Pool Ops are now the Alt Currency Police

[ineededausername]

I would advise everyone to search these forums or the bitcoin related
IRC archives for Luke's past comments on things like religion and gay
people. It made me leave his pool in a hurry.

I've seen these comments... they make him look ignorant, bigoted, irrational and idiotic.  Despite this, I used to think luke was a good and intelligent person deluded by religion.  The latest attack proves that he is not only ignorant and bigoted, but also a despicable person in general.  He may be smart, but he is a worthless human being.

Once I even saw luke saying that he'd support murdering his own son if he had gay sex in a country where it was punished by the death penalty, because it would be in accordance with his religious views and the local secular laws.  A person who says that is not a normal human being, he lies among the scum of the earth.

This is the only public attack on someone's character I have ever posted on this forum.  Luke-jr seems like he deserves it.

[rjk]

I would advise everyone to search these forums or the bitcoin related
IRC archives for Luke's past comments on things like religion and gay
people. It made me leave his pool in a hurry.

I've seen these comments... they make him look ignorant, bigoted, irrational and idiotic.  Despite this, I used to think luke was a good and intelligent person deluded by religion.  The latest attack proves that he is not only ignorant and bigoted, but also a despicable person in general.  He may be smart, but he is a worthless human being.

Once I even saw luke saying that he'd support murdering his own son if he had gay sex in a country where it was punished by the death penalty, because it would be in accordance with his religious views and the local secular laws.  A person who says that is not a normal human being, he lies among the scum of the earth.

This is the only public attack on someone's character I have ever posted on this forum.  Luke-jr seems like he deserves it.

Its not a character attack, its just simple truth. I might even have logs laying around.

[Ahimoth]

I think there are ways to provide 51% protection but human control isn't something I would ever support.  Human control is fallible.  Humans can be bribed, beaten, extorted, killed, etc.

The block chain protocol could be improved to detect and invalidate a 51% attack (hint: a 51% attack involves a re-org AND doubling of hashpower).  Yeah there may be some side effects but they would be part of the network outside of human control/manipulation.

Hashing power can also be bought and sold, just as easily as humans can be. Either buy the hardware yourself, or consider someone offering the top two pool operators a large sum of money for control of their pools.

A 51% attack does not have to correspond with a doubling in the hashpower. An existing pool or large mining operation can turn, which would not show a change in the total hash power.

A 51% does not necessarily require a re-org beyond 1 block. If I want to double spend, then it requires a large re-org, but if I just want to shut down the network, no re-org is required.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Hashing power can also be bought and sold, just as easily as humans can be. Either buy the hardware yourself, or consider someone offering the top two pool operators a large sum of money for control of their pools.

A 51% attack does not have to correspond with a doubling in the hashpower. An existing pool or large mining operation can turn, which would not show a change in the total hash power.

A 51% does not necessarily require a re-org beyond 1 block. If I want to double spend, then it requires a large re-org, but if I just want to shut down the network, no re-org is required.

True there is no absolute protection beyond the "good guys" having 51% of hashing power.  Still making the blockchain "smarter" reduces the effectiveness of a 51% attack.

A 51% attack to perform a denial of service is utterly stupid use of resources.  Eventually it will be defeated and then network transaction will resume.

Using a pool for hashing power (or any public hashing power) to form a chain is easily detectable and likely will lead to a) people stop spending and b) people gaining more hashing power to fight off the attack.

The "nuclear" option for a 51% attack is one that is both massively destructive and undetecable until it happens.

Take private hashing power, build a chain in private, don't publish each block, fill the blocks w/ double spends, then publish the attack chain once it is longer than the "good chain" resulting in economic chaos, crashing bitcoin prices, and loss of confidence.


So you are right no protocol adjustment can make the network 51% "immune" but it doesn't have to be.  Bitcoin is already very hard to attack, and economical 51% attacks are likely impossible (cost of attack outweights direct profits from attack).   Adding block chain "smarts" would make it even harder to pull off large scale disruptive attacks.

[Luke-Jr]

I don't particularly have any incentive to respond to the scammers that I foiled, given the significant cost (in time) to do so. Nor do I have any financial loss or care particularly if people want to stop mining on Eligius because they were in on the scam (or any other reason). I will clarify that Eligius miners were not adversely impacted by this, and that the CLC mining involved only adding data that I hashed myself to my own transactions; and I was careful to ensure that nobody lost any confirmed CLC. If any Eligius miner wishes to inquire further, I will take the time to answer specific to-the-point questions which are signmessage'd with an active (ie, has mined in the past week) Eligius payout address that has earned at least 2000 TBC (5.36870912 BTC) over all time.

