Topic: Mystery miner at it again? - page 2. (Read 6872 times)
I wonder if such an individual starts to pose a clear threat to the regular Bitcoin users, if there will be enough pissed hackers to mount an uber cyberstalking squad and track the down the real person behind the thing...
I can't imagine what kind of damage a botnet can do
It seems likely that most botnet machines would be lower-powered, without capable GPU. So, you'd need a really, really big CPU mining botnet basically...
But what if the botnet intrustion code was smart enough to search for a suitable GPU (it would not care about mining efficiency so it would go for both ATI and AMD)!!
Imagine the hashing power such a botnet could achieve. Imagine all those poor games who are left scratching their head wondering why their system lags and why temps spike "myseriously"...
If it's that smart, then why would it even be noticed by the user? It should be able to throttle the GPU so that it's running just below full fan heat and stop whenever the screensaver dies.
Well it's not that easy. People have different configurations with different cooling solutions. What I'm saying is that in order for the botnet code to be that smart it would have to be very complex and have a lot of built in knowledge of different card configurations, etc. It is by far simpler for the code to check "hey is there an OpenCL or CUDA capable card in the system? yes - let it rip! no - use the CPU"
Moa has a point. You are less likely to get infected with these on linux. I'm thinking of building a dedicated linux box just to store my bitcoins for that very reason - among many.
I can't imagine what kind of damage a botnet can do
It seems likely that most botnet machines would be lower-powered, without capable GPU. So, you'd need a really, really big CPU mining botnet basically...
But what if the botnet intrustion code was smart enough to search for a suitable GPU (it would not care about mining efficiency so it would go for both ATI and AMD)!!
Imagine the hashing power such a botnet could achieve. Imagine all those poor games who are left scratching their head wondering why their system lags and why temps spike "myseriously"...If it's that smart, then why would it even be noticed by the user? It should be able to throttle the GPU so that it's running just below full fan heat and stop whenever the screensaver dies.
Yet another reason to go to Linux ... botnets could get a lot more virulent if there is palpable money (bitcoin) at the end of the computational theft rainbow.
I can't imagine what kind of damage a botnet can do
It seems likely that most botnet machines would be lower-powered, without capable GPU. So, you'd need a really, really big CPU mining botnet basically...
But what if the botnet intrustion code was smart enough to search for a suitable GPU (it would not care about mining efficiency so it would go for both ATI and AMD)!!
Imagine the hashing power such a botnet could achieve. Imagine all those poor games who are left scratching their head wondering why their system lags and why temps spike "myseriously"...If it's that smart, then why would it even be noticed by the user? It should be able to throttle the GPU so that it's running just below full fan heat and stop whenever the screensaver dies.
I can't imagine what kind of damage a botnet can do
It seems likely that most botnet machines would be lower-powered, without capable GPU. So, you'd need a really, really big CPU mining botnet basically...
But what if the botnet intrustion code was smart enough to search for a suitable GPU (it would not care about mining efficiency so it would go for both ATI and AMD)!!
Imagine the hashing power such a botnet could achieve. Imagine all those poor games who are left scratching their head wondering why their system lags and why temps spike "myseriously"...I can't imagine what kind of damage a botnet can do
It seems likely that most botnet machines would be lower-powered, without capable GPU. So, you'd need a really, really big CPU mining botnet basically...
Interesting, mystery miner is a single entity/machine. Probably a commercial or academic cluster or supercomputer then. Wonder what incentivises them to be on/off the bitcoin network? (Besides having spare cycles).
There are more arguments to think that MM was botnet. One of them is that MM shut it down after few days. 50k BTC is pretty nice result and every day of botnet operation is bigger risk of troubles...
I can't imagine what kind of damage a botnet can do
It seems we've had a sudden increase in network hashing power. Mystery miner returns or people reacting to the rise in value of Bitcoins?
I wouldn't call it sudden. I've been graphing it since the last difficulty change, and it's been a gradual but steady increase. At this point, we seem to be averaging about 600GHash/sec. Which, incidentally, is putting us on course for another decrease of the target. http://blockexplorer.com/tx/f03b2e4feb915cc1dd7e226315386f459977d93c2919556fb3de73c83052ce3f#o0
Is that a clue? 2011.44?(4/4/2011) Damn, it cannot be just a coincidence!
