Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cypherdoc]

The point about "attack" blocks is not always to think about what is economically sound, but also to consider the effects from a miner where the economics is not a concern.

the point is, l'm not sure how a malicious gvt bloat block attacker avoids the economics. so, despite the fact that one hasn't attacked with 32mb blocks currently, nor 8mb when that was the limit, nor 1mb when that was the limit, means that one will attack when there is no limit ? despite the fact that such gvt would have to be a solo miner, have to assemble enough hash to make a bloat block in a reasonable time, avoid detection during assembly of the mine, budget accordingly, access the natural resources, call TSMC for chips, etc, all to mine a one off bloat block, only to have it orphaned by the rest of the network? besides I'd predict that once the limit is removed, there will be a further explosion in honest mining hash, as BCH would be seen to be open for business. that'd be tough for a gvt to catch up with

 

[Norway]

The blocksize limit creates much more harm than good.

 

[imaginary_username]

the point is, l'm not sure how a malicious gvt bloat block attacker avoids the economics. so, despite the fact that one hasn't attacked with 32mb blocks currently, nor 8mb when that was the limit, nor 1mb when that was the limit, means that one will attack when there is no limit ? despite the fact that such gvt would have to be a solo miner, have to assemble enough hash to make a bloat block in a reasonable time, avoid detection during assembly of the mine, budget accordingly, access the natural resources, call TSMC for chips, etc, all to mine a one off bloat block, only to have it orphaned by the rest of the network? besides I'd predict that once the limit is removed, there will be a further explosion in honest mining hash, as BCH would be seen to be open for business. that'd be tough for a gvt to catch up with

Nicehash and BTC both exists.

 

[Norway]

The current fiat system is a Proof of Stake (PoS) system.

 

[wrstuv31]

Nicehash and BTC both exists.

These points don't really challenge cypherdocs assertions, they're just sources of hash that can be exhausted at a cost.

 

[Norway]

@imaginary_username thinks the real bitcoin is a Ming vase the developers have to protect with "sensible" capacity limits.

He doesn't want to accept the fact that a monster block attack is a one-off and will set bitcoin back minutes, max two hours.

A technocracy is much more dangerous. We all saw what happened with Core. It set bitcoin back many years.

And the time is ticking. At some point, there will not be enough incentives for miners to secure the real bitcoin. Unless we get both the value of block rewards and the value from lots and lots of low transaction fees to increase.
[doublepost=1538849708,1538848860][/doublepost]The members of Bitcoin Unlimited should make sure that we don't get to this point:

 

[imaginary_username]

The "time is ticking" narrative is and has always been nonsense, this bear market alone is more devastating than two halvings. In the past when rewards halved, and indeed every new generation of mining rigs cause a spike in difficulty or bear market rears its head, miners at the tail end fall off the wagon, it's normal and nothing strange in bitcoin - indeed you'll expect it from the tyranny of the difficulty adjustment algorithm.

There will come a time when the block reward is not enough to provide security, and we won't see that time for another decade or two.
[doublepost=1538853491,1538852842][/doublepost]

These points don't really challenge cypherdocs assertions, they're just sources of hash that can be exhausted at a cost.

They are easily accessible sources that can be used to make small numbers of blocks, even regularly, at much less costs than the alleged "need to build out the whole infrastructure" narrative. And the owners who rent or temporarily divert their hashrate lose very little: they can just go back to mining BTC after all is said and done.

 

[Norway]

@imaginary_username

So you accept my accusation that you think the real bitcoin is a Ming vase the developers have to protect with "sensible" capacity limits?

And you accept my accusation that you don't want to accept the fact that a monster block attack is a one-off and will set bitcoin back minutes, max two hours?

Your defence is that we have all the time in the world?

 

[imaginary_username]

I don't accept any of your accusations in analogy, nor do I feel an obligation to answer them. They're silly enough for me to ignore.

 

[freetrader]

@Norway, given that voting on BUIP101 is fairly split up to now, and it might not pass, have you considered submitting your 10TB change proposal to Bitcoin SV ?

Their github has 'issues' enabled, so you could submit it to them as an enhancement proposal.

 

[Norway]

@freetrader
No, I have not considered submitting my 10TB change proposal to Bitcoin SV.

I hope you understand that BU, SV and ABC have configurable max blocksize limits, and that we are talking about the default values of these clients and the power that comes with setting default values.
[doublepost=1538858040][/doublepost]@imaginary_username still haven't rebutted the fact that a monster block attack has very limited effect.

 

[cypherdoc]

They are easily accessible sources that can be used to make small numbers of blocks, even regularly

when the owner of nicehash detects the bloat block ,he'd immediately expel the attacker from the pool.

>And the owners who rent or temporarily divert their hashrate lose very little: they can just go back to mining BTC after all is said and done.

how so? by letting an anonymous renting attacker destroy the value of his coins? are you sure you got the game theory right on that one?

 

[Norway]

I want to applaud @reina for "threatning" with a BUIP to merge @theZerg 's own code, one year after the raw version was written.

She kicked some butt to get the shit on the road.

I also want to applaud @theZerg for his work.

Sometimes a little butt kicking is needed.

 

[imaginary_username]

@cypherdoc when you are a nicehash miner, you get paid upfront and continuously in BTC in a bidding process. You do not care if your hashrate is used to destroy BCH or some other SHA256 coin. Nonody in the chain loses any money but the attacker: Nicehash and the hash provider gets paid regardless of the outcome.

Furthermore, you do not get the full block, so you don't get to "detect" anything. It's similar to stratum mining from a regular pool.

 

[Norway]

@imaginary_username still haven't rebutted the fact that a monster block attack has very limited effect.

 

[Norway]

The people who gain from a fiat system don't have many tools to stop bitcoin.

But they have one that has worked very well the last years. Social engeneering to prevent the capacity from becoming relevant to the people walking on earth.

They will push the same button as long as it has an effect.

 

[Norway]

 

[reina]

I want to applaud @reina for "threatning" with a BUIP to merge @theZerg 's own code, one year after the raw version was written.

She kicked some butt to get the shit on the road.

I also want to applaud @theZerg for his work.

Sometimes a little butt kicking is needed.

Lol, thanks @Norway ^_^!
It was more like a wish, like "Hey we have ATMP fixes in gigaperf, wish the solutions could be incorporated to the release branch"

Cos it's amazing, it will go from handling 100tx/s -> ~1700tx/s!!

I was so glad to hear quickly after the BUIP suggestion that @theZerg is working on bringing these solutions over to release branch!

Thanks @theZerg and @solex.

Bitcoin & BU scaling FTW!

 

[freetrader]

This is a response to this post by @cypherdoc, to which I typed up a lengthy response to the other day but held off from posting hoping this topic would die on its own due to its all round speculativeness. But as I see it's being carried on, I present my response, lest you think I had none, and also because I promised it to @Norway in the BUIP101 discussion thread.

This is w.r.t. a potential "bloat block" attack on BCH. Some of the hashpower percentages are about a day or two old by now. I don't expect them to have changed all that much, but I didn't bother revising.

what hostile miner do you speak of?

Any miner hostile to the existence and mission of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) aka Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system.

be specific please; a large one or small one?

Since we're speaking of an attack on BCH, we're currently talking about a few percent of global SHA256 hashpower.

A large BCH miner can be a small BTC miner.

how much hash do they have to manufacture or buy/blow, as in waste, to accomplish this bloat attack block in a reasonable period of time?

First we have to be clear on what we consider "reasonable period of time". Give me a timeframe that YOU consider reasonable.

I'm thinking more about renting existing hash. Not much, nothing wasted.
Renting a few percent of global hashpower. 10% of BTC hash right now would come at a cost of ~$1.1M a day.
You might need to factor in BTC appreciation as you execute such an attack. So maybe budget $2M a day.

I'd consider a month reasonable. You just need to cause disruption repeatedly on the BCH network when conditions are favorable to your percentage of controlled hash.
The first time you execute such an attack you'd have the element of surprise.
After that, you may need to wait again until conditions favor another attack.
The attacker might mine BTC for a while until other pools tire of defending BCH.

Nearly 16% of hashpower on BTC currently is listed as "other".
And there could be very significant hashpower that's offline.
Previous spikes have suggested up to 20 exahash, out of a total of about 55 exahash for BTC.
It's not clear who owns that dark hash and whether they consider BCH a boon or would rather see it gone.

as in, how many $millions or $hundredsofmillions would they have to invest in ASIC's? or do they risk buying them from Bitmain?

I don't see a need to invest in own ASICs unless there's not enough unfriendly hash to rent.
There's more than enough hash on BTC which is either neutral or unfriendly to BCH.
You may need to be prepared to burn ~ $60M over the course of a month.
Maybe less if you can make some BTC during idle periods.

I'd say, easily within reach of well-funded private or state-sponsored attackers.

and what do they do with all that hardware once they destroy the Bitcoin network?

You mean destroy the Bitcoin Cash network.

They gradually go back to doing what they did it in the first place: mining BTC.

do they buy up several dozens of acres to setup a manufacturing plant or do they rent warehouse facilities or apply for permits?

Rent existing hash, perhaps they even have some connection to sizeable dark hash.

I'm sure contracts and funding could be obscured to make identifying the actual source of the attack extremely difficult.

if so, in what jurisdiction and how do they exactly prevent discovery or avoid public documents/permits for land, building, electricity use, waste, water, etc?

I'm not convinced they'd even need to avoid discovery as long as they can celebrate themselves in media outlets as the heroes who crushed BCH.

Although I agree they would probably want to remain unidentified. If they wanted to put a fake name to it, I guess "bitPico" or somesuch would be more than happy to sell their name to whoever put in a good offer, maybe even for free.
History would be written by the winner.

who do they source parts from and who do they hire for expertise in manufacturing/engineering to prevent discovery?

Existing expertise.

is it a gvt or a private actor who executes this attack?

Great question. I don't have the answer. It could be a melange.

Intelligence agencies routinely operate networks of front companies
and compromise influential individuals to achieve their aims.

what stops the rest of the network from deciding to orphan this block?

Nothing. But once the network is split and painful recovery needs to be
made, half the damage is done. Rinse and repeat a few times to destroy
BCH's reputation and market value.

how does this block overcome the propagation deficiencies we already know about?

One of the deficiencies is that block size is not covered by POW in the
header.

As deadalnix explained this can be used by an attacker to feed bogus
block data to do a DOS on nodes that don't otherwise enforce some kind
of size limit / timeout.

at what point do the motivations flip to where they might find it more profitable to mine honestly?

I'm not sure the kind of power these people strive for or cling to can
necessarily be measured in pure money terms, therefore I don't think this
questions has a straightforward answer.

I would include "never" as a distinct possibility.

what exactly did Satoshi mean by this statement?

Words such as 'may' and 'ought to' show that this was speculation
on Satoshi's part.

A few years ago I would have shared this entirely, and thought some
kinds of attacks to be purely in the realm of theory. That was before
we had to do a minority fork due to BTC having been successfully co-opted
by those who nowadays would like to see BCH swiftly destroyed.

Satoshi's statement must also be seen in its historical context, which is
around the time of the announcement / launch of Bitcoin (October 31, 2008).

Hardly any bitcoins had been mined, and we don't know what Satoshi would
make of how it has unfolded up to its present state (coin distribution etc).

Certainly we've seen a successful attack on BTC via corrupted developers.
It's still ongoing.

We've seen 51% attacks on minor coins which share hashpower.
BCH is very unique in that it has support of some of the miners who mine
the majority coin.

But that's not to say it couldn't happen on BCH.

I view recent talk by CoinGeek of waging a 'hashwar' on Bitcoin Cash as not much more than a euphemism for a 51% attack. And this seems to be confirmed on Reddit by their supporters.

 

[cypherdoc]

@freetrader glad you replied because I was just going to respond to @imaginary_username onon and same topic of renting hash.

from what I can tell of nicehash, anyone buying/renting hash is directing it to a BCH mining pool (which has a vested interest in BCH success) as opposed to acting as a solo miner. thus I still think my argument applies.