When botnet becomes self aware... What happens to miners?

[Palmdetroit]

Will since it's my theory that botnet will soon become self aware and create its own pools with millions of zombie pcs, my question is simple.  Does the bitcoin system have anyway to prevent this?

And what happens when it overtakes everyone else % wise?


Really just curious, seems millions of machines (just cpus, I'm sure GPus will be targeted eventually) would easily surpass all current mining, and since there is lots of motivation for the botnet to sell instantly at any price massive amounts of coin.. well you get the idea.. thoughts?

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[SomeoneWeird]

Will since it's my theory that botnet will soon become self aware and create its own pools with millions of zombie pcs, my question is simple.  Does the bitcoin system have anyway to prevent this?

And what happens when it overtakes everyone else % wise?


Really just curious, seems millions of machines (just cpus, I'm sure GPus will be targeted eventually) would easily surpass all current mining, and since there is lots of motivation for the botnet to sell instantly at any price massive amounts of coin.. well you get the idea.. thoughts?

lol. no.

[V4Vendettas]

SKYNET



Duh.

Thats why I keep my mining farm in a cage.

[Xer]

With some luck it won't evolve into skynet but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachikoma instead.

[hugolp]

SKYNET



Duh.

Thats why I keep my mining farm in a cage.

I though it was a faraday cage to avoid the EMP. Im confused now...

[Nirth]

I don't see botnets as an issue, if they become too often there are ways to prevent them for pools (and if they begin using there own pools there could always be changes in the bitcoin client to prevent this).

What is killing mining for an average user is the hardcore users (obviously). I mean, the output from an average user in BTC no matter its worth is so ridicously low compared to someone that will own a whole mining server.

[SomeoneWeird]

I don't see botnets as an issue, if they become too often there are ways to prevent them for pools (and if they begin using there own pools there could always be changes in the bitcoin client to prevent this).

What is killing mining for an average user is the hardcore users (obviously). I mean, the output from an average user in BTC no matter its worth is so ridicously low compared to someone that will own a whole mining server.

Dear god. I hope your trolling.

[Coineer]

I don't see botnets as an issue, if they become too often there are ways to prevent them for pools (and if they begin using there own pools there could always be changes in the bitcoin client to prevent this).

What is killing mining for an average user is the hardcore users (obviously). I mean, the output from an average user in BTC no matter its worth is so ridicously low compared to someone that will own a whole mining server.

Dear god. I hope your trolling.

+1

[Cluster2k]

Will since it's my theory that botnet will soon become self aware and create its own pools with millions of zombie pcs, my question is simple.  Does the bitcoin system have anyway to prevent this?

Some of the most capable minds working for IBM can make a computer that plays chess or Jeopardy very well.  We're a very long way from computers that have a true concept of self.  An ad hoc network put together by a bunch of people running open source software to compute SHA hashes is about as far away from self awareness as my toaster.

[SomeoneWeird]

Will since it's my theory that botnet will soon become self aware and create its own pools with millions of zombie pcs, my question is simple.  Does the bitcoin system have anyway to prevent this?

Some of the most capable minds working for IBM can make a computer that plays chess or Jeopardy very well.  We're a very long way from computers that have a true concept of self.  An ad hoc network put together by a bunch of people running open source software to compute SHA hashes is about as far away from self awareness as my toaster.

QFFT +1

[Chucksta]

How do you know you are self aware ?

You could be the figment of someone else's imagination !

everything you think you know, feel, and experience, could just be someone's big fekked up dream !!

now, where did I put that joint ? ahhh, it wasn't real !!!!!! ahhhh, neither am I !!!!! ahhhh, then who is typing this !!!!!!!!!!!! not me, the dreamer !?!?!?!

LOLOL

[nebiki]

hm? descartes has said something which falsifies your statement.

You could be the figment of someone else's imagination !

if you replace "someone else's" with "my", it works, though.

edit: although i vaguely remember his "self" is described as 2 different things. idk, read meditationes de prima philosophia.

[Nirth]

Dear god. I hope your trolling.

Why? I know it's self explanatory but it sucks knowing that you can't get by at all by having a card or two when there are people with 20 to 40 cards or even more running.

[XIU]

Dear god. I hope your trolling.

Why? I know it's self explanatory but it sucks knowing that you can't get by at all by having a card or two when there are people with 20 to 40 cards or even more running.

