My last blog wasn’t on the topic we discussed during class
at all. I wanted to do another “first” blog because the topic of the Bitcoin is
interesting! All info here comes from the website We Use Coins.
I have
never actually heard of Bitcoin before class on Friday (1/24). This lack of knowledge
could be due to my absence from any MMOs (massive multiplayer online) games; I
am not in any uber-online-gaming-nerd circles, preferring to play offline games.
Bitcoin, as we discussed in team 3, is only growing. In
fact, I found a nice website devoted entirely to Bitcoin use; as is to be
expected, the videos and other advertisements/guides paint Bitcoin as this wonderful,
open source money system which will make the world a better place.
However, in our class discussion, my team and I speculated
over the future of Bitcoin and what it could mean. One of my biggest concerns
was safety.
Since the
money is completely digitalized, how can spenders be sure there money is safely
delivered? How easy would it be for brilliant hackers, or an association of
hackers like Anonymous, to hack into the Bitcoin system? What would you be able
to do if your bitcoins (just pieces of code) were to disappear mysteriously en
route to another person’s net? After all, it couldn’t be that hard to hack into someone’s “digital signature” and reroute
the money to another Bitcoin account.
While open
source is great for many things, the fact of the matter is that people like to
take advantage of things. It’s sad, but true. I doubt even a “wonderful” open
source creation like Bitcoin would be an exception.
For example, I found this safety concern in the FAQ section
of the website:
What can an attacker
with 51% of hash power do?
Actually, it's very easy to do damage to the
network once you have 51%; just build your own chain faster than the network,
and broadcast it whenever you like. If you send some of your coins to a new
address in your own chain, all the transactions issued in the live network by
spending those same coins will be reversed at the moment the longer chain is
broadcast.
Right from the bitcoin wiki (probably proof-read by many
pairs of eyes) :
An attacker that controls more than 50% of the
network's computing power can, for the time that he is in control, exclude and
modify the ordering of transactions. This allows him to:
·
Reverse transactions
that he sends while he's in control
·
Prevent some or all
transactions from gaining any confirmations
·
Prevent some or all
other generators from getting any generations
The page goes on to list all the things the hacker couldn't
do. However, someone could seriously mess up the whole Bitcoin system; all it
would take is motivation to screw with things. A pretty tempting idea to some
people.
What do you guys think? Do you think Bitcoin is safe? Will
someone attack the network, perhaps just for “fun-sies”? And would you invest in Bitcoin yourselves?
No comments:
Post a Comment