[1050 TH] BitMinter.com [1% PPLNS,Pays TxFees +MergedMining,Stratum,GBT,vardiff]

[organofcorti]

Another question I've been wondering and hoping someone with a more technical background might be able to answer for me -

When individuals in the pool solve pieces of work, how long do those valid pieces of work stay in queue to try and create a block?  Or does only the piece of work that solves a block really matter?

Only the work that solves the block matters - the rest of the work you submit just proves you're trying to solve a block, and how much effort you're able to put toward that work.

Got it - that's what I thought.  Its literally just trying to bruteforce a header, right?

Not literally. You aren't trying find a hash collision, just a hash with a very small numerical value.

[14er]

Are pools vulnerable to abuse... that's the central question.

While I think this pool is vulnerable, the only person whose answer is valuable in this forum is Dr. H.

So, Dr. H do you think this pool is vulnerable to abuse?  And if so, what do you think should be done.  And if NOT, why do you think so?

[Krabbit]

Help, I keep trying to find the answer to this.  Why cant someone send in a huge amount of work that they have already submitted to another pool.  How does GHash.io what (Non-block find work) I have submitted to bitminter and vice versa?  Whats to stop some clever coder from submitting non-block finding work simultaneously to multiple pools? 

[Entropy-uc]

Help, I keep trying to find the answer to this.  Why cant someone send in a huge amount of work that they have already submitted to another pool.  How does GHash.io what (Non-block find work) I have submitted to bitminter and vice versa?  Whats to stop some clever coder from submitting non-block finding work simultaneously to multiple pools?  

Work valid for one pool would not be recognized as valid work for any other pool.  There are a couple layers where this is enforced, but the easiest to understand is that the hash that you work on contains a transaction paying the pool's address 25 BTC for the block.  A different pool wouldn't accept work paying someone else.  This is the same reason you can't intercept a valid block solution and pay the reward to yourself.

[Krabbit]

Thanks,
Couldn't someone strip that pool specific portion of the hash for non-winning work and submit it to a different pool then?  (or does it change with each hash also?)

[DrHaribo]

So, Dr. H do you think this pool is vulnerable to abuse?  And if so, what do you think should be done.  And if NOT, why do you think so?

All mining pools are, and have always been, vulnerable to block withholding attacks.

These attacks are rare though. There were those guys mining at BTC Guild and Eligius who had a programming error in their software, having to do with how they determined whether work was above or below pool difficulty. I also read on Reddit someone claiming to be block withholding on Ghash on purpose. Those are the only cases I've heard about so far.

The real solution would be to get protection against block withholding in the next Bitcoin hardfork. Other than that, pool operators have to watch users with suspiciously bad luck. Accusing everyone with slightly bad luck is not a solution. I don't see it as a solution to stop pooled mining either, and have everyone solo mine. For most miners solo mining is not an option.

There's no reason to believe mining chips would do block withholding. That would actually require more logic on the chips.

Help, I keep trying to find the answer to this.  Why cant someone send in a huge amount of work that they have already submitted to another pool.  How does GHash.io what (Non-block find work) I have submitted to bitminter and vice versa?  Whats to stop some clever coder from submitting non-block finding work simultaneously to multiple pools? 

Pools only accept solutions to work they sent out, not work sent out by other pools.

[eleuthria]

Thanks,
Couldn't someone strip that pool specific portion of the hash for non-winning work and submit it to a different pool then?  (or does it change with each hash also?)

Changing a single bit in the work template the pool gave you will completely change the result of hashing in a non-deterministic way.  So if you change anything about the work, you have to re-hash it.  There is no way to squeeze out "extra" shares from the same amount of work by submitting to multiple pools.

[Sns77]

Been lurking for awhile (been mining since march)

While the bad/luck good/luck statistics are all find and good i tend to agree with Entropy-uc.  while it sucks to lose 200TH even with my limited experience mining i felt much better today when i logged on and didnt see multipool.  A week ago i was looking at the solved blocks and thought to myself how the hell is multipool not solving any of these?  KOI has the same power and hes solving a bunch.  Then i came to the forums and found all this.

I am barely in the top 50 (3.8TH) but even at that investment level i was getting worried last week at how the numbers were working out.

My 2 cents.

BTW the bad gear conversation is very interesting.  I have all Antminer S1's oced to 393.75 and they all run +/- 3% of eachother at 200GH.  I have not solved a block yet how long should it take with average luck 3.8TH to pick a winner?  Just curious.

-Thanks
Sns

[Entropy-uc]

Been lurking for awhile (been mining since march)

While the bad/luck good/luck statistics are all find and good i tend to agree with Entropy-uc.  while it sucks to lose 200TH even with my limited experience mining i felt much better today when i logged on and didnt see multipool.  A week ago i was looking at the solved blocks and thought to myself how the hell is multipool not solving any of these?  KOI has the same power and hes solving a bunch.  Then i came to the forums and found all this.

