Topic: Transactions Withholding Attack - page 2. (Read 27544 times)

I can't speak for MoonShadow, but for me they seemed like a combination of "difficult to digest" with "mediocre conclusions." Once I managed to process what his words were trying to say, the thing he was actually saying wasn't all that impressive, which only made it all that much more disappointing. Plus he still made some claims I find questionable. This is about his economic writings though.


He may not be out of his league in economics, but you can't become and expert in economics, and then just claim that you are an expert in Bitcoin. The technology, and the way bitcoin actually works, is clearly out of his league. But instead of recognizing that, taking other's information into consideration, and actually learning about it, he seems convinced that, because he is so smart and is an expert in one field, that he is an expert in Bitcoin and understands it better after two weeks than the people who have discussed it for over two years. Note, this is the same mistake that a lot of economists have been making when they were writing news articles bashing Bitcoin.

Not your own views? And I quote,


How can you say that the views that some races have low IQ and are predisposed to violence are views you agree with, but which at the same time are not yours? You either agree and hold the same views, or disagree and hold opposite ones.

And FYI, if you like logicky computery stuff, I started programming as soon as I got my first computer (BASIC on Tandy 1000), then on TI graphing calculators, then in school classes, where my final project surpassed my teacher's level of understanding. I then got a job doing software development and debugging in Java, C++, and PHP as soon as I turned 18. My last programming position was as the IT manager and project developer of McDonald's Corporation's east coast region, until the dot com bubble burst, my job was outsourced, and, seeing the looming threat of India, I switched to finance. I never really stopped programming though, mostly doing it in Second Life through my finance degree, and Perl for some personal projects more recently. Besides programming I also own a MAGLEV "company" that owns a few linear motor and magnetic levitation patents, which I am still improving with mechanical and electrical engineering skills. I don't have an affinity for language arts. It's just something I do along with my other hobbies, which even include flying planes and practicing Kendo and Iaido (Japanese sword based martial arts; hoping finally for black belt on the test this January).
By the way, I don't remember what I got on my SATs. It was something between 1,200 and 1,400, but I didn't care because it was a somewhat dark time of my life and I didn't plan on going to college then anyway. But I did nearly max out my GMAT scores, and got the highest score possible on the composition and writing comprehension section. In this case, knowing so many languages, and thus the roots, meanings, and alternatives to many words, did help. GMAT, if you don't know, is a Master's level SAT. And don't let the M for Management fool you, the math in it gets ridiculously difficult.

And, despite all this, I really don't care if you think I am a moron, a liar, or whatever else you might think of me. You are not that important. All my history is not that important, either. Frankly, I never told this to anyone, since I'm not one to brag (but since you started it, I figured it might be fun). Because, unlike you, I don't think who I am, or what I did or do, is anywhere as important on an anonymous forum as what you actually say, what you contribute, and how cordial you are when you are doing it. Reputation is everything, and your shit-brown Ignore button doesn't bode well for you.

Why do you think they are bullshit? I read them multiple times and I came to the opposite conclusion.

Seems to me that he is not out of his league at all in fact I think he is holding his own rather well.

I don't deny that he is smart, but he is still out of his depth here.  Really, no one cares what his credentials might be, true or false, only his arguments matter here.  So far, I find his arguments sorely lacking in substance or merit.  His economic writings are bullshit.

"People who boast about their IQ's are losers" - Stephen Hawking

I do.

I judge AnonyMints intellect not by the above post because as they say talk is cheep but by the quality of his work. His economic writings are profound. (See my post titled Economic Devastation)

There is no denying he is one smart dude.

Honestly, no one really gives a shit, Anonymint.

Ditto but I quickly diverged from reading and language to taking everything apart, math, and algorithms. There is a photo of me as an infant with tools.


To the extent that any of that is true, it appears to demonstrate an affinity for the language arts, which is completely inapplicable to the this thread which is deeply algorithmic. And the above may also be due to prodding and elitist connections of your lineage, e.g. pushing you early.

Whereas I was not pushed and in fact my formal elementary and primary school education was chaotic and neglected with big gaps of wasted years. Thus my raw intellect has usually been obscured from most people.


Again you demonstrate very low comprehension skills. You didn't discern that in the linked post I was presenting links from James A Donald, not my own views. And I ended the relevant paragraph with a link to Eric S Raymond's perspective, whom I credited as being smarter.

And you don't factor in all the possibilities. For example you didn't factor in the possibility that I was writing allowing Donald to play the role of the devils advocate from which I could present a multiplexion or permutation of logic.

You have consistently failed to factor in all the variables in your analysis of this thread. One of the reasons I am programmer with million user commercial successes, is because I am capable of holding dozens if not hundreds of variables in my head in a model.

I am not claiming I am infallible.


