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

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This has an upper tail probability of 0.08264739, meaning that once out of every 12 reruns of those eleven days you'd see multipool have this level of luck. Not very unlucky.

<snip>

If submitted/expected reach 7.0 (one in a thousand) or 8.0 (one in three thousand), I'd start to worry.

OOC, thanks for illustrating exactly how unlucky multipool is - "Not very". I appreciate your effort here. Personally, I found this analysis reassuring.

flound1129, thanks for providing the data which made OOC's analysis possible.

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[Puppet]

So what is the incentive here?

Assuming this is even taking place, which Im not convinced off, a large mining entity like ghash might have several incentives to do this; a block witholding attack  would hurt their smaller competitors for almost no cost, possibly driving miners away from these "unlucky" pools towards their own,  and it would keep difficulty artificially low. Once you get big enough,  adding more hashrate doesnt bring you a lot of extra mining revenue, it mostly increases difficulty and therefore your own cost as you start competing with yourself. Then its probably better to hide your hashrate this way, its not adding to difficulty, yet you are still getting paid for it. Maybe organofconti can do the math at what point this makes sense. But this would also explain some of the huge swings we see in the estimated network hashrate, which seem to be too big to be caused by chance.

[jamesg]

Maybe organofconti can do the math at what point this makes sense.

I'd pay OOC to do this analysis.

We've known for a while that after a single entity becomes a certain percentage of the network you start competing with yourself but Puppet does bring up a good point that those rules can be rewritten by sending hashes elsewhere and block withholding.

[khunhamkeng]

Hello everybody

Im surprised that the recent discussion about multipool and the possibility of a share witholding attack
is fought like a battle without real clue.

I start mining with a block erupter in November 2013 and increased hash power with 4 more block erupters, a 8 GH Jalapeno and recently with a KNC Jupiter. All this equipment I bought used.

Since November I didnt solve a block with my small hash power, but earned about 1.2 BTC on Bitminter.

I have not the knowledge and technical abilities to check my miners if they are doing things like that or not.

But I think that this witholding shares attacks are performed fully unintentional because they are creating a loose lossse situation for the miner, the pool operator and the attacker.

So lets go back to the pollite and helpfull features of this forum and dont blame people for completely unproven and unlikely things.

lets hope for another good run of easy find blocks and if you really seeing in every co miner a competitor instead of a colleague you are ready for a solo mining career.

Keep the forum clean of this unproven conspiracy theories or found your own bitcoin sect.

I like bitminter and its pool operator particular for its helpfull attitude towards even the strangest questions. As long as it is newbie friendly it will attract new people. Keep it like this.
Calm Down
Joerg

[Puppet]

But I think that this witholding shares attacks are performed fully unintentional because they are creating a loose lossse situation for the miner, the pool operator and the attacker.

So lets go back to the pollite and helpfull features of this forum and dont blame people for completely unproven and unlikely things.

I dont see the incentive for multipool to perform a block withholding attack, nor  any statistically credible evidence for it. And certainly no one is accusing DrHaribo of anything (other than being too awesome ).

But If your read a few posts up, you will see that there is indeed an incentive for a dominant mining entity to carry out such an attack, and there is rather credible evidence this has been done on Eligius and BTCguild. So lets not put our heads in the sand, and search for a solution to this problem, even if its only a theoretical problem.

BTW, its possible multipool is being (ab)used as one of many proxies by this dominant entity.

[flound1129]

BTW, its possible multipool is being (ab)used as one of many proxies by this dominant entity.

Highly unlikely, as our average worker hashrate is under a few hundred GH.  They'd have to have hundreds of accounts setup in a very specific way using custom software to do what you're talking about.

[khunhamkeng]

Im not a native english speaker, may be I have to clarify.

What I mean is, that the best way to make our bitcoin investement a succsess is to attract people into it.

The discussion I saw recently here is doing the opposite.

Thats what I mean.

the technical question of how an attack on mining pools could occur and how to counter it should be done between pool operators and technicians/coders on a seperate issue and not done in a relatively open forum. It drives people away from bitcoin.

I believe that the bitcoin is a good investement because it will attract people with its unique features.

And as it is in the meantime a multi billion industry it is in the interest of all people involved to protect the system.

If someone work to destroy the confidence of the community in bitcoin and in that way destroying your investement, Goldman Sachs,Deutsche Bank, HSBC should be the suspects.

