As I understand the attack, the attacker gets compensated for the shares they earn, but the pool will be denied any valid blocks found. The attacker DOES NOT have access to the Bitcoins earned in the unreported block (only the mining pool has access to the Coinbase address and transactions in the block).
On Monday, June 04, 2012 1:43:42 AM Peter Vessenes wrote:That depends on the pool's reward scheme. Some complicated forms are capable
> Does it have asymmetric payoff for an attacker, that is, over time does it
> pay them more to spend their hashes attacking than just mining?
of getting "bonus" earnings out of the pool. Under all systems, the attacker
at least gains the "hurt the pool" benefit. Given the frequency of DDoS
attacks on pools, it is clear there are people who will even pay for attacks
that provide no other benefit than harming pools. Under all systems, the
attacker doesn't lose out in any significant way.
If we wait until there's real pain, it will be a painful fork. If we plan it
> My gut is that it pays less well than mining, meaning I think this is
> likely a small problem in the aggregate, and certainly not something we
> should try and fork the blockchain for until there's real pain.
1-2 years out, people have time to upgrade on their own before it breaks.
With this attack, attackers can hurt the pool's "luck factor" *and* spend the
> Consider, for instance, whether it pays better than just mining bitcoins
> and spending those on 'bonuses' for getting users to switch from a pool you
> hate.
bitcoins they earn to bribe users away.
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