if deepbit.net gets anymore hashing speed it could compromise the system

[Veldy]

Btw I wasn't trying to imply anything bad about deepbit.net. I realize it's not in their interest to start performing fraudulent and harmful actions if they want to keep their customers. I just wanted to point out the facts and hear peoples opinions.

Yes, having a single instance with >50% is bad for the network, deepbit just happens to be the first ever to reach that limit. I'd encourage people to start creating new pools. Having slush's pool down (for whatever reason) should provide you with enough users to justify investments
And hopefully slush's pool comes back up soon

He has barely been able to keep it functioning for some time.  I think he may be giving up on it.  Tycho is supposedly going to call him and help him get his pool running again.   Do you think this is a good thing?

[BioMike]

I set up a pool miner for the first time this morning on the computer of my wife (a gamer, so she a better card then I have). I also chose deepbit.net, because someone else mentioned it to me before. It would be nice to have a good comparison sheet, comparing all the pools besides each other on various points.

There have been numerous comparisons made, but as the pools, and their features, change constantly, it's difficult for anyone to stay on top of it.

Here are some basic comparisons based on what I know of the pools:

Thanks, guess I'll be a bit shopping around then. A + for you!

[Luke-Jr]

Eligius is always open to more miners...

[Hawkix]

I found another problem with +500 GHash/sec on deepbit.net. As soon as your client miner lower its total participation (for example, 1 GHash equals to less than 0.2 % now), you may get *UNLUCKY* at the moments, when the pool is *LUCKY*.

When there is a block found using just few shares (like in 1 minute or less), your client may not get even the single share "in" and you get NONE reward. Its pitty, cos if your client would be a bit faster, you will score and earn more per day.

For last 24 hours, I can feel about 10% lower yield. May be due unlucky day, but the above may count for it, too.

[xenon481]

Its pitty, cos if your client would be a bit faster, you will score and earn more per day.

No, you would not. It all averages out. Slow miners have the exact same chance per MH/s to get a share into a short round as fast miners.

[error]

I found another problem with +500 GHash/sec on deepbit.net. As soon as your client miner lower its total participation (for example, 1 GHash equals to less than 0.2 % now), you may get *UNLUCKY* at the moments, when the pool is *LUCKY*.

When there is a block found using just few shares (like in 1 minute or less), your client may not get even the single share "in" and you get NONE reward. Its pitty, cos if your client would be a bit faster, you will score and earn more per day.

For last 24 hours, I can feel about 10% lower yield. May be due unlucky day, but the above may count for it, too.

Ah, but you have forgotten all the short rounds where you DID get a share in, and your proportion was much higher than normal.

[dishwara]

..most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent
on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
Were you listening to me or looking at the woman in the red dress?
Look again.

[Hawkix]

Someone, who is 10x faster than me, has 10x higher chance to score during fast found block. When we both hit the fast block, he gots about 10x more than me.

However, when I miss the block completely, my profit is not 10x lower than his. Its exactly *ZERO*.

Its like rounding to cents error, but you can earn only fractions of cent.

[trumpetx]

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/h6ccf/ok_reddit_mining_server_is_running_register/

Reddit Pool - brand new, probably needs a lot of work done before "production ready"

[grndzero]

What is this mythical "attack" that everyone keeps alluding to? Does anyone have any real details about what could possibly go so wrong or are they just regurgitating the same paranoid BS arguments that everyone else is? So far I've seen a much bigger list of what Tyco can't do to the network than what he could with >= 50% power. He doesn't own the protocol and he can't change it's behavior. So far the best argument is that it is centralizing hashing power and if it goes down the network will be affected. It's a decentralized P2P network, it will recover. More to the point, anyone who is regurgitating this argument will lose their convenient income, and that is really what it's about.

