Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Capital Efficient Honeypots w/ "Scorched Earth" Doublespending Protection

From: James MacWhyte <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 19:48:50 +0000

>
> >I've always assumed honeypots were meant to look like regular, yet
> >poorly-secured, assets.
>
> Not at all. Most servers have zero reason to have any Bitcoin's accessible
> via them, so the presence of BTC privkeys is a gigantic red flag that they
> are part of a honeypot.
>

I was talking about the traditional concept. From Wikipedia: "Generally, a
honeypot consists of data (for example, in a network site) that appears to
be a legitimate part of the site but is actually isolated and monitored,
and that seems to contain information or a resource of value to attackers,
which are then blocked."

I would argue there are ways to make it look like it is not a honeypot
(plenty of bitcoin services have had their hot wallets hacked before, and
if the intruder only gains access to one server they wouldn't know that all
the servers have the same honeypot on them). But I was just confirming that
the proposal is for an obvious honeypot.

> Re-read my last section on the "scorched earth" disincentive to
> doublespend the intruder.
>
> The first time I read it I didn't realize that the second transaction the
intruder has is designed to waste the honeypot AND additional funds
belonging to the honeypot creator. That's pretty good, from a game theory
perspective.