Timeline for Possible error in the white paper Calculations section?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
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| Jun 7, 2018 at 2:48 | history | bounty ended | CommunityBot | ||
| Jun 3, 2018 at 19:19 | comment | added | Rich Apodaca | The Calculations section explicitly rules out a Finney attack: "Once the transaction is sent, the dishonest sender starts working in secret on a parallel chain containing an alternate version of his transaction." In other words, the attack begins with no blocks mined by the attacker. | |
| May 31, 2018 at 18:48 | comment | added | Meni Rosenfeld | @RichApodaca: The attacker will also need to complete the purchase itself immediately, before the block he has just found is orphaned, just like in the Finney attack. It is something of a stretch, which is why arguing that Satoshi was simply careless with his calculations is just as reasonable. | |
| May 31, 2018 at 18:45 | comment | added | Meni Rosenfeld | @RichApodaca: The probability that the attacker has already mined a block is 100%, given that he has already mined a block. That is, a low-hashrate miner will not have a lot of opportunities to perform an attack - but he will not even attempt to purchase from the merchant until he has an opportunity, and when he does, it will be when he has found a block. So the attack will definitely succeed if the merchant doesn't wait for confirmations. | |
| May 31, 2018 at 18:40 | comment | added | Rich Apodaca | This makes sense, thanks. In that case, shouldn't the probability of the attacker already having mined the block be factored in? In other words, an attacker with low relative hash rate will not very often be in a position to start the attack in the first place. | |
| May 31, 2018 at 18:36 | history | edited | Meni Rosenfeld | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 12 characters in body
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| May 31, 2018 at 16:56 | history | answered | Meni Rosenfeld | CC BY-SA 4.0 |