Folks please realize that Etlase2 feels he is a competitor to me because he is working on Decrits (not proof-of-work) and I am possibly working on a proof-of-work altcoin.
So he has a vested interest to discredit any attack I have described which my potential altcoin would fix. This is pure selfishness at the cost of bettering our crypto-currency future. I am very disappointed to see him stoop this low in his ethics. I had higher hopes on him and his altcoin.
Because the customers of Amazon.com click an order button on Amazon.com, they don't download a client. The non-mining node (for all customers) will be on Amazon.com's server.
This requires a huge suspension of disbelief, something I am not fond of doing unless I am watching a movie or reading a book. Bitcoin and its ilk, quite unlike EFT, are push transactions, not pull. I'm sure somewhere in the decapages of rants you have on this subject you've touched on this, but I and everyone else following this argument should find it excessively unlikely that the masses will be so willing to give up the newfound power of being their own bank to Amazon or whomever for the sake of "1-click purchases", when the reality is URIs can make it pretty darn close to that as it is.
If this is the basis for your argument, it's pathetic.
Complete nonsense and FUD.
Spending "one-click" on Amazon would not require that balances be kept offchain in an Amazon wallet. Why do you guys keep repeating this offchain nonsense. I never claimed that!
Amazon's customers will still keep their balances onchain, and the Amazon "1-click" will simply deduct from the block chain with a normal block chain transaction.
The point is Amazon controls the non-mining node which is interfacing with the Bitcoin network.
This is much more convenient for customers and the masses hate difficult things. They will obviously prefer to go click a button at Amazon.com than to download a client and fiddle. Besides Amazon.com may not allow them to use an external client. Most masses go with the flow. They don't give a sh8t about your idealistic view. They just want to complete their order as easily as possible (no downloads, no technical hoops to jump through).
As for the private keys, yes the customer will let Amazon store them, but the balances will still be onchain.
Masses don't want to lose their private keys. They don't want to worry about where they will safe keep them. They don't give a sh8t about your idealistic view of every man is an island hunkered down in their bunker clutching their memory card of private keys in one hand and a shotgun in the other.
Your fanaticism is either feigned or you are in the tinfoil hat category.
Gavin claims to know an unimplemented solution for that attack, which I linked upthread (page 2 I think) where I mentioned that claim of yours.
The best the attacker can do to avoid Gavin's solution is to include his customers' transactions in the valid blocks to avoid detection by Gavin's solution.
I proposed a potential solution over a year and a half ago. Bells, whistles, and/or stagnation of the bitcoin protocol tend to be of higher priority than protecting the block chain.
No disagreement from me.
Incorrect because the longer chain has control it can change the protocol for block period of the longer chain to whatever it wants.
Again, it's an altcoin. Even SPV nodes would reject this as the difficulty between blocks would drop accordingly and would no longer even be valid for those receiving only the headers. Trying to hamfist a change like this on the bitcoin population should be no less difficult than changing the bitcoin protocol itself, therefore there is little advantage to one major cartel over everyone not part of the cartel.
That is an irrelevant point. It adds no strength to your argument that nodes which prefer the shorter chain prefer the shorter chain.
There are many people who want Bitcoin to adopt a shorter block period. Many people know how to alter a few lines in an open source code and offer a binary download. This is only useful if the longer chain exists. A shorter chain fork with a different protocol would not have the same force, because the main chain would be longer and double-spends would not be contentious nor could the attacker significantly disrupt transactions. Not contentious because the masses are not going to approve of a chain that isn't secure because it is shorter and thus weaker security.
And isn't just an altcoin, because of the havok wrecked by double-spends one into each chain and also the attacker's excess hash rate applied to dropping transactions from the shorter chain. No solution can stop the attacker from putting his customers' transactions in those valid blocks on the shorter chain and delaying everyone else in the shorter chain.
The difference is how I explained it to BurtW in the prior post (reread my prior post, I was adding to it as you were replying). There is a protocol error in both the longer and shorter chain. This is much worse for Bitcoin than a better altcoin, it wrecks havoc in Bitcoin's chain.
Yes, bitcoin is easy to attack, that is nothing new. The cartel attack is unnecessary bloviation.
Your (feigned?) tinfoil fanaticism is the only bloviation I see proven.
Clients and nodes have a rule and that is to choose the longest chain. They need to follow this rule, otherwise proof-of-work isn't secure.
When faced with a block chain which is longest, yet has a protocol variation, the clients and nodes must make a choice of which protocol rule violation they wish to make.
There is no choice to be made. The chain is either valid or it is not. A longer chain with invalid blocks (extra coins or modified difficulty or whatever else) does not enter into consideration.
By which Gavin-God do you guarantee that all nodes will choose that choice?
Does your God hold a shotgun to the head of every person and every large Amazon running a node (on behalf of the dumb customers)?
Your definition of "valid" is not enforceable.
