The Hack and The Rollback

[CryptoBry]

The recent hack of Binance which resulted into the loss of 7,000 Bitcoin valued approximately around $40 Million shocked and dismayed many people in the world of cryptocurrency all because we are assuming too much that as the leader Binance is employing the best security technology they can find but alas hackers are always one step ahead of the game.

Now, there is this talk about the "rollback" which can possibly reverse the 7,000 BTC transfer. This is considered to be conroversial since we don't know the possible consequences and there is the need to get the support of at least 51% of miners.

I think that it is really about time that the industry find an acceptable solution in case of a major hack as it can be frustrating to just watch the hacked Bitcoin moving from one address to another while you are helpless about it.

[Wind_FURY]

Binance pulled back and decided not to continue campaigning for it. Plus if anyone believes that it's a good idea to let miners roll back the hackers' transaction, then they are stupid.

[mocacinno]

I'd like to see them try a rollback... Even if you have 51% of the miners helping out, it's still allmost impossible.

If you have 51% of the hashrate, it's pretty easy to orphan the last couple of blocks by building a longer (more work), alternative blockchain... But at this point the "stealing"  transaction has 221!!! confirmations
(https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/e8b406091959700dbffcff30a60b190133721e5c39e89bb5fe23c5a554ab05ea)

This means that the last 221 blocks have to be re-created, and by the time these blocks have been re-mined, the 49% "leftover" miners will probably have mined an additional ~218 blocks... So the 51% of the miners have to re-mine those 218 blocks aswell... But by the time these blocks have been re-mined the 49% will have mined an additional ~215 blocks (so they still have the chain with the most work and the 51% have to catch up those ~215 blocks)... And so on, and so on...

Basically, even if you have 51% of the hashrate, it'll take months before your alternative chain (not including the thief's transaction) will be longer and have more work done than the chain including the thief's transaction... You'll basically invalidate 49% of the miner's blocks' and cause huge losses (not only for the miners, but also for other people that have valid transactions that are only included in the blocks mined by the 49%)... not a good situation...

I don't see an elegant sollution for this problem... This is the other side of immutability, once a transaction is confirmed, it's confirmed... You can talk all you want, but pulling off a succesfull rollback is allmost impossible.. Just imagine the cost of having to hire 51% of the miners for a couple of months, it'll be much higher than the $40.000.000 that have been stolen in the first place.

[Baofeng]

It's not happening,

https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1125996194734399488

pros: 1 we could "revenge" the hackers by "moving" the fees to miners; 2 deter future hacking attempts in the process. 3. explore the possibility of how bitcoin network would deal with situations like these.

cons: 1 we may damage credibility of BTC, 2 we may cause a split in both the bitcoin network and community. Both of these damages seems to out-weight $40m revenge. 3 the hackers did demonstrate certain weak points in our design and user confusion, that was not obvious before.

cons: 4 While it is a very expensive lesson for us, it is nevertheless a lesson.  it was our responsibility to safe guard user funds.

It will just undermined blockchain, good to hear this kind of suggestions by those knowledgable minds but it won't work. Not even the genius mind of Tony Starks will actually go this far. 

[dothebeats]

I remember the scene from Avengers where the Hulk explains that what happens in the past cannot be changed, and if it does, the future is somewhat ruined. If the rollback is done, imagine how much damage it could do to the whole bitcoin network just for the benefit of one network. It's a good thing they are no longrr vying for such action to be done because the complications can be so severe and the damage, irrepairable.

[omone1]

I'd like to see them try a rollback... Even if you have 51% of the miners helping out, it's still allmost impossible.

If you have 51% of the hashrate, it's pretty easy to orphan the last couple of blocks by building a longer (more work), alternative blockchain... But at this point the "stealing"  transaction has 221!!! confirmations
(https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/e8b406091959700dbffcff30a60b190133721e5c39e89bb5fe23c5a554ab05ea)

Thanks for your analysis on how a rollback will work and it effect on mining. This been said, since it will cost much more to hire 51% of miners, then it may as well be best to ignore the chase. Again, maybe they are looking at the future of bitcoin price as compared to the fund that is about to be spent in chasing this scammers so as to make it an orphan.

