Time to grow up.

[Lolcust]

However, deflationists pinged and poked me with so much effort and zeal that I will introduce deflationary influences in TBX (don't worry though, no subsidy cuts and no "demurrage" reaching into user's pocket)

Watch out for next TBX bounty

TBX is pretty much dead by now. Litecoin is the next popular scamchain mate. Go with the flow LOL

*Yawn*

You're not even trying anymore, are you ?

[michaelmclees]

Ignored bulanula.  Smartest thing I did all day.

[Lolcust]

He was fun while he tried

[bulanula]

Ignored bulanula.  Smartest thing I did all day.

Yes I was fun so please donate 1Eq1u2NzwHWqFzj5ksD5D3Bc5iVwzFmYZS !!! Thanks !

[ElectricMucus]

Well we can certainly say that people do not want a currency with an infinite supply.

Of course they do. Why do you think Bitcoin failed in the first place?

You mean the USD?
haha! 

[DeathAndTaxes]

And why? Because a few people on this forum didn't like that parallel sha256 made mining unprofitable for those without means? Please don't forget that the role of the miner is to provide security to the network, not to make you rich. Those hoards of GPU, FPGA/ASIC mining rigs provide security far, far better than any CPU-based system could. That time traveller attack? It still exists in bitcoin, but thanks to parallel miners, exploiting it would set you back millions of $$. With these new CPU-friendly, security-hostile *coins, any reasonable botnet operator will be able to herd more hashing capacity than the entire legitimate network, far into the foreseeable future.

Bingo.

CPU based systems are foolish.  They serve no benefit other than to allow people without lots of expensive hardware to be "powerful".  However they feel to realize that expensive hardware which makes it prohibitively expensive for them to have even 1% of the hashing power of bitcoin network also makes it prohibitively expensive for attackers to have 1% of the bitcoin network.

The "CPU friendly" coins are simply "no fair they got bigger toys.  Let's start a sandbox where only small toys are allowed".  The bad news is that your neighborhood botnet bully has 230,000 small toys ready to smash and CPU based chain.

The worse part is that this vulnerability will remain a part of the CPU chain for it's lifetime.  Say <insert favorite CPU chain here> becomes very popular and someday has 100,000 nodes.  Well the world's largest botnet could STILL easily crush it and crush it at any point in the future that it is either a) profitable to do so or b) interesting enough to destroy.

It is highly unlikely any CPU based chain will ever gain enough hashing power to be immune to botnets so that sword will remain hanging over the chain for a very long time.

[ripper234]

And why? Because a few people on this forum didn't like that parallel sha256 made mining unprofitable for those without means? Please don't forget that the role of the miner is to provide security to the network, not to make you rich. Those hoards of GPU, FPGA/ASIC mining rigs provide security far, far better than any CPU-based system could. That time traveller attack? It still exists in bitcoin, but thanks to parallel miners, exploiting it would set you back millions of $$. With these new CPU-friendly, security-hostile *coins, any reasonable botnet operator will be able to herd more hashing capacity than the entire legitimate network, far into the foreseeable future.

Bingo.

CPU based systems are foolish.  They serve no benefit other than to allow people without lots of expensive hardware to be "powerful".  However they feel to realize that expensive hardware which makes it prohibitively expensive for them to have even 1% of the hashing power of bitcoin network also makes it prohibitively expensive for attackers to have 1% of the bitcoin network.

The "CPU friendly" coins are simply "no fair they got bigger toys.  Let's start a sandbox where only small toys are allowed".  The bad news is that your neighborhood botnet bully has 230,000 small toys ready to smash and CPU based chain.

The worse part is that this vulnerability will remain a part of the CPU chain for it's lifetime.  Say <insert favorite CPU chain here> becomes very popular and someday has 100,000 nodes.  Well the world's largest botnet could STILL easily crush it and crush it at any point in the future that it is either a) profitable to do so or b) interesting enough to destroy.

It is highly unlikely any CPU based chain will ever gain enough hashing power to be immune to botnets so that sword will remain hanging over the chain for a very long time.

This is the one serious argument against the new CPU coins. I really don't know enough to decide if it's a valid point or not.

What Locust claims is:

Q: What about botnets ? CPU mining is a haven for them, and they are eeeeeevil!

A: Well, actually, that's an interesting topic to discuss.

First and foremost, if it is possible to make a CPUsclusive cryptocurrency (and it seems that Tenebrix makes quite a solid practical argument in favor of possibility of such a feat), then it will be made eventually. So not making Tenebrix would have achieved nothing.

Second, I am firmly convinced that botnets, by virtue of need to remain somewhat covert, will not abuse their host machines too heavily with TBX minning, taking spare cycles here and there without encumbering the user too much (otherwise the malware will get noticed and exterminated), and assuming mining is lucrative, will avoid using infected machines for things that are likely to get a FBI clown car visit the formal owner of the infected box (such as transfer of highly illegal materials and attacks against legitimate infrastructure).
Thus, Tenebrix, should it succeed and achieve popularity, will lead to overall calmer, milder internet for all

His theory might or might not be valid, but let's test it, shall we? In a year or two, we'll see if Botnets harm the CPU coins enough, or not. I don't think a short discussion on the forums can bring enough evidence to fully confirm or refute this claim.

