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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’

#51

Post by hayksaakian »

ayanb wrote: post #10
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…

Also worth noting is the fact that the Bitcoin Price Index has been massively resilient to all the bad "news" thats been pouring in this month. It has been consistently hovering around the 670-700 mark.

part of the reason is that bit coin does not depend on any banks

if you have 100 btc in an offline wallet, you will still have it tomorrow, despite whatever bugs/attacks hit the exchanges.

imagine if your bank was hacked, many people would literally be removed of their money.

With cryptocoins, you have the advantages of keeping dollars under your mattress while still bring able to spend them anywhere that accepts them.

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#52

Post by pera »

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'm just saying that Bitcoin is something that I don't really understand, and so I don't entirely trust it.

Then read the paper! :) it's not complicated and it's pretty short.

btw do you understand how the banking system works?

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#53

Post by o_nate »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #2

Didn't coindesk just report yesterday that the 'transaction malleability problem' that MtGox was worried about was already known and a non-issue?

It turns out that "non-issue" might have been a slight exaggeration. I can understand where the Bitcoin developers are coming from. I mean no one likes to admit there's a bug in their code. Just read through Microsoft support archives. How many times will you find that some bizarre, head-scratching, counter-intuitive behavior of some API or other is "by design"? Does that mean they won't eventually (quietly) patch it? Of course not.

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#55

Post by lukifer »

brian_cloutier wrote: post #50
lukifer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 integr…

Unfortunately in that respect Bitcoin is a bit of a one-trick pony. It relies on the honesty of a plurality of the network hash-strength. Systems which use the bitcoin mechanic need a lot of adoption before they become trustworthy.

In theory, applications can be built on top of the existing BitCoin blockchain, which is now well-guarded by many vested interests; some projects like MasterCoin [1] and Colored Coins [2] are attempting to do just this.

But ultimately, you are correct: bootstrapping a new blockchain-based service requires assembling a community with enough hashing power to fend off 51% attackers. Time will tell how the experiment will pan out, but even if most projects fail, my gut is that at least a few will succeed in the long run.

[1] http://www.mastercoin.org/

[2] http://coloredcoins.org/

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#56

Post by akkartik »

hayksaakian wrote: post #51
ayanb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also worth noting is the fact that the Bitcoin Price Index has been massively resilient to all the bad "news" thats been pouring in this month. It has been consistently hovering around the 670-700 mark.

part of the reason is that bit coin does not depend on any banks if you have 100 btc in an offline wallet, you will still have it tomorrow, despite whatever bugs/attacks hit the exchanges. imagine if your bank was hacked, many people would literally be removed of their money. With cryptocoins, you have the advantages of keeping dollars under your mattress while still bring able to spend them anywhere that accepts the…

Is that really true? Could a botnet not conceivably make transactions out of your wallet? Doesn't the distributed ledger have tentacles reaching under your mattress?

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#58

Post by bduerst »

brian_cloutier wrote: post #50
lukifer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 integr…

Unfortunately in that respect Bitcoin is a bit of a one-trick pony. It relies on the honesty of a plurality of the network hash-strength. Systems which use the bitcoin mechanic need a lot of adoption before they become trustworthy.

Not only that, but the bitcoins themselves need solid liquidity before becoming a feasible currency. That's impossible with the impending cap.

Right now, bitcoins are treated like digital gold. People hoard them and treat them like investment assets.

And for the same reason the world's major currencies unlinked from gold, bitcoins also exhibits recessionary behavior. (bad news for a currency)

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#59

Post by bduerst »

pera wrote: post #52
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'm just saying that Bitcoin is something that I don't really understand, and so I don't entirely trust it. Then read the paper! :) it's not complicated and it's pretty short. btw do you understand how the banking system works?

That is horrible financial advice.

Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’

#60

Post by thisiswrong »

eterm wrote: post #40
ayanb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also worth noting is the fact that the Bitcoin Price Index has been massively resilient to all the bad "news" thats been pouring in this month. It has been consistently hovering around the 670-700 mark.

I can't find the article now, but there have been several good articles explaining the lack of gravity on bitcoin in general. Basically, the price goes up quickly when new people are attracted to bitcoin and rush to buy. When the price dips however, because so much is bought for long term speculation, the price doesn't really dip much, as no one is incentivised to sell and hold out for when it gets better. At some po…

Wow this makes a lot of sense. I personally believe that this is yet again another one of BTC's large dips that will eventually recover onto it's upwards path.

But then if people panic and see how hard it is to get back into fiat from BTC won't they just go into relatively stable altcoins instead? For example DOGE is skyrocketing as we speak and it's USD price was totally unaffected by BTC's recent plummet. http://coinmarketcap.com/

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