Network Attack on XVG / VERGE

[karasuri]

sharing this from grant hunter.... worth the read.

The exploit itself is very smart. The attacker has used the flaws in Verge’s code to put an older timestamp on their fake blocks to trick the network into thinking that the fake chain is the real one, by having this broadcast to over 51% of the nodes. They have gained consensus, effectively taking control of the XVG chain. This has meant that the ‘real’ blocks being mined by legitimate miners, are seen as the false ones, and therefore are ignored (orphaned).

The reason why trading is still possible, is because the ‘fake’ chain is still verifying transactions so people can still trade the coin, however, the attacker is adding extra blocks and making extra free XVG for themselves.

No matter how much they try to PR spin their way around this, if what you say is true and the attacker basically gained control of the blockchain to the point they are printing and trading coins by themselves and for themselves, XVG as it is now is ruined. Instead of being so incredibly arrogant, the dev(s) should've shut it down until they could hardfork.

Great write up summing the course of events, it should be posted other places for visibility. As you well say, people oughta get as informed as they can be.

I hope they do it, because in this situation there is no other way.

[LinuxDude]

Thank you for the long and detailed post.
You know what? I am calling the verge team thieves. They are stealing xvgs and no one else whosoever!!!!!  They can do what ocminer advised but they have closed their fucking ears. Do they have ears? I highly doubt. I didn't do enough research. But I didn't lose much money. I just only lost hope.
Fuck them. They will burn in hell with their loots.

I understand your frustration. But calling them names or cursing them will change nothing unfortunately. What you see here might as well have nothing to do with them having closed their ears. It could be that they just plainly don't understand the code so they are incapable of providing a fix. Months ago, when I did my research on Verge looking at the source code I realised that the lead dev is at most a Junior dev that lacks the experience to provide any high quality complex code. This has been proven so many times by their "accidental" mistakes or the copy/pastes that include bugs of others.. Any rants/vents I had, went immediately away. There was no point in venting at a fish because it will not fly.. Its incapable of doing this in the first place..

Take the whole thing as a lesson. An experience to make us smarter in researching and making our choices.

Calling a dev a junior only because uses part of code from others dev makes you the junior here.

I'm a dev too and I honestly do the same to release something faster. If you understand what other devs have done in their code is legit to use it (under proper licence).

Such a person is a retard, and not a developer at all! To illustrate what has happened.

- The retard Verge dude "justinvforvendetta" used the browser !!!THE BROWSER!!! to modify the !!!MAIN BRANCH!!! !!!WITHOUT TESTING!!! !!!OF A MULTI BILLION!!! project.
- That code that the retard Verge dude changes was copy and paste, he failed to do some basic math, really really basic math.

Please do not insult junior developers, by comparing such to the verge retard.

-> My post is in general, not on what the person I quoted wrote. But in general, the verge retard with the nick justinvforvendetta shall not be called a developer, not even a junior dev.

Resorted to name calling like a child. You're pathetic. Grow up dude.

[Ragnarok553]

Wish people in crypto would stop treating everything like it's their favorite sports team. And that goes for both sides.
It's ridiculous to me that people are legitimately upset the price isn't dumping over this. But also we can't act like nothing happened either, It's a serious issue.


Shit happens, it will be fixed when it's fixed. Whether or not it was handled properly or maturely is up for debate (not a debate I want to participate in).
It's really not the end of the world, if you do or don't want to support the coin anymore that's up to everyone's individual discretion.

Good luck to the holders, pools, and devs, and hopefully everything works out in the best possible way for everyone.

[stronghandsdeeppockets]

Thank you for the long and detailed post.
You know what? I am calling the verge team thieves. They are stealing xvgs and no one else whosoever!!!!!  They can do what ocminer advised but they have closed their fucking ears. Do they have ears? I highly doubt. I didn't do enough research. But I didn't lose much money. I just only lost hope.
Fuck them. They will burn in hell with their loots.

I understand your frustration. But calling them names or cursing them will change nothing unfortunately. What you see here might as well have nothing to do with them having closed their ears. It could be that they just plainly don't understand the code so they are incapable of providing a fix. Months ago, when I did my research on Verge looking at the source code I realised that the lead dev is at most a Junior dev that lacks the experience to provide any high quality complex code. This has been proven so many times by their "accidental" mistakes or the copy/pastes that include bugs of others.. Any rants/vents I had, went immediately away. There was no point in venting at a fish because it will not fly.. Its incapable of doing this in the first place..

Take the whole thing as a lesson. An experience to make us smarter in researching and making our choices.

