Moving towards user activated soft fork activation

[mezzomix]

So bad that it's literally an anonymous proposal.

Q.E.D.

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[cr1776]

As a first step against hostile pool operators blocking the evolution of the system, I would not start with dropping their blocks but I will not relay their new blocks anymore. If a large number of nodes do not relay those blocking blocks, there will be a chance that a good block with the same height is found. In this case the blocking block is dropped and the good block is the new head of the chain. If a good block is built on top of a blocking block the blocking block is accepted as well. If a lot of nodes use such a rule it will lead to bad luck for hostile pool operators.

I am curious what method you are using to accomplish this.

By patching my client to not relay any blocks without my preferred BIP9 flag(s) and by giving more weight to chains with a head block with these BIP9 flag(s) set.

It makes sense to make the feature configurable because if BU will follow the XT/Classic road, these guys will show up with the next "solution" and try to block further development of the system. Those guys will never stop bullying the Bitcoin community.

I would be interested in seeing these mods too. 

[Quickseller]

miners as a whole have very real incentives to do what is best for Bitcoin, including when deciding if they will signal for a particular fork/proposal, and if/when there is a serious threat to their ability to continue mining bitcoin (such as a serious threat to change the PoW), they have substantial incentives to not act in Bitcon's best interest (they have incentives to act in a way so that they can continue mining bitcoin, even if this means acting in a way that will damage Bitcoin over the long term).

Wrong

If I was an organisation like Western Union or the IMF (who can print fiat money, so it's essentially cost free to them), I would set up a mining farm, sell all the BTC for profit, and block any attempts to upgrade the Bitcoin network. I'd design a hard fork that screws Bitcoin up, and employ loads of trolls to promote it.

Bad actors can and do mine BTC. You're very naive

I am sorry, but I am not wrong.

First of all, neither Western Union, nor the IMF can do anything that remotely resembles printing money. Any entity that can "print money" freely would do just that, and buy up assets for their own benefit, not use that printed money to harm a perceived competitor of theirs.

Your scenario is very sensational, however it is simply not realistic.

If an entity wanted to harm Bitcoin, they would not ned to bother blocking a proposed network improvement, they could simply buy up sufficient mining equipment to be able to prevent transactions from confirming, and/or cause the orphan rate to be uncomfortably high, especially by orphaning long chains of blocks, and/or abandoning the long standing principle that the first seen transaction is the valid transaction, and that conflicting transactions should be ignored, subject to certain limitations. This entity could harm Bitcoin even if the PoW is changed, it would simply be more expensive, although if the PoW is changed for this reason, it is likely that confidence in Bitcoin would have likely declined sufficiently so that not many people would use it anymore.

It is not possible for an entity to both mine bitcoin to harm Bitcoin and mine bitcoin that results in profit (from that mining activity). If the miners are collectively harming the network, then presumably, the price of bitcoin would decline, rather substantially, and the time it takes for a miner to recoup his investment in mining equipment is a long time, with higher amounts of revenues at the beginning of a miners' useful life.

[Carlton Banks]

1. Quickseller says "all miners are perfect economic actors who only behave with rational self-interest towards the Bitcoin network"

2. I say "That's wrong, what about a malicious miner scenario"

3. Quickseller says "I'm not wrong, what about a malicious miner scenario"



Exactly how stupid do you think everyone is?   Can I have my 90 seconds of skim-reading back?

[Quickseller]

1. Quickseller says "all miners are perfect economic actors who only behave with rational self-interest towards the Bitcoin network"

2. I say "That's wrong, what about a malicious miner scenario"

3. Quickseller says "I'm not wrong, what about a malicious miner scenario"



Exactly how stupid do you think everyone is?  Can I have my 90 seconds of skim-reading back?

No, you are misrepresenting what I am saying. I am saying that there is no reason for a malicious miner to execute a complex attack against Bitcoin because a malicious miner could execute a much simpler attack if they wanted to harm Bitcoin.

I am also saying that it would not make sense for an entity to act maliciously towards Bitcoin via mining because doing so would force them to act economically irrationally.

A Bitcoin competitor who is caught trying to actively harm Bitcoin would lose the trust of their customer base, and this damage would far exceed the potential gains from having one less competitor.

[Carlton Banks]

And yet you started by saying that miners would never attack Bitcoin because of rational self interest?


Knowing you, you will pretend this conversation never took place at some time in the future. You will just reiterate that miners are only incentivised towards co-operative behaviour, as if we're all living in a Bitcoin bubble where everyone thinks it's wonderful, if it suits your purpose.


Why do you make contradictory statements as and when they suit your argument du jour?

[piotr_n]

How about that you are both wrong?

I've been hearing this argument for a long time.
"If a government or a big financial corp wanted to destroy bitcoin, they'd just buy a lot of mining equipment".

I believe first time I read it, it was gmaxwell calculated how cheap it would be to conduct 51% attack... it was ages ago.

Well, then my question is: why haven't they destroyed bitcoin yet, this way?
You really think they would not want to?

