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

[VishwaJay]

In the US, they call this game of bullying for payment "racketeering" ... it's what the mafia in the movies do when they intimidate 200 shop owners in a city with just a few scary-looking guys.

But in this case, the guys aren't that scary and they tend to get bored easily. And if they're traceable in any way, INTERPOL doesn't look kindly on them, and tosses their local authorities some info for an arrest.

But yes, a >50% attack does seem promising if they can manage to pull it off... it would require more than just mining pools to be valid, though. Everyone would have to use new clients and accept an invalid block in the blockchain, so that kind of crap just wouldn't work. They would have to also own the interconnections between all of the users, as well. The pools are just a facilitation for everyone to make a little extra; they're not repositories for Bitcoins. The mines are on individual systems; the pools just make sure that there is some distribution of wealth for everyone who commits to doing work. So this idea of trying to extort money from slush... yeah, lame.

DDoS attacks can last weeks, if they actually own the resources. If the botnet is not actually owned by the script kiddies (e.g., hijacked servers/zombied laptops, etc.) then tracing each line of attack is child's play, and it might only take a few hours to sort out. In the case of the sustained DDoS attacks on the Iran government's public servers in Texas (during the 2009 elections, where there was a lot of exposure to the violence that Iran carries out on its population), for example, it was estimated that there were over 5000 server owners and up to 15000 end users who were all participating (the numbers are difficult to be certain about, and being on the same physical machine as the Iran government made me nervous, when I found out--I didn't wanna be shut down!)... the ISP had its hands full for almost a month trying to shut out the attackers, who wound up being over 1/4 of the US's IP address blocks in that time (who says there aren't advantages to having a dynamic IP on your internet account? Certainly, those attackers saw it and took full advantage of it, much to the dismay of both the ISP and the Iranians).

But in the end, I didn't have much service disruption... they somehow attacked only Iran's server. Most routers now have tracing built in, so even with anonymous forwarding you can still find the correct traffic streams and isolate where it came from, given enough time.

Most DDoS attacks are coordinated as individuals who have hijacked computers. Occasionally, there are as many as a dozen, but it's rare that it goes above this number. Generally, it's someone who wants to figure out a way to get money out of someone who is making it, which they then use to fuel other attacks. It's actually better for the world to just ride out the storm... usually they do just get bored and move on to someone else.

In slush's case, it's obvious that he's seen this happen before. I want slush to know I'm behind him 100% on this. Patience is a virtue I happen to have in abundance. When the site is up again, I'll be mining again. In the meantime, I'm just waiting and letting deep sighs and chuckles as I shake my head.

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[VishwaJay]

Also, I'm testing out some new software which is slush-specific. In fact, even though it's brand-new-barely-beta, it functions better for me than GUIminer.

Adding to that, while I don't mind making money, money is not the first reason I'm doing this.

[scouzi]

I also received some "DDoS mitigation" offers. No, I'm not going to play this game anymore...

I suppose that they wanted to get paid in BTC?

[laughingbear]

Also, I'm testing out some new software which is slush-specific. In fact, even though it's brand-new-barely-beta, it functions better for me than GUIminer.

Adding to that, while I don't mind making money, money is not the first reason I'm doing this.

lewis c.k. ?

[solitude]

i'm hashing now making fat stacks

[enygma]

My miners have kicked on as well. The stratum proxy on a couple of my BAMT miners had automatically started working away as well. All good to go, just hoping the pool will start getting some block rewards now.

[solitude]

Why don't the mods ever prune these threads?

Is having all 314 some-odd pages really necessary?

[wzl]

looks like 50btc down now, heh.

do you guys have multiple pools set up in your miner, so if one goes down you keep on mining?

looks like cgminer supports multiple pools but i have not explored this functionality.

[Crystallas]

Yay, good job slush!

Screw those script kiddies!

[crunchyferrett]

Why don't the mods ever prune these threads?

Is having all 314 some-odd pages really necessary?

Yes. Every single one is a treasure, and must be preserved for future generations.

[vivabitcoin]

Hey guys, I set up a Stratum proxy towards the beginning of this whole whoohaa, but I am having some issues.

