It does take a state-level actor to apparently disconnect multiple miners from the rest of the network.

How many Bitcoin miners hash an entire percent or more of the Bitcoin network? What you're proposing is an attack at the highest levels of the internet infrastructure.


On Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 6:02 PM, Mark Friedenbach <mark@monetize.io> wrote:
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Which would leave you entirely in the hands of your dialup provider.
Or the manufacturer of your switch. Or your ISP's backbone provider.
It does not take a state-level actor to do network attacks.

BTW, what does "difficulty would be reset" mean? There are multiple
ways to interpret that statement. In the most straightforward way, my
objections apply.

On 12/23/2013 05:51 PM, Ryan Carboni wrote:
> I think you misunderstood my statement. If time > 3 days, and after
> 4 blocks have been mined, then difficulty would be reset.
>
> In theory, one would have to isolate roughly one percent of the
> Bitcoin network's hashing power to do so. Which would indicate an
> attack by a state actor as opposed to anything else. Arguably, the
> safest way to run Bitcoin is through a proprietary dial-up
> network.
>
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