Converting the number of hashes to petaflops is a controversial issue. The cacluation done at bitcoin watch is considered "high" by most. However using it for the sake of argument the Bitcoin network would be about 137 petaflops. If we take even 1/4 of that as the real number the Bitcoin network is pretty darn safe from an outside attack.
Here are some numbers for other distributed networks (from wikipedia). Since Bitcoin only does integer operations it is hard to compare apples to apples:
BOINC – 5.634 PFLOPS as of April 4, 2011.[4]
Folding@Home – 5 PFLOPS, as of March 17, 2009[5]
As of April 2010[update], MilkyWay@Home computes at over 1.6 PFLOPS, with a large amount of this work coming from GPUs.[6]
As of April 2010[update], SETI@Home computes data averages more than 730 TFLOPS.[7]
As of April 2010[update], Einstein@Home is crunching more than 210 TFLOPS.[8]
As of June 2011[update], GIMPS is sustaining 61 TFLOPS.[9]
Also there is a thread here somewhere discussing all this and attempting to claim Bitcoin is the largest for the world record book.
Topic: Surely this isn't a 51% attack on bitcoins, right? - page 2. (Read 5476 times)
I think the K Computer in Japan does 8 petaflops, and im pretty sure that is the current fastest supercomputer.
But not sure about any farms out there...
But not sure about any farms out there...
The overall security of the network is not really under threat, since 10 Terahashes per second isn't a mark reachable by any known network or supercomputer. This does highlight the risks to the bitcoin network at large associated with pool mining. Concentrating the mining to a single server for the purpose of income stability also creates central points of failure/attack. I don't mine in pools for this exact reason, and don't think anyone with any substantial hashing ability should do so. 10K small lights are harder to shoot out than a dozen really big ones.
This brings me to another point.. in a conversation with a colleague he said " What if IBM or some other entity with tons of computing power bring it online all at once?" He mentioned something on the order of "3 trillion teraflops/sec" or something that one company has.
I did some rough calculations of the TFlops of of all the vid cards encompassing 11Thash. I think I came to about 100,000 on our network.
I know that teraflops does not equate directly to hashing power, but I would like to know if anyone knows of the biggest competition to our network?
This is very simple. Bitcoinwatch averages blocks over the last 24 hours. If you have everyone producing 0 blocks (this isn't the case) and reporting that the "Other" pie chart is 100% based on past block rates alone.
This is used to happen during difficulty jumps up. For the 24 hours following the jump in difficulty that chart would compute how much hashing power would be required to get the average # of blocks over 24 hours at current difficulty, compare that to reporting hashing power of the pools and assign the rest to "other." Since the average was hashed at a lower difficulty you'd get these giant "Other" slices showing up every retarget.
This is used to happen during difficulty jumps up. For the 24 hours following the jump in difficulty that chart would compute how much hashing power would be required to get the average # of blocks over 24 hours at current difficulty, compare that to reporting hashing power of the pools and assign the rest to "other." Since the average was hashed at a lower difficulty you'd get these giant "Other" slices showing up every retarget.
I am connected to deepbit and the miners are all still running. However the web site does appear to be down at this time. There does seem to be an intermittent communication problem between my miners and deepbit. They may be under attack (again).
If the two largest pools were really down the overall hash rate would have dropped a lot. So I expect the pools are running but they are unable to report back their results (back to Bitcoin Watch) due to some other web site issue/attack. Since Bitcoin Watch cant associate the hashing with any pool it lumps the remainder of the current hash rate into "other".
So I belive the "other" just represents the normal hashing activity of the pools.
If the two largest pools were really down the overall hash rate would have dropped a lot. So I expect the pools are running but they are unable to report back their results (back to Bitcoin Watch) due to some other web site issue/attack. Since Bitcoin Watch cant associate the hashing with any pool it lumps the remainder of the current hash rate into "other".
So I belive the "other" just represents the normal hashing activity of the pools.
Guys.
the 'OTHER" is obviously the downed pools hashing power. everybody is still mining with them, it is just the front end that wont answer http calls.
the 'OTHER" is obviously the downed pools hashing power. everybody is still mining with them, it is just the front end that wont answer http calls.
No everyone isn't mining.
Many users of deepbit report connectivity issues and none of my miners can connect to slush. It looks like some miners may still be able to connect but not all of them are.
Still other isn't necessarily bad. My slush rigs switched to solo so they would be "other" too.