I am barely in the top 50 (3.8TH) but even at that investment level i was getting worried last week at how the numbers were working out.

My 2 cents.

BTW the bad gear conversation is very interesting.  I have all Antminer S1's oced to 393.75 and they all run +/- 3% of eachother at 200GH.  I have not solved a block yet how long should it take with average luck 3.8TH to pick a winner?  Just curious.

-Thanks
Sns

At today's difficulty it would take around 6 months for 3.8 Th/s to typically solve a block.

I wouldn't worry about Ants.  The gear is open and has been available for decades in bitcoin time.  It would be easy to run a test suite against the hardware, and I would be shocked if someone hasn't done so.

Our connections at foundries make us believe there are at least 20 private projects running since Q4 of last year.  If the hardware and software is kept private and closed there is no direct way to validate it.   There are more than enough projects in play that there may be several with non fatal defects in the design or implementations.

If you spent $2M+ on development, and 4-5x that on building gear and data centers would you shut down if you discover your hardware isn't solving blocks?

[14er]

So, Dr. H do you think this pool is vulnerable to abuse?  And if so, what do you think should be done.  And if NOT, why do you think so?

All mining pools are, and have always been, vulnerable to block withholding attacks.

These attacks are rare though. There were those guys mining at BTC Guild and Eligius who had a programming error in their software, having to do with how they determined whether work was above or below pool difficulty. I also read on Reddit someone claiming to be block withholding on Ghash on purpose. Those are the only cases I've heard about so far.

The real solution would be to get protection against block withholding in the next Bitcoin hardfork. Other than that, pool operators have to watch users with suspiciously bad luck. Accusing everyone with slightly bad luck is not a solution. I don't see it as a solution to stop pooled mining either, and have everyone solo mine. For most miners solo mining is not an option.

There's no reason to believe mining chips would do block withholding. That would actually require more logic on the chips.

Do you think that "bad hardware / software" exists and that could make the pool vulnerable?  

[DrHaribo]

Do you think that "bad hardware / software" exists and that could make the pool vulnerable?  

Like I said, all mining pools are vulnerable to block withholding attacks. All pools.

Whether bad software is still out there, I don't know. But as we have seen, it can happen.

Bad hardware is very unlikely. All the ASICs I heard of so far simply look for anything from diff 1 and up. Doing something else would require more logic on the chip.

[14er]

Do you think that "bad hardware / software" exists and that could make the pool vulnerable?  

Like I said, all mining pools are vulnerable to block withholding attacks. All pools.

Whether bad software is still out there, I don't know. But as we have seen, it can happen.

Bad hardware is very unlikely. All the ASICs I heard of so far simply look for anything from diff 1 and up. Doing something else would require more logic on the chip.

Okay, I concur all pools are vulnerable to block withholding attacks (currently) .. and established bad software exists, and we can debate hardware concerns pointlessly as a "consumer union" report would have to test different hardware with testcases.
 
So, given that vulnerabilities exist, do you think it is possible and worth protecting against known vulnerabilities?

Is there a statistical test to say that a miner or group of miners are behaving unusually ... I would think there is.

[philipma1957]

Do you think that "bad hardware / software" exists and that could make the pool vulnerable?  

Like I said, all mining pools are vulnerable to block withholding attacks. All pools.

Whether bad software is still out there, I don't know. But as we have seen, it can happen.

Bad hardware is very unlikely. All the ASICs I heard of so far simply look for anything from diff 1 and up. Doing something else would require more logic on the chip.

Okay, I concur all pools are vulnerable to block withholding attacks (currently) .. and established bad software exists, and we can debate hardware concerns pointlessly as a "consumer union" report would have to test different hardware with testcases.
 
So, given that vulnerabilities exist, do you think it is possible and worth protecting against known vulnerabilities?

Is there a statistical test to say that a miner or group of miners are behaving unusually ... I would think there is.

yes  there are tests,    but  all involve   groups of about 100th to 200th of hash.

  In bitminter :

 group  1        total of  200th
koi

group 2

fefox
kdecastator
tyson76
rbatista204
MRoj
r0ger
jay83434
spiccioli
amahastpl
xportz
finnfiu
jzarcaro          total of 200th

make 6 groups of 200th  



each group   of 200th should make  around 9 block per month  that drops as time moves on.  

  after 1 month  you could see if there is a terrible group.

 the problem is  the groups at the bottom  will have many little guys.


