Bitcoin Killswitch - page 3. | Bitcointalksearch.org

An amorous cow-herder

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Quote from: Elwar on July 31, 2014, 05:17:15 PM

Hmm, so we have this ledger with every Bitcoin transaction going back to the beginning. Every 10 minutes a new block is added to show the latest transactions.

Then some "kill switch" does what exactly? Wipes out the ledger? On everyone's computer? Even those that are turned off? Even those not connected to the Internet?

It would be harder to do than wipe out all bank accounts of all banks, all stocks, bonds, etc in the whole world.

No, the only safety are the so called checkpoints. Those are hardcoded into the clients. In other words all transactions since the last hardcoded checkoint would be save.
But otherwise, yes, it doesnt matter if the PCs are turned on or off.

An amorous cow-herder

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Quote from: RyNinDaCleM on July 31, 2014, 05:06:56 PM

Yes, the longer chain is technically recognized as the "correct" chain by the network, but this has been rolled back with a fork before, and as Adam said, an upgrade to the client would be necessary by the majority (>50%) of the network.

This is the same thing as 51% attacks

No, it is not.
In the real world the the block chain does not have a constant exponential factor. Any deviation results in a suboptimal difficulty for the real chain compared to a "perfect" chain with a constant exponential factor.
Thus an attacker would save time or difficulty by choosing a constant exponential factor for difficulty increasements.

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Hmm, so we have this ledger with every Bitcoin transaction going back to the beginning. Every 10 minutes a new block is added to show the latest transactions.

Then some "kill switch" does what exactly? Wipes out the ledger? On everyone's computer? Even those that are turned off? Even those not connected to the Internet?

It would be harder to do than wipe out all bank accounts of all banks, all stocks, bonds, etc in the whole world.

adamstgBit

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Quote from: RyNinDaCleM on July 31, 2014, 05:06:56 PM

Quote from: An amorous cow-herder on July 31, 2014, 05:03:16 PM

Quote from: adamstgBit on July 31, 2014, 04:59:39 PM

you should have been there

poeple were still making TX as the chine was forking and every single TX got through onto the right chain

I was impressed.

And assuming i (or $whoever) had a/several blockchains dozens of blocks longer than the "valid" blockchain? What then?

Yes, the longer chain is technically recognized as the "correct" chain by the network, but this has been rolled back with a fork before, and as Adam said, an upgrade to the client would be necessary by the majority (>50%) of the network.

add to that, that the majority overrule hashing power.

if marjory says "block that mega miner with 30% mining power because we don't like him"

hes blocked.

of course its very hard to get >51% to all agree on something. but in this most ridiculous sanrio it would fly.

RyNinDaCleM

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Quote from: An amorous cow-herder on July 31, 2014, 05:03:16 PM

Quote from: adamstgBit on July 31, 2014, 04:59:39 PM

you should have been there

poeple were still making TX as the chine was forking and every single TX got through onto the right chain

I was impressed.

And assuming i (or $whoever) had a/several blockchains dozens of blocks longer than the "valid" blockchain? What then?

Yes, the longer chain is technically recognized as the "correct" chain by the network, but this has been rolled back with a fork before, and as Adam said, an upgrade to the client would be necessary by the majority (>50%) of the network.

This is the same thing as 51% attacks

adamstgBit

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its no use, the blockchain necessarily is what the majority want it to be.

An amorous cow-herder

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Quote from: adamstgBit on July 31, 2014, 04:59:39 PM

you should have been there

poeple were still making TX as the chine was forking and every single TX got through onto the right chain

I was impressed.

And assuming i (or $whoever) had a/several blockchains dozens of blocks longer than the "valid" blockchain? What then?

RyNinDaCleM

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Quote from: adamstgBit on July 31, 2014, 04:57:46 PM

Quote from: An amorous cow-herder on July 31, 2014, 04:55:32 PM

Quote from: adamstgBit on July 31, 2014, 04:53:43 PM

everyone ignores attacking blockchain.

Why would a client ignore a longer block chain? Basicly the valid block chain would be the "attacking" block chain, wouldnt it?

everyone ignores attacking blockchain, by upgrading their client.