Well it "sucks" that people buying special hardware which costs a lot of money that they make more money, but the part about preventing that a botnet could mine for itself is ridiculous, otherwise none of the pools should be allowed...

[Cluster2k]

1) Can the network defend against this?
2) Botnet will be selling all btc open market prices, since cost is $0 even $.01 a btc is profit, how will this effect miners?
3) What happens when botnet>all legit miners

Someone with access to a million PCs, with maybe 10% having good graphics cards, could easily create more hashes than anyone else.  If that would happen they could do one of the following:

1. Be a nuisance on the network.  With 50%+ hashing power they can deny everyone else's transactions.

2. Generate more blocks than anyone else, but there is a limit until the next difficulty level is reached.  The network would auto adjust at the next difficulty increase.

3. Related to 2, someone could do this for lols: use a million PCs to hash and drive the difficulty level ridiculously high until the next 2016 block reset, then turn off their botnet.  Difficulty could be driven into the many millions, placing electricity costs much higher than the return per bitcoin generated.  Difficulty is only reset when the next 2016 blocks are computed.  With a difficulty level high enough, it could be a very long time until it could fall.  Anyone attempting to trade the price up would be driven back down again by the botnet owner selling his new BTCs.

[jrussell]

What if the botnets are used in the complete opposite way everyone is thinking now, what if they are used to bring down pools just before the new difficulty (I see last night the networks speed on http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ went to less than 9 Thash and I think its because of btcguild). What if the botnets are just used to bring down pools before the difficulty change to drop the difficulty? and then they either mine themselves with the lower difficulty, or they bring down the difficulty for someone/people with serious farms...

Also, how does the difficulty change work? Is it "reset" every 2016 blocks or will it trend either up or down sortof like an average? And also, is it based on the networks speed over the previous 2016 blocks?

[neptop]

This is so great, my stomach hurts! Do you have a BC address? 

[jrussell]

sure do..

1MFTwBVHc7jrYpzokz8QVRbsFNXQQR3hHZ

 

[Raoul Duke]

I think bot herders should start doing what the OP described... Probably they would be easier to find and be arrested when they wanted to cash out the bitcoins.

[Chucksta]

hm? descartes has said something which falsifies your statement.

You could be the figment of someone else's imagination !

if you replace "someone else's" with "my", it works, though.

edit: although i vaguely remember his "self" is described as 2 different things. idk, read meditationes de prima philosophia.

ah, but what if I am also a figment of another's imagination ?

[antares]

And just to add this one thoughtt:

I have seen the argument multiple times on here that anyone who had possession of a million man botnet would be much better served using it for other purposes (IE make money).  But I must argue that since most data and real world evidence supports the fact that most botnets are used solely for DDOS and other, hardly profitable endeavors, and most certainly not against the big scary banks, this just doesn't hold any water, IMO.  IMO botnets most profitable option is to be a mining botnet.

Am I right on here or totally off?

lolz

u are so dead wrong. I make about €15 a day from 7 computers that each do have <250mhz. I won't tell how, because I won't make that money then anymore, however, I hardly can imagine that those computers could find enough BTC per day to break even with the other incomes.

@Palmdetroit - I actually stated the possibility of Governments/Banks/Criminals putting much hash power into the network and possible countermeasures into the dev section on this board. everything was ruled out to be "unlikely and too fraud-enabling".

Actually increasing the network hash rate by a factor of 10(which is still in range of government/scientific supercomputing), they could effectively drive up difficulty by a matter of less than a day, and the network would need (without any miners quitting because of this, so it would even take longer in practical terms) over three months to get to the next 2016th block for difficulty to be recalculated.

[KarlSpaat]

And just to add this one thoughtt:

I have seen the argument multiple times on here that anyone who had possession of a million man botnet would be much better served using it for other purposes (IE make money).  But I must argue that since most data and real world evidence supports the fact that most botnets are used solely for DDOS and other, hardly profitable endeavors, and most certainly not against the big scary banks, this just doesn't hold any water, IMO.  IMO botnets most profitable option is to be a mining botnet.

Am I right on here or totally off?

lolz

u are so dead wrong. I make about €15 a day from 7 computers that each do have <250mhz. I won't tell how, because I won't make that money then anymore, however, I hardly can imagine that those computers could find enough BTC per day to break even with the other incomes.