  Next  test method  put koi on the side.    since he does so well.

 pick 5 top miners 95 bottom miners
pick 5 more top miners 95 bottom miners.

say 5 piles  of 200 th  groups  with a few big guys and a lot of small guys.  look for 1 month see what happens.

All of the above is needle in a haystack  and not the best way to sift out really bad miners.

Also  does any one care if a 6gh miner sucks  no

does anyone care if a 60th miner sucks yes.

Well I like doc h I have 3 s-1's pointed here and will keep that up.  I have my hosted miner at btcguild.

And more firepower in gridseeds pointed at wemineltc.com

I feel I may end up being a solo ltc miner since I can point enough gear solo to get blocks. 

oh I now joined solopool.net  pointed 17gh there. 

 rather do it here solo .

pointed at solopool.net



pointed at bitminter

[theweiss]

Hey Doc or someone else who knows,
I just picked up a couple S1's and I'm trying to get them up and running.  I tried looking through the forums for instructions but there is too much to look through.  What is the pool address that I should use?  Is it mint.bitminter.com:3333 or stratum+tcp://mint.bitminter.com:3333  ?  I also read somewhere that the worker name should be my user name then my worker name with an underscore instead of a period.  Can you confirm that this is the way I should enter it in my S1?

Finally, I'm having a ton of trouble getting to the miner by using the IP address in my browser.  Sometimes I get into it with problem and more often it searches the internet for that address instead of getting me in.  Its been very very frustrating not being able to get into the miner's interface regularly.    

Also, any information that can help me with settings, specifically as they relate to this pool, etc... would be much appreciated.  General set up instructions are everywhere but I think making sure that my ducks are in a line with the pool-specifics is my issue.

[Krabbit]

Use a different browser.  That should fix your getting to them consistently problem.

I use these settings and they work great


Pool 1       stratum+tcp://mint.bitminter.com:3333
Pool1 Worker     Username_workername
Pool1 Password        x


Pool 2                         mint.bitminter.com

User and password are the same.

I also use google as my DNS server.   

[14er]

Do you think that "bad hardware / software" exists and that could make the pool vulnerable?  

Like I said, all mining pools are vulnerable to block withholding attacks. All pools.

Whether bad software is still out there, I don't know. But as we have seen, it can happen.

Bad hardware is very unlikely. All the ASICs I heard of so far simply look for anything from diff 1 and up. Doing something else would require more logic on the chip.

Okay, I concur all pools are vulnerable to block withholding attacks (currently) .. and established bad software exists, and we can debate hardware concerns pointlessly as a "consumer union" report would have to test different hardware with testcases.
 
So, given that vulnerabilities exist, do you think it is possible and worth protecting against known vulnerabilities?

Is there a statistical test to say that a miner or group of miners are behaving unusually ... I would think there is.

yes  there are tests,    but  all involve   groups of about 100th to 200th of hash.

  In bitminter :

 group  1        total of  200th
koi ....

Philipma... i agree with you, mostly because I proposed group statistical evaluation and probation.

Do i care if a small miner benefits from bad hardware/software?  In theory, yes, but how does one practically identify and enforce?

Well, one idea is go back to grouping the miners together, and paying out proportional to their contribution if it is outside an acceptable statistical mean.  You could manage it on a rolling "find" basis. So, for example, if a 200 Th group should find 9 blocks (on average) over a one month period, with a deviation of +/- 1 block, but your group finds 6, that would be statistically abnormal... so the group payout would be less. Likewise, if a 200 Th group finds 12 blocks, you could argue they should get more.

Over time, in the law of averages, it should even out.  But if a group is consistently underperforming, then you know you have bad actors (intentionally or not).

It is a completely different way of operating a pool. So, Dr. H needs to buy into this idea and determine whether it is worth his time. 

[Minor Miner]

What is wrong with putting a CDF beside all of the top 50?   And maybe another column showing their longer term luck?
Is that too complicated?    We need to police this some way that all find agreeable.

[theweiss]

Use a different browser.  That should fix your getting to them consistently problem.

I use these settings and they work great


Pool 1       stratum+tcp://mint.bitminter.com:3333
Pool1 Worker     Username_workername
Pool1 Password        x


Pool 2                         mint.bitminter.com

User and password are the same.

I also use google as my DNS server.  

I'll give it a try with the Stratum pool address and the underscore between my user name and worker but I don't know if a different browser will help me with the login issue.  I've tried it with Chrome and Internet Explorer and still no luck.  Any other advice on that front?

And what do you mean by using Google as your DNS server?

[SgtMoth]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=344970.0;topicseen

should be all the help you need with you s1

[specialed101]

Hi,

    Google is a great DNS provider. 8.8.8.8, and 8.8.4.4 are the two IPs that I am familiar with for Google's DNS servers.