Author

Topic: Exploiting Bitcoin Network Flaws (Read 1653 times)

hero member
Activity: 555
Merit: 654
September 04, 2015, 09:13:24 PM
#16
Are there any bitcoin network flaws that can be exploited to gain money without losing other people's money in the process.

Yes, but probably you can't get much money out of them.

For instance Selfish mining is one (if you interpret that the remaining miners are not "loosing money", but just earning less money).

Certain design failures in the Bitcoin mining algorithm (double SHA-256 of the header) also allow non-obvious speedups that miners may be exploiting or may exploit in the future to obtain a small advantage. All commercial Bitcoin ASIC designs are confidential.

And some critical things don't leak so easily. As a comparison, Pieter Wuille held information about a critical bug in Bitcoin for a year until it was finally solved.

I think that the incentive to exploit weaknesses is low for many different reasons: low monetary gain, high initial cost to setup the exploit, high economic penalty if exploit discovered, personal reputation at stake, legal concerns, etc.

Bitcoin is fantastic for a lot of reasons, but it is not perfect.



 
legendary
Activity: 4298
Merit: 1317
August 31, 2015, 12:29:14 PM
#15
1. This seems very off-topic for this sub-forum.

2. You can see if anyone is (or has been) exploiting flaws but writing a quick tool to count and trace all the bitcoins in existence and see if it matches up with the total it should be mathematically.  That will answer the question as to whether flaws have been exploited in the past definitively.

3. There is no way to "gain money without losing other people's money in the process".  If you inflate the currency through creating bitcoin out of thin air everyone else's coin's values drop proportionally.  E.g. if there are 14 million bitcoins in existence and I create 14 million more, what will happen to the price?  I don't believe it would be stable or increase.

staff
Activity: 3458
Merit: 6793
Just writing some code
August 30, 2015, 04:49:39 PM
#14
I thought bitcoin was decentralised and gbp is worth more than usd so it would make sense for these researchers to withdraw their btc into gbp than usd.
Bitcoin is decentralized.

If US researches want money they can spend, they would withdraw their BTC to USD. While GBP may be worth more than USD, converting from BTC to USD will still give them the same amount of value as BTC to GBP. Besides, they would want to spend USD in the US since US stores don't accept GBP.
legendary
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1000
August 30, 2015, 04:46:18 PM
#13
Any vulnerability would crumble BTC price to cents or even flat zero.
And no, there wouldn't be a way for it to pass unnoticed, way too many people is constantly checking the blockchain and its transactions. Anything suspicious would immediately ring the bells.

The currency to trade to value's have nothing to do with nothing. GBP worth more per unit, but you would get less GBP units per BTC.
copper member
Activity: 2856
Merit: 3071
https://bit.ly/387FXHi lightning theory
August 30, 2015, 04:45:10 PM
#12
I thought bitcoin was decentralised and gbp is worth more than usd so it would make sense for these researchers to withdraw their btc into gbp than usd.
staff
Activity: 3458
Merit: 6793
Just writing some code
August 30, 2015, 04:25:17 PM
#11
If there were a way to crack into the blockchain and do something to create fake coins or commit doublespends like what he is talking about, the price of Bitcoin would plummit. Thankfully, we have quality MIT and Caltech league Computer Scientists working on this project, and would quickly foresee any kind of exploit inquired by the OP. Script kiddies won't be able to beat that.

Seems as if you are saying that MIT and Caltech are perfect and there is no point in making new things if they are so perfect! And in doing so, implying that MIT and Caltech don't exploit loopholes in bitcoin for themselves where they could earn millions of pounds.
He is saying that they are top notch researchers and computer scientists who would probably find the problem first and fix it before others figure it out. Since the people who would be researching that probably depend on Bitcoin and wish to see its success, they probably wouldn't exploit those vulnerabilities since doing so could completely crash and destroy Bitcoin. Also, they would be millions of DOLLARS not pounds since those institutions are in the US.
copper member
Activity: 2856
Merit: 3071
https://bit.ly/387FXHi lightning theory
August 30, 2015, 04:14:49 PM
#10
If there were a way to crack into the blockchain and do something to create fake coins or commit doublespends like what he is talking about, the price of Bitcoin would plummit. Thankfully, we have quality MIT and Caltech league Computer Scientists working on this project, and would quickly foresee any kind of exploit inquired by the OP. Script kiddies won't be able to beat that.

