Litecoin 51% attacked?

[CoinHunter]

There was some discussion recently about Litecoin having a "dark pool" with about 55% of the network mining power. Coblee is aware of it and seems to be hiding the fact this imminent 51% threat exists to Litecoin.

It is possible this dark pool already done multiple 51% attacks as they seem to be continually stopping their mining and "doing something else for an hour or so" before resuming. Hopefully someone is monitoring the reorgs which have been occurring and determining if anyone is actually losing Bitcoins on the exchanges.

[Vanderbleek]

It's likely bot-nets, and solo miners (since that's still a reasonable option) making up the "not in a pool" demographic. Although I think there was a rather large chain that was orphaned recently (27 blocks I think). Not really sure, haven't been paying much attention.

[CoinHunter]

It's likely bot-nets, and solo miners (since that's still a reasonable option) making up the "not in a pool" demographic. Although I think there was a rather large chain that was orphaned recently (27 blocks I think). Not really sure, haven't been paying much attention.

Yes I have noticed reorgs of about 5 or 6 when I was looking at their block explorer during the other attack. I just hope people are warned before they lose everything, keeping people in the dark isn't the best action here.

The mining looks too steady to be a botnet.

[coblee]

The litecoin network hashrate has stayed around 20 mhash/s for a few weeks. This week, it has climbed to 32 mhash/s. From what I can tell, this is due to people abandoning SolidCoin after the exploit was found and the price tanked. There are a lot of miners not in on a public pool, but there's nothing wrong with that. The hashrate does fluctuate a lot but I have not seen it drop 50% due to an attack. If I see that, I would of course warn people and exchanges of possible double spend attacks.

Coblee is aware of it and seems to be hiding the fact this imminent 51% threat exists to Litecoin.

Stop accusing others of crap. I guess you are just trying to throw some FUD around to deflect the negative attention SolidCoin is having recently.

[CoinHunter]

Coblee if you're unaware of the 55-65% unknown pool mining Litecoin then I think it speaks bigger trouble for Litecoin than I realized. You need to start monitoring the reorgs which are going on and find out what is happening.



Currently 82% of Litecoin's mining power is "unknown". People have already verified about 10-12MH belonging to a single unknown pool or botnet. You're sticking your head in the sand if you don't realize the threat this is to Litecoin.

SolidCoin's mining power has actually grown since 2.02 so I'm not sure where you are getting those "facts" from.

[CoinHunter]

Oh don't worry Coinhunter you've got your own exploit issues coming and please don't try and tell us any longer that Solidcoin is attack proof. What happened to attack proof? Bad news for you Coinhunter, 1 million isn't needed for trusted nodes, never was, was it? We've also pretty much figured out there really aren't 12 trusted nodes, only one that you change the names on.

You are the only on "Trusted Mode" aka Control Node in existence.

~BCX~

Yeah you've been saying that for 3 months now Dan Maddox, we'll keep holding our breath on that one.

[CoinHunter]

Were you successfully attacked, yes or no?

If so STFU

No? Some CPF payments not going to the CPF isn't that big a deal and hardly an "attack". I give out more SC in bounties in a day sometimes than they took. The "exploit" highlighted some other things we needed to fix and we got it all out within 24 hours. That's how a professional operation is run.

[doublec]

The hashrate does fluctuate a lot but I have not seen it drop 50% due to an attack. If I see that, I would of course warn people and exchanges of possible double spend attacks.

Hashrate fluctuating isn't a sign of a double spend attack. Reorgs are. What would be useful for all alt chains is a tool that analyses reorgs and shows transactions that are different from that and the main fork.

[Rejinx]

Coblee if you're unaware of the 55-65% unknown pool mining Litecoin then I think it speaks bigger trouble for Litecoin than I realized. You need to start monitoring the reorgs which are going on and find out what is happening.



Currently 82% of Litecoin's mining power is "unknown". People have already verified about 10-12MH belonging to a single unknown pool or botnet. You're sticking your head in the sand if you don't realize the threat this is to Litecoin.

SolidCoin's mining power has actually grown since 2.02 so I'm not sure where you are getting those "facts" from.

Why not work on your coin.  Let ours thrive or fail on there own merit.  Your game is transparent.

[coblee]

The hashrate does fluctuate a lot but I have not seen it drop 50% due to an attack. If I see that, I would of course warn people and exchanges of possible double spend attacks.

Hashrate fluctuating isn't a sign of a double spend attack. Reorgs are. What would be useful for all alt chains is a tool that analyses reorgs and shows transactions that are different from that and the main fork.

doublec, is there such a tool available right now?

[CoinHunter]

The hashrate does fluctuate a lot but I have not seen it drop 50% due to an attack. If I see that, I would of course warn people and exchanges of possible double spend attacks.

Hashrate fluctuating isn't a sign of a double spend attack. Reorgs are. What would be useful for all alt chains is a tool that analyses reorgs and shows transactions that are different from that and the main fork.

