GHash.IO and double-spending against BetCoin Dice

[kano]

lets get to the bottom line here, it is not about BetCoin failure, we all agree on that, the whole thing is about someone holding 24% of the network hash power and using this position with bad attention.

I'm not sure it's that simple.
BetCoin Dice is currently* a DDoS attack against Bitcoin. GHash.IO's actions here could be construed as a kind of self-defence.

* BetCoin has indicated they will correct this problem eventually.

Lulz - Mr "I've used my pool to attack an alt-coin" defending a pool doing a double spend.

Luke doesn't like SD betting sites and has 3 times now attempted to block them:
1) His "special I can't tell anyone mining on my pool" rules for excluding transactions long ago on his pool
2) The "dust" changes to bitcoind to block SD confirms
3) Address reuse being blocked as a so called bad thing for bitcoin which will of course stop SD type sites from functioning

... and here giving excuses for a pool to attempt double spends.

I'd love to see his reaction if the one losing due to the double spend was himself.
That would be absolutely hysterical.

I really don't follow why anyone wouldn't see the stupidity of this guy basically saying things like bitcoin can't handle transactions, so lets block them.

Luke there's a reason you got voted last in the Bitcoin Foundation election (and got way less votes than anyone else) and that's coz you do crap like this and have been doing it for a very long time.
Jesus doesn't love you, you won't burn in hell coz God doesn't exist and you really better stop believing those voices you hear that say "everything you do is correct coz God loves you"
(that's the sort of thing catholic priests think as they rape altar boys)

[soy]

Can someone explain this to me like a 5yr old please

Sure. Imagine 3 sisters (let's call them the Potters).

Annie owns 1 doll.  Sally owns 1 doll.  Jane owns no dolls.

Now of course, doll ownership in the Potter household is only as good as to when Annie, Sally, Jane, Mom and Dad agrees to who owns what. Annie can't just take Sally's doll, as everyone knows it's not hers and will just restore rightful ownership.


However, Annie comes up with a plan. She makes a bet with Sally at school. She rolls a dice, with the terms that if Sally wins Sally would get Annie's doll when they get home. If Annie wins, she would get Sally's doll.

Let's say Sally is honest but Annie is not. The roll the dice. If Annie happens to win, Sally gives her the doll. They're both happy... well, except for Sally - but they're in agreement at least.

However, if Annie happens to lose, she quickly goes running to Jane and say: "Hey Jane, remember that doll that I have, I can trade it to you for your bottle of Corona". Jane says ok, so then they phone up mom and dad, and say: "Hey mom, Annie's doll now belongs to Jane, and Jane's Corona now belongs to Annie".  Mom and Dad says ok, so now Annie's doll now belongs to Jane, and Annie starts her long journey of Corona addiction that ends with her turning tricks on Hollywood Boulevard until one very unfortunate night with Gary Busey... but more about that at another time.

Meanwhile, Sally gets home and finds that she's not getting Annie's doll. Since everybody else now thinks that Annie doesn't have a doll anymore, and it now belongs to Jane. Sally can complain like she wants, but mom and dad doesn't understand why Sally would make a bet with Annie against a doll that really belongs to Jane. Of course, in real life Sally would now beat up Annie with a baseball bet, which is why a stunt like this works better in BitCoin land than in Vegas (well, except if you cross DPR.).

amazing story hahahaha, you should just add that Annie is Ghash.io and Sally is BetCoin and the parents are the Bitcoin protocol which leaves Jane that I cant put anywhere.

Look at it this way.  It's a simile.  Look at Sally as the FBI, the parents are the DOJ, Annie is the Senate Banking Committee, Jane is Senator Dodd as Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, interest free loans to Senator Dodd are like you owe a favor to the mafia, and the Chair of the Senate Banking committee taking interest free loans that he may not even have to pay back is like the mafia having the director of the FBI in their pocket if the FBI is to the DOJ as the Senate Banking Committee Chair is to the Senate and the banking system as a whole.  I hope I made this clear.

[kuzetsa]

Can someone explain this to me like a 5yr old please

Sure. Imagine 3 sisters (let's call them the Potters).

Annie owns 1 doll.  Sally owns 1 doll.  Jane owns no dolls.

