

DDoS attacks on Mt. Gox delay rollout of new virtual currency - mrb
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/04/potent-ddos-attacks-on-mt-gox-delays-rollout-of-new-virtual-currency/?id=mrb

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samweinberg
>Mt.Gox is the world's largest bitcoin exchange, handling about 63% of all
bitcoin transactions as of April 2013.

A decentralized currency should not rely so heavily on a central exchange.

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MertsA
Well it doesn't exactly rely on a central exchange. Unless you're trying to
day trade with Bitcoins you don't need to trust a central authority for very
long with your Bitcoins. Due to the small size of Bitcoin a popular exchange
is attractive but it's not like everyone can't switch to Bitfloor if MtGox
closes today.

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samweinberg
I should have worded that a bit better.

The majority of Bitcoin trade occurs at Mt.Gox, so you could say the market is
pretty centralized.

Actually, Bitfloor had to cease all trading operations indefinitely. That
aside, there are plenty of other reputable exchanges that need to gain more
market share. It's ridiculous that a DDoS attack could be used for price
manipulation purposes. That shouldn't be too much of a problem in a
diversified market.

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brokenparser
FYI, the title was "77 Gbit/s Distributed Denial-of-Service on MtGox". I get
confused when that happens.

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futhey
Some solidcoin folks have some (seemingly) irrational beef, but 77Gbit/s?

~~~
makomk
Wait, Solidcoin? That's still going?

~~~
futhey
Withholding my opinion, but it's interesting. The solidcoin community seems to
be plagued by mistrust, conspiracy theories, alternate views about directions
for the project, etc. [http://solidcoin.info/solidcoin-ready-for-bitcoin-
collapse.p...](http://solidcoin.info/solidcoin-ready-for-bitcoin-collapse.php)

There are also a number of pastebin / IRC logs shedding more light into the
dispute. Doesn't make a lot of sense, but it makes slightly more sense than
the other theories I've seen proposed.

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mindcrime
Mmm... the first question that comes to mind for me is, "Who has a motive to
do this?" I really doubt this is a bunch of #anon kids playing around, or
anything like that. This strikes me as being a very specific, directed attack
at Bitcoin itself (given that Mt. Gox is one of the most important exchanges).

I hate to sound all conspiracy theory'ish, but I can't help but wonder if a
State actor is involved in this. While Bitcoin might not be (by itself) the
techno-libertarian / cypherpunk / crypto-anarchist Holy Grail that some people
make it out to be, I expect at least some governments to fear it on some
level... if for no other reason because it's something new and they don't
understand it.

Or maybe it's being done by backers of a competing crypto-currency? Hmmm...

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SippinLean
Usually it's someone looking to drive down the price, buy low, then sell high
when it rebounds

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mindcrime
Good point. Well, whoever it is, I hope Mt. Gox get their anti-DDOS situation
squared away well enough to mitigate this and future attacks.