My question is this: Can't this transaction be followed and given a close monitor? Until it gets a point where they would want to discharge as in convert to fiat or spending, and authorities get to freeze the account? do you also think there is a future plan to arresting this hugly situation to ensure greater confidence in the future? Thanks a lot.

[mocacinno]

--snip--
My question is this: Can't this transaction be followed and given a close monitor? Until it gets a point where they would want to discharge as in convert to fiat or spending, and authorities get to freeze the account? do you also think there is a future plan to arresting this hugly situation to ensure greater confidence in the future? Thanks a lot.

Yes and No.
Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous. IF the hackers just keep on funding their own wallets on the bitcoin network, it's defenately possible to keep tracking untill they deposit funds on an exchange or a P2P marketplace and arrest them when they exchange their stolen funds for fiat.

HOWEVER... There are countless "tricks" that can be used to break the connection between 2 wallets. If you combine a couple of these tricks it becomes virtually impossible to keep tracking.

For example:

• The use of mixers
• Coinjoin
• Depositing and withdrawing from casino's
• Exchanging BTC to a privacy coin (like monero), moving the funds around a bit, then exchaning back

[stfN2128]

They already said its not gonna happen. Just imagine if one company has the power to initiate a rollback of the bitcoin chain. The reputation of Bitcoin would be gone forever. It was ok to think about it, as cz has already said he didn't know before that it could be possible...

And it was good to discard the idea so fast...^^

[okala]

--snip--
My question is this: Can't this transaction be followed and given a close monitor? Until it gets a point where they would want to discharge as in convert to fiat or spending, and authorities get to freeze the account? do you also think there is a future plan to arresting this hugly situation to ensure greater confidence in the future? Thanks a lot.

Yes and No.
Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous. IF the hackers just keep on funding their own wallets on the bitcoin network, it's defenately possible to keep tracking untill they deposit funds on an exchange or a P2P marketplace and arrest them when they exchange their stolen funds for fiat.

HOWEVER... There are countless "tricks" that can be used to break the connection between 2 wallets. If you combine a couple of these tricks it becomes virtually impossible to keep tracking.

For example:

• The use of mixers
• Coinjoin
• Depositing and withdrawing from casino's
• Exchanging BTC to a privacy coin (like monero), moving the funds around a bit, then exchaning back

Tracking the transactions is only possible if the hackers move the found to another wallet either in bits or whole, but once the employed other techniques then it impossible cause there are so many ways to move the stollen bitcoin under the Capet without tracing. The hackers are not fools to send the money to an exchange where they can easily be court tether they will use other features just as you have mention.

[Herbert2020]

Now, there is this talk about the "rollback" which can possibly reverse the 7,000 BTC transfer.

there is no "talk" and there has never been any "talk" of a rollback. all there was, was a tweet of someone who lost his mind after losing a huge amount of money (40 million dollars) and was trying anything to get that back and since his understanding of how a decentralized network of bitcoin works is minimal he is bound to make stupid statements like this tweet of his.

[zbig001]

Rollback would have been possible by a hard fork, under the condition of the consent of almost all miners.
Then it would create a new cryptocurrency and a "Bitcoin classic".
Fortunately, it is not likely to happen.

[figmentofmyass]

i think it's fascinating to consider how the different scenarios might play out. in fact, i'd love to see a rollback attempted since it would apparently push so many peoples' buttons.

bitcoin is amoral and permissionless. miners and other economic actors don't need our permission to do something like this. are users going to fork every time miners do something compatible with the protocol that they don't like? that's quite inefficient. i wonder.

Even if you have 51% of the miners helping out, it's still allmost impossible.

what about with 70% of the hash rate? or 90%?

[EMS_REP]

Rollback would have been possible by a hard fork, under the condition of the consent of almost all miners.
Then it would create a new cryptocurrency and a "Bitcoin classic".
Fortunately, it is not likely to happen.

ethereum network tried that once before but they failed hardly, (search DAO)
this situation is just $40m and surely no miner will try that but if it happens on a $4b fund most miners and maybe all miners may accept the bribe to help the roallback and make other suffer

[Haunebu]

ethereum network tried that once before but they failed hardly, (search DAO)
this situation is just $40m and surely no miner will try that but if it happens on a $4b fund most miners and maybe all miners may accept the bribe to help the roallback and make other suffer

$4 billion? No hacking group has ever managed to steal that much at once and the increasing security measures will make sure that no such thing will happen in the future.

