Author: colj at Safe-mail.net 2013-11-05 20:51:24
Published on: 2013-11-05T20:51:24+00:00
Alice has an advantage in the bitcoin network that allows her to hear of a block before all other miners do. She can use this advantage to gain an unfair advantage by withholding her blocks and only revealing them when it benefits her. This is done by mining on a valid block for longer than any other miner, giving her a head start. The most obvious sign of Alice's attack is the timing, as a miner will receive a block and quickly hear of another block built from the same previous block. The block that the miner hears first is the one that will be mined on. To counter this, a possible solution is to mine on the block with the lowest hash if N amount of blocks built of the same previous block are received within a time frame of T.Alice must also ensure that her blocks are of the smallest hash in order to pull off this attack. However, decreasing her target to achieve this would take her longer to find a valid block, negating her time advantage.
Updated on: 2023-06-07T19:27:54.085856+00:00