Bitcoin Forum
March 19, 2024, 05:32:52 AM *
News: Latest Bitcoin Core release: 26.0 [Torrent]
 
   Home   Help Search Login Register More  
Poll
Question: Should miners collude to steal funds from wallet confiscated by US government?
Yes - 109 (27.8%)
No - 268 (68.4%)
Other (specify below) - 15 (3.8%)
Total Voters: 392

Pages: « 1 [2] 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 »  All
  Print  
Author Topic: Should miners collude to steal funds from wallet confiscated by US government?  (Read 12881 times)
ShadowOfHarbringer
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1470
Merit: 1005


Bringing Legendary Har® to you since 1952


View Profile
October 07, 2013, 06:20:00 AM
 #21


1710826372
Hero Member
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 1710826372

View Profile Personal Message (Offline)

Ignore
1710826372
Reply with quote  #2

1710826372
Report to moderator
The grue lurks in the darkest places of the earth. Its favorite diet is adventurers, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its fear of light. No grue has ever been seen by the light of day, and few have survived its fearsome jaws to tell the tale.
Advertised sites are not endorsed by the Bitcoin Forum. They may be unsafe, untrustworthy, or illegal in your jurisdiction.
1710826372
Hero Member
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 1710826372

View Profile Personal Message (Offline)

Ignore
1710826372
Reply with quote  #2

1710826372
Report to moderator
1710826372
Hero Member
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 1710826372

View Profile Personal Message (Offline)

Ignore
1710826372
Reply with quote  #2

1710826372
Report to moderator
1710826372
Hero Member
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 1710826372

View Profile Personal Message (Offline)

Ignore
1710826372
Reply with quote  #2

1710826372
Report to moderator
mufa23
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1022
Merit: 1001


I'd fight Gandhi.


View Profile
October 07, 2013, 06:23:16 AM
 #22

It isn't possible

There is nothing miners can do to send the bitcoins from that address to anywhere else without first getting EVERY single person using a bitcoin wallet to agree to run a modified wallet that allows the spending of bitcoins without a proper signature.  Nobody with bitcoins and half a brain is going to be dumb enough to run such software since it would put their own bitcoins at risk.

Miners don't have some special magical power that allows them to force nodes to accept invalid blocks into the blockchain no matter how many of them collude.

All of you who are talking about whether or not it *should* be done, need to realize that it can't be done.
Could you explain it two ways (in both detail and layman's terms)? I thought a 51% attack would be able to do this. If it can't, what can a 51% attack do?

Positive rep with: pekv2, AzN1337c0d3r, Vince Torres, underworld07, Chimsley, omegaaf, Bogart, Gleason, SuperTramp, John K. and guitarplinker
allthingsluxury
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1540
Merit: 1029



View Profile WWW
October 07, 2013, 06:27:38 AM
 #23

Hmm probably not a great idea.

drawingthesun
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1176
Merit: 1015


View Profile
October 07, 2013, 06:30:37 AM
 #24

Could you explain it two ways (in both detail and layman's terms)? I thought a 51% attack would be able to do this. If it can't, what can a 51% attack do?

51% attack allows you to double spend your own coins (by rewriting the blockchain where you sent coins originally (to a merchant for example))

So last week you me 100 bitcoin, today you 51% attack and resend those 100 bitcoins from last week to another address. Now those 100 bitcoins I got from you last week are double spent / invalid and you got whatever product I sent you for free.

I think this is somewhat what happens. Also a 51% attack allows you to deny anyone else transactions, so you can stall the network.
MineForeman.com
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 896
Merit: 1000



View Profile WWW
October 07, 2013, 06:41:26 AM
 #25

I think this is somewhat what happens. Also a 51% attack allows you to deny anyone else transactions, so you can stall the network.

That's the basics of it.  To rewind the blockchain to last week you would have to pick a point back then, fork the chain and the produce 1008 blocks of a longer length(more and bigger transactions, i.e. proof of work).

And then, once you have done that (with your "unimaginable powerful bitcoin cluster 1,000,000 x faster then the current bitcoin network) you would have to hack Silk Road, steal the private keys of the accounts about to be emptied and transfer them into another bitcoin address.

Tell you what, give me a Delorean, get me up to 88 miles an hour and I will fix it for you (it will be easier that way).

Neil

P.S., even then I would not fix it for you though just in-case you do get a time machine.  Dodgy people got caught out while doing dodgy stuff, I am not that upset about it.

Bitcoin News http://mineforeman.com/ || MinePeon - Bitcoin mining on the Raspberry PI http://mineforeman.com/minepeon/ || MinePeon Wiki http://minepeon.com/ || MinePeon Forums http://minepeon.com/forums/
DannyHamilton
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 3332
Merit: 4492



View Profile
October 07, 2013, 06:50:12 AM
 #26

The only thing miners can do is choose which transactions get confirmed.  This is true regardless of whether they are attempting to attack the network with overwhelming hash power (A.K.A. 51% attack) or are performing honest mining services.  The difference is that, with enough mining power, it is possible to do 2 things:

  • Keep any other miners from solving any blocks
  • Choose to unconfirm transactions that occurred in the past by re-mining past blocks (and all blocks after that) after removing the transactions

Note, that doing those two things still fits within the rules of what I said miners are capable of doing (choose which transactions get confirmed).

