Counterfeiting bitcoin | Bitcointalksearch.org

TrueBeliever

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Quote from: grendel25 on July 15, 2015, 01:09:17 AM

But it could be possible to temporarily fake a human out and make them think they had real bitcoin which is all that is required for an effective counterfeiting operation. Eventually the sucker will find out their duped but by then the thief could be long gone.

I like the question, it is forcing us to think about Bitcoin from a newbie perspective again. and @grendel25 has pointed out an interesting scenario, setting up a fake bitcoin network, with fake wallet and all. agreed this would only dupe a newbie who hasn't done their groundwork... but how many Bitcoin newbies are there out there to be picked off...

I can see the new Nigerian scam, download your new wallet from "here" and lets transact.

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Quote from: grendel25 on July 15, 2015, 01:09:17 AM

But it could be possible to temporarily fake a human out and make them think they had real bitcoin which is all that is required for an effective counterfeiting operation. Eventually the sucker will find out their duped but by then the thief could be long gone.

I disagree. How would you want to scam the other person? He would check his own wallet and see that nothing is there. If he really would accept a wallet, screenshot or block explorer showing him that there are coins then he could be fooled by an easier scam attempt too.

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Sybil attack

An attacker can attempt to fill the network with clients controlled by him, you would then be very likely to connect only to attacker nodes. Although Bitcoin never uses a count of nodes for anything completely isolating a node from the honest network can be helpful in the execution of other attacks.

This state can be exploited in (at least) the following ways:

The attacker can refuse to relay blocks and transactions from everyone, disconnecting you from the network.
The attacker can relay only blocks that he creates, putting you on a separate network. You're then open to double-spending attacks.
If you rely on transactions with 0 confirmations, the attacker can just filter out certain transactions to execute a double-spending attack.
Low-latency encryption/anonymization of Bitcoin's transmissions (With Tor, JAP, etc.) can be defeated relatively easy with a timing attack if you're connected to several of the attacker's nodes and the attacker is watching your transmissions at your ISP.
Bitcoin makes these attacks more difficult by only making an outbound connection to one IP address per /16 (x.y.0.0). Incoming connections are unlimited and unregulated, but this is generally only a problem in the anonymity case, where you're probably already unable to accept incoming connections.

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Quote from: MF Doom on July 15, 2015, 11:09:54 AM

Quote from: czechkid on July 14, 2015, 11:14:59 PM

What if someone made exact copy of bitcoin? Exactly the same way bitcoin works and created new bitcoins. Would the miners see it and not let the transations trough or is this possible?

I had a similar thought: What if there was some way to counterfeit btc so that if you went to send it, it appeared ok, but would never process through the network.

So say you went to meet someone and sell an item for btc. They "send" the fake btc to yoru address, everything looks good so you go your separate ways only to find out no btc were actually sent. I mean no one is going to sit around for an hour waiting for things to be confirmed. Is it possible this could happen?

Tricking the whole network would be impossible but tricking one person is definitely possible. You pc would definitely have to have been hacked, it couldn't happen if you're for example running Bitcoin core that hasn't been tampered with because it will simply not show fake BTC, let alone network confirmation. This kind of trickery will only work if you're careless though.

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Quote from: DGulari on July 15, 2015, 10:34:43 AM

Quote from: czechkid on July 14, 2015, 11:14:59 PM

What if someone made exact copy of bitcoin? Exactly the same way bitcoin works and created new bitcoins. Would the miners see it and not let the transations trough or is this possible?

Yes, this is possible. It is called: "Litecoin"

From what I know it is not the same at all. The litecoin network is scheduled to produce 84 million litecoins, which is 4 times as many currency units as bitcoin.
And this is just one thing that comes to my mind. I am sure there are many more differences between litecoin and bitcoin. Also the blockchain is different...

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An "exact" copy would be bitcoin. But ANY change in the code, even one letter of the code, would cause a fork because it would be rejected by the network.

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Quote from: MF Doom on July 15, 2015, 11:09:54 AM

Quote from: czechkid on July 14, 2015, 11:14:59 PM

What if someone made exact copy of bitcoin? Exactly the same way bitcoin works and created new bitcoins. Would the miners see it and not let the transations trough or is this possible?

