Author

Topic: Chinese Node that relayed Bitcoin "Spam" attack/test (related to LTC Pump&Dump?) (Read 647 times)

legendary
Activity: 3248
Merit: 1072
We all want a free internet man... Probably payed about $20k to pull it off, but the spammer is free to spam all he wants.

Network is doing fine... pay the fee, get the Tx...

I suspect that RBF and CPFP are all going to be folded in soon enough then we can augment fees of Tx in the mempool.

Soo....? Your not interested in what the intent of it was?
Do you think it was a Chinese Pool/Miner or Chinese Government or other?

it clearly look like someone who has the intention to rise the tx limit by sending a strong message via a massive attack like this, i doubt it is blind spam without sense, no one would be that stupid to do it in this way
legendary
Activity: 2674
Merit: 3000
Terminated.
We all want a free internet man... Probably payed about $20k to pull it off, but the spammer is free to spam all he wants.

Network is doing fine... pay the fee, get the Tx...

I suspect that RBF and CPFP are all going to be folded in soon enough then we can augment fees of Tx in the mempool.
It is fine now. It was not fine when this was ongoing. There were a lot of unconfirmed transactions and a lot of people have been complaining here.
How do you plan to explain this to newbies? Bitcoin has promised near instant transactions and confirmations usually within a hour. What do they think that their initial thought would be?

We either need bigger blocks or some other solutions that is effectively going to prevent such attacks on the network.
legendary
Activity: 1092
Merit: 1001

Do you think the spammer foresee alts gaining tremendously from this attack?
If he could have done that, he could have easily recouped his money by trading Litecoin or other alts.

I think you may be on to something.

It is very possible the recent BTC spam attack/test was performed by Chinese LTC pumpers, see the following links.
https://blog.bitmex.com/chinese-promoter-pumping-litecoin-via-ponzi-scheme/ (in english)
http://cointelegraph.com/news/114809/chinese-pump-n-dump-suspected-as-litecoin-passes-bitcoin-in-trading-volume (in english)
http://www.8btc.com/ltc-55 (translate with google)

They may have attacked the BTC network to cause user frustration and lead them to buy into LTC ("diversification").
There were some articles I read (one?) recently in regard to LTC "not having the problems that BTC has", see following link.
http://cointelegraph.com/news/114791/litecoin-shows-there-is-a-simple-fix-for-spam-attacks-on-bitcoin

Seems also that when the Chinese LTC pumpers, dumped their LTC on BTCChina around 4:40pm (Beijing Time),
BTCChina BTC prices began rising around 4:40pm (Beijing Time) as well. (Many other exchanges dumped and upped BTC at same time).
That can possibly explain the recent BTC high of 268USD to 285USD in one day.
sr. member
Activity: 322
Merit: 250
Soo....? Your not interested in what the intent of it was?
Do you think it was a Chinese Pool/Miner or Chinese Government or other?

I'm sure many are speculating, and the source transaction ( and by proxy the IP ) have been bouncing around for a while, I have just begun to hear a lot of dicy things as people begin to get spooked.  Words like "Gov't" and "Centralize" and "Someone should do something".

This has been a very low cost attack, the attacker has likely only had to shell out $20,000 to sustain it, possibly less.  If it was the Chinese Gov't it wouldn't be 50,000 transactions in the mempool it would be 50,000,000.  The could dump 20 million into the network without batting an eye.

If anything, it is likely a bank wanting to know if they can transfer their remittance into bitcoin.  They noticed the network didn't have volume so they simply bought $20,000 worth of volume.  That's like a dinner party to these corps.  Petty cash.

All we've had to do is dump an extra dime or two into transaction fees.  Network is still fine, Transaction time (for those who pay the toll) are still fine.  Only micropayments are broken now.

This could go on forever and I wouldn't care... just so long as no one acts rashly to "do something" on a problem that isn't broke.