Now, if you have that power and you send a transaction, you can wait for the transaction to get however many confirmations the receiver demands.  Then you can unconfirm the transaction, and re-send to some other address the same bitcoins that you already sent. Then you can confirm the new transaction in place of the old (now unconfirmed) one.  You can repeat this process as many times as you want, re-spending your bitcoins over and over.

At no time can you create a signature spending someone else's bitcoins unless you have their private key.

Now, what you potentially could do would be to unconfirm the transaction that sent the bitcoins to the government.  Of course, all this would do would be to put the bitcoins back in DPR wallets (and since he's in custody and the government has his private keys, that wouldn't accomplish much).

I suppose you could then unconfirm all transactions that contain unspent outputs to the DPR wallets, essentially putting the bitcoins back in the wallets of the people who sent the bitcoins to DPR, but you'd risk rolling back other outputs as well since a transaction can have more than one output.

Bitcoinpro
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1344
Merit: 1000



View Profile
October 07, 2013, 06:58:31 AM
 #27

Should miners collude to steal funds from wallet confiscated by US government?

are the any other situations where this is encouraged?

Is it still in their  Cheesy

WWW.FACEBOOK.COM

CRYPTOCURRENCY CENTRAL BANK

LTC: LP7bcFENVL9vdmUVea1M6FMyjSmUfsMVYf
DannyHamilton
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 3332
Merit: 4492



View Profile
October 07, 2013, 07:02:36 AM
 #28

and the produce 1008 blocks of a longer length(more and bigger transactions, i.e. proof of work).

You've got most of your understanding pretty good, but the number and size of the transactions in the block don't matter.

You'd just have to go back 1008 blocks and start creating new blocks (you could even have only the coinbase transaction in each block), then you'd have to catch up with the rest of the network and produce one block more than them.  If you had exactly 51% it would take you on average about 50,000 blocks (348 days) to catch up with the rest of the network if you start with a 1008 block deficit, so somewhere around a year from now you'd roll back the entire year.
marcotheminer
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 2072
Merit: 1049


┴puoʎǝq ʞool┴


View Profile
October 07, 2013, 07:10:54 AM
 #29

I think it's all in cold storage by now. I saw some lame-o Forbes article about what the Feds have in mind for the confiscated BTC.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/10/04/fbi-silk-road-bitcoin-seizure

Wait so they will sell them at a very low price?!?
Luno
Sr. Member
****
Offline Offline

Activity: 504
Merit: 250


View Profile
October 07, 2013, 07:11:12 AM
 #30

FBI can steal, seize, buy, use all the coins they want for whatever purpose they see fit!!!


Bitcoin is a currency, if miners start to politicize their hashing power, Bitcoin is no longer money, it becomes a coupon or a wager for hacktivism, political correctness. Not a bad idea, but you can no longer call it a currency.

It's the same as the way banks work now: We do not have any costumer confidentiality, and you funds can be seized without any notice or legal means to fight such a ruling.

So it could be nice if "we" could seize funds based on majority, but that would defy the purpose of Bitcoin.  

 
🏰 TradeFortress 🏰
Bitcoin Veteran
VIP
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1302
Merit: 1042

👻


View Profile
October 07, 2013, 07:11:34 AM
 #31

It isn't possible

There is nothing miners can do to send the bitcoins from that address to anywhere else without first getting EVERY single person using a bitcoin wallet to agree to run a modified wallet that allows the spending of bitcoins without a proper signature.  Nobody with bitcoins and half a brain is going to be dumb enough to run such software since it would put their own bitcoins at risk.

Miners don't have some special magical power that allows them to force nodes to accept invalid blocks into the blockchain no matter how many of them collude.

All of you who are talking about whether or not it *should* be done, need to realize that it can't be done.
It IS possible. If 51% of the miners decided to reject blocks that spends coins from that address, then coins from that address won't confirm
crazy_rabbit
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1204
Merit: 1001


RUM AND CARROTS: A PIRATE LIFE FOR ME


View Profile
October 07, 2013, 07:15:17 AM
 #32

No. The US government seizing a wallet is just fine. The guy who ran SR was stupid and his stupidity cost him those bitcoins. Thats life. Thats money.

more or less retired.
CrazyRabbi
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Activity: 490
Merit: 500


UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT


View Profile
October 07, 2013, 07:17:27 AM
 #33

Where's the I'm a potato choice?

mb300sd
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1260
Merit: 1000

Drunk Posts


View Profile WWW
October 07, 2013, 07:18:08 AM
 #34

No, not steal it.

It would be funny to see all the major pools refuse to include any transactions to/from that address though... make them wait days/weeks for a confirmation

1D7FJWRzeKa4SLmTznd3JpeNU13L1ErEco
smoothie
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 2492
Merit: 1473


LEALANA Bitcoin Grim Reaper


View Profile
October 07, 2013, 07:23:55 AM
 #35

The SR news is going to be an afterthought in the next few weeks. No point.

