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Coinbase Suspends Ethereum Classic (ETC) Trading After Double-Spend Attacks (zdnet.com)
Cryptocurrency trading portal Coinbase delisted the Ethereum Classic (ETC) currency Monday after detecting a series of double-spend attacks over the last three days. From a report: In layman terms, double-spend attacks are when a malicious actor gains the majority computational power inside a blockchain, which they then use to enforce unauthorized transactions over legitimate ones. According to a security alert published today by Coinbase security engineer Mark Nesbitt, this is exactly what's been happening on the Ethereum Classic blockchain for the past three days, since January 5. Nesbitt says that a malicious actor has carried out 11 (at the time of writing) double-spend attacks during which he moved funds from legitimate accounts to their own. [...] According to Crypto51, it only costs $5,029 to rent enough computing powerto overwhelm the ETC blockchain with your own miners and gain 51 percent hashing power to carry out a double-spend attack.
Tell me again why bitcoin is so much more secure than the traditional banking system.
Because it's distributed, so a bad guy would have to have huge computing resources to overwhelm the good guys! That'll be so expensive it won't be worth the cost.
Oh, wait...
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
This is just part of the process. The best algorithms and systems will win. Ethereum Classic is what's for dinner.
When a physical bank is robbed, everyone who has dollars in their pockets still has whole dollars. The theft had zero effect on the value of your pocket or what you can buy. When a crypto-currency exchange gets hacked (aka robbed), the value of what you own can tumble. Plus, add in the shear insecurity of crypto-currency, and you have the reasons why it's a complete failure and nonsense.
Tell me again why bitcoin is so much more secure than the traditional banking system.
Technically it's still secure due to the lack of popularity.
It'll be a long damn time before bitcoin or the like causes as much financial impact as the 2008 global meltdown, which created hundreds of millions (if not billions) of victims. And we've not done much to prevent 2008 from happening again. In that sense, I certainly don't exactly find traditional banking as more secure.
Because it's distributed, so a bad guy would have to have huge computing resources to overwhelm the good guys! That'll be so expensive it won't be worth the cost.
Oh, wait...
And one is also expected to trust at least half of those controlling the computing resources... not sure I trust a fraction of that number. Of course by trust it means you "trust" at least half of the controlling resources to not act to your detriment at the same time, but meh...
that was before pooled mineing
What's extra sad is that if you had a handful of trusted nodes, instead of a ton of untrusted ones, would have resisted this attack excellently. It would also do away with the need for all that idiotic mining.
Trusted nodes would just say, "a double spend? Nah, that's bullshit. We won't timestamp that."
If one of the trusted nodes decided to try it, the other trusted nodes would say, "a double spend? Nah, that's bullshit. We won't timestamp that." and you'd be down one trusted node, but the world would keep on running.
What if a majority of trusted nodes decided to endorse a double spend? The remaining trusted nodes would say "What the hell is the world coming to??". But they would still not endorse the double spend. And pretty quickly, users could figure out who the honest nodes were (there would be a paper trail, or rather a signed hash trail documenting it after all), and the system could go on. The betrayers might have gotten away with some theft of real world goods if they were really quick in concluding the transaction, but they wouldn't be able to steal the unit of account.
Even if every single trusted node betrayed the users, they could still get together and pick some new trusted nodes, if they wanted to. They could just continue the ledger from before the cheating.
Distributed blockchains solve a problem almost no one has, except criminals: that your counterparties are completely untrustworthy and will betray you as soon as they can. Even that, it doesn't really solve, as anyone who got scammed buying stuff on the darknet knows.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Because it's distributed, which not only enables an entertaining variety of new hacks, but which makes hackers who do get in a lot more difficult to find.
Is this specific to currencies or is it a fundamental flaw in blockchains?
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Tell me again why bitcoin is so much more secure than the traditional banking system.
Technically it's still secure due to the lack of popularity.
See, I KNEW my approach of "security by obscurity" was rock-solid!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
China controls 80% of the hashpower for Bitcoin, between 4 major pools that it controls. China sets the price of Bitcoin and consequently most other cryptocurrencies.
it is no coincidence that the crash in crypto roughly coincided with the Cheeto-in-Chief declaring TradeWars on China.
The achilles heel of bitcoin is that it has to be expensive to be secure. The cost of securing 51% needs to exceed the profitability of achieving it. Thus as the market cap of bitcoin rises, the greater the potential to engage in a profitable double spend. So the cost of the transactions has to rise. SInce the transaction reimbursement has to cover the cost of the hash confirmation and that's paid in bit coin then either the fees or the reward value has to increase. This may possibly, but not necessarily, indirectly pressure the value of a bit coin to rise, further increasing the market cap.
