Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: New PoW method using factorization of large numbers.
by
ir.hn
on 22/02/2018, 04:00:27 UTC
Originally I was worried about primes but one of the other posters alerted me that everyone can be working on different numbers.  I didn't realize this is how bitcoin works currently.  Everyone's number is determined by the hash of their public key along with other block details.  So if one person gets dealt a prime (or two or three or 100 people) then the others will be the ones to win that block.
If one miner gets stuck with a prime, then they're not "out" until the next block is solved - they can and will periodically generate a new number by changing some of the block details, and then hope this new number they're factorizing isn't prime.

On a side note it is possible that miners will be biased toward even numbers, since it is more likely that an even number will be composite than an odd number (marginally, but at this scale it could make a difference). As miners can change certain parts of the block details to whatever they want, they can keep trying until they get an even number, and then work on that one.

Good catch.  That is a glaring vulnerability since we want to ultimately test whether numbers are prime or not.  My intention is that people can datamine the blockchain to know what numbers to rule out in the search for new prime numbers.  If everyone is mining even numbers than this wouldn't work.  honestly I think we would have to eliminate numbers that have any factors up to say 1000.  This way people can't just divide their number by everything from 1-100 to make sure it isn't prime.  The point is to rule out prime candidates by proving they are composite.

I don't know, any other ideas on this vulnerability?