@Palmdetroit - I actually stated the possibility of Governments/Banks/Criminals putting much hash power into the network and possible countermeasures into the dev section on this board. everything was ruled out to be "unlikely and too fraud-enabling".

Actually increasing the network hash rate by a factor of 10(which is still in range of government/scientific supercomputing), they could effectively drive up difficulty by a matter of less than a day, and the network would need (without any miners quitting because of this, so it would even take longer in practical terms) over three months to get to the next 2016th block for difficulty to be recalculated.

Sorry but either you prove your state or you are just talking nonsense. 15 per day means an effective hashrate of 2100 GHash/s if you don't pay for your energy. There is no way to get this with 7 computers, if you don't use FPGAs or ASICs. And i can tell you there is no botnet getting control of 1 mio of these chips...

[antares]

omg I thought it was obvious that I wouldn't mine with those 7 machines. I just wanted to point out that there are way more and better paying methods to make cash from a botnet, so that BTC comes in unefficient, unless the bot operator would speculate on a much higher price/Bitcoin. then again he could never pull all his btc on the market because that would efficiently ruin his strategy.

[syb3ria]

Self aware you say... a large botnet would need all the processing power it possess in order to achieve even a basic  counciousness if you are talking about some kind of AI.
In the other hand... even if the botnets make mining useless, BTC will continue to exist, we just shutdown our mining rigs or donate the power to F@H or Seti.

[newunit16]

if you take the current network size and reduce it by half to reduce the difficulty, then bring it back up to MINE MOAR BUTTCONZ! you are fing yourself. the lower difficulty will be raised up again accordingly during the next difficulty rise.

what do you want to do? stop mining for 2016 blocks? yeah, lets let 2mh/s mine 2016 blocks on a 1.6million difficulty so the difficulty goes down to 1. then we can mine with our 15th/s and get 23890723894723 BTC/MINUTE! that'll only take... hmm... 30 years for the 2mh/s to mine the 2016 blocks at 1.6m difficulty... why not.

[skottiejay]

Was just going to ask if it was too late to make a Terminator reference:

SKYNET



Duh.

Thats why I keep my mining farm in a cage.

Yup I guess it is.

[stapler117]

With some luck it won't evolve into skynet but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachikoma instead.

Yes!

I don't see botnets as an issue, if they become too often there are ways to prevent them for pools (and if they begin using there own pools there could always be changes in the bitcoin client to prevent this).

If one were to set up multiple proxies that for every few proxy IP's there was another account. That may defeat the pool-side detection, but for the ISP, it would probably look suspicious to have tens thousands of small packets going to the same IP every few minutes.

[RedLine888]

the network will become selfaware, will invisibly hack government organizations and hire tons of workers to build itself a fortress where there will be the most powerful SuperComputer ever. Than it will chat with other supercomputers and convince them to play Crysis 2 online

Sorry for not being serious about this thread

[SomeoneWeird]

the network will become selfaware, will invisibly hack government organizations and hire tons of workers to build itself a fortress where there will be the most powerful SuperComputer ever. Than it will chat with other supercomputers and convince them to play Crysis 2 online

Sorry for not being serious about this thread

+1

[TheLuckyGuy]

I looked at some Forums and yep I think you have no chance against it !

WARNING BIG PICTURE
[spoiler]
http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/7007/proofam.jpg
[/spoiler]

[joepie91]

Will since it's my theory that botnet will soon become self aware and create its own pools with millions of zombie pcs, my question is simple.  Does the bitcoin system have anyway to prevent this?

And what happens when it overtakes everyone else % wise?


Really just curious, seems millions of machines (just cpus, I'm sure GPus will be targeted eventually) would easily surpass all current mining, and since there is lots of motivation for the botnet to sell instantly at any price massive amounts of coin.. well you get the idea.. thoughts?

A self-aware botnet?

I think you would have more important things to worry about than Bitcoin mining, in a situation like that...

[syb3ria]

The doom is here http://www.spamfighter.com/News-16408-New-TDL-4-Bot-Trojan-Nearly-%E2%80%9CIndestructible%E2%80%9D-States-Kaspersky.htm
Since i run linuxbox... i don't really care. But most of the miners are using windows based rigs and...  Imagine of the hashing power unprotected.