TERRACOIN ATTACK OVER 1.2TH ATTACK CONFIRMD

[roy7]

Latest peak was only 22287 and next dip appears less shallow than prior one. Things are about as stable difficulty-wise as they are going to get I imagine, until a large amount of hash power pours in to rock the boat.

It'd be nice to get total network hash power up higher. At these difficulties mining is more profitable than BTC. (22287 is about 140% of BTC profit.) To match BTC I imagine avg difficulty needs to be somewhere in the 30Ks. More hash power means less profit, but also more stability.

[bcp19]

Recent difficulty graph:

Each of those up-swings were prefaced by the attacker mining again.  1pan mined 17 blocks between 175000 and 175025, 13fk mined 175027-175038 and diff spiked through the roof.  After diff came down(53 hours!), 13fk mined 175064-175080 in 122 seconds.  Again after diff dropped(22.5 hours), 13fk mined 175107-175121 in 51 seconds.  Difficulty only took 2.5 hours to come down, then he mined 175152-175158 in 67 seconds, 12 hours later he mined 175188-175197 in 123 seconds and another 3 hours before he mined  175220-175228 in 133 seconds.  It's only been 2 hours, but he'll prob strike again soon.

The only plus side is he seems to be only burst mining and not outright destroying the network like he had been.

[Chronikka]

The only plus side is he seems to be only burst mining and not outright destroying the network like he had been.

Maybe the attacker didn't want the coin dead. He wouldn't have stopped even after the fix if he wanted it to die. The burst mining is just to accumulate more coins at this point

[Chronikka]

The only plus side is he seems to be only burst mining and not outright destroying the network like he had been.

Maybe the attacker didn't want the coin dead. He wouldn't have stopped even after the fix if he wanted it to die. The burst mining is just to accumulate more coins at this point

If I were a guessing type of person I would guess, that maybe the attacker was simply testing out a newly modified Time Warp attack on the best SHA256 coin to test on since the exploit hasn't been used in over two years and before it's modded any further to work on scrypt based coins. Just guessing but I think TRC had the perfect testing environment, a high but not too high hash rate, a dev team that would counter and user base that wouldn't just fold.



All of this just theory of course but you're probably correct, the attacker didn't want to kill TRC.



~BCX~

The idea is interesting but if the purpose of the attack was to test it on a strong sha256 coin, why bother continuing to mine even after the fix was put in place? The only purpose for doing that is to generate more coins for themselves while network hash power and difficulty are low...but for what purpose would they need the coins if they wanted it dead?

[bcp19]

The only plus side is he seems to be only burst mining and not outright destroying the network like he had been.

Maybe the attacker didn't want the coin dead. He wouldn't have stopped even after the fix if he wanted it to die. The burst mining is just to accumulate more coins at this point

If I were a guessing type of person I would guess, that maybe the attacker was simply testing out a newly modified Time Warp attack on the best SHA256 coin to test on since the exploit hasn't been used in over two years and before it's modded any further to work on scrypt based coins. Just guessing but I think TRC had the perfect testing environment, a high but not too high hash rate, a dev team that would counter and user base that wouldn't just fold.



All of this just theory of course but you're probably correct, the attacker didn't want to kill TRC.



~BCX~

The idea is interesting but if the purpose of the attack was to test it on a strong sha256 coin, why bother continuing to mine even after the fix was put in place? The only purpose for doing that is to generate more coins for themselves while network hash power and difficulty are low...but for what purpose would they need the coins if they wanted it dead?

One minor flaw in that theory, with the power he has to throw at the network, he can easily 51% it at will.  Maybe he is testing new ways of orphaning blocks.  Take a look at all of his latest blocks, never a transaction other than the 20 coins to him.  With the tipewarp fixed, he can no longer get 100's of blocks an hour, so he holds off, powers through ~200 coins, leaves.  Sure looks like a test to me.

Then again, maybe you are right and he's not out to kill it, after all, at current exchange rates, he's earning ~.27 BTC for 2 minutes work whenever he decides to.  

[Chronikka]

I think we'll know a lot more when those mined coins start getting moved

[Lohoris]

Maybe the attacker didn't want the coin dead.

The coin is dead.

The attacker has demonstrated publicly that he can halt the coin as long as he wants.
Only a fool would still use such a coin --> the coin is dead.

Then there are delusional people that will still use it, and speculators that might be able to exploit those people and earn some real money.

[roy7]

The only plus side is he seems to be only burst mining and not outright destroying the network like he had been.

Also remember before 175K the difficulty could be forced down to 5k using the exploit. That's why the swing up so high happened, tons of blocks mined at an artificially low difficulty.