There are some newer currencies just created that appear, at my superficial glance, to escape from some of that pressure on the cost of the transaction securing the block chain.
But for bit coin and similar one is stuck with proof of work having to be exorbitant as the profitability of foul play rises. Eventually the only people who can mine are the people who steal electricity. It's not a bug, it is in fact the ONLY thing that makes it work at all other than pure good will and altruism
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I find it amusing how bitcoin and its associated spin offs have replicated financial history. PhD candidates will be writing papers on this idiocy for years to come.
We already have those. Those are called banks. This isn't to say that the trusted node concept isn't bad. However, whom do you hand over trusted nodes to?
For example, if you want to trust a node, you don't trust it over how much value it has for its good name. This can be relative since even a top bank could start trying to double-spend if people thought they would not get caught. It would take finding a number of parties whose interests do not coincide for this to work. For example, for every trusted node that went to a government or bank, I'd have to hand one to some organization like the EFF, GNU, FSF, TOOOL, Amnesty International, and other parties. The goal would be to equally divide nodes, so the risk of collusion is minimized.
You then add untrusted nodes as well, but divide them into different groups, for example, nodes that pass muster when it comes to security, and are independantly owned. This way, someone using AWS for a massive mining push would gain control of a segment... but not enough to definitely command what happens on the entire blockchain.
Bitcoin was never about security or anonymity. It was a proof of concept that took off.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
And one is also expected to trust at least half of those controlling the computing resources... not sure I trust a fraction of that number.
And "trust" is your only option- it's all you can do, you can't rely on law enforcement to protect you eCoins. Because eCoins are not backed by government or insured by governments, governments are less inclined to help you get your money back if stolen by thieves and hackers.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
If you get enough people (>51%) to vote for you - you can do anything ($$$).
The trouble is that it used to be expensive to have 51% of the computing power because of all the hardware you would have to buy. That is no longer true. Now I can rent the computing power to have 51% computing power for the length of the confirmation period. Here is a link https://www.crypto51.app/ to the cost to rent so much computing power and the percentage of the required computing power you can rent. You will notice that as of January 8th you could rent 102% of the computing power to launch a 51% attack on Etherium classic and it would only cost you $4700
a bad guy would have to have huge computing resources to overwhelm the good guys
Much as I don't buy into crypto hype either, Ethereum Classic is a failed Ethereum fork that few people use so it's not that surprising it was easily hacked.
Well for one this isn't about Bitcoin.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
This isn't bitcoin.
It's Ethereum Classic. The 51% blockchain attack won't work on bitcoin because that chain goes from here to Jupiter.
By comparison, ETC goes from here to the front porch.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I agree.
Might as well file a lawsuit because someone stole your cow from FarmVille.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
... bitcoin has much much more security ...
That's because it's transmorgrified into a speculative gambling architecture. The blockchain is static in size and all that's left is to rearrange the Monopoly money.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
TFS and TFA were never about bitcoin.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
So much of their creation was rooted in people lamenting about how much more wonderful things were in the past, without understanding what went wrong then. So yeah.. amatures recreating mistakes professionals dealt with 200 years ago.
Sure. Take all those phones, make them hash BTC, try to attack the network. It won't amount to squat. Thermodynamics alone mean its fundamentally impossible.
You do as we do now: you trust organizations that have something to lose.
Banks have a lot of power over the financial system, but if the numbers don't add up properly, they're on the hook, and they can be held accountable because they have real physical assets, directors whose names and addresses are on file, etc.
Also, banks keep an eye on each other, just like bitcoin miners are supposed to do. As far as processing transactions is concerned, there's not really that much difference between a bank and a bitcoin miner, except that the latter is anonymous.
Hear Hear! Actually, I believe I've seen lawsuits regarding loss of virtual goods. Against WOW or something like that.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
The same can be said for millions of IT projects. It's the "how hard can it be" and the non understanding that existing systems and infrastructure are designed the way they are for a reason and not just because every one else in the world is so much more stupid than you.
You have no data to support that, so you're dismissed.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
And "trust" is your only option- it's all you can do, you can't rely on law enforcement to protect you eCoins. Because eCoins are not backed by government or insured by governments, governments are less inclined to help you get your money back if stolen by thieves and hackers.
And when it is the government stealing the money? Who protects you then?
And when it is the government stealing the money? Who protects you then?
In all the countries I've lived it was the ballot slip.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
And when it is the government stealing the money? Who protects you then?
In all the countries I've lived it was the ballot slip.
So you never lived in the US? Here we only get two choices and they both steal money.
So you never lived in the US? Here we only get two choices and they both steal money.
I voted for my kids as protest write-in candidates for most positions in the last election because I wasn't happy with my choices.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
In hindsight, I should have given my kids shorter names.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch