From: Andy Parkins <andyparkins@gmail•com>
To: Mike Hearn <mike@plan99•net>
Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-development@lists•sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Coinbase reallocation to discourage Finney attacks
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 14:21:53 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <201404231421.53349.andyparkins@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CANEZrP3w0XY_2bUG-+L57gMU2psicWu5dUv3O1S7hgaq_+8Xqg@mail.gmail.com>
On Wednesday 23 Apr 2014 12:45:34 Mike Hearn wrote:
> OK, sure, let's say most Bitcoin users will be honest (we hope). But
> unfortunately in a situation where fraud is possible users wouldn't
> necessarily distribute evenly over transactions.
That's true, but even in the worst that that 5% hashing power attack means
that 95% of the time, your attack fails. That means you end up paying for
what you bought. Also, you're again changing the comparison basis -- your
CC figures were for the entire industry, not the most badly affected
merchant. You can't say "one particular bitcoin merchant suffers 5% fraud,
therefore that's worse than the 2% fraud averaged across all CC merchants".
> If a merchant is selling something of value repeatedly, then a small
> number of scammers can go back and try their luck over and over. I'm not
> sure how many trades fall into such an exploitable category, though.
>
> Also, there's the philosophical question of how honest people really are
> when there's no consequences to their actions. For instance, if most
There _are_ consequences though: 95% of the time, you end up buying
something and paying for it.
Viewed another way, if I buy something repeatedly from an at risk merchant
(and there won't be many; as you pointed out, mail order is completely
unaffected as you can simply wait for your confirmations) that costs, say
0.01 BTC per item, then I have to buy 100 of them to get 5 of them for free.
Do I really want 100 of them? Even if I do want them, then I've had to
supply capital of 1 BTC to earn 0.05 BTC in kind.
If what I'm buying is another form of money (as with exchanges, or perhaps
casinos) when that "in kind" is just as liquid as the BTC, then fair enough,
there is a risk, but that just incentivises the merchant in those cases to
not allow withdrawal/deposit until 6 confirmations have been received.
Those merchants then move from "at risk" to "not at risk".
I'm still struggling to see how bitcoin could ever be as bad as CC fraud.
Andy
--
Dr Andy Parkins
andyparkins@gmail•com
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2014-04-23 13:22 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 90+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2014-04-23 7:55 Mike Hearn
2014-04-23 9:57 ` Andy Parkins
2014-04-23 11:07 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-23 11:39 ` Andy Parkins
2014-04-23 11:45 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-23 13:21 ` Andy Parkins [this message]
2014-04-23 13:31 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-24 9:21 ` Andy Parkins
2014-04-23 12:43 ` Christophe Biocca
2014-04-23 12:51 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-23 14:52 ` Justus Ranvier
2014-04-23 15:07 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-23 17:19 ` Justus Ranvier
2014-04-23 17:47 ` Gavin Andresen
2014-04-23 17:49 ` Justus Ranvier
2014-04-23 17:57 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-23 18:04 ` Justus Ranvier
2014-04-23 18:15 ` Peter Todd
2014-04-23 18:20 ` Justus Ranvier
2014-04-23 18:37 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-23 18:49 ` Justus Ranvier
2014-04-23 19:01 ` Drak
2014-04-23 18:58 ` Tier Nolan
2014-04-23 15:04 ` Alex Mizrahi
2014-04-23 15:09 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-23 15:38 ` Alex Mizrahi
2014-04-23 16:04 ` Christophe Biocca
2014-04-23 16:19 ` Chris Pacia
2014-04-23 16:21 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-23 16:33 ` Kevin
2014-04-24 11:22 ` Jorge Timón
2014-04-24 11:43 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-24 13:57 ` Jorge Timón
2014-04-24 14:28 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-24 15:37 ` Jorge Timón
2014-04-24 17:07 ` Justus Ranvier
2014-04-25 4:31 ` Gareth Williams
2014-04-25 10:17 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-25 13:19 ` Gareth Williams
2014-04-25 15:28 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-26 12:15 ` Gareth Williams
2014-04-27 1:42 ` Christophe Biocca
2014-04-27 12:53 ` Gareth Williams
2014-04-27 14:31 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-27 23:10 ` Gareth Williams
2014-04-28 21:41 ` Adam Back
2014-04-29 14:13 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-29 14:21 ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-04-29 14:26 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-30 13:12 ` Gareth Williams
2014-04-30 13:55 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-30 14:31 ` Gareth Williams
2014-04-29 19:29 ` Justus Ranvier
2014-04-30 13:00 ` Gareth Williams
2014-04-30 17:06 ` Troy Benjegerdes
2014-04-30 17:13 ` Jameson Lopp
2014-04-30 14:08 ` Gareth Williams
2014-04-23 15:28 ` Peter Todd
2014-04-23 15:34 ` Kevin
2014-04-23 15:41 ` Pieter Wuille
2014-04-23 15:55 ` Peter Todd
2014-04-23 18:57 ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-04-23 19:19 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-23 19:47 ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-04-23 19:59 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-23 20:24 ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-04-23 20:37 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-23 20:44 ` Adam Ritter
2014-04-23 20:51 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-24 15:13 ` Sergio Lerner
2014-04-24 15:34 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-23 20:53 ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-04-23 21:23 ` Tier Nolan
2014-04-23 21:39 ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-04-23 22:26 ` Tier Nolan
2014-04-24 0:55 ` Tom Harding
[not found] ` <CAKuKjyWDniyP503XSw8=tK9XQW-T58j+VD6ajXCxz=HihN93mQ@mail.gmail.com>
2014-04-24 14:52 ` [Bitcoin-development] Fwd: " Adam Ritter
2014-04-23 20:41 ` [Bitcoin-development] " Daniel Krawisz
2014-04-23 22:06 ` Alex Mizrahi
2014-04-24 7:58 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-24 8:19 ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-04-24 8:39 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-24 9:25 ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-04-24 9:56 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-24 13:44 ` Peter Todd
2014-04-24 14:09 ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-24 14:47 ` Christophe Biocca
2014-04-24 15:03 ` Peter Todd
2014-04-24 16:05 ` Christophe Biocca
2014-04-24 16:14 ` Mike Hearn
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