They failed to destroy Bitcoin because it is not only about buying mining hardware, just like wining a war is not just about buying weapons.
There is a shit loads of logistics involved with using these weapons while there is a lot of human factor involved and the situation on the battle field is changing constantly.
The governments and the big corps are too slow to follow this battle.
They don't have an organisation in place that could handle manufacturing and deploying mining equipment quickly enough and then maintaining it (undisturbed) for long enough. And they have too much corruption inside.

The only way it can work now is because it is distributed and each mining operation is independent.
Some of them are actually secret.


For the big organisations that would want to get rid of bitcoin, it is much easier to corrupt people and conduct propaganda campaigns in the media.
And that's what they do.

Mining is the most important (and the most resilient) point of resistance of Bitcoin, against the governments and the financial oligarchy.

[iCEBREAKER]

SHA256 Mining trustless distributed critical consensus is the most important (and the most resilient) point of resistance of Bitcoin, against the governments and the financial oligarchy.

Fixed it for you.  Bitcoin mining is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

I wish you could understand the difference between

A. signaling readiness for a new feature, and
B. voting for a new features

I know it's all very subtle and you don't do nuance, but please stop spreading the lie that miners are in charge of Bitcoin.

They are not and never will be.  That's not how any of this works.

Just because there are armed guards in front of the bank it doesn't mean those armed guards make executive decisions for the bank.

They are just hired muscle and may be fired if they forget their place and get uppity.

[classicsucks]

They failed to destroy Bitcoin because it is not only about buying mining hardware, just like wining a war is not just about buying weapons.
There is a shit loads of logistics involved with using these weapons while there is a lot of human factor involved and the situation on the battle field is changing constantly.
They don't have an organisation in place that could handle manufacturing and deploying mining equipment quickly enough and then maintaining it (undisturbed) for long enough. And they have too much corruption inside.

The only way it can work now is because it is distributed and each mining operation is independent.
Some of them are actually secret.

For the big organisations that would want to get rid of bitcoin, it is much easier to corrupt people and conduct propaganda campaigns in the media.
And that's what they do.

Mining is the most important (and the most resilient) point of resistance of Bitcoin, against the governments and the financial oligarchy.

+1

Good to see some military metaphors used to describe the situation, and exactly on point!

It's naive to assume that state actors are not involved in bitcoin in a major way. Personally I believe the Chinese govt. is subsidizing the miners, possibly even precisely to prevent a 51% percent attack from US banks? Makes sense to me. As far as US government involvement, normally that would be done via US multinational corporations and Wall Street financiers, who are in fact "hiding in plain sight" in bitcoin. Wall Street wants to control bitcoin for their own profit, but will do the bidding of the Fed when the phone call comes in.  A Faustian bargain? There could well be financial execs "committing suicide" in their cars again... It will get more interesting in the next few years...

Just because there are armed guards in front of the bank it doesn't mean those armed guards make executive decisions for the bank.

They are just hired muscle and may be fired if they forget their place and get uppity.

Looks like iceTARD has finally seen the light - you're right, Core could get fired if they get too uppity.  UASF could be the straw that broke the camel's back...

Final note - this thread is almost devoid of technical debate on the UASF proposal. Is it safe to say that technically it's complete crap?

[iCEBREAKER]

this thread is almost devoid of technical debate on the UASF proposal. Is it safe to say that technically it's complete crap?

It it safe to say absence of evidence is evidence of absence?

Or it is more safe to say you don't understand basic freshman-level predicate logic, and thus have no business concerning yourself with high order affairs such as computer science and distributed systems?

[piotr_n]

please stop spreading the lie that miners are in charge of Bitcoin

They are not and never will be.  That's not how any of this works.

Sure man.

You are in charge of bitcoin. You and the other people who are actually writing code and using Bitcoin for products and services.

Hope you feel better now.  Just don't come crying to me when one day you realize that this was actually a lie.

[piotr_n]

They failed to destroy Bitcoin because it is not only about buying mining hardware, just like wining a war is not just about buying weapons.
There is a shit loads of logistics involved with using these weapons while there is a lot of human factor involved and the situation on the battle field is changing constantly.
They don't have an organisation in place that could handle manufacturing and deploying mining equipment quickly enough and then maintaining it (undisturbed) for long enough. And they have too much corruption inside.

The only way it can work now is because it is distributed and each mining operation is independent.
Some of them are actually secret.

For the big organisations that would want to get rid of bitcoin, it is much easier to corrupt people and conduct propaganda campaigns in the media.
And that's what they do.

Mining is the most important (and the most resilient) point of resistance of Bitcoin, against the governments and the financial oligarchy.

+1

Good to see some military metaphors used to describe the situation, and exactly on point!

