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Topic: Transactions Withholding Attack - page 7. (Read 27585 times)

hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
November 20, 2013, 07:02:35 PM
One thing that all of you have failed to do is argue why I shouldn't fix the attack?



Because you don't know what you are doing.

You must have powers greater than a mind reader and a prophet, I think I am aware of what I am doing.

Character assassination is not an argument.

Can you turn on the physically disconnected webcam or microphone on my computer to see or hear what I am doing. Are you able of intercepting my IP packets or otherwise monitoring my internet activity. Have you put a virus on my computer and monitoring all my keystrokes and reading my hard disk.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
November 20, 2013, 06:57:53 PM
BTW he is a Ripple core dev Wink

Yup I knew that. So he may not like my comment against fractional reserves. Frankly I have not studied Ripple enough to have fully formed opinion of it.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
November 20, 2013, 06:48:39 PM
This line of thinking was already refuted. See my replies to JoelKatz.

If by refuted you mean: waved hands at, blustered and ignored, sure.
If Amazon control the wallet, there would be no reason for them to have on-chain transactions in the first place, they would do the entire accounting in-house. Just like exchanges do already.

Are you so thick brained that you can't read what I wrote to JoelKatz upthread.

Let me write it again for you! You force me to hand-feed every lazy idiot who can't read what was already written upthread.

Do you think I like all these people wasting my time because you are too lazy to read? And you expect me to be nice to you when you intentionally waste my time and try to deceive in order to induce me to repeat what was already written upthread! Fuck man!

The reason is because the cartel needs to gradually consume the hashrate of the network, so it can delay the transactions of non-cartel customers who are on the blockchain. To force them to join the cartel or lose customers to the cartel.

Duh!

Shut up mofo.

P.S. I seriously regret not making this a self-moderated thread. Major mistake on my part.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
November 20, 2013, 06:45:01 PM
The customer will never care that the transaction is delayed into the blockchain (delayed until the cartel's mining servers wins a block in the proof-of-work), because Amazon will give their customers 0-confirmation access to what they purchased.

So that delay is irrelevant.

Amazon won't care about it?

Sure, Amazon can trust its customers not to double-spend. But so can all the other merchants.

I already explained this upthread!

Customer would be banned from all cartel member sellers after one double-spend. Not very wise for the customer if the cartel is widespread in retail and online.

Also most purchases (not downloaded) ship after hours, so if the cartel has 15% of the network hashrate, any double-spend would be detected before shipping.

There is no way that this cartel starts with anything near 15% of the hashrate.

Disagree.

Even if so, 1% of the hashrate means the spend will be in the block-chain before it ships in most cases.

And even if not so, that is irrelevant because the customer will want to buy from the cartel again and not lose reputation.

Besides Amazon doesn't sell to those who don't provide a name, address, and credit card (i.e. some form of ID), thus they can send the collection agencies after you.

To argue that a cartel can't invoke the powers of the law against fraud is nonsensical.

As well to argue that a cartel can't issue 0-confirmation transactions is nonsensical, and this is a good thing for Bitcoin since the 6-confirmation time is 1 hour.

P.S. Tangentially to argue that a cartel which controls 15% of the online transactions (by value not quantity) can't control on the order of 15% of the network hashrate when mining will be solely funded by transaction fees is also nonsensical.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
November 20, 2013, 06:40:52 PM
But if the majority of small value transactions are off-network, the majority of Amazon-cartel's transactions will have no mining value anyway.

Ifs have nothing to do with my attack. We can debate if there will be nuclear winter this year too. I am not here to debate every possible exogenous factor in the universe.

If the blockchain is not the majority, we no longer have decentralized currency any way. Private offchain currencies means cheating and fractional reserves, which means failures and government intervention.

Reduced costs are free costs to someone.

No they are not. Zero fees still bankrupts a miner with very small costs.

inflation coins without the block reward reductions already exist, and have for years.

Obviously inflacoin is not compelling, because high levels of debasement are not very enticing to those who think a small coin supply returns greater ponzi system gains (oh we know they rationalize away that it is really a ponzi scheme so they don't pay attention to that tradeoff of not distributing new coins perpetually).

Large debasement and no other significant advances over Bitcoin are not going to succeed in the market place.
legendary
Activity: 1708
Merit: 1010
November 20, 2013, 03:17:20 PM
The customer will never care that the transaction is delayed into the blockchain (delayed until the cartel's mining servers wins a block in the proof-of-work), because Amazon will give their customers 0-confirmation access to what they purchased.

So that delay is irrelevant.

Amazon won't care about it?

