I have a theory about the recent ASIC bloodsucking

[seriouscoin]

Sonny = Satoshi, and he wants his network back

Discuss

[rjk]

fail

[allinvain]

[coretechs]

How about this for a conspiracy theory -

Members of BFL worked in R&D for crypto chips used by NSA for cracking.  After Gavin's talk at the CIA, a plan was devised to secretly build an ASIC mining cluster that could take over the network, just in case bitcoin ever became a viable competitor to the fiat currencies of the world as they slowly crumbled.  BFL was set up as a front company and the vanilla sha256 bitstreams and chip designs they had already developed were modified for bitcoin mining.  The FPGA chips from an outdated NSA cracking cluster were re-purposed for the initial BFL singles and the serial numbers were removed to reduce the chance that they could ever be linked back to the government contract in which they were purchased.  The existing ASIC fabs were redesigned for the "SC" and a slew of moles posing as miners and bitcoin businesses orchestrated a plan to project the illusion of a large market of miners who trusted BFL and received their products as promised.  This was done to lure any potentially serious investors away from competing ASIC efforts and into their honeypot, thereby allowing them to dominate the entire market.  This included fabricated botnet stories to cover for the incremental ramp-up of the NSA hashing cluster, which actually already controls over %60 of the hashrate while running only a small fraction of total capacity.  Now the US government has a bitcoin "takeover switch" that they can turn on at any time to control all transactions in the network.  Nobody will question BFLs questionable business practices because they have a govt. contract.  They will slowly sell a trickle of ASICs to the public to recoup some of the redevelopment costs and all the ex-TIA guys in the back room at the pentagon get a fat raise and a retirement gift cigar from Howard Schmidt.

[rjk]

How about this for a conspiracy theory -

Members of BFL worked in R&D for crypto chips used by NSA for cracking.  After Gavin's talk at the CIA, a plan was devised to secretly build an ASIC mining cluster that could take over the network, just in case bitcoin ever became a viable competitor to the fiat currencies of the world as they slowly crumbled.  BFL was set up as a front company and the vanilla sha256 bitstreams and chip designs they had already developed were modified for bitcoin mining.  The FPGA chips from an outdated NSA cracking cluster were re-purposed for the initial BFL singles and the serial numbers were removed to reduce the chance that they could ever be linked back to the government contract in which they were purchased.  The existing ASIC fabs were redesigned for the "SC" and a slew of moles posing as miners and bitcoin businesses orchestrated a plan to project the illusion of a large market of miners who trusted BFL and received their products as promised.  This was done to lure any potentially serious investors away from competing ASIC efforts and into their honeypot, thereby allowing them to dominate the entire market.  This included fabricated botnet stories to cover for the incremental ramp-up of the NSA hashing cluster, which actually already controls over %60 of the hashrate while running only a small fraction of total capacity.  Now the US government has a bitcoin "takeover switch" that they can turn on at any time to control all transactions in the network.  Nobody will question BFLs questionable business practices because they have a govt. contract.  They will slowly sell a trickle of ASICs to the public to recoup some of the redevelopment costs and all the ex-TIA guys in the back room at the pentagon get a fat raise and a retirement gift cigar from Howard Schmidt.

Nice theory, I lol'd a little bit. Maybe the NSA has figured out how to pwn a box running any given OS via the USB port and trick cgminer into reporting the correct hash rate etc, while silently taking over the network and forwarding hashes to a rendezvous point where a 51% chain that reverts all the way back to the genesis block is being built.

[crazyates]

How about this for a conspiracy theory -

Members of BFL worked in R&D for crypto chips used by NSA for cracking.  After Gavin's talk at the CIA, a plan was devised to secretly build an ASIC mining cluster that could take over the network, just in case bitcoin ever became a viable competitor to the fiat currencies of the world as they slowly crumbled.  BFL was set up as a front company and the vanilla sha256 bitstreams and chip designs they had already developed were modified for bitcoin mining.  The FPGA chips from an outdated NSA cracking cluster were re-purposed for the initial BFL singles and the serial numbers were removed to reduce the chance that they could ever be linked back to the government contract in which they were purchased.  The existing ASIC fabs were redesigned for the "SC" and a slew of moles posing as miners and bitcoin businesses orchestrated a plan to project the illusion of a large market of miners who trusted BFL and received their products as promised.  This was done to lure any potentially serious investors away from competing ASIC efforts and into their honeypot, thereby allowing them to dominate the entire market.  This included fabricated botnet stories to cover for the incremental ramp-up of the NSA hashing cluster, which actually already controls over %60 of the hashrate while running only a small fraction of total capacity.  Now the US government has a bitcoin "takeover switch" that they can turn on at any time to control all transactions in the network.  Nobody will question BFLs questionable business practices because they have a govt. contract.  They will slowly sell a trickle of ASICs to the public to recoup some of the redevelopment costs and all the ex-TIA guys in the back room at the pentagon get a fat raise and a retirement gift cigar from Howard Schmidt.