If I was in his position I wouldn't want to have >= 50% power because this exact thing happens. The petty, jealous, and paranoid come out of the woodwork because their worried about a central entity having control over their income and try to disguise it in some thinly veiled reference of being able to attack the network, with no details whatsoever. You either believe in the power, agility, and ideals that were put into the bitcoin network and the protocols or you don't, either way makes you a hypocrite. If you don't like deepbit being as big as it is, chances are you're part of the problem and free to leave anytime.

Like I said in the other thread Tyco, congratulations on being so successful that you're hated. Keep doing what you're doing and keep up the good work. I know it's an uncomfortable position for you and I'm sure this will all go away as soon as Slush gets back up to speed.

[shackleford]

My real life investment club has a rule where no one person can own more than 25% shares in the club... and I think this is a good thing.

Seems to me this pool situation is not what was originally intended and one person or group controlling 50%+  of the total hashing power is a potential issue. I don't like potential issues in a curency system.

[grndzero]

My real life investment club has a rule where no one person can own more than 25% shares in the club... and I think this is a good thing.

Seems to me this pool situation is not what was originally intended and one person or group controlling 50%+  of the total hashing power is a potential issue. I don't like potential issues in a curency system.

It's not an investment club, no one bought in. It's a service and the users are the ones creating the so called "potential issues" and "problems". Users don't own shares in deepbit and they're free to cash out and leave anytime but they don't because it's a good service.

Don't blame the service provider when the users are the one's causing the "potential issue".

[shackleford]

It's not an investment club, no one bought in. It's a service and the users are the ones creating the so called "potential issues" and "problems". Users don't own shares in deepbit and they're free to cash out and leave anytime.

Didn't say it was an investment club.. it was a comment on control over a group effort (bitcoin)
Deepbit was not mentioned.

[grndzero]

It's not an investment club, no one bought in. It's a service and the users are the ones creating the so called "potential issues" and "problems". Users don't own shares in deepbit and they're free to cash out and leave anytime.

Didn't say it was an investment club.. it was a comment on control over a group effort (bitcoin)
Deepbit was not mentioned.

If you're part of a group effort and have voting control then you can vote to change the circumstances, if you don't then your options are participate or leave. I won't mention deepbit either.

[FooDSt4mP]

What is this mythical "attack" that everyone keeps alluding to? Does anyone have any real details about what could possibly go so wrong or are they just regurgitating the same paranoid BS arguments that everyone else is? So far I've seen a much bigger list of what Tyco can't do to the network than what he could with >= 50% power. He doesn't own the protocol and he can't change it's behavior. So far the best argument is that it is centralizing hashing power and if it goes down the network will be affected. It's a decentralized P2P network, it will recover. More to the point, anyone who is regurgitating this argument will lose their convenient income, and that is really what it's about.

If I was in his position I wouldn't want to have >= 50% power because this exact thing happens. The petty, jealous, and paranoid come out of the woodwork because their worried about a central entity having control over their income and try to disguise it in some thinly veiled reference of being able to attack the network, with no details whatsoever. You either believe in the power, agility, and ideals that were put into the bitcoin network and the protocols or you don't, either way makes you a hypocrite. If you don't like deepbit being as big as it is, chances are you're part of the problem and free to leave anytime.

Like I said in the other thread Tyco, congratulations on being so successful that you're hated. Keep doing what you're doing and keep up the good work. I know it's an uncomfortable position for you and I'm sure this will all go away as soon as Slush gets back up to speed.

Double spending... see http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Also +1 for Eligius... low frills, low fees

[shackleford]

If you're part of a group effort and have voting control then you can vote to change the circumstances, if you don't then your options are participate or leave. I won't mention deepbit either.

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't the heart of the matter that if somebody controls 50% of the hashing power they can take over the system.

 I am using the voting only as an analogy to control of the entire bitcoin system . It seems like you think I am an idiot and I am thinking because I am getting "shares" on a round  I own part of a pool or should have voting rights or something ..We are talking about two different things

[[Tycho]]

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't the heart of the matter that if somebody controls 50% of the hashing power they can take over the system.

