difficulty skyrocketing and price stagnant

[cbeast]

Dark operators of botnets leeching off of Bitcoin only promotes the need for legit miners to short their coins to recoup costs at higher difficulties.

Get rid of botnets.

They aren't leeching. They secure the network just like everyone else, and are paid for it by the network... just like everyone else.

LOL. They steal hardware resources and money paid for energy bills, but they're nice, because they secure the network! Let more botnets live and increase difficulty up to 1000%, its good for bitcoin anyway! So the whole network will be driven by botnets. It is good, isn't it?

You would think that competing botnets would want to eliminate their competition so they would get more bitcoin.

[terrytibbs]

LOL. They steal hardware resources and money paid for energy bills, but they're nice, because they secure the network!

I couldn't give a shit less about idiots who a) let their computer get infected in the firstplace, and b) don't notice the bump in CPU/GPU usage.

Let more botnets live and increase difficulty up to 1000%, its good for bitcoin anyway! So the whole network will be driven by botnets. It is good, isn't it?

The higher the difficulty, the happier I am. Even if the entire network is eventually driven by botnets, and that's a big if, because it assumes that coins are extremely worthless, which assumes that terry's missed a huge opportunity to gobble up some cheap coins. Even if, it's several botnets, so a 51% attack is unlikely.

[BCMan]

Dark operators of botnets leeching off of Bitcoin only promotes the need for legit miners to short their coins to recoup costs at higher difficulties.

Get rid of botnets.

They aren't leeching. They secure the network just like everyone else, and are paid for it by the network... just like everyone else.

LOL. They steal hardware resources and money paid for energy bills, but they're nice, because they secure the network! Let more botnets live and increase difficulty up to 1000%, its good for bitcoin anyway! So the whole network will be driven by botnets. It is good, isn't it?

You would think that competing botnets would want to eliminate their competition so they would get more bitcoin.

They're doing it in process already, real miners are filtering out. Anyway, botnets owners getting cash for free, so they don't care about competition.

The higher the difficulty, the happier I am.

So, you don't believe in success of Bitcoin? What will happen when reward halves and price will continue to drop. Even FPGA's won't help. No matter how effective they will be, botnets cannot be beaten in efficiency anyway. Probability of death of Bitcoin is never been so high. The only thing which keep the price not to fall below zero is Silk Road.

[cuz0882]

Dark operators of botnets leeching off of Bitcoin only promotes the need for legit miners to short their coins to recoup costs at higher difficulties.

Get rid of botnets.

They aren't leeching. They secure the network just like everyone else, and are paid for it by the network... just like everyone else.

To be fair, they're more likely not to sell their coins, because they have no costs to recoup (unlike your friendly neighbourhood BFL miner).

Are you really this stupid? The only thing they do is cost everyone money. They are a threat to the network themselves. I hope they hijack your pc for being so ignorant.

[terrytibbs]

Are you really this stupid? The only thing they do is cost everyone money. They are a threat to the network themselves. I hope they hijack your pc for being so ignorant.

We pay just as much to your average miner for the exact same service. I don't give a shit who it is.

"Are you really this stupid?"

[rjk]

Dark operators of botnets leeching off of Bitcoin only promotes the need for legit miners to short their coins to recoup costs at higher difficulties.

Get rid of botnets.

They aren't leeching. They secure the network just like everyone else, and are paid for it by the network... just like everyone else.

To be fair, they're more likely not to sell their coins, because they have no costs to recoup (unlike your friendly neighbourhood BFL miner).

Are you really this stupid? The only thing they do is cost everyone money. They are a threat to the network themselves. I hope they hijack your pc for being so ignorant.

Nice, someone who doesn't appear to know about network security preaching about ignorance.

The fact is, it does indeed add to network security, because a higher difficulty means it is harder to attack the bitcoin ecosystem, whether by 51% attacks, finney attacks, and so forth. And furthermore, there are individual users here (many of them, in fact) that have significantly more than just 13-20 ghash/s under their belt, no botnet needed.

[terrytibbs]

The higher the difficulty, the happier I am.

So, you don't believe in success of Bitcoin? What will happen when reward halves and price will continue to drop. Even FPGA's won't help. No matter how effective they will be, botnets cannot be beaten in efficiency anyway. Probability of death of Bitcoin is never been so high. The only thing which keep the price not to fall below zero is Silk Road.

As I said, I don't care who secures the network, as long as it's done. Botmasters have found a way that is extremely cost-effective - good for them!

[BCMan]

The higher the difficulty, the happier I am.

So, you don't believe in success of Bitcoin? What will happen when reward halves and price will continue to drop. Even FPGA's won't help. No matter how effective they will be, botnets cannot be beaten in efficiency anyway. Probability of death of Bitcoin is never been so high. The only thing which keep the price not to fall below zero is Silk Road.