Probably is. Just dig into each of the input transactions, and you'll see that most of them are older, some of them going back to January. Just someone consolidating all their bitcoins into a single address, I think. Is that a clue? 2011.44?(4/4/2011) Damn, it cannot be just a coincidence!
Interesting, mystery miner is a single entity/machine. Probably a commercial or academic cluster or supercomputer then. Wonder what incentivises them to be on/off the bitcoin network? (Besides having spare cycles).
There are more arguments to think that MM was botnet. One of them is that MM shut it down after few days. 50k BTC is pretty nice result and every day of botnet operation is bigger risk of troubles...
Interesting, mystery miner is a single entity/machine. Probably a commercial or academic cluster or supercomputer then. Wonder what incentivises them to be on/off the bitcoin network? (Besides having spare cycles).
Could be electricity cost, when bitcoin gets economic they crank it up. Certainly puts some punch behind the security of the network having something like that lurking out there ... how many more mystery miners might potentially come out of the woodwork when the price is right?
http://blockexplorer.com/tx/f03b2e4feb915cc1dd7e226315386f459977d93c2919556fb3de73c83052ce3f#o0
Is that a clue? 2011.44?(4/4/2011) Damn, it cannot be just a coincidence!
Is that a clue? 2011.44?(4/4/2011) Damn, it cannot be just a coincidence!
Wallet for receiving mining funds is http://blockexplorer.com/address/1PT3YvvKnNqT1513Vs9dZ59eU1gq7xQADc. Coins are currently lying here http://blockexplorer.com/address/12YZ8ubTBJHeWRtxFnRpmrgJuxaUv2nCQY
There is no specific IRC log to quote, it's many pieces spread in whole channel history.
There is no specific IRC log to quote, it's many pieces spread in whole channel history
. It is only an assumption that the "mystery miner" is a single person or group. That's is actually unlikely.
Mystery miner was single person and his wallet is tracked already. Please search #bitcoin-dev logs for "MM" or "Mistery Miner".
I don't have access to IRC at work, care to share?
It is only an assumption that the "mystery miner" is a single person or group. That's is actually unlikely.
Mystery miner was single person and his wallet is tracked already. Please search #bitcoin-dev logs for "MM" or "Mistery Miner".
Deepbit.net had an epic day on April 13, solving ~80% more blocks than it normally does
That was my birthday... 
Kinda scary to think there is a single person or group with so much power over the Bitcoin economy...
It is only an assumption that the "mystery miner" is a single person or group. That's is actually unlikely. More likely is that what we attribute to intentional action is a statistical outlier, and not any specific event. Even if it is an event, there may be a trigger causing many different users to jump in at the same time, creating the illusion of a single powerful group. Perhaps more than one person has already hacked the mining code to track the price/difficulty ratio, and only burn clock cycles if the ratio is above a certain value. I'm not a coder, but compared to the complexity of the miners themselves, hacking the client to cycle generation on and off based on a simple calculation should be trivial. I just wish whoever has done it would release their code.
Kinda scary to think there is a single person or group with so much power over the Bitcoin economy...
It needn't be any extra mining but just a lucky streak by the mining network that jacks up calculated hash rates over an extended period.
Deepbit.net had an epic day on April 13, solving ~80% more blocks than it normally does ... so for that day the pool's has rate power comes out higher. Similar episodes are likely to occur for the whole network.
You know what's interesting? If the Mystery Miner commands a large enough share of the network, they could feasibly drive up the price of bitcoins by holding on to all the bitcoins they mine instead of selling them on the open market. If a sizable share of all the network's bitcoins are going to them, they effectively reduce the overall supply and (potentially) turn people who would have been producers of bitcoins into consumers. This would also increase demand.
Then, once they have a decent amount mined and the price has gone up sufficiently, they could sell them all in a dark pool for a handsome profit. Prices would then plummet, of course.
Btw, anyone know where that 30,000 BTC sell-off from last week came from?
Then, once they have a decent amount mined and the price has gone up sufficiently, they could sell them all in a dark pool for a handsome profit. Prices would then plummet, of course.
Btw, anyone know where that 30,000 BTC sell-off from last week came from?
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