Joerg

[Minor Miner]

I do not believe in block withholding attacks and I think that people are focusing on the WRONG issue.   The problem that was discovered was the miner did not work correctly (please see below).   Whether it was software (that was easily fixed or hardware which could never be fixed is not known but the owner of the miners said it was a simple software fix).

Also, it should be noted that the most recent example of this attack was apparently not an attack, rather it was probably a software problem - although this should have already been detected during testing on the testnet, so I'm not sure how "unknown" it could have been.

The problem was their software discarding shares that matched 2^32-1 difficulty or better.  Anything UNDER that, they worked fine.  So testnet would not have detected anything wrong.

So, I put it to you all:  
1.  We have someone that has bad luck (lots of people have bad luck runs and there is a 1 in 11 chance of this happening by chance so far).
2.  The person is mining using tons of different hardware (so unless all his clients use the same miner brand and that brand is bad it is not likely the miners)
3.  The person has software that jumps between pools to mine other coins when prices dictate.   Please read the above quote.   SOFTWARE problem.   Their custom software did not work.    But, why would they have been able to even solve one block then?

So the question is:   could it be a software problem?  

Still waiting to hear what Entropy's username on Bitminter is so I can take a look at his mining stats.

KOI.   Work away and let us all know (my guess is you are too lazy to do it).
Information is all visible and available (if you looked instead of shooting your mouth off).   
Do KOI's miners work?   yes.   All of them?   Yes.   How do they know?   Because they have solo mined with them all.    And then, they separated them into accounts by type of miner at pools (to make sure different miners all work).    Why do you think he was so vocal at BTCGuild insisting that someone's miners DID NOT WORK?   

[HerbPean]

I urge this pool to name KOI as President.

That would be all.

[Puppet]

So the question is:   could it be a software problem?  

FWIW, I think both questions are worth pursuing. Maybe there is a software problem somewhere, but if it turns out that its profitable for a dominant entity to carry out such an attack (and without doing any math, I do think it would be), then this is a problem worth solving regardless if we have suffered the consequences already.

[flound1129]

I do not believe in block withholding attacks and I think that people are focusing on the WRONG issue.   The problem that was discovered was the miner did not work correctly (please see below).   Whether it was software (that was easily fixed or hardware which could never be fixed is not known but the owner of the miners said it was a simple software fix).

Also, it should be noted that the most recent example of this attack was apparently not an attack, rather it was probably a software problem - although this should have already been detected during testing on the testnet, so I'm not sure how "unknown" it could have been.

The problem was their software discarding shares that matched 2^32-1 difficulty or better.  Anything UNDER that, they worked fine.  So testnet would not have detected anything wrong.

So, I put it to you all:  
1.  We have someone that has bad luck (lots of people have bad luck runs and there is a 1 in 11 chance of this happening by chance so far).
2.  The person is mining using tons of different hardware (so unless all his clients use the same miner brand and that brand is bad it is not likely the miners)
3.  The person has software that jumps between pools to mine other coins when prices dictate.   Please read the above quote.   SOFTWARE problem.   Their custom software did not work.    But, why would they have been able to even solve one block then?

So the question is:   could it be a software problem?  

Still waiting to hear what Entropy's username on Bitminter is so I can take a look at his mining stats.

KOI.   Work away and let us all know (my guess is you are too lazy to do it).
Information is all visible and available (if you looked instead of shooting your mouth off).   
Do KOI's miners work?   yes.   All of them?   Yes.   How do they know?   Because they have solo mined with them all.    And then, they separated them into accounts by type of miner at pools (to make sure different miners all work).    Why do you think he was so vocal at BTCGuild insisting that someone's miners DID NOT WORK?

You say he's Koi, DrH says he doesn't mine here?

So who's correct?

[flound1129]

You say he's Koi, DrH says he doesn't mine here?
So who's correct?

You misunderstand what people write quite often.   Put the quote in to help the rest of us try to explain to you what was meant.
He is Koi because I own part of Koi so I know.   DrH did not say anything of the sort.
Now bless us with the analysis on Koi.   Remember it took us weeks to move over the machines that we did (but you can figure that out I am sure).   

A long time ago the pool hit some bad luck. There was a similar discussion about how bad luck can never happen unless there are bugs (or block withholding attacks). Entropy decided that since the pool was having bad luck that must mean it is broken and so he left for another pool. He's not carrying any asses, fat or not.