I had a similar thought: What if there was some way to counterfeit btc so that if you went to send it, it appeared ok, but would never process through the network.

So say you went to meet someone and sell an item for btc. They "send" the fake btc to yoru address, everything looks good so you go your separate ways only to find out no btc were actually sent. I mean no one is going to sit around for an hour waiting for things to be confirmed. Is it possible this could happen?

Read the thread. Such a scam is only possible if the victim uses a fake wallet.

MF Doom

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Quote from: czechkid on July 14, 2015, 11:14:59 PM

What if someone made exact copy of bitcoin? Exactly the same way bitcoin works and created new bitcoins. Would the miners see it and not let the transations trough or is this possible?

I had a similar thought: What if there was some way to counterfeit btc so that if you went to send it, it appeared ok, but would never process through the network.

So say you went to meet someone and sell an item for btc. They "send" the fake btc to yoru address, everything looks good so you go your separate ways only to find out no btc were actually sent. I mean no one is going to sit around for an hour waiting for things to be confirmed. Is it possible this could happen?

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Quote from: czechkid on July 14, 2015, 11:14:59 PM

What if someone made exact copy of bitcoin? Exactly the same way bitcoin works and created new bitcoins. Would the miners see it and not let the transations trough or is this possible?

Yes, this is possible. It is called: "Litecoin"

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Quote from: czechkid on July 14, 2015, 11:14:59 PM

What if someone made exact copy of bitcoin? Exactly the same way bitcoin works and created new bitcoins. Would the miners see it and not let the transations trough or is this possible?

I don't believe this is technically possible. Because Bitcoin is decentralized it would be impossible for a hacker to insert malicious code into the network, there is no single node that controls the whole thing. Also the exact number of Bitcoins that can be mined in an hour/day is known and you can be sure that there are plenty people monitoring the network one way or another at any given time, especially those that have got 100 thousands of $ invested into their Bitcoin businesses

The owner of the pool you mine with could steal your coins though if he/she wanted to Grin

But that's unlikely Wink

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Quote from: czechkid on July 14, 2015, 11:14:59 PM

What if someone made exact copy of bitcoin? Exactly the same way bitcoin works and created new bitcoins. Would the miners see it and not let the transations trough or is this possible?

those bitcoins created on the fake bitcoin network can never be included in a block and would never be relayed by any node or confirmed by any miner.

that would simply be an altcoin, which is happening everyday with a new name and a fancy announcement page!

OnkelPaul

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You can probably fool newbies just as you could fool them trying to sell gold-painted bricks as gold bars - you need to set up quite a bit of smoke and mirrors to hide the fact from them that you're not actually selling bitcoins.
Of course, people fall for the most obvious scams all the time (think of the "orphaned account" or bride scam stories) so there are probably people dumb enough to fall for this, too.

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Quote from: Snail2 on July 15, 2015, 08:21:15 AM

I think it's possible to fool newbies with such fake BTC. Making a background infrastructure (network) is easy, you need a few nodes on cloud servers and a few miners with some old Block Erupters (you can get some for peanuts). The scammer will need some social engineering skill as well ("Are you using the right client mate? Oh I see, that's the old stuff, use this one and everything gonna be all right. You see? Here we go, your BTC is there now...") but I think it's doable on a small scale.

That's exacly what i was trying to say Grin

. I guess the fact that i'm not a native speaker must have made my post a bit difficult to read...

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I think it's possible to fool newbies with such fake BTC. Making a background infrastructure (network) is easy, you need a few nodes on cloud servers and a few miners with some old Block Erupters (you can get some for peanuts). The scammer will need some social engineering skill as well ("Are you using the right client mate? Oh I see, that's the old stuff, use this one and everything gonna be all right. You see? Here we go, your BTC is there now...") but I think it's doable on a small scale.

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Quote from: czechkid on July 14, 2015, 11:14:59 PM

What if someone made exact copy of bitcoin? Exactly the same way bitcoin works and created new bitcoins. Would the miners see it and not let the transations trough or is this possible?

that is impossible to cheat the blockchain because if that have any chance than it had already happened long time ago and don't come here to ask this question about it's possibility, BTCitcoin is the future of the currency that is not a fiat so there is no chance about that.

