5 ms·

Uhhhhh, so this guys "brilliant" attack vector that he came up with was a 51% attack? The same attack that is literally spelled out in the bitcoin whitepaper a

by stale2002 9y ago

Uhhhhh, so this guys "brilliant" attack vector that he came up with was a 51% attack? The same attack that is literally spelled out in the bitcoin whitepaper and has been known about from day one? He didn't even add anything interesting on top of it. He just said "get 51% of miners, and then double spend". Nor did he even discuss the ways of mitigating a 51% attack. If the network was being attacked, what I would do is wait for more than 6 Transactions to go on the network, before considering them "final". In a worse case scenario of a sustained 51% attack, the users could simply change the Proof Of Work algorithm (which is a hard fork). It wouldn't be 'great' but it allows the currency to survive. Now the government has to spend more and more money going on the attack. Bitcoin works because of this economic game theory. Yes, it is possible to attack the network. This is well known. The reason why it doesn't happen is because attacking the network is EXPENSIVE, and can't last forever.

viraptor 9y ago
> the users could simply change the Proof Of Work algorithm "Simply"? You're saying that an attacker having >51% hashing power on current system wouldn't benefit further from: a) user base splitting between forks (if block structure was changed), or b) all current ASICs dropping off the network (if the using method was changed). > Now the government has to spend more and more money going on the attack. They would have direct access to chip fabs and money to throw at it. Or just laws available to stop production (mining is illegal now).
- stale2002 9y ago
  > They would have direct access to chip fabs and money to throw at it. And every time they make chips and attack the network, the users change the POW or move to a different altcoin. There are even crytocurrencies that don't use A Proof Of Work algorithm, and use something called proof of stake (which means that the current holders of the coin get to vote on what happens.). Hows the government going to stop THAT? Buy up all the votes? And THEN buy up all the new Proof of Stake coins that ever get created? > Or just laws available to stop production (mining is illegal now). What people need to understand that it is no enough to 'just' destroy the current version of bitcoin. The government would need to destroy EVERY version of bitcoin, and EVERY altcoin, all at once, now and forever. And then ever single other NEW crytocurrency that people create. And not only that, but the government would have to do it EVERYWHERE. It is not enough for 'just' china to ban mining. Every country in the world would have to ban it, because if there is a single country that doesn't ban it, or is ineffective, then everyone would just trust THAT altcoin. The government can't even stop online piracy. Hows it going to convince every government, all around the world, to stop something that most people believe is perfectly OK? Like, fine, if the world governments somehow convince 90% of the population that Crytocurrencies are somehow as bad as child porn, then MAYBE they have a slim hope of stopping them. But I Think that this goal is extremely unlikely to be successful.
  - viraptor 9y ago
    You don't need to stop it everywhere and every time. If Bitcoin stops being the main cryptocurrency, the exodus will drop the value drastically. That means people will lose a lot of real money. Maybe the second major currency will be still popular. The later ones will be "why bother". Proof of stake will be more interesting, but there's nothing major popular yet. That's the huge difference from things like piracy. Govs can't decrease the value of movies already out there, or make new ones less desirable. They can do that to ideas like Bitcoin though.

viraptor 9y ago

> the users could simply change the Proof Of Work algorithm "Simply"? You're saying that an attacker having >51% hashing power on current system wouldn't benefit further from: a) user base splitting between forks (if block structure was changed), or b) all current ASICs dropping off the network (if the using method was changed). > Now the government has to spend more and more money going on the attack. They would have direct access to chip fabs and money to throw at it. Or just laws available to stop production (mining is illegal now).

stale2002 9y ago
> They would have direct access to chip fabs and money to throw at it. And every time they make chips and attack the network, the users change the POW or move to a different altcoin. There are even crytocurrencies that don't use A Proof Of Work algorithm, and use something called proof of stake (which means that the current holders of the coin get to vote on what happens.). Hows the government going to stop THAT? Buy up all the votes? And THEN buy up all the new Proof of Stake coins that ever get created? > Or just laws available to stop production (mining is illegal now). What people need to understand that it is no enough to 'just' destroy the current version of bitcoin. The government would need to destroy EVERY version of bitcoin, and EVERY altcoin, all at once, now and forever. And then ever single other NEW crytocurrency that people create. And not only that, but the government would have to do it EVERYWHERE. It is not enough for 'just' china to ban mining. Every country in the world would have to ban it, because if there is a single country that doesn't ban it, or is ineffective, then everyone would just trust THAT altcoin. The government can't even stop online piracy. Hows it going to convince every government, all around the world, to stop something that most people believe is perfectly OK? Like, fine, if the world governments somehow convince 90% of the population that Crytocurrencies are somehow as bad as child porn, then MAYBE they have a slim hope of stopping them. But I Think that this goal is extremely unlikely to be successful.
- viraptor 9y ago
  You don't need to stop it everywhere and every time. If Bitcoin stops being the main cryptocurrency, the exodus will drop the value drastically. That means people will lose a lot of real money. Maybe the second major currency will be still popular. The later ones will be "why bother". Proof of stake will be more interesting, but there's nothing major popular yet. That's the huge difference from things like piracy. Govs can't decrease the value of movies already out there, or make new ones less desirable. They can do that to ideas like Bitcoin though.