Sure he can mine in the valleys, anyone can. And a 51% attack is possible by anyone with enough power. But so far the difficulty has been behaving very well.

[STT]

...but for what purpose would they need the coins if they wanted it dead?

My point exactly, they don't want it dead.

Keep in mind this is all just tin foil hat speculation


~BCX~

aha now I know who

http://youtu.be/UwKryuazNMk?t=22s

[DeathAndTaxes]

...but for what purpose would they need the coins if they wanted it dead?

My point exactly, they don't want it dead.

Keep in mind this is all just tin foil hat speculation


~BCX~

aha now I know who

http://youtu.be/UwKryuazNMk?t=22s

No this is the best clip of Khan

http://youtu.be/v7WlyuI7xGI


~BCX~

Liar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsYT8YHL-R0

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaVIIoRKBlk (starting at 5:30)

"Surely I have made my meaning plain, I mean to avenge myself upon you. I deprived your ship of power and when I come about I mean to deprive you of your life."

Who am I kidding, there isn't a single line Khan said that isn't pure gold.  

[roy7]

Version -46 is mandatory in 10K or so blocks. (Should be final update.)

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=31258292

[RoadTrain]

This is the attacker's address.

Code:

1PAnMKuTs9R4U9FF7xdQSmQc655d2r9zeB

And here you can see it's current balance: http://trc.cryptocoinexplorer.com/chain/Terracoin/q/addressbalance/1PAnMKuTs9R4U9FF7xdQSmQc655d2r9zeB
It's 131119.8705 currently.

As an attacker seems to have enough hashrate for 51% he can continue manipulating difficulty even after halving is removed.
The easiest way to lower difficulty is creating a specific chain of blocks. As actual spacing is limited to 1.5 * 2min = 3 minutes when calculating EMA, an attacker needs to make every second block 3 min in the future from previous, and the make next block in the past. By creating such a chain of blocks where even blocks are in th future and uneven are in the past he can manupulate the difficulty down.

This is because when actual spacing between blocks is negative, terracoin assumes it to be 2 min so it doesn't affect retargeting.
Look here if you want:
https://github.com/terracoin/terracoin/blob/master/src/main.cpp#L1160

PS. It's what I got from sources, if I am mistaken please let me know.

Seems that they use this exploit now.
Is it the attacker's address?
13fcjC81VzihkYPhkJrNyi2eQKzDaUzA2F
http://trc.cryptocoinexplorer.com/chain/Terracoin/q/addressbalance/13fcjC81VzihkYPhkJrNyi2eQKzDaUzA2F
There's one more address that started mining today: 1MLxxvrHF3bHkW1ti7juj4fxqzd7ym8hXQ

[hromisko]

Since it seems it continues and I'm getting somewhat pissed off by what is currently going on with TRC, I created a blacklist available here:

http://teracoin.org/blacklist

Which records major past&present acts which I personally consider as contradictory to the spirit of CryptoCoin movement.
The idea was to deploy a full-fledged economy and not a playground for morally crippled criminals, no?

Ideally,  in the future, merchants and exchange offices shall simply not accept coins which have ever passed through such dirty addresses.

[smoothie]

Since it seems it continues and I'm getting somewhat pissed off by what is currently going on with TRC, I created a blacklist available here:

http://teracoin.org/blacklist

Which records major past&present acts which I personally consider as contradictory to the spirit of CryptoCoin movement.
The idea was to deploy a full-fledged economy and not a playground for morally crippled criminals, no?

Ideally,  in the future, merchants and exchange offices shall simply not accept coins which have ever passed through such dirty addresses.

Perhaps you should look into the possibilities of exploits with a particular coin before using it?

TRC exploits have been foreseen many months ago, especially the one where ASICs can jack up the difficulty at a moments notice.

[hromisko]

Since it seems it continues and I'm getting somewhat pissed off by what is currently going on with TRC, I created a blacklist available here:

http://teracoin.org/blacklist

Which records major past&present acts which I personally consider as contradictory to the spirit of CryptoCoin movement.
The idea was to deploy a full-fledged economy and not a playground for morally crippled criminals, no?

Ideally,  in the future, merchants and exchange offices shall simply not accept coins which have ever passed through such dirty addresses.

Perhaps you should look into the possibilities of exploits with a particular coin before using it?

TRC exploits have been foreseen many months ago, especially the one where ASICs can jack up the difficulty at a moments notice.

Dear smoothie,

Existence of exploits is not my concern. Since it has been long ago postulated by many wise persons whose opinion I respect that EVERY SYSTEM IS EXPLOITABLE (BTC included, of course), I personally consider it to be a waste of time to give a big fck about exploits. What interests me, however,  especially in this stage of CryptoCoin paradigm shift, is to propose robust reactive mechanism against immoral usage of such exploits.