DOSing the major pools isn't what I think of as a "51% attack", but whatever. Whether or not the pools are under attack or not is of little concern to myself. The overall security of the network is not really under threat, since 10 Terahashes per second isn't a mark reachable by any known network or supercomputer. This does highlight the risks to the bitcoin network at large associated with pool mining. Concentrating the mining to a single server for the purpose of income stability also creates central points of failure/attack. I don't mine in pools for this exact reason, and don't think anyone with any substantial hashing ability should do so. 10K small lights are harder to shoot out than a dozen really big ones.
+1 it is easier to consequently do so if you have a large farm or a big pile of coins already, though.
My pool is back up. Those DDoSes are so boring to maintain :/
Guys.
the 'OTHER" is obviously the downed pools hashing power. everybody is still mining with them, it is just the front end that wont answer http calls.
the 'OTHER" is obviously the downed pools hashing power. everybody is still mining with them, it is just the front end that wont answer http calls.
No everyone isn't mining.
Many users of deepbit report connectivity issues and none of my miners can connect to slush. It looks like some miners may still be able to connect but not all of them are.
Still other isn't necessarily bad. My slush rigs switched to solo so they would be "other" too.
DOSing the major pools isn't what I think of as a "51% attack", but whatever. Whether or not the pools are under attack or not is of little concern to myself. The overall security of the network is not really under threat, since 10 Terahashes per second isn't a mark reachable by any known network or supercomputer. This does highlight the risks to the bitcoin network at large associated with pool mining. Concentrating the mining to a single server for the purpose of income stability also creates central points of failure/attack. I don't mine in pools for this exact reason, and don't think anyone with any substantial hashing ability should do so. 10K small lights are harder to shoot out than a dozen really big ones.
Me three. Just switched all 4 rigs remotely.
Whew!
Whew!
Looks like his website is still down tho...
Im mining @ slush's again...
That's good news.
That's good news.
yep. me too, just came up.
Im mining @ slush's again...
That's good news.
That's good news.
Guys.
the 'OTHER" is obviously the downed pools hashing power. everybody is still mining with them, it is just the front end that wont answer http calls.
the 'OTHER" is obviously the downed pools hashing power. everybody is still mining with them, it is just the front end that wont answer http calls.
No everyone isn't mining.
Many users of deepbit report connectivity issues and none of my miners can connect to slush. It looks like some miners may still be able to connect but not all of them are.
Still other isn't necessarily bad. My slush rigs switched to solo so they would be "other" too.
Nice link. Slush last block was prior to the start of connectivity problems but good to see the other big players are still producing blocks.
I've got access to two of my three miners right now, and neither of them are able to connect to slush's pool, which is where I was at when things got crazy. Don't think anyone is mining at slush's right now...
Slush is gone from the graph and other is much bigger.
I think the graph showing names or not does only mean if reporting is working or not.
it could be that mining works just fine (someone above posted he was mining at deepbit right now)
+1
Guys.
the 'OTHER" is obviously the downed pools hashing power. everybody is still mining with them, it is just the front end that wont answer http calls.
the 'OTHER" is obviously the downed pools hashing power. everybody is still mining with them, it is just the front end that wont answer http calls.
No everyone isn't mining.
Many users of deepbit report connectivity issues and none of my miners can connect to slush. It looks like some miners may still be able to connect but not all of them are.
Still other isn't necessarily bad. My slush rigs switched to solo so they would be "other" too.
Guys.
the 'OTHER" is obviously the downed pools hashing power. everybody is still mining with them, it is just the front end that wont answer http calls.
the 'OTHER" is obviously the downed pools hashing power. everybody is still mining with them, it is just the front end that wont answer http calls.
I think you're right. If you look here, I think they tag blocks by known IP and they see all the big pools still generating blocks.
Guys.
the 'OTHER" is obviously the downed pools hashing power. everybody is still mining with them, it is just the front end that wont answer http calls.
the 'OTHER" is obviously the downed pools hashing power. everybody is still mining with them, it is just the front end that wont answer http calls.
I can confirm that I have several miners down at slush. A bunch more at smaller pools unaffected.
Slush is gone from the graph and other is much bigger.
I think the graph showing names or not does only mean if reporting is working or not.
it could be that mining works just fine (someone above posted he was mining at deepbit right now)
Guys.
the 'OTHER" is obviously the downed pools hashing power. everybody is still mining with them, it is just the front end that wont answer http calls.
the 'OTHER" is obviously the downed pools hashing power. everybody is still mining with them, it is just the front end that wont answer http calls.
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