Sure, Amazon can trust its customers not to double-spend. But so can all the other merchants.

I already explained this upthread!

Customer would be banned from all cartel member sellers after one double-spend. Not very wise for the customer if the cartel is widespread in retail and online.

Also most purchases (not downloaded) ship after hours, so if the cartel has 15% of the network hashrate, any double-spend would be detected before shipping.

There is no way that this cartel starts with anything near 15% of the hashrate.
legendary
Activity: 1708
Merit: 1010
November 20, 2013, 03:13:59 PM


Again, I don't need to disprove your theory.  I only need to point out objections.  If you can't defend your theory, then you don't have one.  I can prove that off-network transactions exist today, if I desire. I can tell you how to do some with a MtGox account, and I've done it many times before the Silk Road was brought down.  Coin-mixers do them as a matter of their primary function.  All that is required for them to grow in scope is for a market force to require them.  Something as simple as a percentage rise in the transaction fee would be enough.  A government crackdown would certainly do it.

I told you that offchain is irrelevant to whether my attack is an attack for onchain transactions.

Just because you say it, does not make it so.

One.  Mining as a secondary effect to electro-resistive heating.  I.e. you can't undercut the miner who's rig heats his flat.  There is also whole threads regarding using asics embeddeding into heat cable to warm pipes.

Of free energy and perpetual motion!  Roll Eyes

I didn't write "reduced" costs, I wrote "free" costs.


Reduced costs are free costs to someone.  Please respond to the effect that sero profit margin miners would have upon your theory.

Two.  The Wal-mart|McDonalds|Sears alliance versus the Target|BurgerKind|JCPenny union.  Competing cartels can mine at a negative profit, because they're primary business is selling retail products, not mining for bitcoins.  

Great you argue against cartel attack by citing an alliance of large corporations a "free" mining option.   Huh

As if they do it for free  Roll Eyes


They would do it for free, because it would still be cheaper at scale than their current "cost centers" for online commerce security, as well as the overhead with the handling and security with regard to both credit card transactions and cash transactions today.  Do you think that armored cars are costless?  That IT security gurus work cheap?  That Walmart puts cameras above every cash register because they trust their $7.50 per hour part time cashiers to be trustworthy with hundreds or thousands of cash dollars?

That happened long before you think, but why couldn't Microsoft gain a regulatory capture advantage over Linux?  Because it wasn't a company that could be regulated, it was simply the product of a new kind of development.  Open source.  Which turns out to be rather resistant to regulation by governments.  Bitcoin is open source, and p2p, and distributed.  All things deliberately designed to contribute to it's resitance to regulation.

And what do you think I am trying to do by explaining and defending this attack?

Fix it! With open source! And you are trying  to stop me!

Great logic you have there.  Cry

I'm not trying to stop you from fixing whatever you think is broken, just don't try to fis inside Bitcoin.  Go start an alt-chain, and if you're right about the problem, as well as how to fix it, then you will profit.  For that matter, considering your proposed fix, you don't even have to start a new coin, inflation coins without the block reward reductions already exist, and have for years.  Go have fun.
legendary
Activity: 1708
Merit: 1010
November 20, 2013, 02:59:03 PM
One thing that all of you have failed to do is argue why I shouldn't fix the attack?



Because you don't know what you are doing.  You're welcome to start your own alt-coin, however, and see how it turns out.  Nothing is stopping you.
legendary
Activity: 1708
Merit: 1010
November 20, 2013, 02:55:58 PM
Quote
The cartel can give 0-confirmation transactions to its customers, because these are going to be repeat customers because the cartel covers so much commerce.

Everyone can give 0-confirm transactions to their customers.  That's a question of business risk, not capacity.  It happens now.  Please search for the fast-transaction problem and/or the vending machine problem.

Don't play dumb just to obfuscate the point.

The point is the cartel doesn't have delay transactions for its customers when it withholds them from the other miners.

YES IT DOES! The nature of the protocol requires that the cartel delay transaction processing for it's customers because it withholds them from other miners.  There is no way to avoid it!  That's what you can't wrap your head around!

INCORRECT!

You still didn't get the point.

The customer will never care that the transaction is delayed into the blockchain (delayed until the cartel's mining servers wins a block in the proof-of-work), because Amazon will give their customers 0-confirmation access to what they purchased.

