Quote from: Deprived on February 26, 2013, 07:20:36 PM

Quote from: memvola on February 26, 2013, 06:06:22 PM

Quote from: SebastianJu on February 26, 2013, 05:37:53 PM

Quote from: memvola on February 26, 2013, 05:17:59 PM

Quote from: SebastianJu on February 26, 2013, 05:13:00 PM

it simply wouldnt make sense to attack

That's not the point at all.

Whats your point? And who should be the one to attack in your opinion?

Sorry, I didn't want to expand because this has been discussed ad nauseam already; you can dig up the forum for other threads discussing it.

First off, I'm as sure as you are that ASICMiner won't break the network, in any plausible scenario.

Most of the concern boils down to trust in the proof-of-work concept. In other words, any singular entity (even if altruistic) holding majority hashing power nullifies the justification to use proof-of-work.

You need to only imagine what you will see in the press when this happens to get that it's bad for Bitcoin. Would you really want to be in the position where you have to convince the whole user base that everything is fine?

Besides, you only covered the possibility of a malicious owner. How about a cyber attack? How about a physical attack? There is no reason to try to imagine all scenarios and debunk them one by one. It really doesn't matter. In the end, we prefer to use precise algorithms to be immune from our own fallacy of imagination.

With this perspective, I think we can stop discussing whether we should discuss it. It's very straightforward and relatively easy to produce a solution.

It's not as simple as you make it out to be.

If one party controls over 50% of the network then it makes no difference whether they:

Mine solo
Mine on one pool
Mine split across various pools

They STILL have the capability to mount a 51% attack any time they choose to. Whether, when choosing not to, they mine solo or mine on one or more pools is totally irrelevant - as the capability to 51% attack still exists. Pretending that the issue is addressed by sharing mining across various pools is just that - pretence. The issue is unchanged and not addressed. If there IS a solution to the problem then it is absolutely NOT addressed by debating how someone with 51%+ should spread their mining - that's solving an entirely different issue (how to pretend that a centralised system is decentralised by giving temporary control to other people and fantasising that noone notices the transfer of control is revocable).

I'm just glad that IF someone is going to end with over 51% (and I doubt it's going to happen at all) it's ASICMINER not the scammers at BFL (yeah - only one of them has ever actually been convicted), the liars at Avalon ('shipped' has a different meaning to them than to the rest of the world - to them it just means 'are about to start assembling if we raise enough cash') or the drunkard/liar/scammer at BASIC.

My reading comprehension might be off, but I don't believe he implied anywhere splitting the hash power meant no 51% attack.