It's naive to assume that state actors are not involved in bitcoin in a major way. Personally I believe the Chinese govt. is subsidizing the miners, possibly even precisely to prevent a 51% percent attack from US banks? Makes sense to me. As far as US government involvement, normally that would be done via US multinational corporations and Wall Street financiers, who are in fact "hiding in plain sight" in bitcoin. Wall Street wants to control bitcoin for their own profit, but will do the bidding of the Fed when the phone call comes in.  A Faustian bargain? There could well be financial execs "committing suicide" in their cars again... It will get more interesting in the next few years...

This topic is actually far more complicated than anyone here can comprehend.

This  Chinese  guy whose they made now the face of evil - whatever his name.
 If this is true what they say, that he actually owns major amount of the network's hashing power, he must have the shitest job in the world.
Imagine what kind of system he must be having in place to deal with the corruption among his technicians. Technicians that he needs to have and who he needs to trust, in order to have his operation going.
I'm betting that it's just a matter of time before the loses from the corruption among his employees will grow big enough to make his big mining unprofitable.
That's all assuming that he's running a big mining now, which I seriously doubt, exactly because of the reasons I just described.

Now, this brings me to the point that the corruption inside all kind of mining organizations (especially as big as governments)  and the free market around it, eventually favors small miners - such that can control their entire operation by themselves, or with a help from a closest friends. Such operations shall naturally be run under some secrecy, as this is the best protection from all kind of crooks, let alone the government eyes (taxes etc. )

And with all this, I'm predicting that bitcoin mining will become more and more distributed in the future.
The economy will make it happen.
I'm actually saying it has becoming like this already...

So all the fears about how the mining will be becoming more and more centralised - I think it's a bunch of bollocks and people spreading such info simply don't understand how the system works.
Which for fairness nobody fully understands, but certainly some understand it more than others.

Final note - this thread is almost devoid of technical debate on the UASF proposal. Is it safe to say that technically it's complete crap?

Yes

[mezzomix]

Is it safe to say that technically it's complete crap?

No. The only outcome of this thread is, that political arguments hidden behind a technical argumentation are a complete crap.

[iCEBREAKER]

please stop spreading the lie that miners are in charge of Bitcoin

They are not and never will be.  That's not how any of this works.

Sure man.

You are in charge of bitcoin. You and the other people who are actually writing code and using Bitcoin for products and services.

Hope you feel better now.  Just don't come crying to me when one day you realize that this was actually a lie.

I wish you could understand the difference between

A. signaling readiness for a new feature, and

B. voting for a new feature

[BillyBobZorton]

SHA256 Mining trustless distributed critical consensus is the most important (and the most resilient) point of resistance of Bitcoin, against the governments and the financial oligarchy.

Fixed it for you.  Bitcoin mining is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

I wish you could understand the difference between

A. signaling readiness for a new feature, and
B. voting for a new features

I know it's all very subtle and you don't do nuance, but please stop spreading the lie that miners are in charge of Bitcoin.

They are not and never will be.  That's not how any of this works.

Just because there are armed guards in front of the bank it doesn't mean those armed guards make executive decisions for the bank.

They are just hired muscle and may be fired if they forget their place and get uppity.

This is a really good analogy and works to make people understand the difference.

It's very sad to see some people falling for the BU scam wanting to make miners 100% the ones that call all the shots. How can a project like bitcoin be hostage of miners when miners are usually just your average businessman that keeps expanding his monopoly? how can you leave the project in hands of security guards while firing the high IQ people that get the best code done (Core devs)??
This whole thing is ridiculous.

[slaveforanunnak1]

Shaolin(fry) shadowboxing, and the (Jihan)WuTang sword style.....

https://medium.com/@daggerhashimoto/if-what-you-say-is-true-the-shaolin-and-the-wu-tang-could-be-dangerous-ac59c7fb477e#.estfd87e9

[Vesel]

SHA256 Mining trustless distributed critical consensus is the most important (and the most resilient) point of resistance of Bitcoin, against the governments and the financial oligarchy.

Fixed it for you.  Bitcoin mining is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

I wish you could understand the difference between

A. signaling readiness for a new feature, and
B. voting for a new features

I know it's all very subtle and you don't do nuance, but please stop spreading the lie that miners are in charge of Bitcoin.

They are not and never will be.  That's not how any of this works.

Just because there are armed guards in front of the bank it doesn't mean those armed guards make executive decisions for the bank.

They are just hired muscle and may be fired if they forget their place and get uppity.

Problem is, we don't have a police force that can lock these muscle men up if they were to turn on the bank and become bank robbers themselves. I guess we're stuck with paying them off unless we hire someone bigger and stronger.

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

Wrong

If I was an organisation like Western Union or the IMF (who can print fiat money, so it's essentially cost free to them),

Hey Carlton!   

So the IMF can 'print' money?  lol.  You really have no idea, do you?

You're very naive

To engage you in 'debate'? Probably.

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

I wish you could understand the difference between

A. signaling readiness for a new feature, and

B. voting for a new feature

A little learning is a dangerous thing, or so they say.

So tell me iCE, whats the difference between

A. Acquiescence

and

B. Engagement

[Coinguys]

I think that a governing body may be behind this, and if that is the case...

We all know that's not a good thing