Now of course, doll ownership in the Potter household is only as good as to when Annie, Sally, Jane, Mom and Dad agrees to who owns what. Annie can't just take Sally's doll, as everyone knows it's not hers and will just restore rightful ownership.


However, Annie comes up with a plan. She makes a bet with Sally at school. She rolls a dice, with the terms that if Sally wins Sally would get Annie's doll when they get home. If Annie wins, she would get Sally's doll.

Let's say Sally is honest but Annie is not. The roll the dice. If Annie happens to win, Sally gives her the doll. They're both happy... well, except for Sally - but they're in agreement at least.

However, if Annie happens to lose, she quickly goes running to Jane and say: "Hey Jane, remember that doll that I have, I can trade it to you for your bottle of Corona". Jane says ok, so then they phone up mom and dad, and say: "Hey mom, Annie's doll now belongs to Jane, and Jane's Corona now belongs to Annie".  Mom and Dad says ok, so now Annie's doll now belongs to Jane, and Annie starts her long journey of Corona addiction that ends with her turning tricks on Hollywood Boulevard until one very unfortunate night with Gary Busey... but more about that at another time.

Meanwhile, Sally gets home and finds that she's not getting Annie's doll. Since everybody else now thinks that Annie doesn't have a doll anymore, and it now belongs to Jane. Sally can complain like she wants, but mom and dad doesn't understand why Sally would make a bet with Annie against a doll that really belongs to Jane. Of course, in real life Sally would now beat up Annie with a baseball bet, which is why a stunt like this works better in BitCoin land than in Vegas (well, except if you cross DPR.).

amazing story hahahaha, you should just add that Annie is Ghash.io and Sally is BetCoin and the parents are the Bitcoin protocol which leaves Jane that I cant put anywhere.

Look at it this way.  It's a simile.  Look at Sally as the FBI, the parents are the DOJ, Annie is the Senate Banking Committee, Jane is Senator Dodd as Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, interest free loans to Senator Dodd are like you owe a favor to the mafia, and the Chair of the Senate Banking committee taking interest free loans that he may not even have to pay back is like the mafia having the director of the FBI in their pocket if the FBI is to the DOJ as the Senate Banking Committee Chair is to the Senate and the banking system as a whole.  I hope I made this clear.

O_O

I don't get it / I'm so confused by all that.

What was that story about? Are ya'll talking in code or something?

Either you're making a really strange metaphor or... are you saying this double-spend had specific named parties involved and the united states FBI and DOJ involved?

[IYFTech]

 

It was a metaphor dude.

This was one con that, surprisingly, the CIA, FBI, DOJ, DHS, IRS or any other stasi type outfit had nothing to do with. It was a con solely perpetrated by Ghash/CEX.IO - pure & simple.

[deroyale]

So could the entire operation be a scam?

As interesting as making a market for mining power is...   could the entire thing be one BIG con?

They hold all the mining equipment and the entire market cap of the GHS/BTC pair, correct?

What is stopping them from 'pulling the plug' on the whole thing - taking everyone's BTC and mining power with them?

Please correct me if I'm wrong...

[nibor]

Also every possibility that it is a ponzi scheme?
Is a great business for being a Ponzi. Pretend you have hashing power on Ghash.io.
Get money up front, payout with the money coming in. And disappear at the point it starts going wrong.
Only cost is a web site - and some way to convince Ghash.io not to speak out (that is the one bit that does not make sense).



You can download the directors names/address from:
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk//wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo
for free - just enter the company number - 08757996.
Both directors are Ukranian, and have same surname.
And personal address looks odd. In that from google streetview looks like a house but address looks like an accountants (which is now allowed in the UK).

Also birthdays look odd in that they are 4 months apart - so guess cousins?

Could not read name on company address - will walk past tomorrow! But looked like an accountant or similar.

[Andrey]

You can download the directors names/address from:
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk//wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo
for free - just enter the company number - 08757996.
Both directors are Ukranian, and have same surname.
And personal address looks odd. In that from google streetview looks like a house but address looks like an accountants (which is now allowed in the UK).

Also birthdays look odd in that they are 4 months apart - so guess cousins?

Thank you. And Oleksandr isn't surname, that's first name, its Alexander wrote in translit and in Ukrainian dialect of Russian language

[Bitcoin Oz]

which is to be commended

I haven't seen anything to commend except their business savvy:

Hashrate on their service is >2x more expensive than actually buying the hardware— more like 10x the price of stuff still in pre-order, and will never make a profit at those prices according to the calculator on their site. By doing so they centralize mining and create a moral hazard with apparent results like the one's we've seen here.