[DeathAndTaxes]

It a year or two no altcoin will likely be profitable enough for a major botnet to target it.  That doesn't mean the risk isn't there.

So sure as long as cryptocurrency remains small and mostly unused they are safe from botnets.  Wow what an accomplishment!

Even if a cpu-based block chain isn't attacked that doesn't mean the vulnerability doesn't exist.  Also many botnets are large enough that there is no need to run the nodes @ 100%.  230,000 nodes @ 25% average load  equivalent to ~60K legitimate nodes.  A botnet could start small and simply rump up average load until it reached a point where it had 51% control over the network. 

Do I think that will happen in the near term (next 2-3 years)?  Probably not.  However that is simply because the reward isn't worth the load.   The risk still remains and if/when their is sufficient reward a botnet could strike.  A botnet could be added by Cloud computing resources.  By limiting chain to CPU that limits its potential hashing power and makes the economics of a cloud based attack (or a botnet boosted by the cloud) far more reasonable.    The very fact that a single high end GPU outperforms 200 CPU is what currently makes the huge potential power of the cloud non-viable for attacking bitcoin.

[kokjo]

There is a claim that Botnets aren't that big of a threat (e.g. on Tenebrix FAQ). I don't know if it's true or not, time will tell.

its a lie. botnets are a big thread to these networks.

[sd]

Blah.. Cell.. Blah..

The cell processor isn't magic, it's a power CPU with a few GPU like coprocessors on the same die. It can't do anything better than a mid-range CPU and a mid-rage GPU although it might perform some tasks at a better price-to-performance ratio. I doubt BitCoin or whatever CPUCoin will run any better on a cell than on a decent CPU or GPU ( depending on task. )

It's also really, really hard to program for.

[DeathAndTaxes]

The cell BTW gets ~27 MH/s crunching bitcoin (and that is w/ hacking and enabling the 7th disabled SPU).  So that puts is above most CPU but well behind most GPU.  I don't think anyone has tried to run scrypt based coin on it but given the small amount of cache in each SPU I think the performance would be pretty bad.

Lots of people buy Sony marketing and think a PS3 has some kind of super computer inside it.

[maaku]

There is a claim that Botnets aren't that big of a threat (e.g. on Tenebrix FAQ). I don't know if it's true or not, time will tell.

its a lie. botnets are a big threat to these networks.

Yeah I was going to write a big response, but honestly that sums it up. It's been shown in the past that botnets are *already* a part of the bitcoin network, meaning that probably some of the people who frequent here are botnet operators. This isn't theoretical.

Just remember, GPU mining for Bitcoin was an accident, not an intentional feature by the designers...

That too, is demonstrably false. There's discussion on this forum from the early days between Satoshi and the other core developers about the potential for GPU mining. scrypt/bcrypt existed ans was well known back in 2009, but Satoshi opted for SHA-256 regardless.

[bulanula]

Anyone with a botnet could bring down these CPU ShitChains.

[Lolcust]

Trying to do a doublespend/history overwrite is of limited economic utility to the botnet op due to risk of failing to get money before stuff goes down and effort needed, especially when compared to simplistic and "success guaranteed" scheme of "mine coins, sell less than 30% of mined coins, rinse repeat" which is the best modus operandi for an economically motivated 51-er.

Botnet ops are likely to be economically motivated.

Also, only the first botnet poses a 51-threat. If the first botnet decides not to destroy the net, the threat of 51 will disappear naturally as more botnets swarm in.

[Lolcust]

Trying to do a doublespend/history overwrite is of limited economic utility to the botnet op due to risk of failing to get money before stuff goes down and effort needed, especially when compared to simplistic "mine coins, sell less than 30% of mined coins, rinse repeat" which is the best modus operandi for an economically motivated 51-er.

Botnet ops are likely to be economically motivated.

Also, only the first botnet poses a 51-threat. If the first botnet decides not to destroy the net, the threat of 51 will disappear naturally as more botnets swarm in.

NOW.  When the economic value is next to nothing.  What is someday this altcoin handles Paypal sized transactions (~$200M per day).  I mean your only defense is to remain so small and pathetic that no botnet would feel the need to destroy you.   Not that they can't at any point (both now and far into the future) just that they feel no reason to because the network is insignificant.

Excuse me, but even now "mine coins, sell less than 30% of mined coins, rinse repeat" is more economically sound for someone who has 51 percent, simply because effort is minimal, revenue is guaranteed, there are no electricity and other such costs (for the bnop), and by virtue of having 51+ of coin production, the botnet can drive price up by simply selling off no more than a tiny fraction of what it mines.

I find the assumption that the first desire of a botnet op would be to engage in a comparatively tricky and risky (as in, might fail) quest to doublespend instead of just mining (and hogging the majority of stuff mined) and selling (a very small fraction) to be rather peculiar.

People with small-time back-alley mugger mentality rarely drive around large botnets. Or large anything for that matter.

