8 ms·

On the contrary this is just the most pronounced in a series of recent coordinated DDOS / aggressive selling attacks designed to (successfully) inspire panic. T

by dia80 14y ago

On the contrary this is just the most pronounced in a series of recent coordinated DDOS / aggressive selling attacks designed to (successfully) inspire panic. The attackers unload their bitcoin before the price gets smashed and presumably buy it all back again from frightened speculators. If anything it might be a positive sign for bitcoin that the attackers are keen to acquire it! On another note, mtgox.com the main exchange is shockingly unfit for purpose. If real markets could get 1 hour behind in transaction processing because of a spike in volume it would be the end of capitalism as we know it. I hope a more able exchange arrives soon.

dubfan 14y ago
Do you have any evidence at all of a coordinated attack against Bitcoin, or is this just an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory?
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  Do you even have to ask?
- DanBC 14y ago
  Don't the DDoS attacks count as evidence?
  - awj 14y ago
    What DDoS attacks? So far I've seen no compelling evidence that this is anything but high volumes of legitimate usage.
    - L0j1k 14y ago
      As a long-time (since 2010) miner, I can tell you first-hand that there are massive DDoS attacks taking place against not only MtGox (who has already described DDoS against their infrastructure) but the pools as well. In fact, Reddit's pool (MtRed.com) is completely DOWN at the moment because of a larger DDoS than we've ever seen. You can keep drinking the "everything's fine" koolaid, or get with the reality that currency manipulators have arrived on the Bitcoin train, and are using all the tools they have available to do their job.
      - kaoD 14y ago
        Nope. MtRed is down because they can't pay their miners. Variance is a bitch.
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - Negitivefrags 14y ago
        I thought MtRed was down because they shut it down? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=15929.msg1793833#msg1793833 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=15929.msg1793833#msg... Also, just because MtGox had a DDoS in the past, doesn't mean they are having one now. I know first hand as someone who runs a service that has been DDoSed in the past that the moment you have server issues, all the users scream "They are being DDoSed!". My experience here is just as irrelevant as is your own.
        L0j1k 14y ago
        This news reveals then that they lied. It was stated repeatedly in #mtred on freenode -- which is where I started lurking when my rig was unable to connect to the pool -- that they brought the pool down in reaction to a very strong DDoS, and that they were rewriting the payment algorithm in the interim. That being said, I'm not sure why you think they wouldn't be subject -- along with every piece of infrastructure in the bitcoin food chain -- to very large DDoS attacks. The currency manipulators are here to stay. To think otherwise is foolish and misguided, or hopeful beyond reason.
        Negitivefrags 14y ago
        The fact that every bit of infrastructure is being "attacked" at once suggests that it is not a DDoS attack to me. If the price starts going down, everyone will rush to their favorite bitcoin related site to see what is going on, even if they are not planning on panic selling. Would you say you have checked bitcoin related sites 5 times more than usual today? 10 times? If the regular users of a site all decide to use it five to ten times more than usual, it is very likely to cause some slowdown. On the other hand, if a single bitcoin related site was experiencing problems, that is when I suspect a targeted attack. Lastly, the only thing that mtgox announcing that they have been DDoSed in the past tells us is that they are willing to announce the fact that they are being DDoSed. This would seem to make it less likely that they are being DDoSed in the absence of such an announcement.
  - ceejayoz 14y ago
    Depends on whether they're able to distinguish between a DDoS and a good old fashioned bank run.
- pseudonym 14y ago
  I think there's a lot of people who bought in during the last week or two that really want it to turn out to be an "attack". I haven't seen any actual stats or indication that that's actually the case, though. Likewise, Mt. Gox made mention of "Being DDOS'd" at certain points, but I'm a little skeptical of the claim given that their own charts show a huge jump in trade volume at around the same time. So no, there's no real "proof" yet of it being a DDOS or just lots of panicked traders, just lots of speculation (heh, heh).
