Double-spends in the wild?

[Shortline]

Has anyone seen a confirmed double spend attack?

Mybitcoin doesn't count.

[1715509324]

1715509324

[jackjack]

No, never

[the founder]

No, never

The Mt. Gox's hack was a double spend attack / create fake bitcoins / crap attack (though internally in their system) 

[SomeoneWeird]

No, never

The Mt. Gox's hack was a double spend attack / create fake bitcoins / crap attack (though internally in their system) 

Wasn't a real double-spend attack.

[elggawf]

Wasn't a real double-spend attack.

Wasn't really a double-spend attack at all - MtGox doesn't give discrete addresses or let the users control them in any way. MtGox was an internal accounting screw up that had zero effect on the security of the protocol as a whole.

[Are-you-a-wizard?]

If I could do it, my son, I would be retired from these forums by now, and in my yacht.

[SomeoneWeird]

Wasn't a real double-spend attack.

Wasn't really a double-spend attack at all - MtGox doesn't give discrete addresses or let the users control them in any way. MtGox was an internal accounting screw up that had zero effect on the security of the protocol as a whole.

Exactly, the 'hack' didn't even touch the network.

[Steve]

I can't say as I've ever seen one...I'm certainly not aware of any (legitimate) reports of someone being robbed by a double spend.  I suspect many people new to bitcoin have attempted a naive double spend attack however (where you open two instances on the same wallet and try to spend at the same time).  I'm not sure if you would want to count that as a double spend attack since it's utterly ineffective if you wait for one confirmation or if you monitor the network for a few seconds after receiving the transaction.

[Tasty Champa]

dude what's the point??

it's old news, it doesn't work, don't be a crook.

[elggawf]

dude what's the point??

it's old news, it doesn't work, don't be a crook.

It would work if someone delivers the non-returnable goods after 0 or 1 confirmations. It gets harder as the amount of confirmations goes up (and even with the slump so far, the Bitcoin network is still powerful enough that it's non-trivial to even do with one confirmation).

It's not that it doesn't work, it's that the payoff is probably not worth the amount of effort required to do it. No one moving a sizable amount of money is going to not wait for confirmations and the longer they choose to wait the harder the attack gets.