Calling a dev a junior only because uses part of code from others dev makes you the junior here.

I'm a dev too and I honestly do the same to release something faster. If you understand what other devs have done in their code is legit to use it (under proper licence).

Such a person is a retard, and not a developer at all! To illustrate what has happened.

- The retard Verge dude "justinvforvendetta" used the browser !!!THE BROWSER!!! to modify the !!!MAIN BRANCH!!! !!!WITHOUT TESTING!!! !!!OF A MULTI BILLION!!! project.
- That code that the retard Verge dude changes was copy and paste, he failed to do some basic math, really really basic math.

Please do not insult junior developers, by comparing such to the verge retard.

-> My post is in general, not on what the person I quoted wrote. But in general, the verge retard with the nick justinvforvendetta shall not be called a developer, not even a junior dev.

Resorted to name calling like a child. You're pathetic. Grow up dude.

fuck off linuxdude, you only created this account to shill another shitcoin of yours.

"So true... These guys just want nothing more then to try to take down XVG. Pretty sad!"

If you have a handicap let me know, I wouldn't want to insult a person with issues.

[retlaw04]

The course was not badly damaged. Why is that?

[Slemicek]

The course was not badly damaged. Why is that?

Mysterious partnership. What else. Just hardfork this ,act like nothing happened and keep hyping until 17th April.

[Merratzz]

pool up and ready for fork @2040000

https://xvg.mastermining.net

[oldcoinguru]

Inside job that's why nothing is being fixed.  Pretty obvious what's going on.

[Febo]

Thank you for the long and detailed post.
You know what? I am calling the verge team thieves. They are stealing xvgs and no one else whosoever!!!!!  They can do what ocminer advised but they have closed their fucking ears. Do they have ears? I highly doubt. I didn't do enough research. But I didn't lose much money. I just only lost hope.
Fuck them. They will burn in hell with their loots.

I understand your frustration. But calling them names or cursing them will change nothing unfortunately. What you see here might as well have nothing to do with them having closed their ears. It could be that they just plainly don't understand the code so they are incapable of providing a fix. Months ago, when I did my research on Verge looking at the source code I realised that the lead dev is at most a Junior dev that lacks the experience to provide any high quality complex code. This has been proven so many times by their "accidental" mistakes or the copy/pastes that include bugs of others.. Any rants/vents I had, went immediately away. There was no point in venting at a fish because it will not fly.. Its incapable of doing this in the first place..

Take the whole thing as a lesson. An experience to make us smarter in researching and making our choices.

Calling a dev a junior only because uses part of code from others dev makes you the junior here.

I'm a dev too and I honestly do the same to release something faster. If you understand what other devs have done in their code is legit to use it (under proper licence).

Such a person is a retard, and not a developer at all! To illustrate what has happened.

- The retard Verge dude "justinvforvendetta" used the browser !!!THE BROWSER!!! to modify the !!!MAIN BRANCH!!! !!!WITHOUT TESTING!!! !!!OF A MULTI BILLION!!! project.
- That code that the retard Verge dude changes was copy and paste, he failed to do some basic math, really really basic math.

Please do not insult junior developers, by comparing such to the verge retard.

-> My post is in general, not on what the person I quoted wrote. But in general, the verge retard with the nick justinvforvendetta shall not be called a developer, not even a junior dev.

Resorted to name calling like a child. You're pathetic. Grow up dude.

Budy. Do you know how much money is $873 millions?   That is how much all Verge is worth. That is like 1/10 of Huawei worth.    They are just making fun of people that gave them their money. Totally irresponsible.

[Premiermine]

After many hours it seems that our pool has returned to synchronize entire blockchain, mining works again, we will see what happens now with the fork.

[whitefire990]

I have been a long time Verge supporter, and although I am disappointed at how this was handled, I will say:

(1) I believe this was an organization, not an individual, that made the attack
(2) I believe this attack is related to the deal of the century
(3) I believe the attack would not have occurred if the deal of the century were fake
(4) If the deal of the century still happens, you can be sure that whatever this big company is, they will go through the Verge code on every detail with their own developers and so any incompetency on the Verge team may be irrelevant

So, they (Verge & the deal-of-the-century) could still end up being a success despite this recent hiccup.

[boxalex]

Any news or updates?

I left 1 baikal mining XVG on Myriad Groestl since 2 hours to see how things are going and what is going to happen.

While its mining Verge after 2 hours i do not see any confirmed balance/payout/transactions.

As well the average $ output showed by my Miner program the last 2 hours was ok and in range, but since about 5 mintues its up to 44-48 USD for that Baikal which seems a bit high to me.