  - asperous 14y ago
    Most likely it is being ddossed... by people trying to sell, but that's just my opinion.
  - krichman 14y ago
    There were many, many transactions with amounts of 0.02 BTC. I think P(attack|0.02 BTC * n) > P(~attack|0.02 BTC * n). The reality is probably six of panic sale, half a dozen of DDOS.
    - pseudonym 14y ago
      The thing with small BTC transactions is that it's more likely to be someone trying to prop up the market, not someone trying to DDOS it. Every time the price starts to go down you start to see a lot of very small buy transactions at a round number a fair amount above the current sell price start going in. The only reason for them appears to be just to keep the displayed "last sale" price on MtGox high.
- trotsky 14y ago
  that was the line mtgox was feeding people to explain why their trading platform gets so lagged out at times.
- Wonderdonkey 14y ago
  Tradehill reported it was a DDoS. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/339410,virtual-currency-bitcoin-in-freefall.aspx http://www.itnews.com.au/News/339410,virtual-currency-bitcoi...
foobarqux 14y ago
What evidence do you have of this claim?
- dia80 14y ago
  Will a press release from the target suffice? https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130404.html https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130404.html
  - foobarqux 14y ago
    That's from a week ago. Is there any evidence that a DDOS happened today?
    - yebyen 14y ago
      DDOS with malicious intent, or does a general usage spike count? Just try loading mtgox.com -- it's slow. Try using it to trade. Even slower. Service is being denied. Confidence undermined. I would not take this as a vote that once the server issues are resolved, the price will continue to soar, but if I said that, it's possible that later I would be able to "told you so".
      - thefreeman 14y ago
        a site loading slow is in NO way evidence of DDOS
    - fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
      Lots and lots of tiny trades. <0.001
axusgrad 14y ago
btc-e seems to be another big one. http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ will show prices in the major exchanges, if it's online. I had to use the Google cache.
wcoenen 14y ago
> On the contrary this is just the most pronounced in a series of recent coordinated DDOS / aggressive selling attacks designed to (successfully) inspire panic. The bitcointalk forums and /r/bitcoin are full of paranoia like this. After months of stress trying to divine market patterns, people see market manipulation and conspiracies everywhere. The simple truth is that there was an agressive bubble. The doubling period for the price was halving with each iteration[1]. If you looked at the log plot[2], it still looked exponential! A crash was inevitable. > On another note, mtgox.com the main exchange is shockingly unfit for purpose. They have a big update scheduled for April 17th[3]. [1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=171312.0;all https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=171312.0;all [2] http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg180ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zvzl http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg180ztgSzm1g10zm2g... [3] https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130409.html https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130409.html
- dia80 14y ago
  Why do you think I'm paranoid? It's my best guess. Despite my tender years I have seen many speculative bubbles in lots of asset classes and have traded them on a private and professional basis. I agree there are plenty of people in bitcoin ready to be 'the greater fool' [1] but that's only if it fails... they will be self assured visionaries otherwise... [1] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devil-Take-Hindmost-Financial-Speculation/dp/0452281806 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devil-Take-Hindmost-Financial-Specul...
- bdr 14y ago
  > paranoia MtGox has said they were subject to DDoS attacks: https://twitter.com/MagicalTux/status/317423311174909954 https://twitter.com/MagicalTux/status/317423311174909954 > If you looked at the log plot[2], it still looked exponential! Trying to divine future price movement from looking at a graph has been proven definitively, repeatedly to be foolish.
  - brazzy 14y ago