Eligius is a Bitcoin mining pool and I am, as always, committed to doing my best to contribute to and protect the Bitcoin ecosystem. Pyramid schemes built upon forks of the Bitcoin software ultimately discredit and harm Bitcoin's reputation. I hope CoiledCoin will be the last of such scams now that it is clear there are people (not just myself) willing to stand up to them. Namecoin alone demonstrates a legitimate, innovative use of Bitcoin technology, and while I don't personally agree with their ideals/goals, I see it as a good thing for Bitcoin and worth cooperating with.

cablepair, regarding Devcoin, I don't see any reason to treat it as different from any other scamcoin. I will at least discuss it with you on IRC before doing anything other than mining it with the almost-unmodified (zero txn fee, zero post-maturity delay) Devcoin client.

P.S. While the opposition seem to be very venemous and vocal, I have gotten a lot more positive support from a head-count perspective.

[drakahn]

it is not up to you to decide.

[bitlane]

I don't particularly have any incentive to respond to the scammers that I foiled, given the significant cost (in time) to do so. Nor do I have any financial loss or care particularly if people want to stop mining on Eligius because they were in on the scam (or any other reason). I will clarify that Eligius miners were not adversely impacted by this, and that the CLC mining involved only adding data that I hashed myself to my own transactions; and I was careful to ensure that nobody lost any confirmed CLC. If any Eligius miner wishes to inquire further, I will take the time to answer specific to-the-point questions which are signmessage'd with an active (ie, has mined in the past week) Eligius payout address that has earned at least 2000 TBC (5.36870912 BTC) over all time.

Eligius is a Bitcoin mining pool and I am, as always, committed to doing my best to contribute to and protect the Bitcoin ecosystem. Pyramid schemes built upon forks of the Bitcoin software ultimately discredit and harm Bitcoin's reputation. I hope CoiledCoin will be the last of such scams now that it is clear there are people (not just myself) willing to stand up to them. Namecoin alone demonstrates a legitimate, innovative use of Bitcoin technology, and while I don't personally agree with their ideals/goals, I see it as a good thing for Bitcoin and worth cooperating with.

cablepair, regarding Devcoin, I don't see any reason to treat it as different from any other scamcoin. I will at least discuss it with you on IRC before doing anything other than mining it with the almost-unmodified (zero txn fee, zero post-maturity delay) Devcoin client.

P.S. While the opposition seem to be very venemous and vocal, I have gotten a lot more positive support from a head-count perspective.

Expect to be reported to your ISP along with your local Police detachment. A Malicious attack with intent to disrupt another's service resulting in any form of vandalism in any way, shape or form will require investigating on their part with enough complaints and I know we will have enough.

You created this problem for yourself, so I would be prepared to suffer the backlash that comes along with it.

As a collective, enough of your personal information along with personal references have been obtained, which will also be contacted and informed of your exploits, so that they may judge for themselves, the measure of your resolve, especially as a so-called God-fearing boy.

This unfortunately is just the beginning. Expect to be under someone's microscope very soon and for what I can only hope, is a long, inconvenient while.

Your fan club.

[Stokkie]

it is not up to you to decide.

That exactly. In a free market anything should have a chance, supply and demand should decide whether it fails or not. Not someone like you who thinks, hmm well. I don't like this coin so lets shut it down. And to do so, you used resources from others and it doesn't matter whether they were affected by it or not. They didn't vote yes to it beforehand.

[casascius]

It's not centralized. It's democratic.

But it isn't democratic.  How do you vote?  How do you guarantee the vote is fair, accurate, and timely?  How do you ensure the people voting are informed?  How do you make sure the person who has the ACTUAL POWER to make the changes follows the will of "the people".

You vote by rejecting the chain you think is wrong.  You do this either by checkpointing the one you think is right, or allowing someone to do it on your behalf (e.g. by connecting to them).  You're motivated to checkpoint the one you think the rest of the world is likely to agree with, because if you're wrong, you've just made yourself a potential victim of double spending by anybody (who can spend their funds both in the majority chain, and the one you swallowed.)

Bottom line is, you always want to be with the majority opinion for your own security, and that alone will motivate people to come to a consensus on the basis of popularity alone.  A real attack chain that appears out of obscurity and rolls back a large number of blocks is going to have approximately 0% popularity and which is the right chain isn't going to be the subject of much debate.

Rejecting an attack chain isn't a battle of philosophical opinion.  It's not like right versus left, or Christians versus Muslims.  It's more like, what did we all observe.  If an attack happens, we'll know we observed an attack.  End of story.  It would be about as uncontroversial as asking the world whether the World Trade Center towers fell on 9/11/2001.

They fell.  No serious percentage of the population disputes it.  No one is attempting to write a history book that says the original towers are still standing.

Unless some massive bandsaw slices the earth in half and splits the network and all the mining power in half for an extended period of time, a naturally occurring chain reorg 5+ blocks deep is statistically unlikely.  We should plan on that event being an attack, and have Bitcoin go into a safety mode, favoring an intact system that is temporarily unavailable over an available one that is useless because none of the information in it is accurate due to being under control of an attacker.

[Luke-Jr]

FWIW, I will prosecute any false reports to the full extent of law. And since I have not broken any laws, all such reports are false.

