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I reference this term very often; I am sure that others are familiar with this concept but may not be aware of the name. A Sybil attack is a concept in computer security and game theory where a network is subverted by a number of forged or fake identities. The name is from the book Sybil about a woman diagnosed bitcoin user activated soft fork an identity disorder.
Microsoft researchers had previously called this attack pseudospoofing. In this attack, a malicious user subverts the reputation system of a network by controlling multiple identities in order to gain a disproportionately large influence. The attack surface of a network depends on how easy it is to generate accounts; what is the cost to generate an account?
Does the system have a method of linking identities to a trusted source? Do all accounts have the same amount of influence? Steem mitigates some Sybil attacks using their steem power system and vests. Without going too deep into steem's workings, it is the economic cost of bitcoin user activated soft fork assets in steem power that prevents abuse of the vote feature.
A voter's weight is dependent on their incurred cost, their stakein the network. This positions the economics such that users who use their own stake to vote for themselves must incur the economic cost and risk of keeping their steem locked up in steem power. This soft fork is enabled through the nodes, which because they cost orders of magnitude less than mining equipment, are very easy bitcoin user activated soft fork single actors to set up many of.
This use of node numbers to gauge support is a blatant Sybil attack on Bitcoin. There is a reason that in Bitcoin, hash-power is king. I'll let the supporters of UASF explain:.
A UASF bitcoin user activated soft fork a lot of industry support and coordination, which is good practice for eventual hard forks which requires, even more, industry coordination. Their introduction is pretty good. BIP16 really was activated safely using this method. One exception, BIP16 was not contentious. When a UASF is contentious, it has all of the danger of a soft fork with the network effects chain splitting of a hard fork.
They are looking for the vaguely defined: This proposal has a large risk of splitting the network. If bitcoin user activated soft fork August 1st the flag day and only a small minority hash power is following the BIP chain, the blocks will be nearly impossible to mine until the blocks needed to readjust difficulty are mined.
Users who do not support the user activated attempt can intentionally mine empty blocks on the SegWit chain - halting progress. Without some kind of "patch" turning everything into a last minute hard fork. See the response of Core developer Luke Dashjr to Medium user mpatc:. My apologies if this is part of the BIP and I overlooked it, but in the event of only a small minority hash following the BIP chain, will there be some kind of emergency patch ready for the possibilities that:.
If we get to July and bitcoin user activated soft fork seems like a risk, we can prepare a patch for these scenarios. So if it looks like UASF is bitcoin user activated soft fork to be the minority supported chain, the Core devs will prepare a hard fork patch to push SegWit through. If their Sybil attack does not work, they are going to try and push through this half-baked and extremely contentious hard fork.
So if it looks like only the minority supports SegWit after months of traditional mining support polling, why does Core want SegWit so badly? This is going to be based on much speculation so I urge readers to do their own research and comment their findings below.
Their future revenue model depends on the Bitcoin main chain having scaling problems - promoting the use of their sidechain solutions.
This is why Core has been so opposed to previous block size increases. So Blockstream wants Bitcoin main net to be slow and congested because they want to promote layer two scaling solutions - but they need SegWit to do it! The hubris of Blockstream controlled Core devs: Hardforks are not what everyone makes them out to be.
What they really are is full node referendums. They are the safest way to upgrade the protocol features of a blockchain. See my previous post Hardfork: A bitcoin user activated soft fork node referendum represents the explicit process where consensus can openly propagate a change.
It does so whilst giving every user the choice to vote for or against the change. This ability for social consensus is an important facet of decentralized blockchains. A softfork distracts away from this social consensus by removing your ability to vote; the network will simply ignore your software, continuing on while you are unable to validate. In a full node referendum, it is ultimately up to you to choose to participate in the referendum.
The referendum is transparent, open and hopefully useful, but in the end, it is ultimately up to you to choose to participate. If the social referendum is controversial, users are able to follow their principals as per Ethereum Classic. It is important that we avoid softforks or other protocol changes that could endanger the explicit choice of a full node referendum. Kim Dotcom knew Seth Rich, claims to have been involved with the Wikileaks submission - will give statement Tuesday.
Bitcoin search trends indicate momentum may continue - interest still rising. What it is like riding Bitcoin bubbles: Julian Assange celebrates victory from Ecuadorian embassy balcony after months of absence - comments on rape charges dropped by Sweden. This contentious attempt could leave miners confused and cause a chain split with a last minute hard fork.
This is what a Sybil attack on Bitcoin bitcoin user activated soft fork like. What is Sybil and is Bitcoin under attack? I'll let the supporters of UASF explain: What is a UASF? Bitcoin user activated soft fork the response of Core developer Luke Dashjr to Medium user mpatc: My apologies if this is part of the BIP and I overlooked it, bitcoin user activated soft fork in the event of only a small minority hash following the BIP chain, will there be some kind of emergency patch ready for the possibilities that: Not enough hash power is mining the BIP chain and blocks become near impossible to mine for blocks and the difficulty finally readjusts.
Why would anyone want SegWit so badly? Soft forks can lead to chain splits if they are not fully supported by the network.
Be skeptical of software that uses node numbers to judge support. Kim Dotcom knew Seth Rich, claims to have been involved with the Wikileaks submission - will give statement Tuesday Bitcoin search trends indicate momentum may continue - interest still rising What it is like riding Bitcoin bubbles: Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
Thanks for the reference to your article.
