The Ethereum network is currently undergoing a DoS attack
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The Ethereum network is currently undergoing a DoS attack
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Re: The Ethereum network is currently undergoing a DoS attack
#2Isn't this the kind of thing that a decentralized network should be resilient against? Maybe I just don't understand blockchains.
Re: The Ethereum network is currently undergoing a DoS attack
#3Isn't this the kind of thing that a decentralized network should be resilient against? Maybe I just don't understand blockchains.
It's not a network flooding attack, it's a "please each of you do this time-wasting thing" attack.
Re: The Ethereum network is currently undergoing a DoS attack
#4Isn't this the kind of thing that a decentralized network should be resilient against? Maybe I just don't understand blockchains.
It's not a network flooding attack, it's a "please each of you do this time-wasting thing" attack.
But that's also a DoS attack. If they're doing the time-wasting thing, they can't do other things... Denying service.
Re: The Ethereum network is currently undergoing a DoS attack
#5Trial by fire, I see...
Re: The Ethereum network is currently undergoing a DoS attack
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a network flooding attack, it's a "please each of you do this time-wasting thing" attack.
But that's also a DoS attack. If they're doing the time-wasting thing, they can't do other things... Denying service.
That's why the proposed solution is 'Sure, we'll do the time-wasting thing, but it's going to cost you more to pay us to do it'.
Re: The Ethereum network is currently undergoing a DoS attack
#7Isn't this the kind of thing that a decentralized network should be resilient against? Maybe I just don't understand blockchains.
This looks more like a bug, where the attacker exploited a function which is particularly slow and forced the nodes to run this function many times.
If the nodes had different implementations, chances would be that only some nodes would be slown down, but the reality -i assume- is that there's only 1 implementation.
Think to mail servers, if they were all running the same os/sw then attacks to the whole system could be easier.
Re: The Ethereum network is currently undergoing a DoS attack
#8My understanding is it works like this in Ethereum:
The miners can run any arbitrary code ("a contract") that you write, and this code is verifiable and trusted by everyone once it's been uploaded to the blockchain. The contracts can read/write arbitrary things in the blockchain and send coins to anyone you want, determined by the code you write.
There's a "gas price" that you have to pay for each operation you tell the miners to execute. However, the operation "EXTCODESIZE" evidently has too low of a cost, allowing someone to pay to have it executed enough times to noticeably slow the miners down for shits and giggles.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong?
Re: The Ethereum network is currently undergoing a DoS attack
#9Isn't this the kind of thing that a decentralized network should be resilient against? Maybe I just don't understand blockchains.
This looks more like a bug, where the attacker exploited a function which is particularly slow and forced the nodes to run this function many times. If the nodes had different implementations, chances would be that only some nodes would be slown down, but the reality -i assume- is that there's only 1 implementation. Think to mail servers, if they were all running the same os/sw then attacks to the whole system could…
There are two widely-used implementations, and more that don't have as much adoption:
https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum
https://github.com/ethcore/parity
Re: The Ethereum network is currently undergoing a DoS attack
#10Who benefits from this?