Sometimes bad luck is just bad luck.

Most people can do simple math but have no understanding whatsoever of probability theory. Listen to what Organofcorti is saying. He is one of the very few people on this forum who does understand it.

[Minor Miner]

You say he's Koi, DrH says he doesn't mine here?
So who's correct?

You misunderstand what people write quite often.   Put the quote in to help the rest of us try to explain to you what was meant.
He is Koi because I own part of Koi so I know.   DrH said this?   Please show quote.   He may be confused because we are also at BTCguild, but I doubt that.
Now bless us with the analysis on Koi.   Remember it took us weeks to move over the machines that we did (but you can figure that out I am sure).  

EDIT:   Thank you, I see you included the quote.    DrH, you owe Entropy an apology.   And to clarify, my quote saying I was tired of carrying multipool's fat ass was in reference to his pool share payout, not adam in any way.

[DrHaribo]

Looks like Entropy has more than one account at the pool. I apologize to Entropy for saying he's not mining here. It was stupid of me to assume he's not mining just because he's not mining with his old account.

I encourage those who called flound1129 a scammer as soon as he hit slightly bad luck to apologize as well. That wasn't a good assumption either.

[Minor Miner]

Looks like Entropy has more than one account at the pool. I apologize to Entropy for saying he's not mining here. It was stupid of me to assume he's not mining just because he's not mining with his old account.
I encourage those who called flound1129 a scammer as soon as he hit slightly bad luck to apologize as well. That wasn't a good assumption either.

No one has called him a scammer.   I have suggested many reasons for his bad luck though.
Scamming would require knowing.    Freeriding is very different.   
Just PM me when he hits 6 blocks in the next week (that should be about neutral correct?)

[flound1129]

Looks like Entropy has more than one account at the pool. I apologize to Entropy for saying he's not mining here. It was stupid of me to assume he's not mining just because he's not mining with his old account.
I encourage those who called flound1129 a scammer as soon as he hit slightly bad luck to apologize as well. That wasn't a good assumption either.

No one has called him a scammer.   I have suggested many reasons for his bad luck though.
Scamming would require knowing.    Freeriding is very different.   
Just PM me when he hits 6 blocks in the next week (that should be about neutral correct?)

And expect to hear from me next time Koi hits a dry spell.  Although I expect you'll both be conspicuously absent from the forum if that happens.

[Minor Miner]

And expect to hear from me next time Koi hits a dry spell.  Although I expect you'll both be conspicuously absent from the forum if that happens.

I can take it and I will still be here, but hopefully it does not happen until we are 2% of the pool. 
Let me know on those stats after you crunch the numbers.   I will be interested to know (maybe you have some reason for me to "hear from you" now).    As you have said, I am a moron that cannot do simple math so help me out here.
Hopefully, everyone will become the neighborhood watchers, so I would encourage you to call out anomalies and let OOC tell you that it is not likely (although his 8X is more than anyone can really stomach from someone over 10% of a pool).   Hopefully, you do not go 15 more days to get to the point where OOC would agree "something is likely strange..."

[flound1129]

And expect to hear from me next time Koi hits a dry spell.  Although I expect you'll both be conspicuously absent from the forum if that happens.

I can take it and I will still be here, but hopefully it does not happen until we are 2% of the pool. 
Let me know on those stats after you crunch the numbers.   I will be interested to know (maybe you have some reason for me to "hear from you" now).    As you have said, I am a moron that cannot do simple math so help me out here.
Hopefully, everyone will become the neighborhood watchers, so I would encourage you to call out anomalies and let OOC tell you that it is not likely (although his 8X is more than anyone can really stomach from someone over 10% of a pool).   Hopefully, you do not go 15 more days to get to the point where OOC would agree "something is likely strange..."

I don't have any problem with Koi's numbers.  He appears to be doing rather well lately.  That said, if he's so confident in his ability to find blocks at a rate above statistical average over long periods of time, one might wonder why he doesn't just skip pooled mining altogether and solo mine.

[jfederkins]

Hello everybody

Im surprised that the recent discussion about multipool and the possibility of a share witholding attack
is fought like a battle without real clue.

I start mining with a block erupter in November 2013 and increased hash power with 4 more block erupters, a 8 GH Jalapeno and recently with a KNC Jupiter. All this equipment I bought used.