    Divining that a price that is rising in a superexponential manner will be going down sometime soon is one of the least fooling things one can do when looking at a graph.
gavinlynch 14y ago
>> "If anything it might be a positive sign for bitcoin that the attackers are keen to acquire it!" I don't think it inherently implies anything of the sort. There is nothing to suggest that they believe in Bitcoin or care about it. If your suggestions are true, the only thing we know is that they are playing a very, very easy game of manipulation for financial gain. I don't see that as a positive for Bitcoin and think you're reaching with that statement.
- kragen 14y ago
  If there's enough financial gain to be had by manipulating Bitcoin to interest market manipulators, that means the Bitcoin market has more money available in it than, say, two years ago.
nhaehnle 14y ago
> If real markets could get 1 hour behind in transaction processing because of a spike in volume it would be the end of capitalism as we know it. That's (probably unintentionally) sad commentary on the state of our world today. After all, this trading is just finance. Truly forging the materials or implementing the algorithms that improve our standards of living happens in on a completely timescale, where a one hour delay of some financing operation (such as getting a loan approved) makes no difference at all.
andylei 14y ago
> aggressive selling attacks what's the difference between a "selling attack" and just "selling"?
- dsrguru 14y ago
  The parent is referring to people selling their bitcoins, then launching a DDOS attack on the exchange server to get the rest of the world to sell in panic, and then buying back bitcoins at the lower rate. I haven't been following the bitcoin news carefully, but presumably that's been going on recently.
dsrguru 14y ago
> If real markets could get 1 hour behind in transaction processing because of a spike in volume it would be the end of capitalism as we know it. The Facebook IPO was pretty damn similar and didn't end capitalism as we know it :)
- alexchamberlain 14y ago
  That was not a spike in volume, rather a rocket.
- rtkwe 14y ago
  It is hyperbole of course. Capitalism worked fine before split second trade resolution, but that happening in today's markets is a pretty big deal because a lot of people have gotten used to it. Also the Facebook IPO was isolated and shook/annoyed a lot of people it seemed. If that kind of thing happened regularly outside of huge IPOs I think NYSE would be in pretty bad shape.
fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
>the end of capitalism as we know it. >I hope a more able exchange arrives soon. I hope for both of those things!
- diggan 14y ago
  If you don't like capitalism, why do you want more exchanges? A exchange feels like a capitalists idea
unreal37 14y ago
Did you see Nasdaq's performance on Facebook's IPO day? I don't think there's an exchange in the world that can handle a serious amount of crushing volume (many times above normal) without some failure somewhere.
RockyMcNuts 14y ago
In the days before computers, believe it or not, price reporting often ran behind. In the 68 'paperwork crisis' the NYSE went to a four-day trading week for a while to give back offices time to catch up. Capitalism survived.
- dllthomas 14y ago
  ... but was that capitalism "as we know it"? Though, to be fair, I don't have an answer myself. Many things have changed, many haven't; it depends which bits you care about how much...
  - RockyMcNuts 14y ago
    lol, you never step in the same stream twice, you're not the same person and it's not the same stream - Heraclitus or somesuch you never step in the same steaming turd twice, you're not the same person and it's not the same steaming turd - RockyMcNuts
- brc 14y ago
  Indeed - 'capitalism' is about the allocation of saved capital to investment in a largely unregulated marketplace of goods and services. The rise of capitalism and free markets spawned shared capital markets as investments got too large for even the wealthiest invididuals to solely fund. The instant-casino-trading side of things came much later along the road. It's not crucial to capitalism to the level people might think it is. The arch-capitalist Warren Buffet regularly says he'd be happy for markets to close for a year. Though that refers to equities and not forex, which obviously does need to stay open to allow trade to happen.
mynameishere 14y ago
I hope a more able exchange arrives soon. It would be possible to create a GLD-style ETF around Bitcoin and it would be as an accurate reflection of the real price as possible. But why bother?

