I have no proof what so ever, this is just a conjecture: there are powerful government and private entities who profit from manipulating the current monetary system. I have to ask: is it unreasonable that state actors would try to crash Bitcoin out of self interest?
Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
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Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#22It'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.
You're right, I altered my response to remove the incorrect bit.
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#23I have no proof what so ever, this is just a conjecture: there are powerful government and private entities who profit from manipulating the current monetary system. I have to ask: is it unreasonable that state actors would try to crash Bitcoin out of self interest?
is it unreasonable that state actors would try to crash Bitcoin out of self interest?
Is it unreasonable? No. Is there any evidence to suggest it? No.
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#24Didn't coindesk just report yesterday that the 'transaction malleability problem' that MtGox was worried about was already known and a non-issue?
Their backend software is probably able to deal with it, but not a massive DDOS brute force attack to try to find holes in the exchanges. This is an information gather exercise by some organized hackers.
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#25It'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.
MtGox is the only one using the TXID hash to track unconfirmed transactions. The problem with the other wallets is that if you try and spend a change address from a rewritten transaction before it is confirmed then that transaction involving the change is then invalid.
Edit: Here is a good explanation of what this latest problem is which is different than the problem MtGox is struggling with http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1xm49o/due_to_activ...
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#26Earlier 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?
Information gathering. Prelude to potential attacks against the exchanges that could result in actual losses.
Just my thoughts
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#27This will make them only stronger. Bitcoin is not going anywhere.
Hmm, I see. Makes me wonder where bitcoin would be trading were its history not riddled with political/legal/fraudulent/technical/reputation snafus.
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#28This will make them only stronger. Bitcoin is not going anywhere.
Hmm, I see. Makes me wonder where bitcoin would be trading were its history not riddled with political/legal/fraudulent/technical/reputation snafus.
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#29Is 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?
As much as I don't condone this kind of abuse, that's exactly what I'm preparing for. If BTC drops below $500, I'm buying more.
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#30I'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 co…
> You can only modify non-essential pieces of the transaction, but it does change the overall transaction hash.
That's the thing I don't get. If one is going to allow non-essential changes, shouldn't one _not_ include those data in the hash? Alternatively, should one simply not allow changes, period?
I've not read the Bitcoin paper, just summaries (been too busy, and it's outside my area); perhaps there's a good reason for it.