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The hardware checks in with central bitmain servers to see if the hardware is "legitimate". The bitmain servers have to explicitly return false to disable the m

by tedivm 10y ago

The hardware checks in with central bitmain servers to see if the hardware is "legitimate". The bitmain servers have to explicitly return false to disable the machines, which is really important because it means that the servers just being disabled (via a DDoS for example) will not shut down anyones systems. That's why redirecting the traffic from "auth.minerlink.com" to point at "127.0.0.1" is an effective way to bypass the issue. The server (localhost) isn't responding with false and thus the system stays up and running. The idea that all machines would be shutdown globally seems a bit excessive. While possible it would require Bitmain to lose control of their domain globally, and I imagine an issue like that would get resolved fairly quickly. That being said it is a bit stupid of bitmain to be doing this, especially if they aren't even doing it over SSL.

twowowo 10y ago
They are controlling a huge share of the hashing power themselves. If they kill all the ASICs that they produced but do not control themselves I think it is quite likely they would control over 50% of the hash power themselves. That is a nightmare scenario.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  Yes. It'd also be interesting if there was a way to turn the hashers off and on intermittently (does it try again after receiving a "false"? don't feel like reading the code right now). This would be a good way to sell hardware but still preserve their control over hash power by causing devices to have some idle time, which means more blocks and shares from pools for themselves. While this is obviously a big problem, it is a little bit of a vindication for me, because people have scoffed when I've expressed concerns that bitcoin mining is too centralized. [0] And if one ASIC vendor can do this, what could a government do? [1] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14040165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14040165 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14166820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14166820
- adambyrtek 10y ago
  "The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it." – Dune
  - duxup 10y ago
    "Plans within plans" -Dune
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- celticninja 10y ago
  The workaround seems incredibly simple so I'm not sure it was nefarious but i would love to know what they thought it was for.
KallDrexx 10y ago
We've had third party software systems fail before because they check into the vendor's system asking if they were authorized, the vendor at that same time had a database issue which caused it to return false for us, thus taking down all of our infrastructure reliant on that system. So yeah, just because it explicitly looks for false doesn't mean it's a non-issue.
h1d 10y ago
1 remote code execution on that server or on the DNS server or domain hijacking and Bitcoin takes a serious hit on social recognition. That is far from how it's called a distributed ledger. Not sure the percentage of machines with the capability out of Bitmain's products but it's said Bitmain's products provide about 70% of the global hash rate.

by tedivm 10y ago

twowowo 10y ago

They are controlling a huge share of the hashing power themselves. If they kill all the ASICs that they produced but do not control themselves I think it is quite likely they would control over 50% of the hash power themselves. That is a nightmare scenario.

cookiecaper 10y ago
Yes. It'd also be interesting if there was a way to turn the hashers off and on intermittently (does it try again after receiving a "false"? don't feel like reading the code right now). This would be a good way to sell hardware but still preserve their control over hash power by causing devices to have some idle time, which means more blocks and shares from pools for themselves. While this is obviously a big problem, it is a little bit of a vindication for me, because people have scoffed when I've expressed concerns that bitcoin mining is too centralized. [0] And if one ASIC vendor can do this, what could a government do? [1] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14040165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14040165 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14166820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14166820
adambyrtek 10y ago
"The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it." – Dune
- duxup 10y ago
  "Plans within plans" -Dune
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
celticninja 10y ago
The workaround seems incredibly simple so I'm not sure it was nefarious but i would love to know what they thought it was for.

KallDrexx 10y ago

We've had third party software systems fail before because they check into the vendor's system asking if they were authorized, the vendor at that same time had a database issue which caused it to return false for us, thus taking down all of our infrastructure reliant on that system. So yeah, just because it explicitly looks for false doesn't mean it's a non-issue.

h1d 10y ago

1 remote code execution on that server or on the DNS server or domain hijacking and Bitcoin takes a serious hit on social recognition. That is far from how it's called a distributed ledger. Not sure the percentage of machines with the capability out of Bitmain's products but it's said Bitmain's products provide about 70% of the global hash rate.