Since November I didnt solve a block with my small hash power, but earned about 1.2 BTC on Bitminter.

I have not the knowledge and technical abilities to check my miners if they are doing things like that or not.

But I think that this witholding shares attacks are performed fully unintentional because they are creating a loose lossse situation for the miner, the pool operator and the attacker.

So lets go back to the pollite and helpfull features of this forum and dont blame people for completely unproven and unlikely things.

lets hope for another good run of easy find blocks and if you really seeing in every co miner a competitor instead of a colleague you are ready for a solo mining career.

Keep the forum clean of this unproven conspiracy theories or found your own bitcoin sect.

I like bitminter and its pool operator particular for its helpfull attitude towards even the strangest questions. As long as it is newbie friendly it will attract new people. Keep it like this.
Calm Down
Joerg

Finally, a post with some common sense. 

[philipma1957]

Im not a native english speaker, may be I have to clarify.

What I mean is, that the best way to make our bitcoin investement a succsess is to attract people into it.

The discussion I saw recently here is doing the opposite.

Thats what I mean.

the technical question of how an attack on mining pools could occur and how to counter it should be done between pool operators and technicians/coders on a seperate issue and not done in a relatively open forum. It drives people away from bitcoin.

I believe that the bitcoin is a good investement because it will attract people with its unique features.

And as it is in the meantime a multi billion industry it is in the interest of all people involved to protect the system.

If someone work to destroy the confidence of the community in bitcoin and in that way destroying your investement, Goldman Sachs,Deutsche Bank, HSBC should be the suspects.

Joerg

 

You are correct  since this thread and  two other threads have pointed out a true danger to mining.  So talking about this out in the open will make some people afraid of BTC and mining.

 Unfortunately the problem is not if multipool is a villian or completely innocent.

 The problem is an attack can be done and mining pools have not come up with a great solution to stop it.

 I run gear on 3 BTC pools and on 2 LTC pools.  I do it to spread the risk on an attack.  Or a mistaken set of mining software.

 This risk  is  why I ask still for the solo option on these bigger pools it will strengthen the  BTC network.

  Since a solo pool is 100 percent safe from this problem.

 In a week the new s-3's come out  500gh units will be cheaper then ever with .8 watts a gh.

 If I buy 5 I and run them in 5 pools.  It will help me with the risk from this problem. 

Or I can run on 4 pools and 1 as a solo miner.

 Running the 5 units  that way makes me safe from

a:big bad miner
b: big dumb miner
c: big unlucky miner

My biggest complaint is not that the attacks happen not the the attack is good bad or just unlucky.

It is that pool ops have multiple ways to deal with this and so far I can't convince a single operator to setup a solo setup.

   If one did we could ask multipool (or any other suspected bad luck miner) run in it for a week.

 To show us you really believe your gear works.   Any of us can direct a small percentage of our hash at it. Since it can't be attacked with dud gear.

 Now I want to explain solo mining in this way.  if you have the gear in your hands paid for  and it gets 2 watts or better per hash playing that gear in solo mining is like buying a 3 digit number and getting 1100-1400 to one odds.

We all know that buying a 3 digit number from a lottery pays 500 or 600 to one and the real odds are 1000 to one.  it is how governments make money running it.     we all know buying 1 ticket you almost never win.

But any one that has purchased a 3 digit number  would prefer 1100 to 1400 to one odds rather then 500 to 600 to one.

Does anyone understand me when I say solo mining is like getting 1100 to 1400 to  one on a 3 digit miner?
you should since it is the founding principle that allows merged pools to work.

 or if I give you 1100 to 1 on a 3 digit number and let you have 1 number and go partners with 999 other guys each with a different  number.  you make a 100 dollar profit as a team.  that is because  you are a merged pool playing a game that is rigged for you to win.

It is why we want to run merged since most of us can not buy enough gear to solo and hit a block.  even though the overall odds are in your favor.

 It is really frustrating  to get this across.  a few solo pool options from good  pools would help to spread the  risk of

 bad gear/bad miner/bad software.  For now running solo would cost me a pc running 24/7/365 dedicated to be fast enough to stay with the solo gear.    Plus running my mining gear.   I do not want to do this as it kills my favorable solo mining odds since I run the server and the mining gear.  thus my watts per hash is over 3 watts a hash.