Namecoin attack threat - Please withdraw your Namecoins ASAP

[Ruxum]

Due to the credible threat of a pending attack on Namecoin, we are going to close both Namecoin withdraws/deposit AND trading soon.  

The attack threat is to re-write the blockchain back to block 10,000.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=43465.0

All Namecoin traders on Ruxum need to withdraw all of your coins from Ruxum as soon as possible.  

We will be closing Namecoin trading and withdraw on Friday September 16, 2011 at 00:01  OR Namecoin block 19000, whichever comes sooner.

Please withdraw your Namecoin as soon as possible as we can not be responsible for Namecoins not withdrawn before the above deadline due to the nature of the threatened pending attack on Namecoin.  

Namecoin trading, deposits and withdraw is fully operational before the deadline.  Bitcoin trading, deposit and withdraw is not affected in any way.

We do not yet know if we will re-open Namecoin trading.

Thank you for your understanding.

UPDATE: Thurs Sept 15, 9:30pm EST
- It appears that the NMC blockchain has been forked.  Both Bitparking and Ruxum have agreed to support the original blockchain with merged mining scheduled to start at 19200.
- NMC withdraw and deposit will close in 6 hours from now.   We don't know when deposit and withdraw will open again so if you need your coins, please withdraw asap.
- NMC trading at Ruxum will remain open for the time being.
- For a fully operational exchange, we will require a fix for the time travel exploit + smooth transition to merged mining past block 19200. 
- We are suggesting the NMC project provide a mandatory 0.63 release with these upgrades and other known exploits and that the time travel fix takes place also at 19200.

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[casascius]

get merged mining jumpstarted and solicit help from pools without requiring them to abandon their likely custom bitcoind....that should thwart this...

if the only change needed to bitcoind were to paste in a patch for "putwork" (to supply bitcoind with the 32-byte namecoin merkle root) and recompile, I can't imagine a technical reason why they'd shun it.

[Bobnova]

Block 19100 is the start of the The Namecoin Security Test.

This gives everyone about 10 days to work it out. I would love nothing more than to see the Namecoin leadership successfully thwart this.
I would suggest some rapid client updating the difficulty, fixing the time stamp exploits and potential license mining.

The only way now you will defeat this with hash power is to get BTC, Deepbit or another pool to rescue you.

The purpose of this is information and research only. The "Skynet" Test pool will go online hopefully by tomorrow. We are generating certificates for secure access while building the pool. Currently we are at nearly 1 Tera Hash in committed miners. I am absolutely shocked at what started out as a solo project has grown into this mass effort.

In the end this will benefit Bitcoin.

Withdrawing namecoins serves absolutely no purpose if the past 9000 blocks worth of transactions (including those withdrawing namecoins) cease to exist.
Were I an exchange I would be seriously pissed off, they've paid BTC and real USD for coins that are about to cease to exist.

If you honestly wanted to benefit bitcoin you could make your own fork identical to it, and 51% attack yourself.
Then nobody looses money and you don't murder a currency.

[Maged]

Currently we are at nearly 1 Tera Hash in committed miners.

Bullshit. Remind me, why are we even listening to this troll?

[Bobnova]

Boredom?

[Cosbycoin]

Currently we are at nearly 1 Tera Hash in committed miners.

Bullshit. Remind me, why are we even listening to this troll?

Because it isn't bullshit, we've demonstrated it.
Troll, an over used adjective that translates into anyone making a statement that someone disagrees with.
Do you think DoubleC or Ruxum are are run by people that don't know what they are doing?

Can you explain the 20,000 block generation in 73 minutes on Geist Geld, I think not, but I can. It wasn't my creation, it was ArtForz, we simply ran with it.

Block 19102 will be the point truth now won't it?

Wow someone is definitely getting cocky and arrogant.

[CoinHunter]

The fact these "hackers" are allowed to post here even though some of them have already caused monetary loss to others is surprising. By helping facilitate people known to have done such things the forum owners themselves could be liable for damages. And I'd advise anyone affected to date by such things to look into it.

