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Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

coindesk.com

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Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#11

Post by bitexploder »

zacinbusiness wrote: post #7

I've not bought in to Bitcoin yet. It just seems like a massive, world-wide scam to me. I'm not saying that it is a scam, I'm just saying that Bitcoin is something that I don't really understand, and so I don't entirely trust it. That said, this event is extremely encouraging. Not only is the security and the viability of the currency being tested. But more importantly, the communication and cooperation between the m…

It is a non issue, honestly. This issue was known about as early as 2011. You can only modify non-essential pieces of the transaction, but it does change the overall transaction hash.

These poorly coded exchanges were looking for an exact hash match to pop up on the block chain, instead of looking for the deposit/address.

The actual security of the system is not really impacted at all, and the core Bitcoin clients cope fine with this. The exchanges may have put themselves at risk, but that is on them.

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#12

Post by salgernon »

zacinbusiness wrote: post #7

I've not bought in to Bitcoin yet. It just seems like a massive, world-wide scam to me. I'm not saying that it is a scam, I'm just saying that Bitcoin is something that I don't really understand, and so I don't entirely trust it. That said, this event is extremely encouraging. Not only is the security and the viability of the currency being tested. But more importantly, the communication and cooperation between the m…

What I'm waiting for is the large scale real world scams to start. Look in the back of the Sunday Newspaper Color supplement and the ads for Genuine Si1ver Coins Minted at some exotic locale (sold as collectables) and replace with "Genuine BitCoins with individual serial numbers". Sold for $CURRENT_RATE and including the hash of some lost wallet, or random gibberish.

The scammer will be able to sell the same "bitcoin" over and over if they want, or set up a fake "Validate your bitcoin here" site.

The type of people that buy from the back of magazines are probably the type that would hang on to this "investment" for their grandchildren... while the scammer is long gone.

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#13

Post by waterlesscloud »

plg wrote: post #9

Is the real goal of these attacks perhaps to drive down the price temporarily, so that the attackers can purchase at a discount, and then sell shortly afterwards when the price goes back up?

Quite possible a side benefit for the attackers.

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#14

Post by netrus »

plg wrote: post #9

Is the real goal of these attacks perhaps to drive down the price temporarily, so that the attackers can purchase at a discount, and then sell shortly afterwards when the price goes back up?

Is it possible to short Bitcoins? I guess that would be the more lucrative option (exclusive knowledge etc...)

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#15

Post by JTon »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #13
plg wrote: post #9

Is the real goal of these attacks perhaps to drive down the price temporarily, so that the attackers can purchase at a discount, and then sell shortly afterwards when the price goes back up?

Quite possible a side benefit for the attackers.

If financial gain is a side benefit. What do you think the primary benefit is?

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#16

Post by jnbiche »

netrus wrote: post #14
plg wrote: post #9

Is the real goal of these attacks perhaps to drive down the price temporarily, so that the attackers can purchase at a discount, and then sell shortly afterwards when the price goes back up?

Is it possible to short Bitcoins? I guess that would be the more lucrative option (exclusive knowledge etc...)

Yes, there are multiple exchanges that permit shorting, and have for a long time.

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#17

Post by watty »

JTon wrote: post #15
waterlesscloud wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite possible a side benefit for the attackers.

If financial gain is a side benefit. What do you think the primary benefit is?

Enjoyment. Some people just like to watch the world burn.

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#18

Post by api »

zacinbusiness wrote: post #7

I've not bought in to Bitcoin yet. It just seems like a massive, world-wide scam to me. I'm not saying that it is a scam, I'm just saying that Bitcoin is something that I don't really understand, and so I don't entirely trust it. That said, this event is extremely encouraging. Not only is the security and the viability of the currency being tested. But more importantly, the communication and cooperation between the m…

I wouldn't say it's a scam. I'd say it's the cryptocurrency equivalent of Lycos. I'm sure the cryptocurrency equivalent of Google is coming someday.

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#19

Post by sktrdie »

nwh wrote: post #4

It's interesting to watch actually, submit a transaction to the network at the moment and there's a rogue node that will mess with the padding of the signatures and rebroadcast it faster than the original. It confuses the reference client into duplicate display, which is what Gox is relying on for the failed/success display. That they're winning races over the normal related transactions isn't that unnatural as the t…

Not exactly. The buggy wallet software, used by these exchanges, identifies transactions by their hash. Even if one of the duplicates is confirmed, the buggy wallet still thinks the other is a new transaction, because it has a different hash.

The fix is checking all inputs/outputs rather than relying on the transaction hash.

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#20

Post by lukifer »

zacinbusiness wrote: post #7

I've not bought in to Bitcoin yet. It just seems like a massive, world-wide scam to me. I'm not saying that it is a scam, I'm just saying that Bitcoin is something that I don't really understand, and so I don't entirely trust it. That said, this event is extremely encouraging. Not only is the security and the viability of the currency being tested. But more importantly, the communication and cooperation between the m…

It's easy to get confused by BitCoin's technicals; it's the difference between reading an article on Wikipedia, and examining that article's source code (or the various web protocols that deliver it to you).

At its core, BitCoin is unbelievably simple: a ledger of account, no different than an Excel file, distributed across millions of computers, kept honest through offering rewards for protecting the ledger's integrity. There's really no such thing as a BitCoin, just a row in that ledger that says "1.23456", and only the holder(s) of the key for that row can send a portion of that number to a different row. Like with any form of money, any value derived from that ledger is purely a product of collective belief.

BitCoin is roughly at the place where Mosaic was in the early 90s. The real story isn't about BTC becoming the new world currency; it's a technological and sociological prototype of a new type of distributed application which has only barely begun to be explored.

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