EDIT: Got zero happy there.  FTFY

Yes I was thinking a similar thing.  20k is a lot to spend for anyone but a big guy, so whoever it is is testing the network for their own reasons.  Whether or not they have bad things in mind is another matter.
full member
Activity: 210
Merit: 104
“Create Your Decentralized Life”
Soo....? Your not interested in what the intent of it was?
Do you think it was a Chinese Pool/Miner or Chinese Government or other?

I'm sure many are speculating, and the source transaction ( and by proxy the IP ) have been bouncing around for a while, I have just begun to hear a lot of dicy things as people begin to get spooked.  Words like "Gov't" and "Centralize" and "Someone should do something".

This has been a very low cost attack, the attacker has likely only had to shell out $20,000 to sustain it, possibly less.  If it was the Chinese Gov't it wouldn't be 50,000 transactions in the mempool it would be 50,000,000.  The could dump 20 million into the network without batting an eye.

If anything, it is likely a bank wanting to know if they can transfer their remittance into bitcoin.  They noticed the network didn't have volume so they simply bought $20,000 worth of volume.  That's like a dinner party to these corps.  Petty cash.

All we've had to do is dump an extra dime or two into transaction fees.  Network is still fine, Transaction time (for those who pay the toll) are still fine.  Only micropayments are broken now.

This could go on forever and I wouldn't care... just so long as no one acts rashly to "do something" on a problem that isn't broke.

EDIT: Got zero happy there.  FTFY
legendary
Activity: 1918
Merit: 1012
★Nitrogensports.eu★
We all want a free internet man... Probably payed about $20k to pull it off, but the spammer is free to spam all he wants.

Network is doing fine... pay the fee, get the Tx...

I suspect that RBF and CPFP are all going to be folded in soon enough then we can augment fees of Tx in the mempool.

Soo....? Your not interested in what the intent of it was?
Do you think it was a Chinese Pool/Miner or Chinese Government or other?

Do you think the spammer foresee alts gaining tremendously from this attack?
If he could have done that, he could have easily recouped his money by trading Litecoin or other alts.
legendary
Activity: 2996
Merit: 1903
...

Thank you, AgentofCoin.  I am very interested to hear who is responsible for the attacks on the BTC Ecosystem.

While China's .gov may or may not (probably not?) have anything to do with it, it would be useful to know.  For all we know, it might be a secret part of our .gov doing this (or the banks, but I repeat myself).

Even if part of the recent problems were due to greedy Chinese miners scalping-off a nanosecond or two (not properly checking blocks and/or confirming transactions), that is useful to know as well.

Bad behavior should be discouraged.  Shine the light on the perps.
legendary
Activity: 1092
Merit: 1001
We all want a free internet man... Probably payed about $20k to pull it off, but the spammer is free to spam all he wants.

Network is doing fine... pay the fee, get the Tx...

I suspect that RBF and CPFP are all going to be folded in soon enough then we can augment fees of Tx in the mempool.

Soo....? Your not interested in what the intent of it was?
Do you think it was a Chinese Pool/Miner or Chinese Government or other?
full member
Activity: 210
Merit: 104
“Create Your Decentralized Life”
We all want a free internet man... Probably payed about $20k to pull it off, but the spammer is free to spam all he wants.

Network is doing fine... pay the fee, get the Tx...

I suspect that RBF and CPFP are all going to be folded in soon enough then we can augment fees of Tx in the mempool.
legendary
Activity: 1092
Merit: 1001
Here is a node ip that relayed many txs from the spam attack/test: 123.57.189.199
You can view its tx through blockchain.info here: https://blockchain.info/ip-log?search_input=123.57.189.199

Question 1: Why hasn't anyone or company made any statements or claims of responsibility to this attack/test?
Question 2: If this node was innocent and hijacked/used by hackers to frame this node, why didn't the node operator shut it down?
Question 3: Was this past attack/test performed by a Chinese Pool/Miner or maybe even the Chinese Government?  Shocked


Update: See my post below as to recent LTC pump & dump: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.11848714
Jump to: