You need a lot of well connected nodes to do this and they have to be the cheapest way of routing. So you are charging low fees and locking up a lot of BTC in the hopes that people route enough money though you for this to work, and the fact that you don't get caught and booted off the network.
Exactly and this is why it will never be a real threat because instead of the third guy whom you want to cheat, you can BE! that guy and take all the fees perfectly normal yourself! Trying to make the route longer but at the same time cheaper will act like the barrier, it's a no go!
I'm curious if such an attack which results in collecting a few milisatoshi now and then will ever make up for all the funding you have to set up in order to deploy your
malicious network!
Now if D would be able to do that without B, that would change things but since it can't, I think right now it's as dangerous as Foundry colluding with some guy in Nantucket to reverse his coffee purchases.
Unless they guy in Nantucket owns part of Foundry.
I know I have used it as an example before but I have to come back to the TV series Breaking In [
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1630574/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3 ]
They had to steal a exotic car to test the dealers security and came up with a mission impossible type plan, with hacking key cards, defeating the alarm system, etc....
Wound up stealing the wrong car from the wrong car dealer [it's not great TV] but came back to the right car dealer and while standing in front of it, trying to figure out how to get the right car one of them turns to the other and says 'they really should have a gate here' picks up a rock and smashes the large window to get in and get the car.
Wormhole attacks ARE viable, but by the time you do your mission impossible plan someone came in and put up a $5 phony website selling something and got way more
BTC then you can doing this attack.
Not saying that they should not be working on ways to mitigate it, just that it's not that big a deal.
-Dave