The merchant will care.  He will not get paid until the transaction is processed.  If the transaction is withheld from the majority of the miners, that opens an opprotunity for a double spend attack after product has been shipped.  This will harm merchants directly, and they will either not accept bitcoin transactions via Amazon at all (nullifying your trhoery altogether) or only accept bitcoin transactions with the added garantee from Amazon against double spend fraud.  This will hurt Amazon.
legendary
Activity: 1596
Merit: 1012
Democracy is vulnerable to a 51% attack.
November 20, 2013, 02:49:10 PM
One thing that all of you have failed to do is argue why I shouldn't fix the attack?

Do you have a problem within fixing threats?

Sounds like you love to leave things broken.

So all this tit-for-tat is really a waste of my time. If we just fix the problem, then nothing more to argue about.  Wink
You don't turn the steering wheel 15 miles before a curve that may never come.

There are definitely some cases where fixing a problem early has huge advantages. For example, if you're developing a product, it's better to fix a problem in the design stage than after manufacturing. And it's better to fix it after manufacturing than after shipping. And so on.

But when the problem is a possible problem for the far future, there are huge disadvantages to fixing it early. For one thing, the technology available to fix it will get better the longer you wait. The problem may never even materialize, in which case the effort expended to fix it is wasted. Other problems may actually materialize and it may be possible to fix both problems with the same effort. The attempt to fix the problem may create a risk of other problems that are more serious or more likely to appear.

Basically, you have to prioritize resources. If you can propose a fix and make the case that the effort and risks associated with the fix exceed the risk associated with the attack, then maybe you have something. But "I have an obscure theoretical risk that might or might not materialize in the future under circumstances that might or might not be plausible, why don't you all work to fix it?" doesn't cut it.
sr. member
Activity: 274
Merit: 250
November 20, 2013, 12:38:23 PM
An alternative link where I summarized why bitcoin is a ponzi scheme and the reason the 21 million coin limit makes it unarguably so:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3649398

Somewhere in an alternate universe:

"Hey guys, we have definitive proof there's no more gold in the earth's crust."

"Shit! Sell sell sell!"

I guess you missed where I wrote the market cap will likely go to the $trillions first, and the market cap today is about $7 billion. So where does this "Shit! Sell sell sell!" nonsense come from?   Huh

Who wrote about no more gold in the earth's crust?  Huh

What universe are you reading from?

You said the 21 million coin limit makes it unarguably a ponzi scheme. If we suddenly had mined all of the gold in the universe, would that magically make gold unarguably a ponzi scheme?

The limit has no influence on whether people perceive bitcoin to have value or not. However, as long as people perceive that it has value at all, the limit puts *positive* pressure on the price. You can't turn around and say that same limit is proof bitcoin is a ponzi scheme.
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 250
November 20, 2013, 12:26:53 PM
This line of thinking was already refuted. See my replies to JoelKatz.

If by refuted you mean: waved hands at, blustered and ignored, sure.
If Amazon control the wallet, there would be no reason for them to have on-chain transactions in the first place, they would do the entire accounting in-house. Just like exchanges do already.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
November 20, 2013, 12:10:37 PM
An alternative link where I summarized why bitcoin is a ponzi scheme and the reason the 21 million coin limit makes it unarguably so:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3649398

Somewhere in an alternate universe:

"Hey guys, we have definitive proof there's no more gold in the earth's crust."

"Shit! Sell sell sell!"

I guess you missed where I wrote the market cap will likely go to the $trillions first, and the market cap today is about $7 billion. So where does this "Shit! Sell sell sell!" nonsense come from?   Huh

Who wrote about no more gold in the earth's crust?  Huh

What universe are you reading from?
sr. member
Activity: 274
Merit: 250
November 20, 2013, 12:08:32 PM
An alternative link where I summarized why bitcoin is a ponzi scheme and the reason the 21 million coin limit makes it unarguably so:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3649398

Somewhere in an alternate universe:

"Hey guys, we have definitive proof there's no more gold in the earth's crust."

"Shit! Sell sell sell!"
legendary
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1000
November 20, 2013, 11:56:59 AM
Quote
The cartel can give 0-confirmation transactions to its customers, because these are going to be repeat customers because the cartel covers so much commerce.

Everyone can give 0-confirm transactions to their customers.  That's a question of business risk, not capacity.  It happens now.  Please search for the fast-transaction problem and/or the vending machine problem.

Don't play dumb just to obfuscate the point.

The point is the cartel doesn't have delay transactions for its customers when it withholds them from the other miners.

YES IT DOES! The nature of the protocol requires that the cartel delay transaction processing for it's customers because it withholds them from other miners.  There is no way to avoid it!  That's what you can't wrap your head around!

INCORRECT!

You still didn't get the point.

