Fairbrix fiasco

[michaelmclees]

As those of you who keep an eye on this thread know, I recently led a Tenebrix spinoff, Fairbrix, project.  There is likely some confusion as to what happened.

First, I would like to make clear that I am not a programmer.  I don't understand much of what is involved in the creating of Bitcoin-style cryptocurrencies.  That said, there were a few people who helped me along the way, doing most of the work, if I'm honest.  As far as I'm concerned, none of them intentionally misprogrammed anything or attempted to attack Fairbrix after either release.

So do we think what happened?  The initial release was flawed, in that a programming error made every found block after 100 worthless.  Why was this not found earlier?  I was attempting to resolve the problem of premining.  Instead of mining lots of blocks myself or loading the genesis block with millions of coins, I tried to keep the promise I had made that as many people as possible could mine the initial coins before things got difficult.  In retrospect, this was a mistake, as mining the 150 blocks as I said I would, would have revealed the problem.

After the problem was discovered, we had a chat in IRC about it and decided to re-release Fairbrix, this time with the blocks after 100 properly generating coins.  Unfortunately, the release was not accompanied by a good (easy) Windows release.  Linux users and those familiar with Git (I am not) began to mine away, confirming that the new code was good.  Later, a successful Windows build was released.

By this time, many of the initial users were still working with the original release, and others, growing frustrated with the haphazard nature of the release, gave up altogether.  These things combined meant that an inadequate amount of hashing power was being devoted to the Fairbrix re-release.

At some point, someone with significant power attacked the chain, forking it, and invalidating everyone else's coins.  And here we are.

I expect a better release, under a new name to come.  It will be properly tested and released to thwart potential attackers.  Stay tuned.

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[freequant]

michaelmclees, your chain is up and running fine now.
All you need is not a new "better" release, but more hashing power to protect the blockchain against attacks.
If you keep rebooting the coin and resetting the blockchain, people will just give up.

[zillagod]

I expect a better release, under a new name to come.  It will be properly tested and released to thwart potential attackers.  Stay tuned.

I wouldn't do that until you know what happened. I expect you'll find that it was a result of old & new clients working the same chain. If you reboot it yet again I doubt many will both with it.

[Bobnova]

If you do reboot it, change the initial block so the old clients can't cause issues.

[caston]

This was supposed to be called FairBrix not UnfairBrix.

[iopq]

This was supposed to be called FairBrix not UnfairBrix.

it was actually supposed to be called FailBrix but someone made a typo

[worldinacoin]

Maybe you should try to plug the 51% vulnerability first before releasing it again.

[coblee]

Maybe you should try to plug the 51% vulnerability first before releasing it again.

How do you plug the 51% vulnerability?

[worldinacoin]

Maybe you can check with how Geistgeld did it?

[coblee]

GeistGeld doesnt have this vulnerability plugged. GG fixed the ArtForz attack, which is also fixed in Fairbrix and Tenebrix. The 51% attack exists in all crypto currencies.

[zillagod]

Is it possible that the solution to "GPU Hostile" crypto-currencies lies within the IE9 Hardware Acceleration and an older lesser known work around for previous anti-parallel computing by the cryptocommunity?

Maybe a modded hardware accelerator could turn GPU's into APU hybrids and could crunch at tens of thousands times faster than every CPU on the network combined. A mere 1 GH /s machine would be a beast...I would shutter to think what a 68 GH /s farm would do.

I would love to claim this as my own idea but it in fact is the (theoretical) brain child of a couple of iOS engineers I know. They (theoretically) adapted it from from previous failed attempts at cryptographers to prevent parallel computing in cracking MD5 hashes.  "GPU Hostility" was solved a while back.

I would also speculate that someone needed a testnet and really didn't want to disrupt Tenebrix as there is already an exchange and pool. I would venture to say this theoretical attacker may in fact have nothing against Fairbrix and is developing a Solidcoin killer.

All just theory on my part.  

~BCX~


PS I would also guess the test is complete and I wouldn't worry about it.

And that, theoretically, would be fscking hilarious. One would hope that this theory would be published at some point, after the testing is done, of course.

[Bitcoin Oz]

Is it possible that the solution to "GPU Hostile" crypto-currencies lies within the IE9 Hardware Acceleration and an older lesser known work around for previous anti-parallel computing by the cryptocommunity?

Maybe a modded hardware accelerator could turn GPU's into APU hybrids and could crunch at tens of thousands times faster than every CPU on the network combined. A mere 1 GH /s machine would be a beast...I would shutter to think what a 68 GH /s farm would do.

I would love to claim this as my own idea but it in fact is the (theoretical) brain child of a couple of iOS engineers I know. They (theoretically) adapted it from from previous failed attempts at cryptographers to prevent parallel computing in cracking MD5 hashes.  "GPU Hostility" was solved a while back.

I would also speculate that someone needed a testnet and really didn't want to disrupt Tenebrix as there is already an exchange and pool. I would venture to say this theoretical attacker may in fact have nothing against Fairbrix and is developing a Solidcoin killer.

All just theory on my part.  

~BCX~


PS I would also guess the test is complete and I wouldn't worry about it.

Everywhere you go cancer happens.

