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?
Bitcoin threatens a lot of people.
Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
101–110 of 218 posts
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#102Someone should pen the next James Bond story around Digital currency manipulation. What a fascinating world.
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#103It'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…
Seems like someone is definitely trying to cause panic by trying to do "btc withdrawal dos" on exchanges maybe in the hopes of driving the price of bitcoin down.
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
In what way is that different from fiat money? You can keep fiat money in your mattress and spend it anywhere that accepts them. If you have $100 in a mattress (offline) then you would still have it tomorrow. The problem is that the moneys value may change tomorrow, especially if we are talking about bitcoin.
A huge difference is fractional banking, which deserves a good read. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve_banking
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 wil…
Don't forget Counterparty [3]
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Also worth noting: you can't buy bitcoins on margin. So no margin calls to suddenly detonate the market.
Hang on. Isn't that just a matter of someone setting up a market and contracts for it? What you mean is that no one has setup bitcoins margins market yet right? Or am I misunderstanding something fundamental about BTC that prevents margins?
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
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://co…
If by "stable" you mean "they are so small that no one will even bother attacking them"...
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#108Given the asymmetry in the difficulty market participants have with selling (and withdrawal in fiat, in a timely manner) or shorting bitcoin, as compared to the effort involved in buying bitcoin, any news is bullish news. This should hold generally and is not specific to publicity about the attack.
Assuming equal reach for would-be-sellers and would-be-buyers, more buyers are capable of expressing their opinion in the market than are sellers.
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#109It'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…
I don't understand how there can be any faith in the system if this is possible.
Re: Bitcoin Exchanges Under ‘Massive and Concerted Attack’
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
In what way is that different from fiat money? You can keep fiat money in your mattress and spend it anywhere that accepts them. If you have $100 in a mattress (offline) then you would still have it tomorrow. The problem is that the moneys value may change tomorrow, especially if we are talking about bitcoin.
You can't secure cash under your mattress with a password, for one thing. That makes cash (and paper wallets) venerable to physical attack, even by vermin: http://metro.co.uk/2007/03/27/mouse-eats-cash-machine-makes-... There is no problem with value changing tomorrow as this is a potential problem with any new payment methodologies. Adoption does not appear magically overnight. The US Dollar is velocity stable due t…
A true story-
My grand-uncle, who had lived through the Great Depression, never trusted banks. So he buried a considerable amount of cash in the forest behind his house in mason jars (seriously!).
When he died, my grand-aunt, who always thought he was being silly, went out in the woods and retrieved all the jars.
The cash had rotted and deteriorated to the point that it was unspendable.
However, she was able to work with the US Treasury to sort through the remains and identify the bills and replace them with new currency.
There's not really a bitcoin lesson here, just some family lore that seemed relevant. :-)