Author: Peter Todd 2015-10-20 15:38:52
Published on: 2015-10-20T15:38:52+00:00
In an email exchange, Mats Jerratsch expressed his concern about attackers who could MITM (Man-in-the-middle) internet connections to build a local network that points to the same node. This would enable them to block payments and do other malicious activities. Although dishonest nodes joining the network are a problem, the first thing to tackle is making it expensive for attackers to attack the network. The Bitcoin network uses checkpoints to protect against such attacks; however, these checkpoints are centralized. Peter Todd pointed out that checkpoints are not as centralized as they seem because if they come into play for any reason other than initial bootstrapping, an active attacker exists that has sufficient hashing power to destroy Bitcoin anyway. Thus, different implementations can set different checkpoints without consensus, and both will work fine except in the case of massive attacks that Bitcoin cannot survive.
Updated on: 2023-05-23T21:00:45.956481+00:00