Yes and there have already been reports of reorgs upto 27 blocks and I have also noticed multiple 5-6 block reorgs during a day or so of watching their block explorer. They need to do more monitoring of this because something weird is going on with it.

[doublec]

doublec, is there such a tool available right now?

Not that I know of. Usually I scan the chains using a block explorer but this is inefficient. It's easy for a merchant to know if they check their 'listtransactions'. They'll see that there are now deposits that were once confirmed showing as having 0 confirmations. Looking up the address and/or transaction in the block explorer will show the problem.

A 27 block reorg is definitely a scary sign but it can be done by accident. A pool or large miner become disconnected from the network and when the network goes up their blocks get released for example. I'd be more inclined to think attack however if there have been other reorgs. People accepting litecoin payments should check their 'listtransactions'. It's also wise to have their nodes detect a big reorg (ie. past their confirmation limit) and shut down until investigated. This is what I did on the i0coin exchange in the end to catch it.

[coblee]

doublec, is there such a tool available right now?

Not that I know of. Usually I scan the chains using a block explorer but this is inefficient. It's easy for a merchant to know if they check their 'listtransactions'. They'll see that there are now deposits that were once confirmed showing as having 0 confirmations. Looking up the address and/or transaction in the block explorer will show the problem.

A 27 block reorg is definitely a scary sign but it can be done by accident. A pool or large miner become disconnected from the network and when the network goes up their blocks get released for example. I'd be more inclined to think attack however if there have been other reorgs. People accepting litecoin payments should check their 'listtransactions'. It's also wise to have their nodes detect a big reorg (ie. past their confirmation limit) and shut down until investigated. This is what I did on the i0coin exchange in the end to catch it.

There really isn't much money to be made right now to attack Litecoin with a double spend. I will talk to the exchanges to see if they have been affected by a double spend. And I will keep an eye out on the block explorer. Thanks CoinHunter for bringing this to my attention. I didn't know you cared so much about Litecoin.

[Ahimoth]

A 27 block reorg is definitely a scary sign but it can be done by accident. A pool or large miner become disconnected from the network and when the network goes up their blocks get released for example.

This would mean that the "pool or large miner" in your example has over 51% of the network hash power, or did at the time of the split.

[CoinHunter]

There really isn't much money to be made right now to attack Litecoin with a double spend. I will talk to the exchanges to see if they have been affected by a double spend. And I will keep an eye out on the block explorer. Thanks CoinHunter for bringing this to my attention. I didn't know you cared so much about Litecoin.

No problem, I'm just surprised as a "leader of an alt coin" you didn't realize this in the first place You need to start studying the code more to find out the other flaws too. I don't like seeing anyone get scammed or attacked so it is why I brought this to everyone's attention so they can take precautions.

[doublec]

There really isn't much money to be made right now to attack Litecoin with a double spend. I will talk to the exchanges to see if they have been affected by a double spend.

btc-e.com has 550 BTC available for taking in their litecoin exchange. I think that's plenty for people to be tempted to steal.

[doublec]

This would mean that the "pool or large miner" in your example has over 51% of the network hash power, or did at the time of the split.

Right, but pools with >51% aren't unusual in alt chain world. With the GPU chains anyway. I think people would have started complaining if a big pool was offline for 27 blocks though.

[makomk]

Not that I know of. Usually I scan the chains using a block explorer but this is inefficient. It's easy for a merchant to know if they check their 'listtransactions'. They'll see that there are now deposits that were once confirmed showing as having 0 confirmations. Looking up the address and/or transaction in the block explorer will show the problem.

Of course you can be sure that you'll never see this on Solidcoin. Not because of its immunity to 51% attacks, because that didn't actually exist, but because Block_Reorganize actively deletes the transactions on the losing side of the double spend from the recipient's wallet.

[CoinHunter]

Not that I know of. Usually I scan the chains using a block explorer but this is inefficient. It's easy for a merchant to know if they check their 'listtransactions'. They'll see that there are now deposits that were once confirmed showing as having 0 confirmations. Looking up the address and/or transaction in the block explorer will show the problem.

Of course you can be sure that you'll never see this on Solidcoin. Not because of its immunity to 51% attacks, because that didn't actually exist, but because Block_Reorganize actively deletes the transactions on the losing side of the double spend from the recipient's wallet.

We already monitor reorgs and there are now hard limits (not that they are needed yet, but in the future with unknown trust nodes it may) in SolidCoin so I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Any transactions from a wallet that lost transactions in a reorg would readd them. You need to check the code again.

Not deleting 0 conf transactions from a wallet is a bug in bitcoins handling of reorgs, SolidCoin fixes that bug.

[CoinHunter]

If you want the exchanges to drop an alt coin all you have to do is drop a thousand BTC on them and they will dump said alt coin without notice. It's worked for me in the past LOL

Cool, and since you have 10 million Bitcoins should be easy to do .