The customer will never care that the transaction is delayed into the blockchain (delayed until the cartel's mining servers wins a block in the proof-of-work), because Amazon will give their customers 0-confirmation access to what they purchased.

So that delay is irrelevant.

That only works if the customer does not have control of their wallet, otherwise they could double-spend the money away from Amazon.
So Amazon must control the wallet.
In which case it could instead just manage everything off-chain instead, as current exchanges do.
So there are no transactions to withhold.

This line of thinking was already refuted. See my replies to JoelKatz.
BTW he is a Ripple core dev Wink
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
November 20, 2013, 11:23:36 AM
Quote
The cartel can give 0-confirmation transactions to its customers, because these are going to be repeat customers because the cartel covers so much commerce.

Everyone can give 0-confirm transactions to their customers.  That's a question of business risk, not capacity.  It happens now.  Please search for the fast-transaction problem and/or the vending machine problem.

Don't play dumb just to obfuscate the point.

The point is the cartel doesn't have delay transactions for its customers when it withholds them from the other miners.

YES IT DOES! The nature of the protocol requires that the cartel delay transaction processing for it's customers because it withholds them from other miners.  There is no way to avoid it!  That's what you can't wrap your head around!

INCORRECT!

You still didn't get the point.

The customer will never care that the transaction is delayed into the blockchain (delayed until the cartel's mining servers wins a block in the proof-of-work), because Amazon will give their customers 0-confirmation access to what they purchased.

So that delay is irrelevant.

That only works if the customer does not have control of their wallet, otherwise they could double-spend the money away from Amazon.
So Amazon must control the wallet.
In which case it could instead just manage everything off-chain instead, as current exchanges do.
So there are no transactions to withhold.

This line of thinking was already refuted. See my replies to JoelKatz.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
November 20, 2013, 11:22:18 AM
The customer will never care that the transaction is delayed into the blockchain (delayed until the cartel's mining servers wins a block in the proof-of-work), because Amazon will give their customers 0-confirmation access to what they purchased.

So that delay is irrelevant.

Amazon won't care about it?

Sure, Amazon can trust its customers not to double-spend. But so can all the other merchants.

I already explained this upthread!

Customer would be banned from all cartel member sellers after one double-spend. Not very wise for the customer if the cartel is widespread in retail and online.

Also most purchases (not downloaded) ship after hours, so if the cartel has 15% of the network hashrate, any double-spend would be detected before shipping.
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 250
November 20, 2013, 10:54:24 AM
Quote
The cartel can give 0-confirmation transactions to its customers, because these are going to be repeat customers because the cartel covers so much commerce.

Everyone can give 0-confirm transactions to their customers.  That's a question of business risk, not capacity.  It happens now.  Please search for the fast-transaction problem and/or the vending machine problem.

Don't play dumb just to obfuscate the point.

The point is the cartel doesn't have delay transactions for its customers when it withholds them from the other miners.

YES IT DOES! The nature of the protocol requires that the cartel delay transaction processing for it's customers because it withholds them from other miners.  There is no way to avoid it!  That's what you can't wrap your head around!

INCORRECT!

You still didn't get the point.

The customer will never care that the transaction is delayed into the blockchain (delayed until the cartel's mining servers wins a block in the proof-of-work), because Amazon will give their customers 0-confirmation access to what they purchased.

So that delay is irrelevant.

That only works if the customer does not have control of their wallet, otherwise they could double-spend the money away from Amazon.
So Amazon must control the wallet.
In which case it could instead just manage everything off-chain instead, as current exchanges do.
So there are no transactions to withhold.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
November 20, 2013, 10:47:12 AM
Sorry but you don't understand the technology well enough. The reason most readers dismiss my posts, is because they lack knowledge to ascertain how correct I nearly (as in 99.9%) always am if I've studied some matter for a sufficiently long time.

The reason the core developers won't debate with you is that you appear to be a know-all blowhard who simply ignores any posts that don't agree with your views, and repeatedly tell the entire world how much smarter you are than them.

ok, ok, ok, I see your dick size. Now...

Any way, you still haven't refuted my attack.
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 250
November 20, 2013, 10:42:56 AM
Sorry but you don't understand the technology well enough. The reason most readers dismiss my posts, is because they lack knowledge to ascertain how correct I nearly (as in 99.9%) always am if I've studied some matter for a sufficiently long time.

The reason the core developers won't debate with you is that you appear to be a know-all blowhard who simply ignores any posts that don't agree with your views, and repeatedly tell the entire world how much smarter you are than them.

Quote
You raise an irrelevant point about double-spends

You raised it, not me.
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