[kjlimo]

The fact these "hackers" are allowed to post here even though some of them have already caused monetary loss to others is surprising. By helping facilitate people known to have done such things the forum owners themselves could be liable for damages. And I'd advise anyone affected to date by such things to look into it.

... says CoinHunter?  I'd recommend posting thoughts of this nature under a new name... heh

[FlipPro]

The fact these "hackers" are allowed to post here even though some of them have already caused monetary loss to others is surprising. By helping facilitate people known to have done such things the forum owners themselves could be liable for damages. And I'd advise anyone affected to date by such things to look into it.

... says CoinHunter?  I'd recommend posting thoughts of this nature under a new name... heh

Coinhunter (like him or not) has been pretty consistent with his personality/results from the start.

[Cosbycoin]

The fact these "hackers" are allowed to post here even though some of them have already caused monetary loss to others is surprising. By helping facilitate people known to have done such things the forum owners themselves could be liable for damages. And I'd advise anyone affected to date by such things to look into it.

... says CoinHunter?  I'd recommend posting thoughts of this nature under a new name... heh

Coinhunter (like him or not) has been pretty consistent with his personality/results from the start.

+1 Yes he has. BitcoinEXpress has flip flopped on his claimed motives for his actions.

[casascius]

I have backed up the Namecoin block chain and have shut down my namecoind.

If this attack succeeds, I assume that it can be reversed by patching namecoind to reject this new chain.

This attack would be a non-issue if we were already doing merged mining.

[Cosbycoin]

I have backed up the Namecoin block chain and have shut down my namecoind.

If this attack succeeds, I assume that it can be reversed by patching namecoind to reject this new chain.

This attack would be a non-issue if we were already doing merged mining.

Good point. If we all choose to not use his forked namecoin chain then he can go play with himself and his pointless namecoins and register himself domains forever and ever so he can visit them by himself.

[gusti]

I have backed up the Namecoin block chain and have shut down my namecoind.

If this attack succeeds, I assume that it can be reversed by patching namecoind to reject this new chain.

This attack would be a non-issue if we were already doing merged mining.

can this or similar countermeasure be automatically deployed in case of attack ?

[Cosbycoin]

I have backed up the Namecoin block chain and have shut down my namecoind.

If this attack succeeds, I assume that it can be reversed by patching namecoind to reject this new chain.

This attack would be a non-issue if we were already doing merged mining.

can this or similar countermeasure be automatically deployed in case of attack ?

Because of the nature of the attack I think this has to be a manual effort. I could be wrong.

[gusti]

I have backed up the Namecoin block chain and have shut down my namecoind.

If this attack succeeds, I assume that it can be reversed by patching namecoind to reject this new chain.

This attack would be a non-issue if we were already doing merged mining.

can this or similar countermeasure be automatically deployed in case of attack ?

Because of the nature of the attack I think this has to be a manual effort. I could be wrong.

not so bad if a massive attack on the bitcoin blockchain can be reversed by patching and upgrading all the clients

[Maged]

Currently we are at nearly 1 Tera Hash in committed miners.

Bullshit. Remind me, why are we even listening to this troll?

Because it isn't bullshit, we've demonstrated it.
Troll, an over used adjective that translates into anyone making a statement that someone disagrees with.
Do you think DoubleC or Ruxum are are run by people that don't know what they are doing?

Can you explain the 20,000 block generation in 73 minutes on Geist Geld, I think not, but I can. It wasn't my creation, it was ArtForz, we simply ran with it.

Block 19102 will be the point truth now won't it?

Let me put it this way: You're saying that you have more hashing power than every pool other than Deepbit, btcguild, and Slush. Additionally, that's without having even advertised your rouge pool on this forum.

Please tell me how you actually expect us to believe that.

[Tomatocage]

Let me put it this way: You're saying that you have more hashing power than every pool other than Deepbit, btcguild, and Slush. Additionally, that's without having even advertised your rouge pool on this forum.

Please tell me how you actually expect us to believe that.

He says he works at Apple, and if that's the case, especially if he works in a HW lab, he has access to a TON of equipment.  Can you corroborate his IP with that of Apple Inc?  It would be a shame if he were wasting valuable corporate resources and/or time on either coordinating an attack or browsing these forums on company time.