by dia80 14y ago

dubfan 14y ago

Do you have any evidence at all of a coordinated attack against Bitcoin, or is this just an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory?

sliverstorm 14y ago
Do you even have to ask?
DanBC 14y ago
Don't the DDoS attacks count as evidence?
- awj 14y ago
  What DDoS attacks? So far I've seen no compelling evidence that this is anything but high volumes of legitimate usage.
  - L0j1k 14y ago
    As a long-time (since 2010) miner, I can tell you first-hand that there are massive DDoS attacks taking place against not only MtGox (who has already described DDoS against their infrastructure) but the pools as well. In fact, Reddit's pool (MtRed.com) is completely DOWN at the moment because of a larger DDoS than we've ever seen. You can keep drinking the "everything's fine" koolaid, or get with the reality that currency manipulators have arrived on the Bitcoin train, and are using all the tools they have available to do their job.
    - kaoD 14y ago
      Nope. MtRed is down because they can't pay their miners. Variance is a bitch.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
    - Negitivefrags 14y ago
      I thought MtRed was down because they shut it down? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=15929.msg1793833#msg1793833 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=15929.msg1793833#msg... Also, just because MtGox had a DDoS in the past, doesn't mean they are having one now. I know first hand as someone who runs a service that has been DDoSed in the past that the moment you have server issues, all the users scream "They are being DDoSed!". My experience here is just as irrelevant as is your own.
      - L0j1k 14y ago
        This news reveals then that they lied. It was stated repeatedly in #mtred on freenode -- which is where I started lurking when my rig was unable to connect to the pool -- that they brought the pool down in reaction to a very strong DDoS, and that they were rewriting the payment algorithm in the interim. That being said, I'm not sure why you think they wouldn't be subject -- along with every piece of infrastructure in the bitcoin food chain -- to very large DDoS attacks. The currency manipulators are here to stay. To think otherwise is foolish and misguided, or hopeful beyond reason.
        Negitivefrags 14y ago
        The fact that every bit of infrastructure is being "attacked" at once suggests that it is not a DDoS attack to me. If the price starts going down, everyone will rush to their favorite bitcoin related site to see what is going on, even if they are not planning on panic selling. Would you say you have checked bitcoin related sites 5 times more than usual today? 10 times? If the regular users of a site all decide to use it five to ten times more than usual, it is very likely to cause some slowdown. On the other hand, if a single bitcoin related site was experiencing problems, that is when I suspect a targeted attack. Lastly, the only thing that mtgox announcing that they have been DDoSed in the past tells us is that they are willing to announce the fact that they are being DDoSed. This would seem to make it less likely that they are being DDoSed in the absence of such an announcement.
- ceejayoz 14y ago
  Depends on whether they're able to distinguish between a DDoS and a good old fashioned bank run.
pseudonym 14y ago
I think there's a lot of people who bought in during the last week or two that really want it to turn out to be an "attack". I haven't seen any actual stats or indication that that's actually the case, though. Likewise, Mt. Gox made mention of "Being DDOS'd" at certain points, but I'm a little skeptical of the claim given that their own charts show a huge jump in trade volume at around the same time. So no, there's no real "proof" yet of it being a DDOS or just lots of panicked traders, just lots of speculation (heh, heh).
- asperous 14y ago
  Most likely it is being ddossed... by people trying to sell, but that's just my opinion.
- krichman 14y ago
  There were many, many transactions with amounts of 0.02 BTC. I think P(attack|0.02 BTC * n) > P(~attack|0.02 BTC * n). The reality is probably six of panic sale, half a dozen of DDOS.
  - pseudonym 14y ago
    The thing with small BTC transactions is that it's more likely to be someone trying to prop up the market, not someone trying to DDOS it. Every time the price starts to go down you start to see a lot of very small buy transactions at a round number a fair amount above the current sell price start going in. The only reason for them appears to be just to keep the displayed "last sale" price on MtGox high.
trotsky 14y ago
that was the line mtgox was feeding people to explain why their trading platform gets so lagged out at times.
Wonderdonkey 14y ago
Tradehill reported it was a DDoS. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/339410,virtual-currency-bitcoin-in-freefall.aspx http://www.itnews.com.au/News/339410,virtual-currency-bitcoi...

foobarqux 14y ago

What evidence do you have of this claim?

dia80 14y ago
Will a press release from the target suffice? https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130404.html https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130404.html
- foobarqux 14y ago
  That's from a week ago. Is there any evidence that a DDOS happened today?
  - yebyen 14y ago
    DDOS with malicious intent, or does a general usage spike count? Just try loading mtgox.com -- it's slow. Try using it to trade. Even slower. Service is being denied. Confidence undermined. I would not take this as a vote that once the server issues are resolved, the price will continue to soar, but if I said that, it's possible that later I would be able to "told you so".
    - thefreeman 14y ago
      a site loading slow is in NO way evidence of DDOS
  - fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
    Lots and lots of tiny trades. <0.001

axusgrad 14y ago

btc-e seems to be another big one. http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ will show prices in the major exchanges, if it's online. I had to use the Google cache.

wcoenen 14y ago

> On the contrary this is just the most pronounced in a series of recent coordinated DDOS / aggressive selling attacks designed to (successfully) inspire panic. The bitcointalk forums and /r/bitcoin are full of paranoia like this. After months of stress trying to divine market patterns, people see market manipulation and conspiracies everywhere. The simple truth is that there was an agressive bubble. The doubling period for the price was halving with each iteration[1]. If you looked at the log plot[2], it still looked exponential! A crash was inevitable. > On another note, mtgox.com the main exchange is shockingly unfit for purpose. They have a big update scheduled for April 17th[3]. [1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=171312.0;all https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=171312.0;all [2] http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg180ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zvzl http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg180ztgSzm1g10zm2g... [3] https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130409.html https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130409.html

dia80 14y ago
Why do you think I'm paranoid? It's my best guess. Despite my tender years I have seen many speculative bubbles in lots of asset classes and have traded them on a private and professional basis. I agree there are plenty of people in bitcoin ready to be 'the greater fool' [1] but that's only if it fails... they will be self assured visionaries otherwise... [1] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devil-Take-Hindmost-Financial-Speculation/dp/0452281806 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devil-Take-Hindmost-Financial-Specul...
bdr 14y ago
> paranoia MtGox has said they were subject to DDoS attacks: https://twitter.com/MagicalTux/status/317423311174909954 https://twitter.com/MagicalTux/status/317423311174909954 > If you looked at the log plot[2], it still looked exponential! Trying to divine future price movement from looking at a graph has been proven definitively, repeatedly to be foolish.
- brazzy 14y ago
  Divining that a price that is rising in a superexponential manner will be going down sometime soon is one of the least fooling things one can do when looking at a graph.

