[CLOSED] BTC Guild - Pays TxFees+NMC, Stratum, VarDiff, Private Servers

[guytechie]

When do you think we will get back to a 3 month 100% luck?  It's currently just below 90%

[eleuthria]

When do you think we will get back to a 3 month 100% luck?  It's currently just below 90%

99% luck would be "neutral" considering orphans are about a 1% chance.  The luck graph does not factor that in.  The 3-month luck will likely be back in the upper 90s (or who knows, low 100s if we're lucky) around August 10th.  That's (approximately) the point where the impact of the block withholders will no longer be a part of the 3-month average.

[hurricandave]

It would be cool if we could click on the Pool Luck button and toggle between the time denominations ie.-24hr/1week/2week...etc.

[TheJuice]

Is the empty block attack able to be used on any pool? could this explainthe poor luck among all pools. Does anyone even understand this attack

[hurricandave]

Is the empty block attack able to be used on any pool? could this explainthe poor luck among all pools. Does anyone even understand this attack

pages 346-347 should explain it better.

[atadro]

   I don't think "they" owe any of "us" anything.  If they had an issue, it's been recognized, with help and diligence in testing, "they" should be able to return to the pool and be a productive contributor. If "they" had enough speed to bring the collective results down, without malice intent, with the appropriate adjustments, "they" can be just as likely to boost "us" back up. In the LONG-TERM more than making up for any "losses" as others may cast upon them, and benefitting us all.

Want to walk me through that math?   Not possible.

"They" have only been on this pool 30-days before an audit popped an issue. What do you think it will take for a successful operation to over come "losses". Do you think that because they had a 30 day issue they are forever behind the 8-ball?

If they came back and mined for 1 month while not taking any payment from the pool, it would not make up for the difference (unless they were lucky or network diff suddenly got cut in half), since the difficulty is now higher than the month they started.  If they come back and add 10-15% to the pool's hash rate, and add 10-15% to the pool's blocks, that doesn't actually give anybody more money.  The slice they take out of each shift's payments would be roughly equal to the percentage of blocks they add to the pool.  That's a push.

is this miner back on the pool?  if so is there confirmation that they are not withholding (intentionally or not)?  also, is there any progress regarding the hinted at compensation by them to the other miners that were effectively shorted during their previous run?

[ManeBjorn]

The guy did say he had redistributed his hash rate round to all the other pools excepting Eligius.
It certainly feels like they are back.  Luck has incredibly bad despite ghash losing some ground and the pool growing.
Variance is a nasty mistress regardless of what is going on.

Is the empty block attack able to be used on any pool? could this explainthe poor luck among all pools. Does anyone even understand this attack

pages 346-347 should explain it better.

[MoreBloodWine]

Hey Eleuthria, copied this from the Bitminter thread... note the bit in red, is this actually possible and if so how hard would it be to implement ? I mean if you can cut em off at the knees I'd say go for it and avoid the problem all together.

I'd be willing to bet if it is possible and implemented that we'd see numbers jump a bit on some pools being affected, especially on those pools it goes unnoticed on during "investigation" periods.

Doc are you even paying attention?

Yes, I am. Is there something I haven't done that you would do with every miner who is slightly unlucky, if it was your pool?

If a pool only allows miners with good luck, and kicks you out as soon as you have slightly bad luck, is there really any point to that pool?

BTCGuild and Eligius users have both been ripped off by large users that withheld blocks.

Yes, I've been watching that. And today I read at Reddit that someone is doing the same with Ghash. On purpose. And encouraging others to do the same.

This is not a good development.

But accusing anyone who hits slightly bad luck is not the solution.

I believe there was a proposal to make block withholding impossible, but it required a hardfork. Maybe that's what needs to be done.

[DrG]

I clicked back in the thread to 05-10-14 (3 months back from 8-10-14) and didn't see any mentioned to the withholding attack.  Is there a separate thread detailing this discovery?

[hurricandave]

I clicked back in the thread to 05-10-14 (3 months back from 8-10-14) and didn't see any mentioned to the withholding attack.  Is there a separate thread detailing this discovery?

It was discussed May 5,2014 to May 8,2014 in this thread. The issue with a miners equipment is the withholding attack that keeps coming back up. pages 343-348 or at least that's the range my browser dissects the thread.
 
 I keep coming across new threads that a user says Eligius stole 200 BTC from him. I have a feeling this is the same miner that was discovered here on the Guild and a part of this "Withholding". So in my eyes, he has publicly revealed himself.

[ManeBjorn]

He is the same guy that hit BTCG earlier.
In the Eligius thread he even stated he has moved his hash power back to other pools.  He sort of states he fixed the issue but it seems we are having that terrible variance we had last time he was at BTCG.
I hope we are not getting screwed so he can try and prove he can do it and get away with it.  I am fine with bad variance but not manipulation like he was doing.

I clicked back in the thread to 05-10-14 (3 months back from 8-10-14) and didn't see any mentioned to the withholding attack.  Is there a separate thread detailing this discovery?

It was discussed May 5,2014 to May 8,2014 in this thread. The issue with a miners equipment is the withholding attack that keeps coming back up. pages 343-348 or at least that's the range my browser dissects the thread.
 
 I keep coming across new threads that a user says Eligius stole 200 BTC from him. I have a feeling this is the same miner that was discovered here on the Guild and a part of this "Withholding". So in my eyes, he has publicly revealed himself.

[MoreBloodWine]

He sort of states he fixed the issue but it seems we are having that terrible variance we had last time he was at BTCG.

and I come back to this... no rush on an answer from Michael but I do feel as I suspect others feel as well that this should try and be addressed a bit more, the issue that is.

Seeing as how if it is possible, would nip the problem in the ass.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49417.msg7314921#msg7314921

[guytechie]

Variance is fine and well but is this really variance? 

[ManeBjorn]

I agree.
It would definitely help so much.  Many smaller miners would more apt to stay mining as well if that was implemented.

He sort of states he fixed the issue but it seems we are having that terrible variance we had last time he was at BTCG.

and I come back to this... no rush on an answer from Michael but I do feel as I suspect others feel as well that this should try and be addressed a bit more, the issue that is.

Seeing as how if it is possible, would nip the problem in the ass.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49417.msg7314921#msg7314921

[ManeBjorn]

It does not feel like it that is for sure.
 

Variance is fine and well but is this really variance? 

[MoreBloodWine]

Well, maybe when Michael gets on he'll chime in but I agree that a lot of the smaller miners would stay as well as the larger ones. That aside though, it would make life easier for users like me and you who just stick it out and ride the waves.

I agree.
It would definitely help so much.  Many smaller miners would more apt to stay mining as well if that was implemented.

He sort of states he fixed the issue but it seems we are having that terrible variance we had last time he was at BTCG.

and I come back to this... no rush on an answer from Michael but I do feel as I suspect others feel as well that this should try and be addressed a bit more, the issue that is.

Seeing as how if it is possible, would nip the problem in the ass.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49417.msg7314921#msg7314921

[eleuthria]

Regarding the hard fork to make block withholding impossible:  It will never happen.  AFAIK, that hard fork would also break all existing ASICs.

Granted, a hard fork does NOT need 51% mining power to be implemented.  What matters with a hard fork is the market (people who accept/trade Bitcoin) moves to the new fork.  But unless I'm mistaken, the secret data used to prevent block withholding would be incompatible with all existing mining hardware, which will immediately make such a fork very hard to achieve.  It would more likely kill BTC entirely due to the competing standards.



As for variance/luck/withholding:  I'm monitoring closely users with bad share/block ratios.  Unfortunately, there's really not much else I can do.  It was around June 9th we had a pretty big dive.  But then we had a decent rise that roughly offset it before going into 3 days of consecutive very poor luck, caused mostly be a few 5 and 6 hour rounds.  However, the pool was at 96.8% luck for the last month before the dive, and rising.  99% is "neutral" in the sense of expectation, since you would expect a ~1% orphan rate which means 100% is actually slightly lucky.

The pool has not grown significantly, nor has the difficulty risen in the last 3 days.  The current dip appears to be luck, not withholding, based on the fact that the long rounds mean all the prior speed (11-12 PH/s), which was performing right within expectation for most the last month, weren't finding blocks for 5-6 hours along with the new speed that joined.

[jedimstr]

<tinfoil hat on>

Eleuthria: would you be able to detect a subtle control of the Blockchain (post >51% attack) whereby a controlling entity would selectively use their version of the Blockchain to pick and choose blocks/solutions that were "close" for them time-wise so as to reduce glaring evidence when those stolen blocks start showing up as orphans on the pools that should have taken credit for them normally?  Like, for a big enough competing pool with usually low variance, would the rise in orphan rate be the only evidence of this or is there something else that would be visible?

The reason I ask: it's interesting that BTCGuild and many other large pools and some of the prominent (visibility wise if not in hashrate) but much smaller pools like P2pool have had simultaneous relatively large streaks of bad luck, at the same time, right as the CEX.io/GHash.io 51% fears have arisen again.  

Also could this type of attack be achieved, considering the attacker has a sizeable portion of its hashrate by way of its own private farm, even if it divests some of that hashpower into more veiled sub-pools (not on GHash.io directly for instance)?  So essentially the Bitcoin Mining equivalent of setting up dummy corporations so as to reduce suspicions by reducing their visible hashrate to below 51%, but still have control via let's say of hundreds of automatically generated mini-pools that would register as Unknown to the usual pool tracking sites? Would they still be able to steer the Blockchain at their whim?

</tinfoil hat off>

[DPoS2]

Regarding the hard fork to make block withholding impossible:  It will never happen.  AFAIK, that hard fork would also break all existing ASICs.

they should be broken and the game needs a reset..  majority of the players are corrupt anyway


even when the effect of the scamming was obvious to some, many kept blinders on... now the scammers will slice and dice their scamming to be less of a notice and the blind sheep will just moan about 90-95% luck and do shit about it

at least it isn't 80%


enjoy paying your honesty tax to the scammers

[Sir Alan]

they should be broken and the game needs a reset..  majority of the players are corrupt anyway

even when the effect of the scamming was obvious to some, many kept blinders on... now the scammers will slice and dice their scamming to be less of a notice and the blind sheep will just moan about 90-95% luck and do shit about it

at least it isn't 80%

enjoy paying your honesty tax to the scammers

... says the person with no ASICs to worry about.  What a happy little ray of sunshine you are.