Author: Gregory Maxwell 2012-10-26 14:17:04
Published on: 2012-10-26T14:17:04+00:00
In a message from October 26, 2012, Mike Hearn discusses potential attacks on the Bitcoin network. He mentions that it is possible to waste bandwidth of nodes by repeatedly downloading blocks or filling the network with fake nodes that spam random generated transactions. Hearn admits that he doesn't see how to avoid such attacks and believes it to be odd to worry about more complicated ones. He goes on to explain that he could potentially waste bandwidth of all nodes forever with O(1) work, though he is unsure how much of a threat this is compared to just paying small amounts to lots of addresses. Hearn concludes by stating that he will attempt to attack the network offline to gauge the potential pollution he can construct.
Updated on: 2023-05-19T15:58:52.918056+00:00