Hopefully I won't kill this thread too...
If my still somewhat limited sense of blockchain, at least for Bitcoin, is
correct, there are two pieces to this process that are being somewhat
conflated. The first is that there is computation required to validate a block
of transactions, and that computation requires a lot of horsepower because the
first to finish it gets credited with the associated bitcoins. The result is a
hash for the block of transactions which gets added to a publicly available
ledger verifying the accuracy of the block. That calculation can be done by a
set of heavy duty machines, but they definitely face competition from bitcoin
farms in China (Tibet) where they can get energy for cheap.
The second "hack" is being able to control or fake the progress of the ledger.
Essentially, more than half of the people calculating the hash for a block need
to agree on it to verify that the block is accurate. If you could throw enough
computing power (e.g., a small country's worth) at the Bitcoin process and
generate more than hall of all block validations, you could theoretically make
up your own (fake) hashes and take control of the ledger because everyone else
couldn't override your assertions. So, it's theoretically possible (and China,
if it controlled all bitcoin farmers in the country, is close) to take over the
Bitcoin blockchain, but it's practically unlikely.
Brent
From: Marcus Daniels <[email protected]>
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2017 4:33 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Blockchain Questions
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https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bitcoin-could-consume-as-much-electricity-as-denmark-by-2020
From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2017 2:17 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Blockchain Questions there is no known way to hack a
blockchain, but "wallets" can be stolen - there have been several instances
where large bitcoin banks have been hacked and lost all their virtual currency.
A friend is a bitcoin miner and he uses four computers, with four heavy duty
graphics processors - all water cooled to do so. A lot of computing power but
still within the budget of an individual - no where near that of a "small
country." davew On Fri, Mar 10, 2017, at 08:09 AM, Robert J.
Cordingley wrote:
>From The Verge* with my emphases; 'Like blockchain technologies, this
>information will be write-only...' - funny! 'Blockchain entities like Bitcoin
>are distributed among lots of different players require a lot of power
>(computing and literal) to compile and check —as much as a small country,' -
>Really? So there's no way to hack a blockchain? Or perhaps I should say why is
>it so secure?
>*http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/10/14880094/deepmind-health-uk-data-blockchain-audit
> Robert C -- Cirrillian Web Design & Development Santa Fe, NM
>http://cirrillian.com 281-989-6272 (cell) Member Design Corps of Santa Fe
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