This is what is being spit out at me, either that or the one after, but any miner I try to use still can't connect using Stratum. It can, however, use the old GetWork protocol. If anyone has any tips or advice, please... I don't want to be paying an extra 8%...

mining_proxy.py
2013-04-16 21:09:05,535 INFO proxy jobs.<module> # C extension for midstate not available. Using default implementation instead.
2013-04-16 21:09:05,536 WARNING proxy mining_proxy.main # Stratum proxy version: 1.5.2
2013-04-16 21:09:05,541 WARNING proxy mining_proxy.test_update # Checking for updates...
2013-04-16 21:09:05,635 WARNING proxy mining_proxy.main # Trying to connect to Stratum pool at stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333
Unhandled error in Deferred:
Unhandled Error
Traceback (most recent call last):
Failure: stratum.custom_exceptions.TransportException: SocketTransportClientFactory connection timed out

2013-04-16 20:09:35,092 WARNING proxy mining_proxy.test_update # Checking for updates...
2013-04-16 20:09:35,190 WARNING proxy mining_proxy.main # Trying to connect to Stratum pool at stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333
2013-04-16 20:09:35,287 INFO stats stats.print_stats # 1 peers connected, state changed 1 times
2013-04-16 20:09:35,287 INFO proxy mining_proxy.on_connect # Connected to Stratum pool at stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333
2013-04-16 20:09:35,287 INFO proxy mining_proxy.on_connect # Subscribing for mining jobs
2013-04-16 20:09:40,381 WARNING proxy mining_proxy.main # -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2013-04-16 20:09:40,381 WARNING proxy mining_proxy.main # PROXY IS LISTENING ON ALL IPs ON PORT 3333 (stratum) AND 8332 (getwork)
2013-04-16 20:09:40,381 WARNING proxy mining_proxy.main # -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2013-04-16 20:09:40,381 INFO proxy client_service.handle_event # New job 47 for prevhash fdf2e0fd, clean_jobs=True
2013-04-16 20:09:49,023 INFO proxy client_service.handle_event # New job 48 for prevhash fdf2e0fd, clean_jobs=False
2013-04-16 20:10:19,033 INFO proxy client_service.handle_event # New job 49 for prevhash fdf2e0fd, clean_jobs=False

[VishwaJay]

I'm down again.

EDIT: Logfile for poclbm:

4/16/2013 7:18:58 PM 0:0 started OpenCL miner on platform 0, device 0 (BeaverCreek)
4/16/2013 7:18:58 PM 0:0 Setting server (VishwaJay.xxxx @ stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333)
4/16/2013 7:18:58 PM 0:0 checking for stratum...
4/16/2013 7:19:03 PM 0:0 no response to getwork, using as stratum
4/16/2013 7:19:08 PM 0:0 timed out
4/16/2013 7:19:08 PM 0:0 Process exited

And yes, I edited out my username.

Output for cgminer:

[2013-04-16 19:30:10] Started cgminer 2.11.4
[2013-04-16 19:30:10] Loaded configuration file cgminer.conf
[2013-04-16 19:30:11] Probing for an alive pool
[2013-04-16 19:30:15] Pool 0 slow/down or URL or credentials invalid

So... yep, it's back down for me. Anyone back on?

[Crystallas]

Keep an eye on the stats page.

https://mining.bitcoin.cz/stats/

Now getwork is okay, stratum is down.

=/

[VishwaJay]

Thanks, Crystallas, confirmation that someone's playing games.

I'm shutting down mining for a few more hours.

[AwkwardSituation]

Looks like non-stratum is up, but stratum is still down

[vivabitcoin]

Looks like non-stratum is up, but stratum is still down

Oh the irony

[qbits]

looks like 50btc down now, heh.

do you guys have multiple pools set up in your miner, so if one goes down you keep on mining?

looks like cgminer supports multiple pools but i have not explored this functionality.

I have.

But all 3 pools I had in the conf went down at the same time. Cards were happy getting a break though.

[odee2004]

Hi,

Please help me with my cgminer config below. It does not work in Cgminer. Does anyone know the right configuration to use for stratum?

cgminer -o ipv6.stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 -u user -p pass

Thanks.

[Evan]

looks like 50btc down now, heh.

do you guys have multiple pools set up in your miner, so if one goes down you keep on mining?

looks like cgminer supports multiple pools but i have not explored this functionality.

I have.

But all 3 pools I had in the conf went down at the same time. Cards were happy getting a break though.

Someone is pissed thier BTC took a nosedive

[Crypt_Current]

Hi,

Please help me with my cgminer config below. It does not work in Cgminer. Does anyone know the right configuration to use for stratum?

cgminer -o ipv6.stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 -u user -p pass

Thanks.

leave out the "ipv6."?

anyway, looks like stratum mining is back up & working for me here ...