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Quote from: czechkid on July 14, 2015, 11:14:59 PM

What if someone made exact copy of bitcoin? Exactly the same way bitcoin works and created new bitcoins. Would the miners see it and not let the transations trough or is this possible?

If in another city lives somebody that looks like you and wears the same clothes as you, when he goes to his home, will your dog recognize him as being you?
Nope, especially because your dog is in your home in your city, so they will never meet. (And also because the dogs use their nose, not their eyes, but that's another story.)

I hope that's clearer now.

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Quote from: czechkid on July 14, 2015, 11:14:59 PM

What if someone made exact copy of bitcoin? Exactly the same way bitcoin works and created new bitcoins. Would the miners see it and not let the transations trough or is this possible?

That's the beauty of bitcoin. You just can't make fake bitcoins. That's what makes it more real than the cash in your pocket. Cool

Amph

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and where are the miners to sustain it? people can't understand that are the miners that makes bitcoin strong, if bitcoin was pos, counterfeiting it was more possible, and that's why pos is flawed

also they basically made it but in scrypt version, and no one took it seriously

Quote from: altcoinhosting on July 15, 2015, 01:15:59 AM

Quote from: grendel25 on July 15, 2015, 01:09:17 AM

But it could be possible to temporarily fake a human out and make them think they had real bitcoin which is all that is required for an effective counterfeiting operation. Eventually the sucker will find out their duped but by then the thief could be long gone.

I guess that would be possible... Everything is open sourced... If you compile a windows QT wallet and an node with a new genesis block, different ports, only your node, but the same GUI wallet... Mine some "bitcoins" continiously with your new (fake) wallet(s), sell some "bitcoins" to somebody else using your own compiled (fake) wallet and cash in...

Your victim would have to be new, and very gullible, but i guess i could work in some cases...

Or am i missing something?

ehm he need to download your fake qt, you can't just build a clone and sent transaction to user with original core, it does not work in that way, and none will download it

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Quote from: altcoinhosting on July 15, 2015, 02:27:33 AM

Quote from: Borisz on July 15, 2015, 01:49:33 AM

You could fake a transaction with your fake GUI "bitcoin-copy" in a café when trying to buy something and make it look like at first sight that you have the coins, but the transaction would never be confirmed in the real bitcoin network and therefore the buyer would probably never accept the "payment". All this would happen in your new coin's network and would never have anything to do with the bitcoin blockchain.

100% true... But i'm not talking about buying something in a café. I'm talking about convincing your victim that your "fake" wallet is the real one. Let him use your "fake" wallet, send "fake" bitcoin from your own "fake" wallet to his "fake" wallet.
In the meantime, run 2 or 3 miners (fake wallets, setgenerate true) to confirm your "fake" transaction from your "fake" wallet to his...

Ask fiat or ALTcoin for the "fake" BTC you sent from your "fake" wallet to his...

I know, it's far fetched, and it needs a really gullible, new, unexperienced victim, but it could work... And i think, technically, it could be called counterfeiting (or am i missing something?)

No, you could fool (initially) a person with a similar looking wallet, but not anything more. Like said,

Quote from: odolvlobo on July 15, 2015, 01:47:30 AM

You cannot send someone a "fake" bitcoin because the transaction would never be relayed by any node or confirmed by any miner.

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Quote from: Borisz on July 15, 2015, 01:49:33 AM

You could fake a transaction with your fake GUI "bitcoin-copy" in a café when trying to buy something and make it look like at first sight that you have the coins, but the transaction would never be confirmed in the real bitcoin network and therefore the buyer would probably never accept the "payment". All this would happen in your new coin's network and would never have anything to do with the bitcoin blockchain.

100% true... But i'm not talking about buying something in a café. I'm talking about convincing your victim that your "fake" wallet is the real one. Let him use your "fake" wallet, send "fake" bitcoin from your own "fake" wallet to his "fake" wallet.
In the meantime, run 2 or 3 miners (fake wallets, setgenerate true) to confirm your "fake" transaction from your "fake" wallet to his...

Ask fiat or ALTcoin for the "fake" BTC you sent from your "fake" wallet to his...

I know, it's far fetched, and it needs a really gullible, new, unexperienced victim, but it could work... And i think, technically, it could be called counterfeiting (or am i missing something?)

Topic: Counterfeiting bitcoin (Read 1354 times)