereum one single node has 49% of hashpower atm.

[Zarathustra]

Here an nice article that does some analysis in regards to this problem: A date with Sybil.

Classic nodes went up 1300-1400 in a day. You saying 1300-1400 people brought nodes online all at once? Not saying it's impossible, but pretty unlikely. There is someone now boasting on reddit about owning 800 nodes in the cloud, paid through May.

All their nodes are controller by less than 300 people.

70% of hash power is controlled by 3 Chinese people whith whom Blockstream/Core signs backroom deals.

This is not a problem at all because no one node control more than 30% of this hash power. Expect that you think chinese people act like zerg. What will you say if the same power controlled from white people in Zurich or in Usa? I am very sure that then you will have no problem with this situation. To find a centrilized mining problem look to any other altcoin not to bitcoin. For example in ehtereum one single node has 49% of hashpower atm.

The logic of the Blockstream/Core supporters: a concentration at 300 people is a problem - a concentration at 3 people is not.

[chek2fire]

if we were a small team then the hard fork will happen 6 months before and we will not have all this every day drama and whining. Take out from your bubble and see what really happen. The financial system want to crap bitcoin and do a small part of it.

[Zarathustra]

if we were a small team then the hard fork will happen 6 months before and we will not have all this every day drama and whining. Take out from your bubble and see what really happen. The financial system want to crap bitcoin and do a small part of it.

BlockstR3eam/PWC/AXA/China