Topic: Bitcoin trades the inequity of dynastic power for the inequity of early adoption - page 8. (Read 11076 times)

So the point of my ramblings is...

1) Given that the exchanges can never operate on different chains. And
2) They can't allow invalidation of confirmed transactions to ever occur. So
3) If the exchanges decide that a particular chain is the only chain they'll all trade on. THEN
4) The mining pools MUST follow their direction. and
5) So MUST everyone else.

So how can "Accumulated Hashing" protect the chain, if the exchanges can throw it out willy nilly and everyone else must accept their decision?

QED.

OK, I think I'm beginning to see the problem... or at least that there is one. Not the one in the OP, that's just whiny BS.

But this chain-forking attack is potentially an issue.

Anyone have an idea what to do about it? I mean, I'm not naive enough to think that the March 11th bug was the only one of it's kind. What do we do to prevent something like that?

And in the meantime, invalidate the last x days/weeks of transactions. That's a good idea. Better get started finding that bug.

Computing power only matters to the extent that the chains are otherwise compatible.

All current clients will choose a five-block-long chain that seems to be valid over a thousand-block-long chain with an invalid transaction in it.

The attack proposed here is to create a popular client with a subtle but intentional bug, and then expose the bug to force a network split between the users/miners who use your client and the users/miners who don't. 51% of the computing power is not required - otherwise the BerkeleyDB blockchain fork bug would never have occurred. By the time human pool operators and developers and so forth have figured out a solution, you can (theoretically) double-spend massively.

Gee thanks. I'm a noob... (sarcasm)

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than ten dollars a day. Begging is one thing, but acting like someone in the first world really deserves that money is absolutely disgusting, both of you make me sick. If I were revans I would invest my fortune in infrastructure for the developing world, not pathetic forum dwellers who feel sorry for themselves because they didn't achieve overnight wealth.

TLDR: you are a greedy waste of oxygen batcoin.

You're missing something. Who, exactly, controls the most computing power?

Oh, and Red, you need to read this:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Attacker_has_a_lot_of_computing_power

Ironic isn't it. Given trust no one banter that goes on here.

But what I'm saying is really more basic than that. Bitcoin logic says [roughtly] the longest chain with the most computing power is always the valid one. That leads to what is called a "chain fork" attack.

So say yesterday the block chain looked like this:

[A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M]-N-O-P-Q-R
 confirmed blocks

Furthermore presume that every block up through and including M has been considered confirmed. That means that exchanges have taken in and payed out hard fiat currency based on these confirmations. Merchants have parted with goods based on these confirmations.

Now way today, out of the blue, the block chain starts to look like this:

[A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I≠T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z-a-b-c-d-e-f-g-h]-i-j-k-l-m-n
when it should look like this given the time that has passed.
[A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I=J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S]-T-U-V-W-X

Now both are valid block chains and the new one is longer so clients PRESUME it to be the true chain and everyone switches over. But the exchanges and merchants have already payed out on confirmed blocks that have now disappeared. Their bitcoins were STOLEN.

Now the only way that can happen is for someone to have more than 51% of the computing power and plan this attack. But still that is NOT ENOUGH.

Because the exchanges and merchants CANNOT let this fork stand. Real life police can come and arrest them for fraud. So they HALT TRADING get on the telephone/IRC/email and start calling each other. Together they decide the last common confirmed block was "S". So each of them calls their respective programming team and says restore from backups and refuse to accept any block chain that does not contain "S". (That is called a Locking a block into the chain. Last I checked there were a half dozen or so blocks locked into the chain.)

At this point the all the exchanges can begin trading again on their agreed upon chain.

Now keep in mind all of the miners might still be extending the other chain but THEY HAVE TO CHANGE FORKS or their mining work will have no value on the exchanges.

Of course most of the conversion will happen on this sight so everyone knows what happened and can decide that following is their free will. But really, following is inevitable.

What was that I was saying...? Oh right!

I really can't believe you would say that about someone in his position. It's clear he is just down on his luck and you could help him out. You have the means.

As I said, you don't qualify as a good cause, merely a lost one.

No I haven't. I put the sig in there a few days ago when I was participating in a similar thread as this. It's amazing how the commie types start backpedalling and find all sorts of justification not to even out the wealth disparity when it comes time for them to pony up their part.

Still waiting, revans! Copy and paste! Don't be a miser either! You can be the pioneer and a role model for all who demand fairness! 1P11Dz4mhDcJvetHqEJu35KNEVqSRmqo3b

But you're looking at thing as they stand. One assumes the goal is for bitcoin to become sufficiently ubiquitous such that less technically savvy users enter the fray. This type of users will use the client that is most popular, the one that they see first in Google, or the one used by their friends. In fact  there in a nutshell is how to subvert Bitcoin. Hire a whizz bang team of UI designers to make a really slick application for iPhone/Android and Web, throw a marketing budget at it, and watch your client become a de facto standard.

Love your new signature!  

I haven't received my share yet, have you?

You're looking at it backwards. I'm beginning to think this is habitual with you. Bitcoin users decide (by using it) the dominant client application. If the one they're using implements rules they don't like, hey presto, they change clients, and it's not dominant any more.

It also says "likely" If 51% or more of the computing power - would probably only take 3 or four pools - had decided not to upgrade, it wouldn't have happened. But it was in their best interest to do so because it was a bugfix, not a philosophical split.

Also, you forgot that 51% (or more) of the computing power had already decided:
http://bitcoin.org/chainfork.html

Those same mining pools were then asked to do the upgrade on the 15th.

It's my opinion, your's may differ.

So you have no proof. I'm just checking to see how caught up in your own facts you are.

So in other words the client with the largest install base ultimately makes the rules. The  fact that source code is available is utterly irrelevant to the vast majority of users as they would not have the expertise to derive anything from it. So rather than having monetary policy dictated by the Fed, Bitcoin users may ultimately have it dictated by those responsible for the dominant client application.

No, I'm saying that even with 51+% of the computing power, you CAN'T decide which fork is the valid one if the wizards don't agree.

Take for example the current situation.

"If you are using Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind version 0.7.2 or earlier, you must take action before 15 May, 2013. If you do nothing, you are likely to be left behind and will be out of sync with the rest of the Bitcoin network."

Notice it doesn't say that if 51% of the computing power decides not to upgrade... never mind.
It says, we've decided. Come along or not.

[edit]
So the significance of what I'm saying is that, if a handful of people already make these decisions. And the rest to the bitcoin users already trust these people to make these kind of decisions, THEN
there are trivial ways to create a distributed consensus among a handful of known individuals.
It doesn't require an ever growing amount of computing power.

The very same self serving arguments used by the central banker 'elite'. How typical for a group of idealists to end up becoming the very thing they despise.