Seems as if you are saying that MIT and Caltech are perfect and there is no point in making new things if they are so perfect! And in doing so, implying that MIT and Caltech don't exploit loopholes in bitcoin for themselves where they could earn millions of pounds.
legendary
Activity: 2730
Merit: 1026
Hire me for Bounty Management
August 30, 2015, 03:36:48 PM
#9
Are there any bitcoin network flaws that can be exploited to gain money without losing other people's money in the process.

Query: if there were, would bitcoin be worth anything?

Yes it would. Many people would not know about these flaws because why would people share them?

However, there may be some small flaws that the bitcoin producers canot fix and have left in the hope that people don't find them!
How can you be so sure? Nothing is perfect there may be flaws in bitcoin too but not any is known presently
sr. member
Activity: 448
Merit: 251
August 30, 2015, 02:01:34 PM
#8
If there were a way to crack into the blockchain and do something to create fake coins or commit doublespends like what he is talking about, the price of Bitcoin would plummit. Thankfully, we have quality MIT and Caltech league Computer Scientists working on this project, and would quickly foresee any kind of exploit inquired by the OP. Script kiddies won't be able to beat that.
legendary
Activity: 1442
Merit: 1189
August 29, 2015, 11:27:42 PM
#7
Is OP talking about double-spends?  You can temporarily "gain" money this way.
Or is OP asking if there's a way to create bitcoins out of thin air? Not anymore, that flaw was patched Wink
legendary
Activity: 1022
Merit: 1003
𝓗𝓞𝓓𝓛
August 29, 2015, 11:18:22 PM
#6
No there is not, as long as the miners still mining Bitcoin to verified all of the transactions. Smiley
legendary
Activity: 1134
Merit: 1000
August 29, 2015, 11:29:26 AM
#5
Are there any bitcoin network flaws that can be exploited to gain money without losing other people's money in the process.

Maybe there can be flaws in bitcoin (it is yet a new thing) but don't think that there are exploitatable by you and me. There are videos in internet that "produce" tons of bitcoin by the owners. Try to find them. Maybe they want to sell their invention.  Wink And after you wouldn't have place where to put all your produced bitcoins.
sr. member
Activity: 252
Merit: 250
Go figure! | I'm nearing 1337 posts...
August 29, 2015, 11:21:43 AM
#4
Are there any bitcoin network flaws that can be exploited to gain money without losing other people's money in the process.

Query: if there were, would bitcoin be worth anything?

Yes it would. Many people would not know about these flaws because why would people share them?

However, there may be some small flaws that the bitcoin producers canot fix and have left in the hope that people don't find them!

No, it wouldn't. Prices would plummet to cents per bitcoin. Think about it: the method would invariably be leaked out to a number of people. Do you really think that they would all be smart with it? No. They would spam the method to get thousands, even millions of bitcoins, and list the method for sale. I haven't seen any method like that on here or the deep web. If there is a method like that, it's a hoax.
copper member
Activity: 2856
Merit: 3071
https://bit.ly/387FXHi lightning theory
August 29, 2015, 11:12:44 AM
#3
Are there any bitcoin network flaws that can be exploited to gain money without losing other people's money in the process.

Query: if there were, would bitcoin be worth anything?

Yes it would. Many people would not know about these flaws because why would people share them?

However, there may be some small flaws that the bitcoin producers canot fix and have left in the hope that people don't find them!
legendary
Activity: 4298
Merit: 1317
August 29, 2015, 11:09:45 AM
#2
Are there any bitcoin network flaws that can be exploited to gain money without losing other people's money in the process.

Query: if there were, would bitcoin be worth anything?
copper member
Activity: 2856
Merit: 3071
https://bit.ly/387FXHi lightning theory
August 29, 2015, 11:05:45 AM
#1
Are there any bitcoin network flaws that can be exploited to gain money without losing other people's money in the process.
Jump to: