deepbit has 50.18 % now

[bcearl]

Don't panic, but watch carefully!








http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/

[static]

looks like it's time for a ddos...

[bcearl]

looks like it's time for a ddos...

Not necessary. As I stated: Don't panic. Having 50 % in a mining pool does not make you an attacker.

[Gabi]

Kk don't panic

...

[grndzero]

looks like it's time for a ddos...

Not necessary. As I stated: Don't panic. Having 50 % in a mining pool does not make you an attacker.

You mean you haven't found the super secret auto-fork function in the bitcoin client?

Yeah, once you get 50.1% of the hashing power you plug a game controller into your computer via a usb adapter and punch in:
↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A start
and it auto-forks the block chain, but it only works on the Linux version of the client. It doesn't take any work at all, it's SO easy that anyone with less that 100 posts or even a whitelisted newbie can do it.

Tyco is probably plugging in his game controller as we speak. It's inevitable now.

[natman3400]

Kk don't panic

...

+1 on that picture.
My concern lies in that bitcoin is a p2p network. Doesn't only having about 5 major contributors break some fundamental law?

[grndzero]

looks like it's time for a ddos...

Yeah, because that's not illegal in almost all decently internet connected countries of the world.

Where's a mod when you need one? If we're not supposed to discuss illegal activities then this one needs at least a warning if not an outright ban.

[static]

looks like it's time for a ddos...

Yeah, because that's not illegal in almost all decently internet connected countries of the world.

Where's a mod when you need one? If we're not supposed to discuss illegal activities then this one needs at least a warning if not an outright ban.

lawlz

[coined]

very few people think he will personally try to double spend, it's not in his interest, but he makes it possible for an attacker to do it, online or kicking in his door in the "real world", lots of people would like bitcoin to go away, but it's security and decentralised nature make that hard, a loss of confidence in the bitcoin protocol due to a double spend is the best attack against bitcoin right now(think of the 1000's of headlines), yet people still don't think deepbit would be a target for some reason, I honestly think it would take a real attack for people to even believe the threat is real at this point, right now nobody cares about the fact that gaining access to 1 room could publicly compromise the security of this apparently "decentralised" bitcoin network,

if it happens, parity with the $ will be a fantasy.

[hazek]

It's so funny how most people are fking clueless when it comes to math.

The 50% threshold is a STATISTICAL threshold and has no real meaning since an attacker could already with say 40% of the entire hashing power have enough of a statistical chance to realistically try to attack the integrity of the blockchain. When a pool has 50% or more it just means it easier to do then if it had 40% but nothing really changed.

Remember, it still takes 6 confirmations until a transaction is deemed valid, so even if someone has 50% of hashing power they still only have 1.5625% chance of getting 6 blocks in a row!

If a pool had 40% that number only goes down to: 0.4096% which is only about 4 times less likely to happen but already a very real threat.



As you can see, it's not a big deal, because the only thing that having so much power allows you to potentially do is confirm fraudulent transactions which becomes increasingly harder to do with increasingly more confirmations. It was already possible when deepbit had 30% or 40% or 45%, the only difference was the difficulty of pulling it off.

[Man From The Future]

It's theoretically possible with 1H/s

[bcearl]

It's so funny how most people are fking clueless when it comes to math.

The 50% threshold is a STATISTICAL threshold and has no real meaning since an attacker could already with say 40% of the entire hashing power have enough of a statistical chance to realistically try to attack the integrity of the blockchain. When a pool has 50% or more it just means it easier to do then if it had 40% but nothing really changed.

Remember, it still takes 6 confirmations until a transaction is deemed valid, so even if someone has 50% of hashing power they still only have 1.5625% chance of getting 6 blocks in a row!

If a pool had 40% that number only goes down to: 0.4096% which is only about 4 times less likely to happen but already a very real threat.



As you can see, it's not a big deal, because the only thing that having so much power allows you to potentially do is confirm fraudulent transactions which becomes increasingly harder to do with increasingly more confirmations. It was already possible when deepbit had 30% or 40% or 45%, the only difference was the difficulty of pulling it off.

That's all in the regular process.

If deepbit decides to split off, they generate faster. And there the 50 % are magical, because it means it has more than the network it left.


That explains my advice: Don't worry, but watch carefully. We have to detect whether there is a block generating power mining in secret.

[Pieter Wuille]

With >50%, you can start working on a private fork of the block chain at a certain point in time, and know for sure that you will, at some point in the future, have a longer chain than the "real" one.

With less than 50%, you can also try this, but there is no certainty it will work.

[coined]

It's so funny how most people are fking clueless when it comes to math.

The 50% threshold is a STATISTICAL threshold and has no real meaning since an attacker could already with say 40% of the entire hashing power have enough of a statistical chance to realistically try to attack the integrity of the blockchain. When a pool has 50% or more it just means it easier to do then if it had 40% but nothing really changed.

Remember, it still takes 6 confirmations until a transaction is deemed valid, so even if someone has 50% of hashing power they still only have 1.5625% chance of getting 6 blocks in a row!

If a pool had 40% that number only goes down to: 0.4096% which is only about 4 times less likely to happen but already a very real threat.



As you can see, it's not a big deal, because the only thing that having so much power allows you to potentially do is confirm fraudulent transactions which becomes increasingly harder to do with increasingly more confirmations. It was already possible when deepbit had 30% or 40% or 45%, the only difference was the difficulty of pulling it off.

how about when deepbit is 75%? or more?

how large a percent would you be comfortable with? do you have a maximum number in your head based on the stats of likelihood of success?

[BitcoinPorn]

We're through the looking glass here people


Sorry, everything in this thread seemed bigger.

[Explodicle]

If mining pool management is a natural monopoly, then this might just be the first time. I'd rather nothing be done, let it play out, just to see what happens.

[Man From The Future]

52% is the max I'd be happy with, giving a 2% chance of success.

[Chris Acheson]

Remember, it still takes 6 confirmations until a transaction is deemed valid, so even if someone has 50% of hashing power they still only have 1.5625% chance of getting 6 blocks in a row!

Wrong, and in big block letters too.

They don't have to get 6 blocks in a row, they just have to get more blocks than the rest of the network during whatever window of opportunity they have to pull off their attack.  See this thread for a method of performing a double-spend attack in 2 hours.

[relative]

is there some technical reason why there must not be too many blocks / they must have a minimum size?

otherwise it seems to me it is a shortfall of bitcoin's design that so few blocks (1 in 10 minutes) are created and the reward is very high.
if generating blocks was easier (with less reward) there would be less incentive for pooling.
I guess(!) satoshi originally intended that each bitcoin client mines, not some large pools with high-end graphics cards.

if bitcoin is as successful as many here suspect, in a few years the 25 BTC you gain from generating a block will be like winning a lottery jackpot.

[pokwer]

OMG, now "OTHER" is approaching 50%

http://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=350x200&chd=t:0.93,2.66,3.75,26.11,4.64,2.06,3.32,47.79,0.28,7.00,1.20,0.24&cht=p&chf=bg,s,00000000&chl=ars|deepbit|BitcoinPool|slush|bitcoins.lc|btcguild|MtRed|other|bitpit|btcmine|bitclockers|swepool

Seriously though, I think a lot of people will feel a lot more comfortable when distributed mining pools become the norm...
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=9137.0