When you upgrade the client to one that has a fix for such a switch, that would be a hard fork, no? The same as when they implemented the checkpoints and it was a mandatory upgrade which is probably the one you are referring to in your next post Wink

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Quote from: joe 90 on July 31, 2014, 04:55:53 PM

Was the blockchain rolled back a few years ago to fix some problem? If there were any big problems in the future the dev's would probably roll back the blockchain and do a hard fork to fix it. A design flaw would create loss of confidence and a price drop, but I doubt it would kill bitcoin unless it was unfixable.

you should have been there

poeple were still making TX as the chine was forking and every single TX got through onto the right chain

I was impressed.

adamstgBit

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Quote from: An amorous cow-herder on July 31, 2014, 04:55:32 PM

Quote from: adamstgBit on July 31, 2014, 04:53:43 PM

everyone ignores attacking blockchain.

Why would a client ignore a longer block chain? Basicly the valid block chain would be the "attacking" block chain, wouldnt it?

everyone ignores attacking blockchain, by upgrading their client.

joe 90

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Was the blockchain rolled back a few years ago to fix some problem? If there were any big problems in the future the dev's would probably roll back the blockchain and do a hard fork to fix it. A design flaw would create loss of confidence and a price drop, but I doubt it would kill bitcoin unless it was unfixable.

An amorous cow-herder

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Quote from: adamstgBit on July 31, 2014, 04:53:43 PM

everyone ignores attacking blockchain.

Why would a client ignore a longer block chain? Basicly the valid block chain would be the "attacking" block chain, wouldnt it?

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Quote from: RyNinDaCleM on July 31, 2014, 04:48:31 PM

Game over!

if this happens i'm buying....

adamstgBit

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Quote from: An amorous cow-herder on July 31, 2014, 04:34:25 PM

Quote from: adamstgBit on July 31, 2014, 04:33:41 PM

Quote

What would be the consequences?

orphaned block, not a shit was given.

And if the block was several blocks longer than the "valid" block chain?
I mean, if the "attacking" blockchain was longer?

everyone ignores attacking blockchain.

An amorous cow-herder

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Quote from: RyNinDaCleM on July 31, 2014, 04:48:31 PM

Sure! I say game over because (unless it was averted before the switch was flipped by means of hard fork where the "kill-switch" was omitted), the trust would be gone. Game Over!

Well said. A hard fork can be a remedy for everything after all Wink

An amorous cow-herder

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Quote from: rocks on July 31, 2014, 04:44:04 PM

That's not to say that the design may not ultimately fail, for example mining incentives could evolve in a manner that damages bitcoin, but an intentional kill switch is just plain unlikely.

I am not considering an "intentional" kill switch (unless that had been the Satoshi´s intention).
Merely a design flaw that could have the same consequence.

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Quote from: An amorous cow-herder on July 31, 2014, 04:32:48 PM

Quote from: RyNinDaCleM on July 31, 2014, 04:29:43 PM

Quote from: An amorous cow-herder on July 31, 2014, 04:24:57 PM

What would be the consequences?

Game over!

May i quote you on that?
(Outside this forum?)

Sure! I say game over because (unless it was averted before the switch was flipped by means of hard fork where the "kill-switch" was omitted), the trust would be gone. Game Over!

rocks

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Quote from: An amorous cow-herder on July 31, 2014, 04:31:41 PM

Quote from: Raystonn on July 31, 2014, 04:28:21 PM

As this is open source, any kill switch would be publicly visible. It's not there. Now then, within a closed source implementation, such as any proprietary "coin" invented by J.P. Morgan for example, a kill switch could easily be hidden.

I said "by design", not "by code". That might sound like a splitting hairs, but its actually really a very different thing.

The bitcoin "design" is quite simple and straightforward, it is highly doubtful a purposeful flaw exists that remains unknown.

That's not to say that the design may not ultimately fail, for example mining incentives could evolve in a manner that damages bitcoin, but an intentional kill switch is just plain unlikely.

An amorous cow-herder

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Quote from: adamstgBit on July 31, 2014, 04:33:41 PM

Quote

What would be the consequences?

orphaned block, not a shit was given.

And if the block was several blocks longer than the "valid" block chain?
I mean, if the "attacking" blockchain was longer?

adamstgBit

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Quote

What would be the consequences?

orphaned block, not a shit was given.

Topic: Bitcoin Killswitch - page 3. (Read 3265 times)