You are threatening Bitcoin’s security

[tiberiandusk]

If you're on DeepBit like I was give Eligius or Continuum a try. I like having the coins say generated in my client instead of just receiving payments from somewhere.

[nazgulnarsil]

two questions:

why is a simple majority and not a super majority or qualified majority of some type needed?  couldn't this be changed?

why doesn't the ownership of bitcoins themselves give you some sort of veto power similar to stockholders?  After all the biggest holders of bitcoins have the LEAST incentive to devalue their own holdings.  Currently there are two components to influencing the network: running clients and hashing power.  Neither of these necessarily involve holding lots of bitcoins.  gmaxwell pointed out that you could trade bitcoins for influence in either of the two components, but I'm not sure it makes sense to have to "sell stock" to "vote".

at the very least clients with large wallets associated with them should have proportionately more power in resisting changes to the underlying protocol.

[MoonShadow]

two questions:

why is a simple majority and not a super majority or qualified majority of some type needed?  couldn't this be changed?

No, because it's not a formal voting process.  It's only the act of downloading a new client and running it with new rules, whichever branch dominates wins.

[SebastianJu]

I want to add some thoughts...

I doubt that deepbit would harm the system but the possibility to do so could attract attention. For example I await governments to cry out loud to stop this black market money. So I really dont know how much computing power agencies in the world have and if they could overtake 50% only to harm the system but Im sure they could take control about pools if they want. I think thats possibility one.

And the second possibility would be that someone goes the sneaky way and secretly buys access or owns different pools that doesnt seem to be connected but in fact are connected through this one buyer. He could be capable of combining everything having secretly over 50%...

So while im now understand enough of the real risks of that I think there should be enough possibilities (not saying how hard to achieve) to have more than 50%...

[saqwe]

Come on guys we all know you are in this for the $$$. If bitcoin gets attacked the least you would care once you have your BTC all converted to $$$ !

If people would care at all about Bitcoin and its security they would stop mining at deepbit.net monopoly but as you can see they all care about the moneyz !

*thumbs up*

[Killarshark33]

if deepbit is not broken up or limited we may have to take action against deepbit, i would hate to have to do it but this is posing a security risk to the end user.

[grndzero]

if deepbit is not broken up or limited we may have to take action against deepbit, i would hate to have to do it but this is posing a security risk to the end user.

Yeah, write them a strongly worded letter and if they don't respond then write them an even stronger worded letter.

[MoonShadow]

if deepbit is not broken up or limited we may have to take action against deepbit, i would hate to have to do it but this is posing a security risk to the end user.

Yeah, write them a strongly worded letter and if they don't respond then write them an even stronger worded letter.

Or better yet, just start an advertising campaign for the small pools directed at Deepbit's miners.

[grndzero]

if deepbit is not broken up or limited we may have to take action against deepbit, i would hate to have to do it but this is posing a security risk to the end user.

Yeah, write them a strongly worded letter and if they don't respond then write them an even stronger worded letter.

Or better yet, just start an advertising campaign for the small pools directed at Deepbit's miners.

See how much [Tyco] would charge to advertise other pools on his web page or put together some people willing to contribute to an advertising campaign for other pools on some major websites/google ad words.

[grndzero]

Bump because there's not enough deepbit threads on the main page.

[N12]

Two months later.



Bitcoin was founded on the premise that in order to use it, you wouldn’t have to trust anyone. Right now, I have to trust the deepbit OP, Tycho, to not double spend.

I consider anyone mining on deepbit a criminal.

[kokojie]

people are watching and examining deepbit like hawks, I doubt deepbit will do anything fraudulent. Plus why would any established pool destroy their own investment by destabilizing bitcoin network? the reward is tiny vs the potential loss. What we need to watch for is if any non-established source has control of hash power over 50%.

[CNMOH]

people are watching and examining deepbit like hawks, I doubt deepbit will do anything fraudulent. Plus why would any established pool destroy their own investment by destabilizing bitcoin network? the reward is tiny vs the potential loss. What we need to watch for is if any non-established source has control of hash power over 50%.

But what if someone hacks deepbit and gains control of the pool?

[MoonShadow]

people are watching and examining deepbit like hawks, I doubt deepbit will do anything fraudulent. Plus why would any established pool destroy their own investment by destabilizing bitcoin network? the reward is tiny vs the potential loss. What we need to watch for is if any non-established source has control of hash power over 50%.

But what if someone hacks deepbit and gains control of the pool?

It would be a short lived win, because deepbit doesn't control the pool's nodes.  As soon as the breech was noticed, and it wouldn't take all that long, the nodes' owners would just starve deepbit of it's collective resources and the takeover attempt would be useless.

[TheVirus]

people are watching and examining deepbit like hawks, I doubt deepbit will do anything fraudulent. Plus why would any established pool destroy their own investment by destabilizing bitcoin network? the reward is tiny vs the potential loss. What we need to watch for is if any non-established source has control of hash power over 50%.

But what if someone hacks deepbit and gains control of the pool?

It would be a short lived win, because deepbit doesn't control the pool's nodes.  As soon as the breech was noticed, and it wouldn't take all that long, the nodes' owners would just starve deepbit of it's collective resources and the takeover attempt would be useless.

But couldn't someone with control of 51% script it so they 'found' 1,000,000 blocks in the span of several seconds?

[Jack of Diamonds]

I consider anyone mining on deepbit a criminal.

lol

[MoonShadow]

people are watching and examining deepbit like hawks, I doubt deepbit will do anything fraudulent. Plus why would any established pool destroy their own investment by destabilizing bitcoin network? the reward is tiny vs the potential loss. What we need to watch for is if any non-established source has control of hash power over 50%.

But what if someone hacks deepbit and gains control of the pool?

It would be a short lived win, because deepbit doesn't control the pool's nodes.  As soon as the breech was noticed, and it wouldn't take all that long, the nodes' owners would just starve deepbit of it's collective resources and the takeover attempt would be useless.

But couldn't someone with control of 51% script it so they 'found' 1,000,000 blocks in the span of several seconds?

No.

[SgtSpike]

people are watching and examining deepbit like hawks, I doubt deepbit will do anything fraudulent. Plus why would any established pool destroy their own investment by destabilizing bitcoin network? the reward is tiny vs the potential loss. What we need to watch for is if any non-established source has control of hash power over 50%.

But what if someone hacks deepbit and gains control of the pool?

It would be a short lived win, because deepbit doesn't control the pool's nodes.  As soon as the breech was noticed, and it wouldn't take all that long, the nodes' owners would just starve deepbit of it's collective resources and the takeover attempt would be useless.

But couldn't someone with control of 51% script it so they 'found' 1,000,000 blocks in the span of several seconds?

No.  They still have to be legitimate blocks with hashes inside of the difficulty requirement.  Otherwise, all other clients would reject the new blockchain as soon as it was presented to them, and their double-spends wouldn't propagate.

[iamzill]

Move to other pools. Stop mining on deepbit.

Here’s what someone with 50% of the network’s hashrate could do.

So you are saying Tycho is an attacker? Seriously?

What if law enformenet confiscated Tycho's servers with the intent of controlling and corrupting the hash chain?
What if a blackhat compromised Tycho's server?
What if a criminal coerced Tycho at gun point?

Any economy has a weak point, but let's not make Bitcoin's weak point a single person. If I were that person, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing the risks.

[XIU]

Looks like he has only about 30-40% now.