gavinlynch 14y ago

>> "If anything it might be a positive sign for bitcoin that the attackers are keen to acquire it!" I don't think it inherently implies anything of the sort. There is nothing to suggest that they believe in Bitcoin or care about it. If your suggestions are true, the only thing we know is that they are playing a very, very easy game of manipulation for financial gain. I don't see that as a positive for Bitcoin and think you're reaching with that statement.

kragen 14y ago
If there's enough financial gain to be had by manipulating Bitcoin to interest market manipulators, that means the Bitcoin market has more money available in it than, say, two years ago.

nhaehnle 14y ago

> If real markets could get 1 hour behind in transaction processing because of a spike in volume it would be the end of capitalism as we know it. That's (probably unintentionally) sad commentary on the state of our world today. After all, this trading is just finance. Truly forging the materials or implementing the algorithms that improve our standards of living happens in on a completely timescale, where a one hour delay of some financing operation (such as getting a loan approved) makes no difference at all.

andylei 14y ago

> aggressive selling attacks what's the difference between a "selling attack" and just "selling"?

dsrguru 14y ago
The parent is referring to people selling their bitcoins, then launching a DDOS attack on the exchange server to get the rest of the world to sell in panic, and then buying back bitcoins at the lower rate. I haven't been following the bitcoin news carefully, but presumably that's been going on recently.

dsrguru 14y ago

> If real markets could get 1 hour behind in transaction processing because of a spike in volume it would be the end of capitalism as we know it. The Facebook IPO was pretty damn similar and didn't end capitalism as we know it :)

alexchamberlain 14y ago
That was not a spike in volume, rather a rocket.
rtkwe 14y ago
It is hyperbole of course. Capitalism worked fine before split second trade resolution, but that happening in today's markets is a pretty big deal because a lot of people have gotten used to it. Also the Facebook IPO was isolated and shook/annoyed a lot of people it seemed. If that kind of thing happened regularly outside of huge IPOs I think NYSE would be in pretty bad shape.

fnordfnordfnord 14y ago

>the end of capitalism as we know it. >I hope a more able exchange arrives soon. I hope for both of those things!

diggan 14y ago
If you don't like capitalism, why do you want more exchanges? A exchange feels like a capitalists idea

unreal37 14y ago

Did you see Nasdaq's performance on Facebook's IPO day? I don't think there's an exchange in the world that can handle a serious amount of crushing volume (many times above normal) without some failure somewhere.

RockyMcNuts 14y ago

In the days before computers, believe it or not, price reporting often ran behind. In the 68 'paperwork crisis' the NYSE went to a four-day trading week for a while to give back offices time to catch up. Capitalism survived.

dllthomas 14y ago
... but was that capitalism "as we know it"? Though, to be fair, I don't have an answer myself. Many things have changed, many haven't; it depends which bits you care about how much...
- RockyMcNuts 14y ago
  lol, you never step in the same stream twice, you're not the same person and it's not the same stream - Heraclitus or somesuch you never step in the same steaming turd twice, you're not the same person and it's not the same steaming turd - RockyMcNuts
brc 14y ago
Indeed - 'capitalism' is about the allocation of saved capital to investment in a largely unregulated marketplace of goods and services. The rise of capitalism and free markets spawned shared capital markets as investments got too large for even the wealthiest invididuals to solely fund. The instant-casino-trading side of things came much later along the road. It's not crucial to capitalism to the level people might think it is. The arch-capitalist Warren Buffet regularly says he'd be happy for markets to close for a year. Though that refers to equities and not forex, which obviously does need to stay open to allow trade to happen.

mynameishere 14y ago

I hope a more able exchange arrives soon. It would be possible to create a GLD-style ETF around Bitcoin and it would be as an accurate reflection of the real price as possible. But why bother?