When mining, what exactly are we processing?

Tukotih

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Quote from: rcaruso90 on May 21, 2011, 07:49:57 PM

I want to get into mining more (build a rig and such) but a friend of mine is worried that this is all just a big distributed brute force hacking system..... I trust that it's not, but i would still lie more info. can i get some info on what my computer is doing when it mines??

Thanks.

I guess it could be possible for a pool-owner to rewrite the pool-code into a distributed brute-force system. The pool-owner would however have to do this very stealth and still payout if he wants to keep his miners. But as far as my knowledge reaches, it could very well be possible. That's why pools like deepbit that grows enormously large need to have their miners switch. It is far to dangerous to have so much hashing power in the hands of someone anonymous or anyone that knows what they are doing for that matter.

MysteryMiner

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Death to enemies!

Quote from: rcaruso90 on May 21, 2011, 11:51:47 PM

It would not be profitable to build a dedicated rig?

What if i just added a second card to a computer i already have? Would that be worth it?

If You have use for the hardware after mining become too dificult, it might be. But the dificulty is increasing rapidly and bitcoin value is uncertain.

You can add the other card for computer just fine. After all you just can go crossfire or sell the card to someone else.

MoonShadow

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Quote from: rcaruso90 on May 21, 2011, 11:51:47 PM

It would not be profitable to build a dedicated rig?

Hard to say. Too many variables to guess.

Quote

What if i just added a second card to a computer i already have? Would that be worth it?

Depends on how cheap you can get it and what your electric costs are. It would probably pay for itself if you can get a decent price for it, but unless you have free electric and AC or are heating with electro-resistive heat then it's almost certainly not going to cover it's own AC & electric costs.

rcaruso90

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It would not be profitable to build a dedicated rig?

What if i just added a second card to a computer i already have? Would that be worth it?

MysteryMiner

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Activity: 1540

Merit: 1049

Death to enemies!

You are processing previous transactions and proofing them against attackers. Read the Wiki and or FAQ https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#Mining

Edit: To the peiece of your mind - Bitcoin is open source software, so are the GPU miner software. You can examine the source code and compile it for yourself. No bruting or botneting.

The difficulty is high and getting even higher. I'm not sure the dedicated rig will pay itself of, unless you are intending to use it as 4way crossfire gaming computer after it became unprofitable.

MoonShadow

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It's repeatedly hashing a collection of the transactions that have occured since the last published block, a header and a nonce. It's looking for a hash lower than a target number that is adjusted to make the hashing intentionally difficult. If it finds a hash that is under the target numer, your computer gets to add a special transaction to the block that it just created giving you a 50 BTC reward, and then it publishes the block that it has created to the p2p network so that other nodes can verify your success.

rcaruso90

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I want to get into mining more (build a rig and such) but a friend of mine is worried that this is all just a big distributed brute force hacking system..... I trust that it's not, but i would still lie more info. can i get some info on what my computer is doing when it mines??

Thanks.

Topic: When mining, what exactly are we processing? (Read 1507 times)