The mysterious group behind the previous attacks on #Bitcoin and it’s #LightningNetwork is back at it again. Operating under the name #BitPico, they’re an anonymous entity known for attempting exploits. This time they claim to be working on a #BitcoinCash attack that could “result in multiple forks”. I don’t know whether or not this claim is actually feasible, but definitely wouldn’t be opposed to seeing it happen. They first came to light as proponents for #Segwit2x in last years’s spree of splits, so it appears they’ve had a change of heart. Reading through an old #LinuxFoundation post, here’s what was said in support of bigger blocks:
And in another:
As we know, that attack was unsuccessful. Either their hash power did not have a strong enough effect on the split, or they called it quits because of lacking consensus. Not sure which is to blame or if it even matters now, but it does mean their recent assertions should be taken with a grain of salt. This VICE News article highlights the red flags with the amount of hash power this unknown entity claims to control. Sometime afterwards, they conceded:
On the contrary, their #LightningNetwork stress tests went smoothly and appeared to have no malicious intent. Developer Alex Bosworth noted in this tweet that the “Lightning DOSers seem organized and motivated”. According to this CoinDesk article, the attacks were all about safety:
“As people with investment into bitcoin, we want to make sure layer-two solutions do not get [zero-day’ed] out of the gate; trying as many attacks as possible is the only way to make sure.”
Either way, the well known mantra holds true: Don’t trust, verify. Now they’re claiming they’ve “retooled their LN stress testing kit for #Bcash.” I’m sure many of us in the community pray this holds true.
In a leaked email exchange with CoinDesk’s Alyssa Hertig, posted here,
they lay out some of the groundwork for their next attack.
She asks: “Why are you attacking bitcoin cash?”
Response: “It is a stress test to validate the integrity of the Bitcoin Cash network on behalf of it’s investors. In the past Bitcoin has been attacked for good and for bad but it’s integrity remains intact which provides investor confidence. The #1 basic rule to all decentralized computer networks is that if it’s not attacked enough to resolve any problems then it will end badly.”
Then: “What kind of attacks are you executing?”
Response: “Everything from low-level TCP/IP stack attacks to high level bitcoin cash protocol attacks. The combination guarantees several things: 1. The weakest nodes running on VPS’s will crash or run out of bandwidth and become non-responsive. 2. All other nodes will begin to stall out from multiple back-to-back pre-mined 32 Megabyte blocks. Our LevelDB stress testing shows that the Bitcoin Cash UTXO database on a complex 32 Megabyte block can require up to 200 Gigabytes of RAM to fully process and if this RAM is not available the UTXO database will become corrupt and if LevelDB doesn’t release the memory the OS will become unresponsive.”
And lastly: “Why do you think you’ll be able to fork the blockchain?”
Response: “We believe we have already perfected our approach and our studies are conclusive; LevelDB cannot sustain our complex blocks and Bitcoin Cash is 85% centralized to only a few data-centers and miners. If Bitcoin Cash were 15% centralized then our efforts would fail except for the LevelDB weaknesses; our confidence as always is high. When we attacked the Bitcoin LN we failed across the board except for the massive nodes that crashed however they were quickly fixed and running again. This was a win-win for Bitcoin LN; only time can tell how Bitcoin Cash will withstand the assault.”
What does this mean for #BCash? Quite possibly nothing, if their claims are unsubstantiated. Either way, let’s continue the wishful thinking. It’d be a boon to us all if Roger Der’s fraudulent hopes and dreams were forked into oblivion…
Here’s where I found their #LinuxFoundation posts:
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-segwit2x/2017-November/ <- click link, ctrl+f “bitpico”
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