Topic: Majority is not Enough: Bitcoin Mining is Vulnerable - page 2. (Read 51057 times)

So you admit not knowing who the Bitcoin developers and the forum admin are and state that Bitcoin is "abandoned" a few posts apart?

Don't you think that also depends on what the EU, Russia and China do?

In my opinion, bitcoin cannot survive if the US gov't decides to take the ax to it.

Thank you for your analysis. That's what I felt from the beginning about that "strategy". Miners do not care (so much) about the number of coins they get than about the number of stuff they can buy with them.

However, does it apply to someone who wants to destroy Bitcoin ?
Is it easier with this strategy than with a traditional "51% attack" ?

For example, in the Prisoner's Dilemma, both players cooperating is not a Nash equilibrium. The only Nash equilibrium is given by both players defecting, which is also a mutual minmax profile. The folk theorem says that, in the infinitely repeated version of the game, provided players are sufficiently patient, there is a Nash equilibrium such that both players cooperate on the equilibrium path.

Let's just hope it's not the same developers responsible for keeping this forum running. J/K

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Low latency connection itself is expensive, and we can nullify its advantage by relaying unverified block headers. People will always assume a block header is valid unless it is proven otherwise, and always mine on top of the first seen header. (I think creating invalid block header is very expensive and no one is trying to do this. Any stats for this?)
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Even though it's a little taboo to mention, the truth is: Bitcoin's developer abandoned the project years ago and disappeared into thin air. If he was still around he would be actively evolving the coin and addressing issues like this one in a clever manner. Bitcoin without Satoshi is like Apple without Jobs.

To my understanding, the only coin actively developing a 51% defense is Goldcoin whose developer is actively building upon Satoshi's unfinished work.

Even though it's a little taboo to mention, the truth is: Bitcoin's developer abandoned the project years ago and disappeared into thin air. If he was still around he would be actively evolving the coin and addressing issues like this one in a clever manner. Bitcoin without Satoshi is like Apple without Jobs.

To my understanding, the only coin actively developing a 51% defense is Goldcoin whose developer is actively building upon Satoshi's unfinished work.

I wonder if Cornell professors are accountable for lapses in ethical academic behaviour?

Call me old fashioned but I thought a research paper normally involves research (here: discourse with core dev), and also involves peer review before publishing. Or has Cornell abandoned such archaic practices?

I wonder if Cornell professors are accountable for lapses in ethical academic behaviour?

I am an academic myself and I think telling people to sell their bitcoins definitely crosses a line when it comes to intellectual discourse.

Here is the tweet about selling bitcoins: https://twitter.com/el33th4xor/status/397219415025934336

It is clear now they are not acting in good faith. Apparently they have no idea at all there's something wrong with their extreme arrogance and spreading factual lies and FUD.

They can't even get their lies straight between the two of them - https://twitter.com/el33th4xor/status/397827176759697408

So these two guys at Cornell University, an associate professor and a post-doc, publish a paper on Arxiv about what they believe to be a flaw in Bitcoin.

Rather than quietly and tastefully wait for some feedback on their ideas, the professor immediately Tweets "You heard it here first: now is a good time to sell your Bitcoins."  He then proceeds to blog "Bitcoin is Broken."  News outlets, seeing no reason to believe two guys with PhDs employed by prestigious Cornell University are spraying FUD with a large diameter hose, run with the story that a fatal flaw has been discovered in Bitcoin, and its collapse is iminent.

The central thesis of his paper is that you can make mining slightly more profitable by picking when to make public blocks you have mined, and that this will cause miners to join your pool until it increases to a size which threatens the decentralized nature of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency.

Now we've discussed the threat posed by large mining pools for years, and it makes little difference whether they attract clients by gaming the mining protocol, paying a premium for shares, promising a share of the windfall profits that result when they reach 51%, or giving away free toasters.

It is generally accepted that such shenanigans would be noticed by the community before any harm was done, and appropriate policies adopted.  Therefore, it is unlikely people will make the investment to try such things, only to have them nipped in the bud forthwith.

The professor reacts to skepticism about his attack by saying that all rebuttals must "include math" to be seriously considered, and goes on and on about the great burden he endures by having to put up with the stupid.

He deletes critical blog comments claiming they contain "profanity," which apparently includes the word "fraud" and Will Rogers quotes.  After a few days of being slow-roasted on the spit of Bitcoin community displeasure, he defiantly declares" I used to think that money brought out the worst in people, until I saw Bitcoin."

The reaction of the developers to the idea that this attack poses some serious real threat to Bitcoin has been somewhere between "yawn" and "snooze."

Now the paper is interesting, and it has resulted in some serious discussions about how such an attack might play out, although there are some questions whether the methodology is a perfect fit to the problem being described.  Had it simply been released without the accompanying egregious self-promotion and predictions of Bitcoin demise, it probably would have been warmly received, and constructive feedback cheerfully provided.

This whole scenario is like a guy walking up to show everyone a marvelous anti-gravity car he has invented.  He describes the engine in detail with complicated fluid dynamic equations and state diagrams, and refuses to entertain any rebuttals of his design methodology which don't use these tools.  Meanwhile, a less technical crowd has gathered, and noticed there is no hose connecting the engine to the fuel tank.



 

So these two guys at Cornell University, an associate professor and a post-doc, publish a paper on Arxiv about what they believe to be a flaw in Bitcoin.

Rather than quietly and tastefully wait for some feedback on their ideas, the professor immediately Tweets "You heard it here first: now is a good time to sell your Bitcoins."  He then proceeds to blog "Bitcoin is Broken."

The "exploit" he "discovered" has been discussed in 2010 on these very forums.

Based on his behaviour over the last few days, I give him an 8/10 for douchebag.

He's eligible for a perfect score if it turns out he posts on this forum as "revans" and if he's in any way related to the DDoS attempts on the exchanges and charting sites yesterday.