Coming to the main topic, a rollback would complicate things in an insane manner which is why I don't support it. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction which is why it would probably cause more damage than intended.

[Pursuer]

Even if you have 51% of the miners helping out, it's still allmost impossible.

what about with 70% of the hash rate? or 90%?

it is not so much about having a huge hashrate and the ability to perform such an act but the fact that this is going to create a different fork which the network is never going to agree to follow because it will kill bitcoin and turn it into a shitcoin like ethereum in one action and nobody supports that.

[rdbase]

I remember the scene from Avengers where the Hulk explains that what happens in the past cannot be changed, and if it does, the future is somewhat ruined. If the rollback is done, imagine how much damage it could do to the whole bitcoin network just for the benefit of one network. It's a good thing they are no longrr vying for such action to be done because the complications can be so severe and the damage, irrepairable.

It is funny how you compared this to the time traveling which happened in end game. Meme worthy stuff!
But in honesty a rollback would be a bad move on their part because when tragedy strikes they want to do it again.
It will be viewed as a huge eraser by these exchanges to do as they will. And we dont know what bad effects this will have on the blockchain.
It might very well be the breaker of chain(s).
So to speak.

Binance pulled back and decided not to continue campaigning for it. Plus if anyone believes that it's a good idea to let miners roll back the hackers' transaction, then they are stupid.

It's not happening,

https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1125996194734399488

pros: 1 we could "revenge" the hackers by "moving" the fees to miners; 2 deter future hacking attempts in the process. 3. explore the possibility of how bitcoin network would deal with situations like these.

cons: 1 we may damage credibility of BTC, 2 we may cause a split in both the bitcoin network and community. Both of these damages seems to out-weight $40m revenge. 3 the hackers did demonstrate certain weak points in our design and user confusion, that was not obvious before.

cons: 4 While it is a very expensive lesson for us, it is nevertheless a lesson.  it was our responsibility to safe guard user funds.

It will just undermined blockchain, good to hear this kind of suggestions by those knowledgable minds but it won't work. Not even the genius mind of Tony Starks will actually go this far.  

chuckle

[LuckyBtc]

He can do Rollback, fork whatever with his shitcoin BNB, One cannot do Rollback on Bitcoin - The longest running chain. By talking about doing Bitcoin Rollback, CZ is embarrassing himself lol.

[Nadziratel]

I disagree with the idea of implementing this Rollback. Once completely against the feature of instability! There have been about 100 blocks since the hack problem. And it doesn't feel right to get all this transaction back. Moreover, those who have a lot of money in the crypto world. And no one knows they won't make it a habit.

Thousands of people were being victimized in the event of Mt.GOX, or before, and no one was interested in Rollback? But when it comes to CZ and its precious exchange, we talk about it. CZ says that they are trying to be the best in every speech, making breakthrough in every field. CZ should not forget that the first thing you need to do is to secure the Binance platform and the money there!

The most important thing we need to protect for Bitcoin is that we have to be decentralized. CZ, Ver or any person should not have this power.

[leea-1334]

Have people forgot already what happens when you rollback? You make yourself look bad for everyone, you make the mockery of the blockchain ideals, which is permanence and immutability,,, hacks are meant to teach people a lesson, so please, learn your lesson. Do not think the community and miners will feel pity for you and rollback just because you were careless with security!

[eternalgloom]

Am I the only one who's pissed that they even suggested this?
I mean, the audacity they have to even make a suggestion like that prompted me to instantly delete my account at Binance.

“To be honest, we can actually do this probably within the next few days. But there are concerns that if we do a rollback on the bitcoin network at that scale, it may have some negative consequences, in terms of destroying the credibility for bitcoin.”

Source: https://www.coindesk.com/binance-may-consider-bitcoin-rollback-following-40-million-hack

It may have some negative consequences, yeah right. That's going over it pretty lightly to say the least...
That just shows to me that they have way too much power.