@Srie there are already scripts that do this. Also, there is "cgminer", a mining application that supports failover and even load balancing between an arbitrary number of pools. You can simply create accounts on all 20+ pools and you're safe (well, except if all the pools go down at the same time... then you can solo mine!)
oh, cool. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out. 
Topic: An idea for a script, that can be useful against DDoS+51% attacks (Read 832 times)
October 13, 2011, 03:54:22 PM
@Srie there are already scripts that do this. Also, there is "cgminer", a mining application that supports failover and even load balancing between an arbitrary number of pools. You can simply create accounts on all 20+ pools and you're safe (well, except if all the pools go down at the same time... then you can solo mine!)
October 13, 2011, 03:01:20 PM
@Srie one word, learn to hop 
October 13, 2011, 01:59:12 PM
There are actually several clients that do this already.
oh, cool. 
October 13, 2011, 01:58:42 PM
There are actually several clients that do this already.
October 13, 2011, 12:35:32 PM
Please note these are the words of a newbie, though I've been reading up on Bitcoin for a bit. I don't really know the innards of public key cryptography, or details of how the network works. I don't have any scripting experience, really. So I might not have a clue what I'm talking about. The idea came to me after I saw this: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/the-power-of-the-pool-6874
I've started mining BitCoins for the lulz with a stupid nVidia GPU, at various pools, and I've been lurking on these forums for a few days, and it shocked me what an impact the recent DDoS attacks on the pools can make on the overall hashing power of the network.
I thought to myself, if this same attacker(s) had a botnet, and uploaded a malicious bitcoin miner to the zombies of the botnet, and then use the computing power of the botnet to make a "51% attack" on the network.
Of course, the DDoS attack would have to be more widespread, and take out virtually all of the pools.
If people had a script that could automatically switch through a list of backup pools when their main pool goes down, wouldn't that avert such an attack? The script would react far more quickly than humans would, especially if the owner of a miner connected to a pool is away from home. A prime time for such an attack would be in August or July, when many people go on holiday.
It doesn't even have to be a script, it can be a frontend that checks whether a pool is up or not.
The poster of the topic I linked to would prefer hundreds of pools. Such a network would still be desirable if the "concept" I outlined was in wide use. Because the hundreds of other pools would serve as backups to each other. The "concept" could also be used to switch pools periodically, just to "support" the smaller pools, even if the primary pool isn't down. edit: By that I mean like every week or so. Not pool hopping that happens more frequently.
Sorry for the uneasy tone, this is the first time I've ever typed so much about Bitcoin (something I don't really understand in depth), and English isn't even my first language.
Opinions? Flaming? Resentment at me using an nVidia card?
I've started mining BitCoins for the lulz with a stupid nVidia GPU, at various pools, and I've been lurking on these forums for a few days, and it shocked me what an impact the recent DDoS attacks on the pools can make on the overall hashing power of the network.
I thought to myself, if this same attacker(s) had a botnet, and uploaded a malicious bitcoin miner to the zombies of the botnet, and then use the computing power of the botnet to make a "51% attack" on the network.
Of course, the DDoS attack would have to be more widespread, and take out virtually all of the pools.
If people had a script that could automatically switch through a list of backup pools when their main pool goes down, wouldn't that avert such an attack? The script would react far more quickly than humans would, especially if the owner of a miner connected to a pool is away from home. A prime time for such an attack would be in August or July, when many people go on holiday.
It doesn't even have to be a script, it can be a frontend that checks whether a pool is up or not.
The poster of the topic I linked to would prefer hundreds of pools. Such a network would still be desirable if the "concept" I outlined was in wide use. Because the hundreds of other pools would serve as backups to each other. The "concept" could also be used to switch pools periodically, just to "support" the smaller pools, even if the primary pool isn't down. edit: By that I mean like every week or so. Not pool hopping that happens more frequently.
Sorry for the uneasy tone, this is the first time I've ever typed so much about Bitcoin (something I don't really understand in depth), and English isn't even my first language.
Opinions? Flaming? Resentment at me using an nVidia card?
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