public inbox for bitcoindev@googlegroups.com
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: "theymos" <theymos@mm•st>
To: bitcoin-development@lists•sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Alert System
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:43:12 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1315510992.9621.140258138898885@webmail.messagingengine.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAK5y1FhQLWXtqHfB3HymOkZ-5LdTqdEkX8bM=nOGhFeZrOPwgA@mail.gmail.com>

The alert system will be very important if there are ever any critical
problems in the network. For example, it is currently Bitcoin's only
defense against an attacker with >50% of the computational power, where
alerts would be used to tell people to stop accepting transactions.

Displaying a message is pretty harmless. In fact, I don't think the
message is prominent enough. The GUI client should not allow people to
see received transactions or send new transactions while an alert is in
effect (with an opt-out), and there should be an opt-in feature that
puts RPC into safe mode in response to an alert.

Alerts are no worse than transactions as a DoS attack vector. They're
much safer than typical HTTPS because there are no CAs that can break
its security.

(FYI: I also have a copy of the alert key.)



  parent reply	other threads:[~2011-09-08 19:43 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 18+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2011-09-08 14:42 David Perry
2011-09-08 15:04 ` Steve
2011-09-08 16:09   ` David Perry
2011-09-08 16:16     ` Matt Corallo
2011-09-08 16:20     ` Pieter Wuille
2011-09-08 16:37       ` John Smith
2011-09-08 16:51         ` Mike Hearn
2011-09-08 16:56           ` Alex Waters
2011-09-08 17:15           ` Luke-Jr
2011-09-08 17:33             ` John Smith
2011-09-08 17:59               ` Luke-Jr
2011-09-08 19:25             ` Will
     [not found]               ` <3658b238-b1bf-4fde-8880-d50c3eaa8ed9@email.android.com>
2011-09-09  9:15                 ` Christian Decker
2011-09-08 15:20 ` Matt Corallo
2011-09-08 15:25   ` Steve Coughlan
2011-09-08 19:43 ` theymos [this message]
2011-09-08 19:45   ` Luke-Jr
2011-09-08 20:17     ` theymos

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=1315510992.9621.140258138898885@webmail.messagingengine.com \
    --to=theymos@mm$(echo .)st \
    --cc=bitcoin-development@lists$(echo .)sourceforge.net \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox