[4+ EH] Slush Pool (slushpool.com); Overt AsicBoost; World First Mining Pool

[smackdaddy]

I can honestly say, after using slush for a couple of days while btcguild was down, that I feel sorry for the people who mine with slush full time.

[pe512]

I'm not doubting anyone's experiences, but for all the talk of stales, I rarely see any with slush. Also, my miners don't spontaneously crash (you should fix that), so the score based system is fair to me. I also don't get my panties in a wad whenever there's a hiccup or some variation messes with my expected reward.

slush has been responsive to every issue, actively fights ddos, and is active in this thread. That's about all I ask for.

[teflone]

Today's DDoS was different and followed DNS changes. So please reconnect your miners to api2.bitcoin.cz instead of api.bitcoin.cz for this moment. api.bitcoin.cz will work again when attack will be over.

Just for your information: Today attack is over 1.5GB/s with 2.2 million packets per second.

Hi slush, Im a happy pool miner of yours, this attack..

Im not familiar with your rating, is it 1.5 gig usage a second during this attack ? im a noob in ddos(attack) type lingo..

[timsmith]

Today attack is over 1.5GB/s with 2.2 million packets per second.

Im not familiar with your rating, is it 1.5 gig usage a second during this attack ? im a noob in ddos(attack) type lingo..

Network traffic is sent in packets, each containing a certain number of bytes.

A Denial Of Service (DoS) attack works by flooding a server or service with hundreds/thousands/millions/etc. of requests at once. Sometimes those are meaningful requests, like lots of HTTP requests; sometimes they are just random packets of crap. The result is often the same: the end server's bandwidth is clogged up with the DOS attack rather than 'real' requests.

Problem with a DOS is that the computer sending it needs an equal amount of bandwidth and resources to make the attack. If you want to flood a server with 1.5GB/s to knock it offline, you also need a 1.5GB/s pipe your end. Most [all] people don't have that.

The solution is rather than having a single computer launch the attack, you split it across multiple computers ... you "distribute" it, hence Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). Each computer launches a little part of the attack, and collectively they flood the destination server. So instead of 1 fat computer with 1.5GB/s bandwidth needed, you can have 1000 computers each with 1.5MB/s bandwidth (which is realistic). It also makes it harder to block, as you can firewall a single computer, but firewalling 1000 computers is harder.

This is what a botnet is usually used for. The 'bots' in the botnet are all told "go start doing a little DoS attack against this server", and suddenly you get a huge DDoS attack against that server. Some botnets have only 10 or so clients; others have millions. BredoLab is listed on Wikipedia has having over 30 million bot clients...

[CanaryInTheMine]

I can honestly say, after using slush for a couple of days while btcguild was down, that I feel sorry for the people who mine with slush full time.

Can you explain why?

[shotgun]

I can honestly say, after using slush for a couple of days while btcguild was down, that I feel sorry for the people who mine with slush full time.

Can you explain why?

Should be obvious - if you don't switch pools when one is DDoS'd then your rig is sitting idle not making money.

Slush - what's the word on service? Are you considering any kind of SiteBacker DNS load balancing to help with traffic distribution between colos - that's helped some of my environments with DDoS.

[CanaryInTheMine]

I can honestly say, after using slush for a couple of days while btcguild was down, that I feel sorry for the people who mine with slush full time.

Can you explain why?

Should be obvious - if you don't switch pools when one is DDoS'd then your rig is sitting idle not making money.

Slush - what's the word on service? Are you considering any kind of SiteBacker DNS load balancing to help with traffic distribution between colos - that's helped some of my environments with DDoS.

What exactly is obvious?  The comment clearly has implications that have nothing to do with ddos.  This user is saying that he/she mines at btcguild and "had" to use slush when btcguild was down.  based on her/his experience mining with slush for a few days, the user made their statement. why?

[smackdaddy]

Because of the wacky score based system of rewarding, number one, and because of the lack of support for long polling. I get a ridiculous amount of stale shares with slush. The return was just terrible compared to other pools.

[speckman]

I'm not doubting anyone's experiences, but for all the talk of stales, I rarely see any with slush. Also, my miners don't spontaneously crash (you should fix that), so the score based system is fair to me. I also don't get my panties in a wad whenever there's a hiccup or some variation messes with my expected reward.

slush has been responsive to every issue, actively fights ddos, and is active in this thread. That's about all I ask for.

Haha, yeah, I know.  You probably spent more money than I did and got higher quality equipment.   

Still though, my stuff goes down.  Sometimes the power goes out momentarily.  Sometimes one card freezes up on my shitty dual card motherboard.  So then all of that work that I did before the crash goes to you guys, who don't have downtime, on the assumption that, because I'm disconnecting, I must be scamming. 

Sorry if I came off like a jerk, I'm sick and recently quit smoking and getting mad at everything.   Not trying to say slush is doing a bad job, I just think he and the other score-based pool operators need to change the scoring system, IMO.

I also feel like I made substantially less for a period of a few days than I should have, even when I was up and running full-time.  Not sure though at the moment, but that was fueling my irritation.

But also though, slush, IMO, your update on pointing miners to the new URL looked so much like the old update on that that I just plain didn't see it until I happened to read this thread.  Make it blue or green next time.

[liuk03]

hello all, I would ask for a clarification on "Unconfirmed reward", or rather after how many blocks they become "Confirmed reward" and the confirmed reward will be the same amount of the unconfirmed?
thank you very much
sorry for my english

[dishwara]

hello all, I would ask for a clarification on "Unconfirmed reward", or rather after how many blocks they become "Confirmed reward" and the confirmed reward will be the same amount of the unconfirmed?
thank you very much
sorry for my english

Unconfirmed rewards & confirmed rewards wont change once it displayed. The bitcoins will be same.
It takes 100 blocks to be found to confirm a unconfirmed reward to confirmed reward.
You can see it in statistics.
http://mining.bitcoin.cz/stats/?history=60
The Validity column shows the no of blocks have to be found to confirm the unconfirmed.

[DrKennethNoisewater]

I usually don't post much and just read, but in this case I had to throw in my two cents.

I have been on every pool over the past 24 hours, DeepBit, BTC Guild, and Slush. Even though they have been "Online" the disconnect rate is freaking ludicrous.

All three of the big players are great, WHEN they are working. I mean wtf is ddos'ing u guys into the stone age every 30 days? It screws EVERYONE.

I guess it's time for the guys making the cash to spring some coin on their infrastructure. Adapt and predict, wtf is the problem? If you don't do it, someone else will.

DKN

[petemole83]

Anyone else having payout issues? I don't seem to be able to trigger a payout regardless of how far below my confirmed amount I set the threshold. I've also tried setting the threshold to my confirmed amount plus a small buffer (less than my share of the next confirmed round) to try and trigger that way). I have a valid wallet.
Is there any scope for a "pay me now" button?

[sniper_sniperson]

Anyone else having payout issues? I don't seem to be able to trigger a payout regardless of how far below my confirmed amount I set the threshold. I've also tried setting the threshold to my confirmed amount plus a small buffer (less than my share of the next confirmed round) to try and trigger that way). I have a valid wallet.
Is there any scope for a "pay me now" button?

Yep, I'm suffering from that too since yesterday 

[mautobu]

Sooo.... I'm looking at my account here.

Send threshold is at 0.1 BTC
Confirmed reward is at 0.3348998 BTC

Any ideas?

[Roland68]

Better safe than sorry ...

continue mining on another  pool until paiement is made ...

you never know ...

[petemole83]

Better safe than sorry ...

Yep, I've shifted my miners elsewhere for now, just hoping to understand the cause. I'm sure it's nothing nefarious, but I like to know that I have access to my coins, i.e. liquidity.

[petemole83]

...and we're back!

Just recieved a payout notification. Hopefull everyone else is back up too. Would like to know what happened though, and is it possible to implement a "pay me now" button rather than manipulating the normal threshold every time you need an immediate payment? Does anyone else think this is a handy feature?

[Jack of Diamonds]

...and we're back!

Just recieved a payout notification. Hopefull everyone else is back up too. Would like to know what happened though, and is it possible to implement a "pay me now" button rather than manipulating the normal threshold every time you need an immediate payment? Does anyone else think this is a handy feature?

Most significant pools have that option. There is no technical obstacle to implenting instant payout after it's confirmed.

Then again, at deepbit or bitcoins.lc you don't even need to wait 120 confirmations because everything can be withdrawn instantly

[xsmx]

Anyone else having payout issues? I don't seem to be able to trigger a payout regardless of how far below my confirmed amount I set the threshold. I've also tried setting the threshold to my confirmed amount plus a small buffer (less than my share of the next confirmed round) to try and trigger that way). I have a valid wallet.
Is there any scope for a "pay me now" button?

Yep, I'm suffering from that too since yesterday  

I just received my payment - it took quite a while though.