Nice theory, I lol'd a little bit. Maybe the NSA has figured out how to pwn a box running any given OS via the USB port and trick cgminer into reporting the correct hash rate etc, while silently taking over the network and forwarding hashes to a rendezvous point where a 51% chain that reverts all the way back to the genesis block is being built.

How do you know ckolivas isn't in on it? He could be getting blackmailed into cooperating as we speak!

[bulanula]

How about this for a conspiracy theory -

Members of BFL worked in R&D for crypto chips used by NSA for cracking.  After Gavin's talk at the CIA, a plan was devised to secretly build an ASIC mining cluster that could take over the network, just in case bitcoin ever became a viable competitor to the fiat currencies of the world as they slowly crumbled.  BFL was set up as a front company and the vanilla sha256 bitstreams and chip designs they had already developed were modified for bitcoin mining.  The FPGA chips from an outdated NSA cracking cluster were re-purposed for the initial BFL singles and the serial numbers were removed to reduce the chance that they could ever be linked back to the government contract in which they were purchased.  The existing ASIC fabs were redesigned for the "SC" and a slew of moles posing as miners and bitcoin businesses orchestrated a plan to project the illusion of a large market of miners who trusted BFL and received their products as promised.  This was done to lure any potentially serious investors away from competing ASIC efforts and into their honeypot, thereby allowing them to dominate the entire market.  This included fabricated botnet stories to cover for the incremental ramp-up of the NSA hashing cluster, which actually already controls over %60 of the hashrate while running only a small fraction of total capacity.  Now the US government has a bitcoin "takeover switch" that they can turn on at any time to control all transactions in the network.  Nobody will question BFLs questionable business practices because they have a govt. contract.  They will slowly sell a trickle of ASICs to the public to recoup some of the redevelopment costs and all the ex-TIA guys in the back room at the pentagon get a fat raise and a retirement gift cigar from Howard Schmidt.

Laugh all you want but I actually believe in this story.

Could not have expressed it better in words. 

All will be revealed sooner or later ...

I think :

BFL = government contractors or working for the government or honeypot for government; controls 51% switch in ASIC miners
Gavin = Satoshi = DEA worker that build BTC with flaws to allow tracing of drug users through insecure SR TXs
FPGA chips with no ID tags on them at all and costing a fortune ( 4000 USD ) being wiped off and sold for $200
Moles posing as miners and bitcoin businesses = gigavps mainly and his positive portrayal of BFL; he eats BFLs for breakfast

It all makes sense if you think about it and it would be much cheaper than downright 51%; you know, the government needs to be saving on $$$ so best bang for buck is sought here !

[spiccioli]

How about this for a conspiracy theory -

Members of BFL worked in R&D for crypto chips used by NSA for cracking.  After Gavin's talk at the CIA, a plan was devised to secretly build an ASIC mining cluster that could take over the network, just in case bitcoin ever became a viable competitor to the fiat currencies of the world as they slowly crumbled.  BFL was set up as a front company and the vanilla sha256 bitstreams and chip designs they had already developed were modified for bitcoin mining.  The FPGA chips from an outdated NSA cracking cluster were re-purposed for the initial BFL singles and the serial numbers were removed to reduce the chance that they could ever be linked back to the government contract in which they were purchased.  The existing ASIC fabs were redesigned for the "SC" and a slew of moles posing as miners and bitcoin businesses orchestrated a plan to project the illusion of a large market of miners who trusted BFL and received their products as promised.  This was done to lure any potentially serious investors away from competing ASIC efforts and into their honeypot, thereby allowing them to dominate the entire market.  This included fabricated botnet stories to cover for the incremental ramp-up of the NSA hashing cluster, which actually already controls over %60 of the hashrate while running only a small fraction of total capacity.  Now the US government has a bitcoin "takeover switch" that they can turn on at any time to control all transactions in the network.  Nobody will question BFLs questionable business practices because they have a govt. contract.  They will slowly sell a trickle of ASICs to the public to recoup some of the redevelopment costs and all the ex-TIA guys in the back room at the pentagon get a fat raise and a retirement gift cigar from Howard Schmidt.

Nice theory, I lol'd a little bit. Maybe the NSA has figured out how to pwn a box running any given OS via the USB port and trick cgminer into reporting the correct hash rate etc, while silently taking over the network and forwarding hashes to a rendezvous point where a 51% chain that reverts all the way back to the genesis block is being built.

Their chip recognizes a specially crafted transaction (more or less like the BIP16 transaction that stopped that botnet a few months ago) and bricks itself. So in a few minutes total network hashing power drops to just a few TH/s and then they can start their 51% attack destroying the bitcoin network

spiccioli.

[niko]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=86112.0

Hardware backdoors are a reality. Just like paper wallets, we need a low-tech alternative to hashing. I'm thinking massively parallel, coordinated child-labor camps in Southeast Asia operated under the pretense of schooling camps. First semester: arithmetics.

[beekeeper]

Just like paper wallets, we need a low-tech alternative to hashing. I'm thinking massively parallel, coordinated child-labor camps in Southeast Asia operated under the pretense of schooling camps. First semester: arithmetics.

L M F A O! Insane.. lol..