Ahh man. This post is for the benefit of revans and everyone else who is thinking the same things. I couldn't resist posting it , sorry .. just in one of those moods. Feel free to skip the follow diatribe.
at least you got one thing right.
we're just getting started.
@revans:
Fyi, your posts here in Bitcoin Discussion, and in the other forums (Technical) are getting a little annoying.
Obviously you are trying to use fear and panic to cause a market drop. Let me save you some time. FYI, this strategy has been used in this community hundreds of times already by similar people to yourself with similar motives. So, now most people invested in bitcoin from the beginning have become/are becoming accustomed to it. That's probably one of the reasons that your posts have had little - if any - effect on the price today. Perhaps stop wasting more of your (and everyone else's - who has to read your drivel) time with any more? Let's just put it simply like this: If you are so clever that you can predict "we're just getting started" and can bring down bitcoin, well take a short position on Bitfinex and then run your 51% attack and profit. Also (just an aside), maybe before you do it it would be nice to know who you are - so we can share in your glory
I am not trying to condone any speculators, but I can understand where they are coming from. Bitcoin is an investment that offers incredibly high rewards - if it succeeds. So it is only natural that speculators will enter the market. That is the nature of a public market. Speculators are also helping to bring bitcoin out to the media and attention of the public. That in turn attracts more research and "eyes" into bitcoin, which only helps to draw attention to more vulnerabilities.
Ok , Most people here understand that bitcoin is a risky proposition. A 51% attack is just one of the risks that has been present since the start, and this most recent paper or "discovery" is another manifestation of that. The only difference between what was written up in this paper is that a few academics actually formalized the problem, put some statistics to work to calculate a probability (and it seems fleshed out more the technical means of how it could work), and proposed a fix to the protocol.
Anyhow.... I agree with this paper that a selfish node attack could be utilized to make a 51% attack easier. A "selfish miner" attack is not a new proposition and has been known about in the BTC community for a long time.
A selfish miner attack would allow someone to attack the network with a smaller % of share than 51%, however they would still require enough of a share to give them a good probability of consistantly "getting ahead" of the public blockchain. However, the attack would work exactly the same way as a 51% attack, so in this respect this paper is just another manifestation of a 51% attack. A few more things about a 51% attack. (1) It should also be noted that such an attack has only existed in theory and never succeeded against bitcoin - as far as I know, anyway. And I am sure there have been many people who tried. (2) There are features that can be implemented to the protocol to make a selfish miner attack more difficult. It would be in everyone's interest in the BTC community to implement these features asap. That would make such an attack less probable.
Finally ...... One good thing that may come from your posts is that the more you continue to post this stuff, the more likely it becomes that the bitcoin core devs will implement more security measures into the procol.
By the way @nak .... I suggest you delete this from your post:
I think we're beyond the speculative stage of bitcoin.