Just sharing ...

[SurfCityCom]

This will be my last dealing with XVG. I don't like to get cheated and blamed. As a miner myself I care for what I mine and I care for others as well - you can take it or leave it.

Rest assured there will be lots of pools you can still mine on, no problem at all will occur.


Also Congratulations to the Hacker - you've chosen the right coin for your hack (which was invented in 2014 btw:)) - don't buy too many Lambos with your > 20M Verge... so what.. About 1 Million $ now ?

As a miner with 7 rigs going on SuperNova I am VERY appreciative to ocminer!  You not only watched out for us, but gave this shit coin too many chances.  Forget all of the other noise and hate, just speaking out and letting us know is appreciated.

[boxalex]

I have been a long time Verge supporter, and although I am disappointed at how this was handled, I will say:

(1) I believe this was an organization, not an individual, that made the attack
(2) I believe this attack is related to the deal of the century
(3) I believe the attack would not have occurred if the deal of the century were fake
(4) If the deal of the century still happens, you can be sure that whatever this big company is, they will go through the Verge code on every detail with their own developers and so any incompetency on the Verge team may be irrelevant

So, they (Verge & the deal-of-the-century) could still end up being a success despite this recent hiccup.

It could be exactly as you said. Someone can find for sure about 1001 possible scenarios for it.

How about one of the worst scenarios that could make as much sense as your scenario:
(1) It could be an inside job with intention for a.) Make extra Verge for the company pocket and/or  b.) Make sure the deposit on the exchanges are closed (like the current state).
(2) It is of course related to the "deal of the century", just in the worst scenario it is a fake deal of the century or even none. A hack would be a good excuse for saying later the partner left the ship.
(3) As said, it could be even the reason that the hack is even for that, see point (2), as an answer to your point (3)
(4) Prices will go up until "mega deal date", but if the exchanges will NOT allow deposits, i guess the price will go even further up until we are 1 hour away from the release of the mega partner. Maybe some
75.000.000 are allready on an exchange just waiting for a really good price? What are you going to do if the prices skyrocks but you are not able to deposit your XVG to any exchange?

I'am in no way suggesting and even thinking this will be the case. Just made an "anti-scenario-example" to whitfire990. While even in crypto world everything is possiblei hope the new partner is real and they make it, be it even not really deserved, but why not, it would be good for any other good coin as well.

[MSXTurboR]

In my view we have have two global aspects: technical ones and 'market related' ones. Of course they are interdependent, but I think is good to rationalize them separatedly.

Usually 'markets' are paranoid and neurotic entities, overeacting both good and bad news. That been sad, is always good to remember all players with 'skins in the game' in this situation, like everybody involved in this project, including Tokenpay. It makes no sense to think about 'exit scam', or 'manipulation' (as this fork was a 'excuse' to future bad news (no deal) (if that was the case, thing would have been treatead diferently). Verge team looks like they are doing their best, and there is no project (especially software project) that happens without some major upgrades/fixes.

Regarding the techinical issues I can not evaluate, but as I user I didn't had any problems. Despite this I aprecciate all community devs efforts to improve the project code and also comunications process with responsible dev, with contributive effort and positive atitude. Unfortunly, some posts I read look like predators rounding a possible failure, I don't understand why?

So my view is not look at neurotic and paranoid talks (=lose money), and wait for the project grow. All blockchain are in they infacy, many projetcs did not have even a working product, and Verge has a huge valuation potential at this price, as it is more mature than some blockchains.

Verge has its characteristc regarding privacy, maybe not total obfuscation (if that is the case) is more prone to comercial use.

Focus on the fix and on 17th!

(sorry for bad english)

[aciddude]

Inside job that's why nothing is being fixed.  Pretty obvious what's going on.

it's looking more and more like this. 

[mesavoida]

I got kicked out of the Verge community because I started helping the Shield XSH team on the side while being the lead for tech support for XVG.

I'm very disappointed with Justin. He refused to reimburse miners because of the Dec 25 commit pushed to master that caused at least 2 mining pools to lose millions. Now the same mining pools have lost a modest amount from 3 hours of orphaned blocks, however, I bet he won't pay them either. Should just proactively pay all of the mining pools without being asked.

[Gdecessus]

So the big partnership will be with a great miner that managed to mine over 80 mil XVG in a day 

[nrg_wolf]

So the big partnership will be with a great miner that managed to mine over 80 mil XVG in a day 

so wrong lol.... please go back and re-read to get more accurate info.

[Zepp74]

The attack still must be going on. There are still a ton of orphaned blocks right now on Yiimp.