Blacklist whose URL is above is my minute contribution to such a mechanism.

(a propos,  many [ c.f. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2322.msg30913#msg30913 ] things were "foreseen" months before You even registered to this forum, thus if I were You I would be somewhat reluctant in making definitive statements from such a distinguished supervisory pose)

[bcp19]

Since it seems it continues and I'm getting somewhat pissed off by what is currently going on with TRC, I created a blacklist available here:

http://teracoin.org/blacklist

Which records major past&present acts which I personally consider as contradictory to the spirit of CryptoCoin movement.
The idea was to deploy a full-fledged economy and not a playground for morally crippled criminals, no?

Ideally,  in the future, merchants and exchange offices shall simply not accept coins which have ever passed through such dirty addresses.

Perhaps you should look into the possibilities of exploits with a particular coin before using it?

TRC exploits have been foreseen many months ago, especially the one where ASICs can jack up the difficulty at a moments notice.

Dear smoothie,

Existence of exploits is not my concern. Since it has been long ago postulated by many wise persons whose opinion I respect that EVERY SYSTEM IS EXPLOITABLE (BTC included, of course), I personally consider it to be a waste of time to give a big fck about exploits. What interests me, however,  especially in this stage of CryptoCoin paradigm shift, is to propose robust reactive mechanism against immoral usage of such exploits.

Blacklist whose URL is above is my minute contribution to such a mechanism.

(a propos,  many [ c.f. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2322.msg30913#msg30913 ] things were "foreseen" months before You even registered to this forum, thus if I were You I would be somewhat reluctant in making definitive statements from such a distinguished supervisory pose)

Maybe you can reformat your page?  All I see is 1 long continuous line of garble that makes no sense.

[Milan77]

Change something or end this bs.

[hromisko]

Since it seems it continues and I'm getting somewhat pissed off by what is currently going on with TRC, I created a blacklist available here:

http://teracoin.org/blacklist

Which records major past&present acts which I personally consider as contradictory to the spirit of CryptoCoin movement.
The idea was to deploy a full-fledged economy and not a playground for morally crippled criminals, no?

Ideally,  in the future, merchants and exchange offices shall simply not accept coins which have ever passed through such dirty addresses.

Perhaps you should look into the possibilities of exploits with a particular coin before using it?

TRC exploits have been foreseen many months ago, especially the one where ASICs can jack up the difficulty at a moments notice.

Dear smoothie,

Existence of exploits is not my concern. Since it has been long ago postulated by many wise persons whose opinion I respect that EVERY SYSTEM IS EXPLOITABLE (BTC included, of course), I personally consider it to be a waste of time to give a big fck about exploits. What interests me, however,  especially in this stage of CryptoCoin paradigm shift, is to propose robust reactive mechanism against immoral usage of such exploits.

Blacklist whose URL is above is my minute contribution to such a mechanism.

(a propos,  many [ c.f. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2322.msg30913#msg30913 ] things were "foreseen" months before You even registered to this forum, thus if I were You I would be somewhat reluctant in making definitive statements from such a distinguished supervisory pose)

Maybe you can reformat your page?  All I see is 1 long continuous line of garble that makes no sense.

I don't know how Your browser displays pure text files but the http://teracoin.org/blacklist ain't nothing else than a ";" separated CSV file whose
1st column specify the currency
2nd column specifies the address of the thief/attacker
3rd column specifies the brief name of the incident
4th column specifies the  URL describing the incident (and thus justifying the presence in the blacklist)

If such a (ideally decentralised) blacklist should be adopted by the most impotant merchants&exchange offices, it would mean for an attacker that he's burnin away his ASIC circuits 4 nothing else  than keeping the amount of "non-dirty" coins on a stabilized level, hence raising the value (in comparison with other currencies which inflate by mining) of the coin for all participants of the network except  himself

it's called an antiassholebollock positive feedback

[and You can be sure that the copies of the blockchain before the attack are stored on definitely hundred places or so, some offline, so TRC is definitely NOT DEAD, no definitive rewrite of the history could take place, coin is just hibernating]

[scrypt]

Just realized that my TRC wallet is empty. There were just few coins, but still..
Transactions log is empty also.
Is this because of the attack?

[roy7]

Just realized that my TRC wallet is empty. There were just few coins, but still..
Transactions log is empty also.
Is this because of the attack?

Possibly. Did you install 0.1.3-48 before block 181200? If not, install it now and run it once with -reindex. That should get you sycned in and give your wallet accurate information on your coins.