[bulanula]

Is it possible that the solution to "GPU Hostile" crypto-currencies lies within the IE9 Hardware Acceleration and an older lesser known work around for previous anti-parallel computing by the cryptocommunity?

Maybe a modded hardware accelerator could turn GPU's into APU hybrids and could crunch at tens of thousands times faster than every CPU on the network combined. A mere 1 GH /s machine would be a beast...I would shutter to think what a 68 GH /s farm would do.

I would love to claim this as my own idea but it in fact is the (theoretical) brain child of a couple of iOS engineers I know. They (theoretically) adapted it from from previous failed attempts at cryptographers to prevent parallel computing in cracking MD5 hashes.  "GPU Hostility" was solved a while back.

I would also speculate that someone needed a testnet and really didn't want to disrupt Tenebrix as there is already an exchange and pool. I would venture to say this theoretical attacker may in fact have nothing against Fairbrix and is developing a Solidcoin killer.

All just theory on my part.  

~BCX~


PS I would also guess the test is complete and I wouldn't worry about it.

May this attacker actually be you and your buddies over at Cupertino ?

[caston]

The other possibility is that the windows binaries were in some way different to the linux source so when the Windows users came online there was a sudden net split.

[Lolcust]

Given that the net currently operates as intended with same windows binaries around, no, that is not consistent with evidence.

Having said that, did anyone invite theymos to take a look at the blockchain ?

[CoinHunter]

Is it possible that the solution to "GPU Hostile" crypto-currencies lies within the IE9 Hardware Acceleration and an older lesser known work around for previous anti-parallel computing by the cryptocommunity?

Maybe a modded hardware accelerator could turn GPU's into APU hybrids and could crunch at tens of thousands times faster than every CPU on the network combined. A mere 1 GH /s machine would be a beast...I would shutter to think what a 68 GH /s farm would do.

I would love to claim this as my own idea but it in fact is the (theoretical) brain child of a couple of iOS engineers I know. They (theoretically) adapted it from from previous failed attempts at cryptographers to prevent parallel computing in cracking MD5 hashes.  "GPU Hostility" was solved a while back.

I would also speculate that someone needed a testnet and really didn't want to disrupt Tenebrix as there is already an exchange and pool. I would venture to say this theoretical attacker may in fact have nothing against Fairbrix and is developing a Solidcoin killer.

All just theory on my part.  

~BCX~


PS I would also guess the test is complete and I wouldn't worry about it.

Caitlin Upton, is that you? Dressed up to look like an internet troll? Well let's see, I carefully analysed your text bitcoinexpress and summed it up like this.

I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some . . . people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over HERE in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children

[FreeTrade]

As those of you who keep an eye on this thread know, I recently led a Tenebrix spinoff, Fairbrix, project.  There is likely some confusion as to what happened.

First, I would like to make clear that I am not a programmer.  I don't understand much of what is involved in the creating of Bitcoin-style cryptocurrencies.  That said, there were a few people who helped me along the way, doing most of the work, if I'm honest.  As far as I'm concerned, none of them intentionally misprogrammed anything or attempted to attack Fairbrix after either release.

So do we think what happened?  The initial release was flawed, in that a programming error made every found block after 100 worthless.  Why was this not found earlier?  I was attempting to resolve the problem of premining.  Instead of mining lots of blocks myself or loading the genesis block with millions of coins, I tried to keep the promise I had made that as many people as possible could mine the initial coins before things got difficult.  In retrospect, this was a mistake, as mining the 150 blocks as I said I would, would have revealed the problem.

After the problem was discovered, we had a chat in IRC about it and decided to re-release Fairbrix, this time with the blocks after 100 properly generating coins.  Unfortunately, the release was not accompanied by a good (easy) Windows release.  Linux users and those familiar with Git (I am not) began to mine away, confirming that the new code was good.  Later, a successful Windows build was released.

By this time, many of the initial users were still working with the original release, and others, growing frustrated with the haphazard nature of the release, gave up altogether.  These things combined meant that an inadequate amount of hashing power was being devoted to the Fairbrix re-release.

At some point, someone with significant power attacked the chain, forking it, and invalidating everyone else's coins.  And here we are.

I expect a better release, under a new name to come.  It will be properly tested and released to thwart potential attackers.  Stay tuned.

Thanks for your candor, Michael.

I'd like to see you succeed with this - clearly you don't have the right technical skills and need lots of hlep, but you have the right attitude.

I'd like to suggest that when you relaunch, you premine enough to distribute to people who had successfully mined in previous attempts rather than wiping them out. This supports people who support you, is fair, and will give confidence to people if the next attempt doesn't go successfully their support won't be wasted.

Disclosure: I didn't manage to successfully mine any Fairbrix myself so I don't seek any distribution.

[worldinacoin]

I have a connect of 3, 2300 blocks but doesn't seem to increase further.  Is it normal or is there any issues?  I have opened the port.

[michaelmclees]

I have a connect of 3, 2300 blocks but doesn't seem to increase further.  Is it normal or is there any issues?  I have opened the port.

I've got 6 with blocked ports and blocks are downloading normally.  5706 blocks right now.

[worldinacoin]

I deleted everything and reinstall it now loads quite ok at more than 5740 and 6 connections.  It was ok on one computer, not ok on this computer till now.