███████████████████████████████████████

            ,╓p@@███████@╗╖,           
        ,p████████████████████N,       
      d█████████████████████████b     
    d██████████████████████████████æ   
  ,████²█████████████████████████████, 
 ,█████  ╙████████████████████╨  █████y
 ██████    `████████████████`    ██████
║██████       Ñ███████████`      ███████
███████         ╩██████Ñ         ███████
███████    ▐▄     ²██╩     a▌    ███████
╢██████    ▐▓█▄          ▄█▓▌    ███████
 ██████    ▐▓▓▓▓▌,     ▄█▓▓▓▌    ██████─
           ▐▓▓▓▓▓▓█,,▄▓▓▓▓▓▓▌          
           ▐▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▌          
    ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓─  
     ²▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓╩    
        ▀▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▀       
           ²▀▀▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▀▀`          
                   ²²²                 
███████████████████████████████████████

. ★☆ WWW.LEALANA.COM        My PGP fingerprint is A764D833.                  History of Monero development Visualization ★☆ .
LEALANA BITCOIN GRIM REAPER SILVER COINS.
 
DannyHamilton
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 3332
Merit: 4492



View Profile
October 07, 2013, 07:24:35 AM
 #36

It isn't possible

There is nothing miners can do to send the bitcoins from that address to anywhere else without first getting EVERY single person using a bitcoin wallet to agree to run a modified wallet that allows the spending of bitcoins without a proper signature.  Nobody with bitcoins and half a brain is going to be dumb enough to run such software since it would put their own bitcoins at risk.

Miners don't have some special magical power that allows them to force nodes to accept invalid blocks into the blockchain no matter how many of them collude.

All of you who are talking about whether or not it *should* be done, need to realize that it can't be done.
It IS possible. If 51% of the miners decided to reject blocks that spends coins from that address, then coins from that address won't confirm

You are changing the topic.

The IT that is being discussed is miners "colluding to steal funds from wallet confiscated by US government".

That is NOT possible.

The IT you have put forth:

- snip -
coins from that address won't confirm

Does not involve stealing from the wallet, it simply forces the wallet to continue to hold on to the funds indefinitely.

ScatterShot
Newbie
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 8
Merit: 0


View Profile
October 07, 2013, 08:47:52 AM
 #37


.gov might have 0.25% of all bitcoins at the moment. If they get control of the rest of the purported DPR bitcoins they might control 5% of all bitcoins. But so what?

- If they never do anything with those coins then that's equivalent to someone forgetting their password to their encrypted private key = lost bitcoins. The remaining bitcoins are worth more.

- If they wholesale liquidate their bitcoin holdings to fiat, well good riddance. Bitcoins out of control of .gov and back in general holdings/circulation.

- If they try to use their bitcoin holdings to "manipulate the market" to produce instability and promote reduced confidence, well sure they could do that. Might cause a lot of chaos for some time, but the very action of doing so gradually whittles away their holdings by way of miner transaction fees and/or exchange fees. Eventually, the coins go back into general holdings/circulation and out of their hands.

I can't see any scenario where this situation makes any difference in the long run.

I also don't see any evidence that .gov actually has exclusive control of the private key(s) that controls the 27,000 bitcoins. Think about it. Every report about this is consistent with them simply knowing the public address of the 27k coins, nothing more. I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary either in the news or in blockchain activity.

Do they actually have control of the private key(s)? Dunno. Does it make any difference in the long run? As per the above, I don't see how.

Remember that the structure and therefore dynamics of bitcoin is fundamentally different than unbacked, centrally controlled fiat currency. If a chunk of bitcoins is never ever circulated/transacted/exchanged, it is by definition economically irrelevant (save for the boost in value it gives other bitcoins). If it is circulated/transacted/exchanged, then it must eventually be diffused into general circulation simply by virtue of the fact that it can't be forged/debased, and there is a 21M bitcoin hard limit.
johnyj
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1988
Merit: 1007


Beyond Imagination


View Profile
October 07, 2013, 08:52:49 AM
 #38

Don't worry, FBI will order a mass from BFL and set up their own mining pools to transact funds, the government is close to shutdown and they need some extra income Cheesy

kik1977
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Activity: 593
Merit: 505


Wherever I may roam


View Profile
October 07, 2013, 09:08:49 AM
 #39

Possible or not, would you like to give back money to a person whose actions are considered a crime basically in all jurisdictions around the world? I would not..

If your reply is yes, what about future seizures that we will likely see (for different crimes)? Who will judge what must be returned? YOU? Will you tell us on the base of YOUR judgement what is a crime and what is not?

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever
Alpaca Bob
Full Member
***
Offline Offline

Activity: 153
Merit: 100


View Profile
October 07, 2013, 09:13:11 AM
 #40

The day this happens is the day I quit bitcoin.

Glad to hear it's not really possible anyways.

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks
Pages: « 1 [2] 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 »  All
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.19 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!