As I said, I don't care who secures the network, as long as it's done. Botmasters have found a way that is extremely cost-effective - good for them!

Honest miners keeping network secure for Silkroad criminals, what an irony! Basically miners helping criminals to kill somebody, they have blood on their hands too. Botnets will be perfect pair for SL for sure. Bitcoin may finally go to hell.

[terrytibbs]

Honest miners keeping network secure for Silkroad criminals, what an irony! Basically miners helping criminals to kill somebody. Botnets will fit better for them for sure, perfect pair. Bitcoin may finally go to hell.

Are you abandoning your (useless) argument about mining and trying another angle with this Silk Road shit?

[BCMan]

Honest miners keeping network secure for Silkroad criminals, what an irony! Basically miners helping criminals to kill somebody. Botnets will fit better for them for sure, perfect pair. Bitcoin may finally go to hell.

Are you abandoning your (useless) argument about mining and trying another angle with this Silk Road shit?

No, I'm just trolling out of boredom. Actually, I would like to break all bones of botnets owners, that would be a real pleasure.

[rjk]

Honest miners keeping network secure for Silkroad criminals, what an irony! Basically miners helping criminals to kill somebody. Botnets will fit better for them for sure, perfect pair. Bitcoin may finally go to hell.

Are you abandoning your (useless) argument about mining and trying another angle with this Silk Road shit?

No, I'm just trolling out of boredom. Actually, I would like to break all bones of botnets owners, that would be a real pleasure.

QFT

I don't care when they are securing the network with others' power and CPU/GPU time, but I draw the line at selling identities.

[cuz0882]

We pay just as much to your average miner for the exact same service. I don't give a shit who it is.

They don't do the same as regular miners. They only add to the hashrate, they don't even have a copy of the block chain... If the price drops, people turn there rigs off, botnets stay on. How secure are we when the price hits 5 cents and some botnet controls 70% of the hashrate?

[mig91]

any ways to get botnets off the network ?

[cuz0882]

any ways to get botnets off the network ?

They are working on it, there have a been a few ideas. Requiring miners to have a copy of the blockchain has came up. Only the programmers can figure out the best method. I don't think its even clear yet if there are bot nets mining.

[BCMan]

I don't think its even clear yet if there are bot nets mining.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81356.0
 Can't be more obvious.

[nedbert9]

Would you rather have the network secured by those with a more vested interest, i.e. those who own hardware and have considerable expenses. 

Or would you rather have a large percentage of the network security provided by botnets that have less vested interest and are vulnerable to disappearing or large hash capacity reductions due to being discovered and cleaned.

Co-opting botnets for increased network security is a justification or rationalization.  Whether this rationalization is truly healthy for Bitcoin is the question that requires the most consideration.

Or to put this another way.  If you could have owners vs. botnets and get the same amount of network security which would you choose?

Don't care? 

[terrytibbs]

botnets that have less vested interest and are vulnerable to disappearing or large hash capacity reductions due to being discovered and cleaned

This is a valid point, but it's not as instantaneous as you make it sound. Most botnets are gaining more nodes than they lose, and these situations happen only when there is some kind of large campaign by the security companies. The difficulty may drop, but it wouldn't be nearly as high without the botnets in the first place, because they can operate at zero cost to the owner.

[jothan]

I think we will see a "rotation" or a "shift" of miners when the difficulty goes up.

The new and more efficient miners will push the less efficient/profitable miners out of the market. The difficulty will probably keep going up slowly, but this effect should keep it in check somewhat.

[zvs]

I think we will see a "rotation" or a "shift" of miners when the difficulty goes up.

The new and more efficient miners will push the less efficient/profitable miners out of the market. The difficulty will probably keep going up slowly, but this effect should keep it in check somewhat.

oh, the people that mine for a loss will drive the profitable miners out of the market?  surely you arent talking about those $500 FPGAs

i'd rather get pushed out by the hordes of zombified computers

[jothan]

I think we will see a "rotation" or a "shift" of miners when the difficulty goes up.

The new and more efficient miners will push the less efficient/profitable miners out of the market. The difficulty will probably keep going up slowly, but this effect should keep it in check somewhat.

oh, the people that mine for a loss will drive the profitable miners out of the market?  surely you arent talking about those $500 FPGAs

i'd rather get pushed out by the hordes of zombified computers

I mine with FPGA's and I live where the electricity is dirt cheap. My FPGA's should pay themselves off in a few months, I am VERY far from mining at a loss.

I imagine others like me will push out people mining with GPUs where the electricity is costly. I can keep mining at a profit with a high difficulty/low price, botnets and other FPGA miners permitting.