That's if they even have any hardware. You can never really tell with these services if they actually own any mining gear or not.

[MikeyVeez]

lets get to the bottom line here, it is not about BetCoin failure, we all agree on that, the whole thing is about someone holding 24% of the network hash power and using this position with bad attention.

it worries me when they get close to 51%, then the question is if they are doing it now, what will they do with 51% and that what matters to me at this point.

what the cumunity can do about it, I guess nothing, they are a private pool , they will be adding more and more power this is no question, in the classic case, miners can always switch to other pools when they feel the threat but what is the solution when some big private pool does this.

How is this not about Bitcoins failure? Bitcoins flawed system allowed for this to happen.

[Voodah]

Oh wow. This is a mess.

Something needs to be done.

They are the biggest pool right now at 29%.

https://blockchain.info/pools

[MikeyVeez]

Oh wow. This is a mess.

Something needs to be done.

They are the biggest pool right now at 29%.

https://blockchain.info/pools

Don't worry it's not Bitcoins fault, it's just it's shitty design that will collapse upon itself. Maybe Gavin should of worked on this along with other architecture issues instead of the wonderful useless update.

[kr105]

basically saying things like bitcoin can't handle transactions, so lets block them.

I agree with this. This shouldn't be blocked nor discouraged. If this is causing problems to the Bitcoin network, then, fix them! It is like an app that crash when you click on a button and the developer place a text below the button that reads "Clicking this button is not good for the app" instead of just fixing the f***ing code. I know that on this case it may not be easy, but don't try to ignore what sooner or later will happen anyway.

[AussieHash]

in the KnC thread with eligius' recent trouble, posters were flocking to ghash because of their 0% fee.

In fact ghash is highly unreliable (consistently 1-4% block reject rate) with 3 rejects out of their past 100, and 7 hashrate fall episodes of between 500TH - 2000TH in their last 100 blocks

On the other hand, btcguild has a 3% fee, consistently has 5-week-average luck of 103%+/-0.5, has a low orphan rate <1%, has close to 100% uptime, and pays out orphan blocks to miners.

Btcguild has also had a higher luck than ghash.io for every published week (since ghash started sharing stats with organofcorti) despite the fact

The "luck" calculation is based on the number of shares per solved block - not shares per block accepted by the network

according to OOC

[Voodah]

So we have what Satoshi and everyone else warned exactly as the thing that should not happen.

The majority pool is dishonest.

This whole experiment can go sour pretty pretty fast.

[PatMan]

I genuinely fear for everyone who's throwing their coins into this outfit, thinking their going to make a profit. Still, when the sh*t hits the fan - which it will - nobody can say they weren't warned......

[Fabrizio89]

And we can't do anything about this?

[mmitech]

And we can't do anything about this?

If you are a multi-millionaire you can do something about it, just buy and setup the same power of GHasg.IO so you will balance the network......

[luqash3]

mmitech I thought bitcoin was initially set up not for gambling or volatility but to protect hard earned money of investors which was losing its worth due to lose monetary policies of Central banks worldwide. Now everything has turned into a gamble either its stock market, forex market, futures market or bitcoins. I am really tired of short term investors

[mmitech]

mmitech I thought bitcoin was initially set up not for gambling or volatility but to protect hard earned money of investors which was losing its worth due to lose monetary policies of Central banks worldwide. Now everything has turned into a gamble either its stock market, forex market, futures market or bitcoins. I am really tired of short term investors

bitcoin is not a short term investment, on every stock market there is the temporary riders that jumps in and out collecting some profits but the long term strategy always win... if you knew about bitcoin 2009 and if you would invest only $100 into bitcoin you would be a multi-millionaire today.

the network security is something else, and this is what we are discussing in this thread, you have GHash.IO constantly adding power you also have BTCguild with the same amount of power






what I don't understand is how miners keep joining BTCguild when they have many other pools with lower hashrate, some even join the private pool GHash.IO !!!!

[AussieHash]

http://mentaso.com/bitcoin-news/cex-part-2-the-hacked-account-and-children-playing-grownups.html