Elden blocked a huge group of miners from using his system because he claims we need a "TML Update"
Below is an excerpt from an email I sent to TheSeven which does a good job of explaining the situation.
All of the anger is completely justified. This was a screwup on my part. The only consolation I offer is that this wasn't the result of me doing something, it was the result of me failing to do something.
The leibniz bitstream doesn't expire for another 40 days. Long before then I will make sure this doesn't happen again, most likely by removing the ntime check.
FWIW, I had no idea so many people were using the TML. I suppose that means that when I turn on the commissions I will get a nontrivial income from this, in which case I will have a strong motivation to take uptime very seriously.
On Oct 4, 2012, at 11:07 AM, theseven wrote:
((theseven being justifiably cranky about the service interruption))
TL;DR: it was not intentional, nor was it something done "on my end". It has nothing to do with signcryption.
The pre-commission (i.e. free) bitstreams have a two-month expiration, something left over from back before I really trusted the signcryption. The circuit won't work on jobs with an ntime more than
60 days past the date I built the bitstream -- it deliberately corrupts them. The signcryption server simply gives you a helpful message instead of sending back invalid nonces -- the "is gateware version more than
60 days old" check is on the server side rather than in the client software. If you don't believe me, modify your client software to lie about the gatewareVersion and try sending a piece of work from two days ago -- it'll hash just fine.
This will be removed once (if) I start charging money. It was an insurance policy in case
the signcryption backend servers got hacked or I did something wildly stupid like post a bitstream that works on non-signcrypted jobs, although I haven't built any of those in at least three months now. My own rigs use the signcryption servers and run the same bitstream as everybody else, and I get a text message if they stop mining in the middle of the night. This is why there was a fix posted within 15 minutes of the expiration.
At least one other ultra-high-performance bitstream has the same feature. It has absolutely nothing to do with the signcryption. You're going to find it in any bitstream that somebody has put a serious amount of work into.
I still have limited email until Monday.Blue portions were edited relative to the email I sent him (due to wider audience). Bold added for those who are skimming.