There is no way to "take over the system" with just a high hashrate pool/miner. Please read: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Attacks#Attacker_has_a_lot_of_computing_power

The attacker can't:

• Reverse other people's transactions
• Prevent transactions from being sent at all (they'll show as 0/unconfirmed)
• Change the number of coins generated per block
• Create coins out of thin air
• Send coins that never belonged to him

[Tyran]

What is this mythical "attack" that everyone keeps alluding to?

Read Satoshi's paper for an explanation.

We consider the scenario of an attacker trying to generate an alternate chain faster than the honest chain. Even if this is accomplished, it does not throw the system open to arbitrary changes, such as creating value out of thin air or taking money that never belonged to the attacker. Nodes are not going to accept an invalid transaction as payment, and honest nodes will never accept a block containing them. An attacker can only try to change one of his own transactions to take back money he recently spent.
(...)
We assume the sender is an attacker who wants to make the recipient believe he paid him for a while, then switch it to pay back to himself after some time has passed. The receiver will be alerted when that happens, but the sender hopes it will be too late.

He then explains how such an event is extremely unlikely under the assumption that (probability an honest node finds the next block) > (probability the attacker finds the next block)
This falls apart when one person controls >50% of the network's hashing power.

So from what I understand it works like this:
In case of a blockchain fork, the longest chain is considered the valid one, and with >50% hashing power, you can generate blocks faster than the rest of the network. Therefore, you can force a fork from an earlier block, catch up with the rest of the network, and still have your chain end up being the longest one. This invalidates all blocks on the other side of the fork and reverses the transactions included in those blocks.

[shackleford]

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't the heart of the matter that if somebody controls 50% of the hashing power they can take over the system.

There is no way to "take over the system" with just a high hashrate pool/miner. Please read: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Attacks#Attacker_has_a_lot_of_computing_power

The attacker can't:

• Reverse other people's transactions
• Prevent transactions from being sent at all (they'll show as 0/unconfirmed)
• Change the number of coins generated per block
• Create coins out of thin air
• Send coins that never belonged to him

This did not sound good from that link
"However, if this attack is successfully executed, it will be difficult or impossible to "untangle" the mess created -- any changes the attacker makes might become permanent."

I have no beef with anyone but money is about trust

[grndzero]

What is this mythical "attack" that everyone keeps alluding to?

Read Satoshi's paper for an explanation.

We consider the scenario of an attacker trying to generate an alternate chain faster than the honest chain. Even if this is accomplished, it does not throw the system open to arbitrary changes, such as creating value out of thin air or taking money that never belonged to the attacker. Nodes are not going to accept an invalid transaction as payment, and honest nodes will never accept a block containing them. An attacker can only try to change one of his own transactions to take back money he recently spent.
(...)
We assume the sender is an attacker who wants to make the recipient believe he paid him for a while, then switch it to pay back to himself after some time has passed. The receiver will be alerted when that happens, but the sender hopes it will be too late.

He then explains how such an event is extremely unlikely under the assumption that (probability an honest node finds the next block) > (probability the attacker finds the next block)
This falls apart when one person controls >50% of the network's hashing power.

So from what I understand it works like this:
In case of a blockchain fork, the longest chain is considered the valid one, and with >50% hashing power, you can generate blocks faster than the rest of the network. Therefore, you can force a fork from an earlier block, catch up with the rest of the network, and still have your chain end up being the longest one. This invalidates all blocks on the other side of the fork and reverses the transactions included in those blocks.

And now that deepbit is slightly over 50% of the global bitcoin hashing power he's going to take his honestly earned wages and try something like this? *sarcasm in case it wasn't clear* He does not own 50% of the hashing power outright, it is given by the users of the pool. If I were in his position and wanted to be evil I would push the fee up from 3% to 5-6%, much more profitable, easier to accomplish, right out in the open, and doesn't have the possibility of messing up the block chain and impeding future earnings.