Perhaps it is because none of you took a real IQ test:

http://unheresy.com/Essence%20of%20Genius.html

http://www.sigmasociety.com/sigma_teste/sigma_teste_eng.asp

Many IQ tests only test for example how fast your brain can process some limited pattern matching algorithms. E.g. raven's matrices. I won't be the fastest at any particular prewired algorithm (although I am fast enough to make it to Mensa level), yet what I am very good at is new algorithms. The above test is going to measure my IQ more accurately.

As demonstrated in this thread, on creativity and algorithms my IQ may even exceed the 150-160 IQ genius I am thinking of: Eric S Raymond. He is clearly superior to me in the language arts. That is not hard to do, I never tried to develop my language arts and even mostly ignored it by choice.

My language processing engine can not keep up with my "visual mathematics" (creativity, logic, and algorithms) brain which is why you will dropped words, numerous typos, and grammatical errors. I simply don't want to slow down for that linear output stream. Boring.

Every IQ test I take says I am strong in visual mathematics. My SAT and ACT both confirmed this, with my 85-90th percentile verbal score holding me back from being far above Mensa level. Besides I've always been a slacker at many times that are formal and highly structured, such as preparing for the SAT. I showed up with a hangover for the test. And the ACT I took after spending the entire summer locked inside my room with an Apple II and I took it immediately after a long travel.

I find it all silly, myself.

I have it bigger than all of you...my IQ I mean!

My younger brother has a tested IQ above 160.  He also has a mild case of Asbergers's Syndrome, and has real trouble making practical decisions as a direct result.  No one that has ever met him would think that he is so intelligent, particularly since IQ doesn't measure intelligence.  Only those who don't know what the IQ actually measures use it as evidence of their own superiority.

I rang in at 149 as a teen, BTW.

I also learned to talk when I was 1, learned to read by 3, read most of our house library, including grownup stuff, by the time I was 5, learned to play the piano proficiently, including classical by Bach and Chopen, by the time I was 7 or 8, was admitted into a professional boy's choir as one of the youngest members by 7 and our choir won the national competition when I was 8 or 9, learned advanced Algebra by 4th grade, Calculus by 6th grade, skipped 7th grade entirely, got A's and B's in all my classes despite almost never studying by deriving exam test answers right during the exam (grades dropped in 11th and 12th grades because I didn't do any work at all), received a doctorate level education in electromagnetic physics when I was still in 12th grade, and actually graduated from two schools at the same time, the public I attended with everyone else, and the private 6 year one I attended on weekends that focused on history, literature, theology, and politics of Eastern Europe. Oh, and I have a Bachelors and Masters in business finance and economics, and I speak, like, 5 languages fairly fluently, and am learning two more.

Oh, I am also a descendant of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Oleg Tozoni, and a direct descendant of a royal lineage, which technically makes me a Count.

Now prove any of that is a lie  

Also, this


doesnt actually prove you have a high IQ, it just proves that you are a racist with a possible eugenist streak.

You are now a confirmed liar.

I know of at least one 160 IQ person and he is smarter than me. You don't even demonstrate Mensa 132 level, which I am above. More evidence.

It's amazing how you continue to ignore me, and continue to reply with "I have refuted that point" over and over, not realizing that if you had done a good job of refuting them, I and other people would not keep repeating them. Sometimes when everyone else things you are wrong, it may be wise to recheck your premises.

Also, my IQ is around 160, so 

It is not amazing this low IQ idiot continues to miss the points that were made upthread.

Yes Amazon won't share its transactions, but above you were writing about customers of Amazon sending transactions to other merchants, not Amazon. That you can't understand that the customer can be both a customer of Amazon (the cartel) and of non-cartel merchants and that doesn't violate any of my upthread points, shows how much you don't understand this thread.

I guess it still hasn't clued into your slow brain that the customer will have his transactions delayed by cartel miners when he sends his transaction on the open Bitcoin network to a non-cartel merchant. Yet when that same customer sends his transaction through Amazon's client it will be accepted with 0-confirmation and then added the Bitcoin block chain by cartel miners. (the cartel  knows which transactions are theirs, the non-cartel merchants don't know which transactions are for a non-cartel merchant or a cartel and can't determine that from IP address, so the attack is asymmetrically in favor of the cartel)

I had explained all of this upthread. And I am not going to explain it again.

If you continue this intentional FUD, I am going to reply to every post you make with the first sentence of this post.

Which just creates a special wallet that is only useful for Amazon transactions. Extra inconvenience to shop at one business, and


this doesn't make sense, since the original proposition of the attack was that Amazon transactions wouldn't be shared with others, anyway. What's the point of hiding Amazon transactions in various IPs, if the only time others see them is after they are included in a block? So, again, in the end, you end up with the option of

A. Use Amazon's wallet, which lets your transaction show up instantly when shopping on Amazon, but forces you to wait 10+ minutes for your transaction to show up when shopping elsewhere, or
B. use your own wallet, which lets your transactions show up instantly regardless of where you shop

OR if Amazon forces people to only use their own wallet software to buy from Amazon:
C. Use Amazon's wallet to show at Amazon, your own wallet to shop elsewhere, both with instant transactions, and have Amazon give miners a 20% revenue boost by not bothering to process the available transactions.

