>  It seems to me bitcoin's biggest vulnerabilities are either covert compromise of mining pool operations, or widespread compromise of networked mining systems and client node

Stratum v2 will solve the mining pool problem. Widespread compromise of mining systems seems far fetched. That would involve compromising hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of systems in disparate areas with disparate operating systems and security procedures, run by people who probably understand computer security better than most (given their involvement in bitcoin). 

I think the biggest vulnerability bitcoin has is a sybil attack draining the resources of public full nodes. We only have like 10,000 public full nodes serving the whole network. It wouldn't take that much money to create a sybil botnet of 100,000 or 1 million nodes that connect to the bitcoin network and simply take up public node resources, denying service to most people's full nodes. 

> I don't see why it would necessarily be made public if a government compromised their nation's mining farms. Governments have skilled operatives for things like that.  

Skilled operatives have their limits. It could be kept secret if spies were hired as employees and then systematically infected all the machines in a mining operation's machines. But spies aren't magic, no matter how skilled. One mistake and the jig is up. It would be more likely to be a backroom deal, which would be harder to keep secret, especially in large operations. Propaganda has its limits too, sure you could convince some people things are fine, but sophisticated people like miners? I doubt it. 



On Mon, May 24, 2021 at 2:55 PM Karl <gmkarl@gmail.com> wrote:
If bitcoin were to ever consider changing their PoW algorithm a
little, it seems that would immediately make purchased ASIC mining
equipment partially or wholly unusable to compromise the chain (and
temporarily reduce energy usage without necessarily reducing
security).  One possible plan to deter a multibillionaire attack.

Also regarding the word "security" here, a 51% attack impacts some
parts of chain operations, but not others.

It seems to me bitcoin's biggest vulnerabilities are either covert
compromise of mining pool operations, or widespread compromise of
networked mining systems and client nodes.  Far easier than
outcompeting the mining network with hardware.

I don't see why it would necessarily be made public if a government
compromised their nation's mining farms.  Governments have skilled
operatives for things like that.  People would guess it happened, and
the government would cover up the guesses with more powerful stories.