[ElectricMucus]

Trying to do a doublespend/history overwrite is of limited economic utility to the botnet op due to risk of failing to get money before stuff goes down and effort needed, especially when compared to simplistic "mine coins, sell less than 30% of mined coins, rinse repeat" which is the best modus operandi for an economically motivated 51-er.

Botnet ops are likely to be economically motivated.

Also, only the first botnet poses a 51-threat. If the first botnet decides not to destroy the net, the threat of 51 will disappear naturally as more botnets swarm in.

NOW.  When the economic value is next to nothing.  What is someday this altcoin handles Paypal sized transactions (~$200M per day).  I mean your only defense is to remain so small and pathetic that no botnet would feel the need to destroy you.   Not that they can't at any point (both now and far into the future) just that they feel no reason to because the network is insignificant.

Excuse me, but even now "mine coins, sell less than 30% of mined coins, rinse repeat" is more economically sound for someone who has 51 percent, simply because effort is minimal, revenue is guaranteed, there are no electricity and other such costs (for the bnop), and by virtue of having 51+ of coin production, the botnet can drive price up by simply selling off a tiny fraction of what it mines.

Then explain the double spend on i0coin

[Lolcust]

Trying to do a doublespend/history overwrite is of limited economic utility to the botnet op due to risk of failing to get money before stuff goes down and effort needed, especially when compared to simplistic "mine coins, sell less than 30% of mined coins, rinse repeat" which is the best modus operandi for an economically motivated 51-er.

Botnet ops are likely to be economically motivated.

Also, only the first botnet poses a 51-threat. If the first botnet decides not to destroy the net, the threat of 51 will disappear naturally as more botnets swarm in.

NOW.  When the economic value is next to nothing.  What is someday this altcoin handles Paypal sized transactions (~$200M per day).  I mean your only defense is to remain so small and pathetic that no botnet would feel the need to destroy you.   Not that they can't at any point (both now and far into the future) just that they feel no reason to because the network is insignificant.

Excuse me, but even now "mine coins, sell less than 30% of mined coins, rinse repeat" is more economically sound for someone who has 51 percent, simply because effort is minimal, revenue is guaranteed, there are no electricity and other such costs (for the bnop), and by virtue of having 51+ of coin production, the botnet can drive price up by simply selling off a tiny fraction of what it mines.

Then explain the double spend on i0coin

1)
Sophisticated technological prank.

The point wasn't so much to rob doublec (If we assume that perp was a botnet, that is, had no electricity, maintenance, and other such costs, the perp could have simply taken over and hogged i0c supply, driven the price up by selling off only a fraction, then made quite a sum by sustaining this scheme for extended period of time).

The point was to show off, to demonstrate capacity to "pwn" the defenses in place

2)
Was not perpetrated by a botnet (the perp paid electricity and other costs), thus followed different cost/benefit analysis in regards to possibility of price manipulation

3)
Combination of the above

[bulanula]

Trying to do a doublespend/history overwrite is of limited economic utility to the botnet op due to risk of failing to get money before stuff goes down and effort needed, especially when compared to simplistic "mine coins, sell less than 30% of mined coins, rinse repeat" which is the best modus operandi for an economically motivated 51-er.

Botnet ops are likely to be economically motivated.

Also, only the first botnet poses a 51-threat. If the first botnet decides not to destroy the net, the threat of 51 will disappear naturally as more botnets swarm in.

NOW.  When the economic value is next to nothing.  What is someday this altcoin handles Paypal sized transactions (~$200M per day).  I mean your only defense is to remain so small and pathetic that no botnet would feel the need to destroy you.   Not that they can't at any point (both now and far into the future) just that they feel no reason to because the network is insignificant.

Excuse me, but even now "mine coins, sell less than 30% of mined coins, rinse repeat" is more economically sound for someone who has 51 percent, simply because effort is minimal, revenue is guaranteed, there are no electricity and other such costs (for the bnop), and by virtue of having 51+ of coin production, the botnet can drive price up by simply selling off a tiny fraction of what it mines.

Then explain the double spend on i0coin

1)
Sophisticated technological prank.

The point wasn't so much to rob doublec (If we assume that perp was a botnet, that is, had no electricity, maintenance, and other such costs, the perp could have simply taken over and hogged i0c supply, driven the price up by selling off only a fraction, then made quite a sum by sustaining this scheme for extended period of time).

The point was to show off, to demonstrate capacity to "pwn" the defenses in place

2)
Was not perpetrated by a botnet (the perp paid electricity and other costs), thus followed different cost/benefit analysis in regards to possibility of price manipulation

3)
Combination of the above

Trust me, Tenebrix will NEVER get attacked by a botnet because its creators are the only ones with botnets here and they won't attack their new "baby". I am 100% sure of this. Why did Failbrix get attacked and not Tenecrapix ? There you go.

[Lolcust]

Then you should bow before my botnet might, little one.

[RandyFolds]

Trust me, Tenebrix will NEVER get attacked by a botnet because its creators are the only ones with botnets here and they won't attack their new "baby". I am 100% sure of this. Why did Failbrix get attacked and not Tenecrapix ? There you go.

Are you bitrebel?