It also doesn't make sense for Amazon to hold the private keys AND still use those keys to add transactions to the blockchain AND mine those transactions and their fees themselves, since Amazon can achieve the exact same thing by using an offline wallet system, where customers transfer funds into Amazon's shared wallet instead of Amazon's wallet app, still charge the same fees they would charge before but do it directly, and just do their 20% mining with not accepting other transactions into their blocks on the side, completely independent from this offchain transaction crap.

As has been shown over and over and over and over and over again, you just don't get how bitcoin works. Also, I thought you were ignoring me?

There is nothing stopping the Bitcoin owner who is also an Amazon customer, from having copies of his/her private keys and sending his/her transactions from any client he/she wishes to. Moreover, there is no way to detect that a spend was sent from an Amazon wallet where Amazon is merely holding the private keys for the customer and can issue the send transaction for innumerable IP addresses (heck botnets only cost $100).

I am not going to bother replying to this dolt's other nonsense.

I see this idiot continues to attempt character assassination, yet it isn't working.

Have you been keeping up with the new stuff proposed in release 0.9? Or the process of doing business with VISA under the threat of chargebacks?
I would guess not. Small merchants, and likely most transactions, will be accepted with 0 confirmations. The bigger ones may require a confirmation, or may be accepted with 0 confirmations if the customer provides some ID. So from the merchant's point of view, small merchants will get their transactions accepted between 10 and 20 minutes, while Amazon will have their transactions accepted between 20 and 60+ minutes. From a customer's point of view, who is used to 0 confirmation transactions, using their own wallet will make their transaction show up almost instantly with the merchants and likely with Amazon, while using Amazon's wallet their transaction will show up instantly when shopping on Amazon, but will take an extremely long time to show up when shopping with other merchants.

So, option A, use your own wallet, get instant 0-confirmation purchases everywhere,
Option B, use Amazon's wallet, get 0-confirmation purchases at Amazon, and 60 minute confirmations everywhere else.

I think people would avoid the "broken" Amazon wallet.


If Amazon was actually stupid enough to block everyone else's transactions from being accepted in blocks, then all they will be doing is wasting mining resources for reduced fees, and, although they will be delaying transaction confirmations a bit (which, as mentioned, won't matter to small merchants), they will basically be generously giving those excluded transactions to all other miners. Think about it, if Amazon has 20% of the hashing power, and you as a mining pool only have %10, before Amazon you would get 10% of all blocks and 10% of all transaction fees, but now you will still get 10% of all blocks, but those 20% Amazon-rejected transactions will get spread out, giving you an extra 2% in reward fees. Chances are that this may even increase overall mining profitability (for everyone but Amazon) enough to entice new mining power to join the network, and reduce Amazon's 20% share ever further. In the end, it's a penalty on the customers, who, being used to 0 confirmation transactions won't notice or care, and a reward to all other miners, who don't care about confirmation times anyway.


BTW, I am not posting this as a reply to AnonyMint, but instead only for the benefit of other readers who may be new to bitcoin, because


is a perfect description of AnonyMint's modus operandi.

Already refuted upthread.

Amazon can wait until its miners win a block. Amazon can use 0-confirmations for its customers as explained upthread (customers are repeat). Small merchants often can't.


You entirely missed the points upthread about how a cartel penalizes everyone else and forces them to join the cartel, e.g. Amazon delays the transactions of everyone else. Etc.

Please comprehend the thread before posting more noise. You will probably need a week or two of studying the thread slowly.

Been reading and more reading and more reading.

And all I hear is noise that Amazon will try to destroy bitcoin by adopting it.

- own downloadable client... don't really see that happening, at least not in the near future. (loads of work + time = loads of money)
- integrated in website, possible even likely. Them modifying the code with malicious intent, doubtful.
- Them setting up a huge mining pool, unlikely.
End of story, executing this attack, means you need to be a multi billion dollar company, investing multi millions, on something that is not morally acceptable.

Ok true thats what big companies often do. (if they see profit in it)

So lets assume Amazon did this,
Due to the open nature of the blockchain, people would find out, sooner or later. (expect sooner)
The moment this gets found out, several things can happen.
- Miners cartel against Amazon, Amazon blocks no longer get accepted. (bye bye profit, and reputation of the company)
- Miners don't care and continue their business of making money. (the world is bigger than Amazon) Users however scream murder at Amazon and will petition to boy-cot Amazon.
- Nobody cares and Amazon makes a little bit more money than they would otherwise.