[2112]

I don't particularly have any incentive to respond to the scammers that I foiled, given the significant cost (in time) to do so. Nor do I have any financial loss or care particularly if people want to stop mining on Eligius because they were in on the scam (or any other reason). I will clarify that Eligius miners were not adversely impacted by this, and that the CLC mining involved only adding data that I hashed myself to my own transactions; and I was careful to ensure that nobody lost any confirmed CLC. If any Eligius miner wishes to inquire further, I will take the time to answer specific to-the-point questions which are signmessage'd with an active (ie, has mined in the past week) Eligius payout address that has earned at least 2000 TBC (5.36870912 BTC) over all time.

Eligius is a Bitcoin mining pool and I am, as always, committed to doing my best to contribute to and protect the Bitcoin ecosystem. Pyramid schemes built upon forks of the Bitcoin software ultimately discredit and harm Bitcoin's reputation. I hope CoiledCoin will be the last of such scams now that it is clear there are people (not just myself) willing to stand up to them. Namecoin alone demonstrates a legitimate, innovative use of Bitcoin technology, and while I don't personally agree with their ideals/goals, I see it as a good thing for Bitcoin and worth cooperating with.

cablepair, regarding Devcoin, I don't see any reason to treat it as different from any other scamcoin. I will at least discuss it with you on IRC before doing anything other than mining it with the almost-unmodified (zero txn fee, zero post-maturity delay) Devcoin client.

P.S. While the opposition seem to be very venemous and vocal, I have gotten a lot more positive support from a head-count perspective.

Godminer-Jr is warning you: if you have a nice little research chain it would be sad to see it unable to process transactions. It has been written on the tablets revealed on Mt.Sinai: Thou shalt have none other chains before mine (Deuteronomy 5:4-21).

[btc_artist]

So we should instill false and unjustified faith in random cryptocoin ponzi schemes?

Um, Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme as much as any other alt coin is.

[bitlane]

FWIW, I will prosecute any false reports to the full extent of law. And since I have not broken any laws, all such reports are false.

You obviously don't understand the law very well if you think that it stretches across country borders...LMAO.

Civil Law and Dogmatic Law are very different and not universal.

[2112]

FWIW, I will prosecute any false reports to the full extent of law. And since I have not broken any laws, all such reports are false.

Looking forward to it. More comedy gold will ensue. It will be like a mixture of Spanish Inquisition with Scientology's strategy of identifying and isolating Bitcoin-suppresives.

Instead of burning them at a stake the Bitcoin Inquisition will dessicate the apostates to death in the hot air coming out of the ATI graphic cards.

[casascius]

I am fine with it, not because I think it was morally right or wrong, but because I don't give a crap about alt coins.  No alt coins are serving any useful purpose other than as testnets for ideas that could be added to Bitcoin.  And attacking a testnet is not something I object to.  OP_EVAL is ultimately intended to protect against theft, but no one is trying to steal Coiled Coins.  The CPU mining coins are ultimately intended to solve a problem with GPU mining that I can't see even exists, otherwise we'd be discussing which Bitcoin block we should switch to CPU mining.

The natural consequence for the action though is that Luke will have less mining power at his disposal at the whim of those who disagree with him - an appropriate one under the circumstances.  It's democratic.

I am fine with the attack because I believe we need to work to beef up Bitcoin against 51% attacks.  I think we underestimate the likelihood of one being attempted, especially if Bitcoin surges in popularity, just like people underestimated the need to keep their wallets safe from malware and to avoid storing them on anonymous websites when bitcoins were only worth pennies.

Just the simple change having bitcoind shut down gracefully instead of accept a reorg over 5 blocks would make our network far more resilient.  I'm surprised few of us see that, but I'm glad Gavin does (afaik).  

[bulanula]

i don't think anyone should trust him with their hashing power

is it true its luke doing it to i0c and ixc now as well?

Seems like it and I hope he succeeds and gets rid of these crap scammer chains.

[drakahn]

how are they scams?

copycats sure, but it doesn't force anyone to buy them, if people do then that gives them value, if they do not then they do not, either way it doesn't hurt anyone outside of that.

[theymos]

it is not up to you to decide.

It's not up to him to decide what to put in his own transactions?

[DeathAndTaxes]

it is not up to you to decide.

It's not up to him to decide what to put in his own transactions?

It's not up to him to decide what chains are to live or die.

How is the chain dead?  Nobody can continue to mine it?  or nobody wants to mine it?

[exahash]

i don't think anyone should trust him with their hashing power

is it true its luke doing it to i0c and ixc now as well?

Seems like it and I hope he succeeds and gets rid of these crap scammer chains.

Alt chains are not necessarily scams!  They are first and foremost playgrounds for experimenting with new features.

If people assign value to them then so be it. 

If you don't see value in them, don't trade for them.

Attacking an alt chain just because you can attack it is not OK.