Anybody down for a social attack on BitcoinEXpress, just for the lulz?  I mean, it'd be for his own good anyway so he can better protect himself in the future.

[Cosbycoin]

Let me put it this way: You're saying that you have more hashing power than every pool other than Deepbit, btcguild, and Slush. Additionally, that's without having even advertised your rouge pool on this forum.

Please tell me how you actually expect us to believe that.

He says he works at Apple, and if that's the case, especially if he works in a HW lab, he has access to a TON of equipment.  Can you corroborate his IP with that of Apple Inc?  It would be a shame if he were wasting valuable corporate resources and/or time on either coordinating an attack or browsing these forums on company time.

Anybody down for a social attack on BitcoinEXpress, just for the lulz?  I mean, it'd be for his own good anyway so he can better protect himself in the future.

I'm down. What city did he say he worked in? I know it was one outside the United States.

[paraipan]

Let me put it this way: You're saying that you have more hashing power than every pool other than Deepbit, btcguild, and Slush. Additionally, that's without having even advertised your rouge pool on this forum.

Please tell me how you actually expect us to believe that.

He says he works at Apple, and if that's the case, especially if he works in a HW lab, he has access to a TON of equipment.  Can you corroborate his IP with that of Apple Inc?  It would be a shame if he were wasting valuable corporate resources and/or time on either coordinating an attack or browsing these forums on company time.

Anybody down for a social attack on BitcoinEXpress, just for the lulz?  I mean, it'd be for his own good anyway so he can better protect himself in the future.

I'm down. What city did he say he worked in? I know it was one outside the United States.

i think you should leave aside personal attacks and thanks these guys for making it public, they even gave some time to take measures

just make sure you keep your node running with the original blockchain in place, the fork will not be accepted by default, and stop transacting any coins. Please read up some more on the bitcoin protocol

@viperjbm man you have time to write those long posts and don't dedicate some to educate yourself into how blockchains work

[MrWizard]

Let me put it this way: You're saying that you have more hashing power than every pool other than Deepbit, btcguild, and Slush. Additionally, that's without having even advertised your rouge pool on this forum.

Please tell me how you actually expect us to believe that.

Maybe because he is lying and pulling a war of the worlds style attack on the cryptocurrency community?  Can he do it?  I have no doubt that he can, does he have a legitimate Terrahash to throw at it? Doubtful unless he has some of those pools backing him.  The one thing I think he has proved is how fickle and two faced the community is, I mean when Artforz attacked Solidcoin he is treated like some champion saint, but when BTCExpress mentions he is going to attack Namecoin you are all up in arms...  maybe I'm dumb but it doesn't make sense to me?...

You all really need to get your heads on straight and learn to have some integrity and principles.  There is really no difference in this case vs. what Artforz did, now the next half dozen posts will probably try to argue otherwise but I guarantee they will be based off the same false logic.

Both would be malicious attacks on a valid production cryptocurrency - scope does not matter, delusions of what constitutes a valid co-currency are also a non-issue.
Both could have been performed in isolated test networks but both would have been done "to prove a point" or worse in Artforz's case out of vengeance - In neither case did anyone have to harm the integrity of a live system hurting unknown numbers of innocent bystanders to "prove their points"
In both cases the malicious offenders don't really understand what they are doing - Artforz didn't realize he would crash people's nodes, BTCExpress has no clue what side ramifications this will have if he really does pull it off.

At best BTCExpress is trying to save namecoin by getting a bunch of miners who wouldn't have otherwise mined namecoin to help them out of charity to get to the point where merged mining will kick in, and for that I think he is probably doing a SPECTACULAR job.  At worst he is getting a chuckle out of the War of the Worlds scare he has brought onto the whole community.

Am I going to say he won't do it?  Well no that would be dumb, people need to protect their selves... am I suggesting that it likely won't happen, in my opinion that is correct.

I too feel it is a war of words.  I don't think he has 1TB hash or even 60G hash.  But you never know.  In one post of his that I read he mentions he has 1 GB of hash power...