Topic: delete - page 4. (Read 23378 times)

I'm mining Namecoins @ Coinotron.com now, just to protect Namecoin against the attack.
More people want to join?

And yes, I know it's mining at loss but every coin is at loss atm so I don't really care...

Yup.

But I am more concerned about some other aspects of your run-in, not the fact that you've earned yourself several hundred thousand geists (and it seems to me, scared away a certain exchange where you could have sold them ), so please elaborate on the methods you utilized (PM if you feel reluctant to discuss in public at this point)

Someone should get multicoin's namecoin config file updated with this and the new merged mining start block.

There is no legitimate reason for threatening namecoin. Even children understand that just because you can do something, that doesn't mean you should.

An attack like this shows nothing that we don't already know. Why not try to learn something that we don't know? For instance, let's see if merged mining really works on production chains. Why not put the hashing power towards something constructive? Show everyone that you're not a vandal - that you're bigger than that; mine namecoins and and get it up to the merging mark.

Make an internet with distributed currency and free DNS a reality.

How about doing it manually locally? How would it affect the result (assuming there's an attack) if majority of the nodes add arbitrary checkpoints (say, 120 blocks back)? Is it better if the checkpoint is the same on all the nodes but it's old, or heterogeneous but recent?

Technically,  as long as the attack did not start NMC devs could go and make a quick checkpoint (or several lol)

Fo instance, namecoin's block 18931 has hash of


getblockbycount 18931



See? that was easy.

Now, someone could easily make a checkpoint "before it's too late"

How is this in the name of science? What are you going to discover that you can't in a test chain?
In the name of science I ask you not to do it. If you don't do it we will very soon see:

1) A chain changing its rules for acceptable blocks. Bitcoin may need this in the future.
2) An existing chain changing to merged mining instead of starting with it.
3) Merged mining finally at work !!

I you're successful destroying namecoin, we will have to wait for another currency with merged mining from its beginning.
This is not in the name of science. You don't care to attack other people's good efforts. As DavinciJ15 says, you're a bad person.

Don't you like decentralized DNS?
Don't you like merged mining?
Is this all bullshit and you're just buying cheap nmc?
Seriously, what's wrong with you?

Given how recent run-in on Geist proceeded (and assuming it was indeed EXpress, which he implied he was), I suspect he has more in mind than just crude double-spend.

Perhaps  someone should log/record the attack to increase its educational value ?

It looks like there are none.

you can only go back to the last checkpoint. are there any in namecoin?

The testnet has suffered rewrite-the-block-chain-with-more-hashing-power attacks.

It does bad things to your wallet, if your wallet contains transactions that depend on previously mined but now-no-longer-valid blocks. I suspect it will cause lots of heartburn for exchanges; this patch from sipa (which hasn't been extensively tested because long block-chain re-orgs on the main chain are not an issue) might help:
  https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/195

Alternatively, removing all the wtx wallet transactions stored in the wallet and then running with -rescan should get back to a sane state.  Although an exchange may very well find customers end up with negative balances after doing that, and customers will likely be upset that their balances are likely to change from what they think they have if they've deposited invalid-under-the-new-chain transactions.

Successfully bootstrapping an alternative chain starting from a low difficulty, given that there are people with lots of potential hashing power and the willingness to mess around with the chain "just because they can," seems like a hard problem to me, although if people were willing to accept some centralization until hashing power got to a "safe" level it could be solved by a central authority publishing block-chain checkpoints every X blocks.

There's one easy way to stop the attack; everyone start mining Namecoins.

Yeah, sure, but that's as directly linked to network strength as calling everyone an idiot and changing your license. Nothing a guaranteed increase and improved stability in hashing power can't fix.

How does difficulty retargeting affect network strength? Hashing power is hashing power. I'm probably missing something here...

I think he just wants to prove Namecoin is vurnerable to Double Spending when network strength is low.
If he doesn't do it, someone else can.
Difficulty retargeting should be changed to solve it.

Bad people like BitcoinEXpress exist in our society most them work for governments but the rest that where too evil even for government exists in the public.  This attack will show the world the power of bitcoin if namecoin survives it.

I'm feel like selling 40K of gold to kick this ass hole to the curb.   But I must be clever and out smart instead of out spend.

So sad people are destructive not productive even sadder is some destroy for sport.

Ah well Like I said it's part of life we (good people) need to deal with it.

So you want to destroy namecoin and the first serious attempt (in testing chains it works) to launch merged mining to improve bitcoin?
Merged mining is a great idea (by Satoshi, by the way) and both currencies will gain from it.
It seems you're in a hurry to attack namecoin because you won't be able to do it in the future. Can't you simulate the attack on you own fork?
Why do you have to attack other people's efforts and investments?
I think it is a very bad idea.
Please don't do it. Let us trade and register domains in peace. I only ask you to wait 272 more blocks. There's many people waiting to see it happen.
Please, DoubleC reopen the trade. Some people think namecoins will drop severely after merged mining comes in and I want to profit from that. I want to bet the opposite.

Say you start your attack at block 18950, build your chain to 18970, then release it. Everything that anyone did - transfer coins, change / create .bit names, etc - between those 2 blocks will unhappen.

So if I transfer 200 mnc to an exchange in block 18951, the exchange waits until 18957 to confirm, I exchange for x btc & withdraw. After your chain is released, my 200 nmc appear back in my wallet. I still have the x btc, and the 200 nmc. The exchange is down by x btc.

To mitigate the effects of the attack, people only have to cease trading, as DoubleC has done.

Mining the minority chain is also a waste of effort.

Threatening an attack, credibly, is a DoS on the chain - until people are confident that the attack is over, noone will use it or mine it.

To truly test this, you will need to ensure that some of your hashpower remains on the minority (existing) chain, to process the transactions that will "disappear" when the new chain is released. A malicious attack relies on the minority chain continuing, so that the malicious transfers can be processed.

Interesting to see it in action....

imho it is because it is unique. unlike the other forks namecoin offers completely new features. it is not a bitcoin clone it is something completely different. namecoins having a value at all is only a side effect.

>If I were them I would be on launching some i0coin style re targeting like pronto.
I really hope they will. But I have discussed this already on the dot-bit forum to no avail.

>If the 51% attack is successful, you won't have to worry about merged mining as it won't happen.
I would hate merged mining to happen. From a bitcoin point of view AND from a namecoin point. But I still hope namecoin will live simply because it is a good idea.

You have already send the namecoin price down. I guess I should have bailed out earlier. You should announce attacks on the other forks as well.

hu?

+1
it may be difficult to implement without vulnerabilities for Art to game

merged mining is a big horror.


I like the experiment you want to run but please do not hurt namecoin too much - it is by far the best fork.